u/SparkMaster360

I’ve seen lots of speculation as to who will take home the national championship trophy this year, but I can finally put the debate to rest as Michigan State will be winning the title.

Confused? Here’s why:

In 3 out of the past 3 years, the eventual national champion played Washington in Seattle the following year.

Obviously, this trend will continue and is not a fluke. This narrows our list of candidates to just 7:

Fresno State, Portland State, Maryland, Michigan State, Nebraska, Oregon, and USC.

But we can use the process of elimination to slowly narrow down our list to just 2.

Now you might see Oregon on the list and instantly assume that the preseason #2 team, with this blessing on their side, is bound to finally reach the summit. Unfortunately these people aren’t considering one crucial factor about the Ducks: god hates them. They should have had a shot in 2001 but the computers picked Nebraska. Then 2007 but Dixon got hurt. Then 2010 but they forgot how to tackle. Then 2012 but they lost to Stanford after a missed kick. Then 2014 but OSU blasted them. Then 2019 but ASU upset them. Then 2021 but Stanford again. Then 2023 but UW got them. Then 2024 but oops it’s OSU again. Then 2025 but they forgot to google Cignetti. Do you realize just how many times the Ducks haven’t won a natty? Clearly, they have no hope and will not win this year.

USC is the next logical candidate but then we remember Lincoln Riley is their coach. Lincoln Riley. The same guy who has coached 3 Heisman trophy winners, and hasn’t won a playoff game? Get real. They’ll probably miss the playoffs after finding a way to lose to Utah again. Sure, the Utes aren’t on their schedule, but USC finds ways to lose. They have since Pete Carroll left. How else do you think their best year since ended with losing to fucking Tulane. Tulane!

Obviously Fresno State can be eliminated next, since G5 teams never ever beat P4 teams ever. Every single G5 team that beat a P4 team was a fluke and if they played an SEC schedule they’d go 6-6 at best.

We can of course eliminate Maryland since winning the national championship means winning games past September, which as far as I can tell isn’t possible for the Terps.

Portland State is also from the state of Oregon, and as we discussed above they cannot have good things. Maybe they’ll win the FCS championship actually. Are they any good?

Finally that leaves us with Nebraska and Michigan State.

And let me tell you, this was tough. I looked at this from every angle, trying to find an edge. Finally, it hit me.

You see, as someone who lived through the trauma of the 2024 national championship game, I hate Michigan.

Did they cheat against us? Probably not. Did they cheat during the 2021, 2022, and parts of the 2023 seasons? Probably. Have they been served karmic justice for that? I don’t think so. Sure you can point to the parade of scandals that surround them, and the fact that they actually gave Dave Portnoy a degree, but that’s not enough. They just won a Basketball title for fucks sake. I think they only way they can atone is to watch their in state rival win it all. Therefore, we can eliminate Nebraska.

In conclusion the season can’t start soon enough go dawgs

Thinking about how great the CFP semis have been recently compared to the whole of the 4 team area.

From 2014-2021 there were like 3 actually good semifinal games

OSU vs Alabama (Zeke thru the south)
Georgia vs Oklahoma (2OT Rose Bowl)
OSU vs Clemson 2019 (Absolute war between two all time teams)

Every other semifinal was basically a blowout during that era. The gap between Bama/Clemson/OSU (and LSU in 2019) and everyone else was unfathomable.

And yes, the trade-off has been there were (arguably) better national championship games during that era (Alabama v Clemson in 2015 and 2016 were both classics, as well as 2nd and 26), but it does beg the question of whether that's worth the lead up to those games being godawful. And the natty being a classic wasn't even a guarantee, the 2018 playoffs were just 3 blowouts.

Since 2022 we've gotten:

TCU and Michigan scoring a combined 96 points
The New Year's miss by OSU against Georgia

Michigan vs Alabama in the Rose Bowl (rewatching the ending of that game is incredible, I'm not sure we've had a more cinematic game since between the tension and the backdrop).
Washington vs Texas in the Sugar Bowl going blow for blow with an all time ending

Texas playing OSU incredibly close, coming down to a game tying drive that ends in a scoop and score for the Buckeyes.
Notre Dame and Penn State fighting to rewrite their narratives in a phenomenal game, and comeback by ND.

Indiana did commit war crimes against Oregon I've got nothing there. I found it funny tho so that's something.
Ole Miss and Miami fighting for a natty berth in an all time great game, between two teams that nobody expected to really make the semis mid-season, much less against each other.

The trade-off of course has been we've gotten 1 great championship game (IU vs Miami), 2 decent championship games (ND vs OSU and UW vs Michigan) and 1 game where TCU heroically held Georgia to just 65 points.

I'm curious what y'all think about this, and how the games have shifted. Is the natty/semi tradeoff worth it, and what caused this change?

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I know there’s a rule “the game cannot end on a defensive foul” to prevent a team from openly committing penalties to prevent a score in the final moments. I was curious if that applies to kickoffs as well.

An example I’m thinking of would be at the end of the Ravens/49ers Super Bowl, if there was a penalty for say tripping on the Ravens, would the 49ers have been awarded an untimed down, or would that be the game?

I’m not talking about Flacco’s plan to run from the sidelines and tackle a returner which could invoke the unfair act, I’m talking about a Ravens player committing a “normal” penalty to prevent a return and run out the clock.

Curious what games next year everyone here is hyped for. Some nominations:

Ohio State at Indiana

Miami at Notre Dame

Oregon at Ohio State

Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss

Ohio State at Texas

Georgia at Alabama (side note: how is this being played 3 years in a row?)

Oregon at USC

BYU at Utah

Any others?

Weeks 1-8 no one even comes within 2 scores of them. They are regularly putting up over 35 points, with the best offensive effort against them being the Miami dolphins putting up 28 points, and still losing by 21.

Weeks 9-13 suddenly 3 different teams play the Patriots within one score. They nuke the Bills, but are held to under 35 by the Colts, Eagles, and Ravens.

Then they’re held to just 20 by the Jets (I refuse to believe the jets can be good), and in the regular season finale they need to come back against Eli’s giants.

Then the playoffs happens and finally they’re put down by the Giants in the Super Bowl, in whats one of the biggest upsets by the metrics in NFL history to my understanding.

So what the hell happened? How does the team that’s annihilating everyone by 3+ scores stop doing that, and then lose to one of the worst Super Bowl winning teams ever? Did other teams figure something out? Did Brady get cocky? Did Belichick run out of good hoodies?