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You did see Michigan’s D last night, didn’t you?

Not as much as Greg Doyle!

Agreed. For many teams winning a sectional game is a great accomplishment. Or a sectional final or regional final. You don't need a situation where every team has a fair shot to win a state final. Schools are getting rid of valedictorian and top 30/50 designations because it creates too much stress to accomplish or doesn't spread the love enough to more students. That implies not achieving those things is failure. That's now how education should work. That doesn't mean systems can't be tweaked. But if you keep changing it so everyone has a legitimate shot at a championship you remove a key purpose of high school athletics. I'm good with class sports so there are more than 1 opportunity to win a championship. But we don't need 7 or 10 or 12 classes to do it.

This conversation is a fun one and comes up frequently but after what we saw last night, how can you justify more/worse teams getting in? Cincinnati and Michigan are 3/4 and they got absolutely shredded by 1-2. What’s the point of allowing 5-8 in to do the same? It looked like a varsity vs a JV squad in those contests last night and the two teams left standing are obviously the best. I’d love it as a fan but after last night, I have pause.

Actually it was all 3 phases were bad. Honeymoon over for Freeman Guy looked overwhelmed and over his head. Felt bad for him. ND not the place for testing coached who have never been HC.

SF rule for 6A. Get 6 points your program sits out post season for 2 years. That way the other schools in 6A have a chance.

And of course the left wing crazies have their opinion regarding the legacy of Mr. Madden: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/state-of-the-union/a-professor-attacks-john-madden/ It is first of all urgent to observe that no one—not a single, solitary person—cared whether this professor had “lots of opinions about John Madden,” much less what those “opinions” were. Second, consider the substance of the professor’s argument: Madden lent his name to a video-game series that depicted professional football. People get injured while playing professional football. The majority of professional football players are black. The Madden video game uses metrics to rank players. Slave owners in the antebellum American South relied on data of one kind or another to assess the capacity of slaves. Therefore—and this is a leap larger than almost any I’ve ever seen—Madden “built a digital plantation,” “dehumanized [black] athletes,” and “establish[ed] plantation cosplay.” Quick—and without looking at your notes: Can you think of a difference between professional athletes and chattel slaves? Mourn, not only for Madden, but for one who would defame a dead man before his body hit the earth.

As @Muda69has stated numerous times about the Big 12 (is that what they are still called), this ND/OSU game is a perfect example of 7 on 7 type games.

We need to get away from using the word "robbed" in situations like this. It implies the official intentionally made the call incorrectly to benefit Purdue. That questions the credibility of the officials and calling him a cheater. That is absolutely not true. This is a judgement call and it's perfectly understandable to disagree with the judgement. The proliferation of this kind of accusation by players, coaches, fans, and media indirectly contributes to the departure of younger officials and leading to a shortage. If you don't see the connection between comments like this and youth games having to be cancelled or high school varsity games being moved to Thursday or Saturday then I'm not sure I can hlep you. This is such a valid point. I've seen arguments like this posted on line and shared by so-called experts (didn't help the live announcers used it as a point). When I see someone using this argument to indicate it should have been a TD they lose any credibility with me. At least know the rules if you are going to voice your opinion of the call. Progress is as much an art as a science. There are is absolute or black and white on this. There are key things you try to use to apply it consistently but those aren't absolutely either. For example, if he's still churning his feet you let it go. But in this case he's lying on top of a defender and I don't think he's feet are giving him much leverage. This official was in this game for a reason (this was the #3 bowl game for the ACC including the national championship next week) and the covering official was in the NFL development pool. He's more than qualified to make this call and was very confident in making the call. I'm good with that. But this wasn't an obvious call either way. You are not incorrect to argue he could have let it play out. That brings up another issue listed below. You can PUSH a runner or pile, but you can't PULL a runner. It's a rare call because it rarely happens and if you are going to call you need to make sure it's huge. On a 4th down play in OT it really needs to be huge. Did it truly impact the play? If you are going to let it play out here and you feel that pull allowed the runner to extend his arm with the ball then you can absolutely flag it here. If they had ruled TD and flagged him for assisting the runner, UT gets to replay the down from the 6. If you are flagging it you are saying the only reason UT scored was because his arm was pulled enough to free it to extend to the goal line. So UT benefits by getting another down even though they were stopped short and committed a foul that led to a score. If that happened and UT scores on the replay of the down it wouldn't have surprised me to see a call for assisting the runner to become a loss of down penalty. The other things I this this shows in regards to progress though is this player pulling him doesn't help get his body any further forward. That's a pretty good indication his progress is stopped. That's why I think from an analysis standpoint watching the replay multiple times I like the call made on the field. It's not an invalid argument to say his progress wasn't stopped and continue to let it play out. But only one opinion ultimately matters. If this official is hired by the NFL in the next couple years we'll know the powers that be are good with his judgement.

Carson Wentz has cleared Covid protocol and is now on the active list.

Where’s Tyler Buchner? @Bobref Not saying he should be playing, but haven’t even seen him on the sidelines.

Agree. I felt like Michigan and Cincinnati deserved to be there and we found out last night the bridge between the top and “next tier” is still quite large. It seems every year there is a clear cut top 1 or 2, a distinctive 3rd team and a case for a few teams to be the 4th team in. And your reward? A matchup with the best of the best to make you realize how far away your program really is. I don’t think adding another round of blowouts benefits anyone except the ones cashing the checks. it’s like SEC speed is on another level and then Alabama speed is on another level by itself. It’s incredible what saban has been able to do there year in and year out.

Vaccinated people, for the most part, are safe. At least for now, until we fully understand long-term effects of the vaccines. While we have learned the vaccines do not prevent incidence, they seem with the current variants to prevent/reduce significantly mortality. So you and those that vaccinate now are safe....for the current time. Why do you care if a member of the Colts (who are already at lower risk given their age, physical shape, controlled exposure, etc. ) do not choose to vaccinate? As we know, all can spread the virus, and its my educated guess that more precautions are taken with Wentz, Leonard, Nelson, etc. than the average Joe. Far more precautions. Fauci and Biden told us if we a achieved 70% vaccination rate, we will obtain herd immunity. There are now states above 70% and we know that herd immunity has not occurred at this %. You didn't answer my question about demanding influenza vaccines for all. Is 60K annual deaths acceptable risk? The moral question is an interesting one....its always interesting when one type of death is acceptable, when another is not.

Just thinking how old this makes me feel … because I remember him well as a player.

It’s a hot take and a how can I fire people up issue, I swear to God it is