Former St. Louis Rams RB Steven Jackson surprised Kyren Williams in the video below. Worth a watch.

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Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports writes about the creation of the 12-team playoff that was designed by Jack Swarbrick, Bob Bowlsby, Greg Sankey and Craig Thompson.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Deep within Jack Swarbrick’s home, down a flight of stairs, across a basement floor and inside a small closet, the original relics of the expanded College Football Playoff format exist.

These note-filled papers are artifacts of an 18-month-long endeavor to create the largest and most significant postseason concept in college football history. They are kept safe and secret here, buried inside a brown box, only to be unearthed as evidence of a process that, perhaps, changed the sport forever.

“Some of them are in a landfill somewhere,” Swarbrick says, “but the ones I thought would be useful if I ever wrote a book are here with me in Indianapolis.”

These notebooks tell quite a tale: how four college athletics executives spent nearly two years, in secret, covertly meeting at airport hotels, while using masking tape to cover conference room walls with drawn-up brackets, finally arriving at the 12-team playoff model used today.

The working group of three conference commissioners, Bob Bowlsby (Big 12), Greg Sankey (SEC) and Craig Thompson (Mountain West), and one athletic director, Swarbrick (Notre Dame), examined nearly 100 playoff models — from four teams to 32 — during gatherings that spanned a global pandemic and, in the end, produced the format’s public rollout in June 2021.

Three-and-a-half years later, following a drama-filled approval process, the fruits of their labor are now more tangible than ever. Bracket selections are less than two weeks away — a historic and momentous occasion for an industry that, for decades, resisted such a multi-round postseason tournament.

“It’s so beautiful what the 12 has done,” said Bill Hancock, the former CFP executive director who assembled the working group in 2019 and was one of the few people involved in their meetings. “The real beauty is the value it places on conference championships. We’re seeing that. The premium it places on conference championships … it’s magic.”

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Is it time to for conference affiliated ref's to become extinct? I dont know if anyone watched the GA Tech game, but the SEC refs which I respect the most of all the conferences did win that game for UGA. From the targetting on the QB, to the holding calls missed that were blatant to the PI's in the endzone with little contact and one was a tipped ball.

I just wonder with what, maybe 20-30M on the line for UGA to miss the playoffs which would have happened and GA Tech with no chance, did their bias for an SEC and a home game?

Usually you see one bad call, but that game was really bad and I think 21 points can be credited to the officials. Social media and headline news (SI, On3, etc.) are calling that game a ref win.

Just dont know if Ref's should be affiliated to a conference going forward. Seems like there is enough money to make it a National organization, with standards and ratings and even regardless of team.

What happened to this dude this year? He doesn't have a whole lot of touches this year. Now that I said that he'll probably go off on ND this Saturday.

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Great day for the Irish rushing attack. 1:20 was probably my favorite play from the OL.

Tremendous effort from Love too. What a beast.

Available to play

Hello, my wife and I are going to be vacationing in southern California for a couple of weeks and will be attending the ND game on Nov 30th. While I’ve been doing online research, any game day and tourist advice that fellow ND fans can offer would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

Friday noon games:

Boise State hosting Oregon State in hopes of staying in line for a playoff bye.

Colorado trying to keep slim Big 12 hopes alive against Oklahoma State.

Wisconsin trying to get bowl eligible against Minnesota.

Gordon Larson, an analyst for GoBlackKnights.com on the Rivals network, took some time this week to answer questions about Army. And we take a closer look at key stats and Pro Football Focus grades for the Black Knights.

Total D = 4th

Scoring D = 2nd

Forced turnovers = 1st

Pass efficiency D = 1st

Red zone D = 5th

3rd down D = 8th

First downs allowed = 4th



I think with the loss of Morrison, Traore, Botelho and Howard Cross also missing time makes this all the more impressive. Freeman has recruited great depth and the defensive team speed really stands out more than I can remember. The speed at which guys like Ausberry, Sneed, Bowen, Gray, etc track and close on the ball and ball carriers is impressive. The good defenses of the past 30 years like 2002 and 2012 were very good units and has good athletes but they didn’t have this much team speed, depth or athleticism.

got a bad feeling about this one. hope I'm wrong