Good morning.<\/p>\n
Optional Musical Accompaniment<\/p>\n
We are now 92 days away from Vanderbilt football\u2019s season opener against Charleston Southern. There is no 92 on the current roster.<\/p>\n
And, it\u2019s NCAA Regional time<\/a>! Vanderbilt plays Wright State at 5 PM CT on the SEC Network and, as much as I don\u2019t really pay much attention to college baseball<\/a> during the season \u2014 I have to admit, regional weekend is one of those goofy fun sports things that I find to be must-watch TV. You probably do, too, and you are probably not going to be getting anything done at work this afternoon.<\/p>\n In other college sports postseason format news… well, some news is good, some is bad.<\/p>\n The CFP format took another twist this week in Sandestin.<\/p>\n Pushback from its own coaches & others to a multi-AQ model has the SEC seriously considering a 5+11 format with an overhauled selection committee criteria.<\/p>\n It may put it at odds with the Big Tenhttps:\/\/t.co\/Y3IZLrBMOl<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) May 29, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n What I would say to this is very simple: the SEC supporting the four-automatic-qualifier model never made any goddamn sense. What that proposal would have done is guarantee the SEC four bids (which, let\u2019s be honest… the SEC would get in most years on the merits) but also would have capped the number of bids the SEC get at six, assuming Notre Dame<\/a> is good enough to get in most years. Which is stupid when it\u2019s not unthinkable that the SEC could have 7-8 teams in the top 16 in a given year. It also was surprising because it went against pretty much everything Greg Sankey has ever thought about playoff bids, which is that he\u2019d like the SEC to get as many as possible and doesn\u2019t care about anything else. Who really supported this model was the Big Ten, which might have to be concerned about only getting three on the merits if, say, Michigan and Penn State have a down year at the same time. (Yes, conference expansion makes it harder to imagine, but for all the hubbub USC and Washington have been about as consistently successful as Michigan State<\/a> over the last decade and a half, and it\u2019s not hard to imagine two of Michigan, Penn State, and Oregon having a down year at the same time.)<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know what caused Sankey to come to his senses or if this was the plan all along. The ACC and Big 12 seem to be on this side, as well, so it\u2019s probably where we\u2019re headed. Dumb college football fans on the internet suggested that the ACC and Big 12 would prefer to guarantee themselves two bids, but dumb college football fans on the internet seemed to think they\u2019d accept permanent second-tier status for one extra guaranteed bid, which… again, what the fuck was anyone thinking? Except the cartoon villain who runs the Big Ten, we know exactly what he was thinking.<\/p>\n Merit is good. I like when we reward teams based on the merits. Regardless of how you feel about playoff expansion, permanently cementing the power structure of the sport for no other reason than that\u2019s who happens to be good right now is never good.<\/p>\n Okay, on to less happy news:<\/p>\n The difference between expanding the College Football Playoff and the NCAA Tournament is obvious. College football\u2019s playoff is still too small to count as a proper postseason; either expand it or just go back to the old bowls-and-polls method. The half-assed expansions to 4 and then 12 have mostly just had the effect of cheapening the regular season while still not being a full-fledged postseason. Plus 16 is a nice round number that means that nobody gets a bye and everybody has to win the same number of games to win the thing.<\/p>\n College basketball, on the other hand, already had a proper postseason when it had 64 teams. Expanding to 68 was stupid, but at least it\u2019s pretty easy to justify having four standalone games on a Tuesday and Wednesday night in mid-March when I\u2019m not really doing much of anything else. 72 or 76, though? Why?<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t even about money, either, because people in the know are very clear that if they\u2019re getting any additional money at all, it won\u2019t be enough to avoid shrinking the size of a tournament share. And they probably won\u2019t even add any weekday basketball. If you told me that they\u2019re going to give me an excuse to blow off work for four days in a week in March instead of two, okay, fine, I\u2019ll probably come around to it… but, no, seriously, what the fuck is this? When this is an actual explanation being given:<\/p>\n The NCAA Tournament has added four teams in the last 41 years. <\/p>\n Four. <\/p>\n If you think that\u2019s an accurate reflection of the growth of college basketball in that time I might suggest you check your math.<\/p>\n \u2014 Seth Davis (@SethDavisHoops) May 29, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n You might think the college football playoff doesn\u2019t need to expand. At least nobody is trying to sell it by telling you we have to expand the playoff because Kennesaw State moved up to FBS.<\/p>\n