MichiganCardinal

My hope is that with conference realignment / SEC and B1G disbandment we will eventually see less and less non-conference games, which may allow us to go further and further away from relying on pollsters, to relying on standings and statistics. With a 24-team B1G and a 24-team SEC, each split into four six-team divisions my ideal would be for a 13-game regular season. Week One: Practical preseason game where the vast majority of the 48 teams plays cupcakes. Michigan plays their game against Hawaii or UConn or whomever; state schools like Iowa, Washington, or Oregon who are invited to the big boys table can have their annual game against their little brothers if they so choose, same with Notre Dame against Army or Navy. Largely though, the intent will be that this game will not mean much of anything when it comes to postseason considerations. Week Two: B1G v. SEC Conference Matchup Week. Pair six-team divisions with each other, rotating yearly, and match 1v1, 2v2, etc. from the prior year's standings. Makeup a trophy for the league office that wins more games if you feel so inclined. Again, this game won't matter unless we go deep into the tiebreakers. Weeks Three through Fourteen: Eleven conference games (every team in your division plus games against each team in a paired division, rotating yearly), plus one bye week. You will have a strong standings based system at this point to have #1-6 seeds in each of the eight divisions. Create playoffs based upon that however you'd like to do it. Top seeds in each division? Top two seeds? Top seed in each division plus two wildcards? However. Play it out and have a B1G v. SEC National Championship. It probably won't ever happen, even though it would generate a TON of money and remove the meaningfulness of arbitrary polling, even if it remained for ceremonious purposes.

We all agree there should be no preseason polls... how about no week eight polls either? 😉 I agree that we will know more soon enough. No one's season is being defined by the coaches or AP right now.

What I meant was that I would be more okay with GA/TN/OSU/MI than GA/OSU/TN/MI... For that matter I would also be okay with GA/TN/MI/OSU. MI and TN have only one signature win. I think it may be fair to say OSU has none, considering Notre Dame is one upset away from likely not making a bowl game.

Ask and yee shall receive. I think each of the #2-4 seeds have a case to be made to be higher than they are. I don't see the rationale in have Tennessee above Michigan, but below Ohio State. Michigan and Ohio State have very similar resumes at this point. With #1 still scheduled to play #3, plus MS State, Kentucky, and (likely) the SEC Championship; and #2 still scheduled to play #4, plus Penn State in Happy Valley, there is a lot of shaking out yet to do.

Last year it felt like they didn't really open up the playbook until very late in the season. It feels similar here. Why show your best plays if running it up the middle 40 times wins you games by 24?

I think this is right, though I wouldn't put it past them to have Tennessee jump Michigan because of SEC bias.

The rule needs to be changed. As it is, an "inadvertent signal" (in this case a 'stop the clock' signal) is treated the same as an inadvertent whistle. They treated the signal as the end of the play, which is ridiculous. An inadvertent signal can be fixed in a way that an inadvertent whistle cannot.

Utah pulls it off despite some incompetence from the PAC-12 officiating crew resulting in an additional play being given to USC.

Utah takes the lead on a 4th and goal plus two point conversion with 48 seconds to go... Very poor two-minute clock management from Utah preceded it though, there could be less than 10 seconds left if they had timed it better. They snapped one play with *35* seconds on the play clock (because of a USC injury), and another with about 14. Let's see if USC can make them pay for it.

Will make a great decoration in a Tennessee fraternity house.

Goal posts were coming down... Expensive victory for Tennessee, but likely well worth it.

Down goes Bama!!!!

Bama doesn't look like Bama though. This is the most points they've given up under Saban.

LOL. Even better outcome than I could have hoped. Good play call ya $95 million dollar man.

There's no way this MSU kicker makes this kick right?

Both Tennessee and Alabama seem to have no defense to speak of. Which I'm sure will be spun as unreal offenses by the pollsters.

They're on bye next week 😉 If the rest of the B1G wasn't an absolute dumpster fire though, I'd probably agree with you. MSU at home, Rutgers away, Nebraska at home, and Illinois at home. Even with a let down performance against one of them there is no reason they shouldn't go 4-0.

Nicky is having a good time.

The in-stadium DJ played a remix of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” in the 3rd quarter. All I could think of was if Rich Rod could see us now.

Am 11-1 Michigan that loses to the Nuts may have a strong case to make for the #4 seed.

Along with the 3OT game against MSU in 2004, one of my earliest (and fondest) Michigan memories.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think he deserves six figures either. I think what he deserves and what he’ll receive from a wealthy athlete who will want this to go away are two different topics altogether though in the civil system.

I don’t understand America’s infatuation with the death penalty. Cruz committed monstrous acts, no doubt about it. And we can play this literal game of life-and-death about it, comparing apples to murder, in attempt to understand “how MUCH mental illness/childhood neglect/deprivation is enough to mitigate a mass shooting”… but to what end? Was this 30+ day trial really worth it? Even if they had declared him a monster by dispositional characteristics, and said he didn’t deserve the oxygen we breath… is it worth it to drag the victim’s families through this process? To still have to spend tens of millions of dollars to then defend the decision on appeal for the next 10-20 years? As opposed to a couple hundred thousand housing him for the next 50 years. Add onto that that the exact same act a couple hundred miles north in Virginia (or 25 other states in the US) it wouldn’t even be considered. I just don’t understand the logical appeal. It seems entirely based on emotion, which is both barbaric and stupid. Won’t change anytime soon with the current Supreme Court either.

And reputational damage / inability to work now that his name is out there. It'll get settled long before it goes to any trial, but he'll get a good chunk of change first.