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Today in college football news, I have been handed another novelty can of Pringles: Miller Lite Beer Can Chicken flavor. Of course I’m gonna eat all of them, but I would have never guessed they’re supposed to remind me of beer can chicken.
Must Be Nice: Everything’s coming up Irish
Know how people like to complain about Notre Dame?
Wait, I need to be much more specific. Know how people like to complain about Notre Dame still being an independent, decades after every other power decided to join one faction or another?
- “Their schedules are too easy!” First, their schedules are almost always fine overall. Second, anyone who’s concerned with schedule inequality could’ve simply avoided being in conferences that added Oregon or Texas or whatever. Don’t blame Notre Dame for declining to chase somebody else’s upgraded difficulty (AKA money).
- “They don’t have to play a 13th game like we do!” Again, nobody made your league decide it liked conference title game revenue more than it liked having undefeated teams.
- “I just don’t like them, and I will gripe about anything that applies more to them than to my own team!” Valid. Fair. The way things ought to be. Go nuts.
Most recently, Notre Dame’s independence become even more important when the new 12-team College Football Playoff began awarding first-round byes only to conference champions. Finally, a way to punish the Irish for their stubborn ways! What a grand comeuppance this will be, when those arrogant independents roll up with a No. 1 seed, then have to play in the first round agai—
Oh. There goes that idea.
After exactly one year of that format, Notre Dame is now eligible for first-round byes. This week, the CFP management committee announced the bracket will now be sorted strictly by rankings.
South Bend, you owe a big thank you to Arizona State and especially Boise State for ranking among last season’s top four conference champs — and thus claiming byes that would’ve otherwise gone to Texas and Penn State.
Sure, this is mostly about making sure we don’t have another scenario like last year, when No. 1 Oregon drew an instant rematch against a molten-hot Ohio State — while two-loss Penn State enjoyed being a big favorite until the semifinals. But after college football spent decades keeping teams like Boise out of the title picture, once the Broncos were a team that landed on a perch, this system felt even more immediately doomed.
Either way, here’s one way to look at the situation: The power conferences so hated giving up a couple spots to semi-randos that they decided to give up even more spots to Notre Dame. After all, who’s going to swipe one of these bids more frequently: the Irish, or teams like Boise State? Notre Dame would’ve claimed byes in 2012, 2018 and 2020 and been one spot away in 2021 and 2024. One of the country’s most bankable bye-claimers, actually.
Overall, there are pros and cons about this updated CFP.
- Yay: The field can now be much fairer toward the teams that had the best regular seasons, and yeah, that’s pretty essential.
- Ehh: But this will also tilt everything even more in favor of the Big Ten and SEC, who will now start splitting so many byes among themselves. (Plus, I kinda liked how weird it was that freaking Arizona State stole a bye out of nowhere. College football should be weird. Ah well.)
Quick Snaps
💎 Probably my favorite college sports read of the week: Lindsay Schnell on how college softball became a sport all about smashing lots of crowd-pleasing dingers. In hindsight, the biggest spike in offense was due to … the color of the ball. But there’s still a lot more to it than just that.
👍 To absolutely zero surprise: “Plans for a presidential commission exploring issues in college sports have been paused, a source familiar with the plans confirmed to The Athletic on Thursday.”
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🏈 “A Salt Lake City woman has accused BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff of sexual assault and battery, according to a civil lawsuit filed Wednesday.” News details here.
✈️ Nashville tourism is a major thing, but does any visitor ever think, “I can’t wait to go from one country bar to the Vanderbilt game to another country bar”? Luring explorers has long been Vandy’s dream, but now the effort includes lessons taken from England’s Premier League, of all places.
🎭 This week in “Survivor: UNC”:
- On Tuesday, a big article on Bill Belichick included several striking details, including that Jordon Hudson had “demanded she be granted content approval and partial ownership” of “Hard Knocks,” a show that is almost exactly as old as she is. (I didn’t include this New York Times link in Wednesday’s newsletter because I hadn’t seen it at the time, mostly because I was in the middle of traveling to our meetings at … the New York Times.)
- “Belichick’s relationship with Hudson started gaining national attention around April 15, including The Athletic’s Matt Baker writing a story about Hudson’s role with North Carolina on that day. BetMGM told The Athletic that among all bets on North Carolina’s 7.5 win total before April 15, 79 percent of bets were on the over. Since April 15, however, a whopping 89 percent of bets on North Carolina’s 7.5 win total at BetMGM have come in on the under.” More here on the public very much not believing in UNC.
Rankings! Top 25s from 2000 onward
As noted on Tuesday, this week, The Athletic’s college football staff paid tribute to the first quarter century of the 2000s by utilizing CFB’s most honored number. I’ve already linked to a couple of these top-25 lists, but here are all five in one spot:
- Stewart Mandel ranked the 25 best teams of this era. I’d go 2019 LSU at No. 1, but he put a lot more work into his 2001 Miami-led list than I put into mine. My list was just one team.
- Bruce Feldman has the top 25 players, and it is genuinely surreal to agree there’s a name ahead of Reggie Bush and Ndamukong Suh. How could anybody but Barry Sanders himself be better at college football than those two were? Tell your grandkids about Cam Newton.
- Chris Vannini handled the list of the top 25 coaches, where Lincoln Riley might be the hardest call. Sure, things look somber at the moment, but I agree “three Heisman winners in six years” still carries enough weight to make the cut. For now.
- Maybe the funnest list is David Ubben’s of the 25 best games. I can confirm several people have voiced IRL grievances with his handling of 2007 Appalachian State-Michigan. Again, surreal to realize there were arguably at least two games better than the Kick Six.
- Rounding it out is Stewart again with the top 25 programs, not just single-year teams. First, I’d like to note Washington fairly makes the list despite going 0-12 that one time. Also, you’re probably assuming Alabama appears at No. 1 here, but remember this time period begins eight years before Nick Saban arrived at Bama. I’d absolutely go with the Tide up top, but Ohio State has indeed been elite almost literally the entire time.
More Rankings! Sooners back in the national picture
And finally, circling back to this one: yet another Mandel top 25, this time an updated list of 2025 teams, with spring and portal stuff in the books.
The top five, now that we’ve also all had much more time to study these teams than we’d had back in January, when Stewart posted his first top 25 of the year:
- Texas (up from No. 2)
- Penn State (down from No. 1)
- Clemson (up from No. 5)
- Ohio State (up from No. 6)
- Notre Dame (down from No. 3)
The biggest gainer: No. 14 Oklahoma, up from No. 25. The Sooners recently added RB Jaydn Ott (Cal) and OG Jake Maikkula (Cal’s ACC archrival, Stanford) to their totally overhauled offense. Also making a big jump is No. 19 Texas Tech, which has probably signed like 38 more players since I started writing this newsletter.
Biggest tumble, all the way out of the list: No. 13 Tennessee. I still feel OK about the Vols despite all that portal turbulence. In post-spring SP+ rankings, they’re No. 13.
Stewart’s updated top 25 is here, with explanations for each team included. And that’s a wrap for this week. Holler at me: untilsaturday@theathletic.com.
This news was originally published on this post .
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