Buckeye Fan 19

Will almost certainly be a woman given it’s been men 3 years in a row and 5 of the last 6. Dua Lipa actually wouldn’t be a bad choice, given that we know they’re gonna want someone relatively young / pop / world-famous. She’d be relatively uncontroversial given those parameters, unless the fact she’s not American is an issue.

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I wouldn't mind Sabrina Carpenter

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Meh, her lyrics are pretty sexist and very much: “men are idiots, dumb, horny, immature, good for nothing but my short-term pleasure, and can’t be counted on as reliable or competent.” She’s also extremely sexually provocative/explicit.

Misandrist, not family-friendly at all, and promoter of pretty terrible values. In theory, she should draw the ire of a good amount of conservatives. But Gen Z women love her, and she’s a young cute white blonde which is probably good enough for everyone else unfamiliar with her, even if her music is just kinda meh and her lyrics are shite.

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she'll probably say no.

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No chance Sabrina Carpenter would say no. The only artist on the planet who would currently turn down the Super Bowl is Swift. And even she might eventually say yes after Kelce retires.

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The experience and age gap isn’t as wide as in years past.

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This has to be a troll, so shame on me for answering, but the reason the age gap isn’t as wide is because most of Indiana’s 5th / 6th years weren’t good enough to go to the NFL after their junior/senior years.

Have not seen anything legitimate that he’s passed, including on multiple ND message boards, ESPN, news affiliates, etc.

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Just saw it on FB. RIP Dr. Lou.

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Oh, well that explains it. Goodness, no wonder the world is in such disarray. The internet literacy of this country…

Acho used to be pretty good, but he’s completely gone off the deep end with hot takes recently. Similar thing happening to Josh Pate as he’s started going on ESPN more in the past year, though not as extreme.

As pundits get more exposure, the pressure seems to ramp up to move away from their initial well-formed thoughts and produce more clickbait idiocy.

1) MJ is the GOAT.

2) Lebron is a top-2 player of all-time.

3) The first sentence is more debatable than the second.

4) I understand why people might dislike LeBron, due to his politics and a little bit of whining nature on the court. I find the amount of people who hate/despise him (and it seems to go beyond “sports hate” for some) or that’s think he’s “shitty” or an “a-hole” to be strange. He seems like a really good family man, has never been involved in anything criminal or scandalous (publicly, at least), hasn’t struggled with addiction, etc.

Granted, that’s the bare minimum to be a decent person in society… but that’s also kinda my point. He seems decent. And it’s relatively more impressive for a guy who came from an underprivileged background and was a nationally-known superstar when he was only a teenager in high school. Many of those situations (in all entertainment fields: sports, acting, music, etc.) turn out completely disastrous.

MJ seemingly has more vices and is much more of an “a-hole” (which is at least indirectly why he’s the GOAT… he’s a psychopath).

ETA: Also, the Decision was extremely stupid, but it was a one-time mistake that occurred more than 15 years ago. And he then went back and won that city its only championship since Jim Brown. If people still hold a grudge over it, then fine, go ahead, but probably best to just let it go by this point.

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DId USC offer to play week 0? Yes or no?

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For the 80th time, you can’t just snap your fingers and play week 0. If neither team plays at Hawaii during the season, the game has to be international. It can’t just be “let’s move it from week 13 to week 0 in the Coliseum.” It was not a legitimate, feasible offer that late in the game (which USC knew), when the assumption had been it would be played in LA. With a few years of planning, sure, it could’ve been arranged.

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They did not weasel out. They did not want to play in the middle of their conference schedule.

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The game would’ve been played at the end of the year (not middle) in LA, as it has been for a century. The fact that it’s always been played in October in South Bend has been an ND courtesy to USC so they didn’t have to deal with the weather. I’m sure ND would be happy to have it in South Bend at the end of the year instead.

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The cult at South Bend does not have to worry about a conferemce schedule which anyone with an IQ above room temperature realizes is far tougher when traditional foes are at you week after week..

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Yes, Rutgers, Maryland, Minnesota and Northwestern are more traditional USC opponents than ND.

Look, ND immediately replaced USC with a road game against a similar-caliber opponent to USC. If USC replaces ND with a week 0 game against a similar-caliber opponent to ND, then I’ll grant you that ND takes at least half of the blame, fair?

I even concede USC’s schedule is tougher in 2026 and they travel more now than they used to. It was still their choice / they were the drivers to end it, not ND.

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Notre Dame will always be included. How could they not with such a Charmin soft schedule. That's where the BCS like system would be superior to the CFP committee. Three or four computer models based on different and shared metrics plus a human component of the CFP committee as a 10-15% component would help.

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Do you not realize that ND would’ve been in the field this past season under this criteria? ND was top-5 in essentially every computer metric (SP+, Sagarin, FEI, FPI…).

“ND will always be included due to their schedule”… what about this past year? That’s precisely the reason ND was left out by the committee, even though they would’ve been a touchdown favorite on a neutral field over Bama and Oklahoma. It was Bama’s / OU’s SOS/SOR (if you don’t think conflict of interest played a role), aka they were “more deserving” than ND, even though they weren’t “better” than ND.

ND will have to go 11-1. They’ll be left out at 10-2. Which is fair for next year’s schedule.

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I'm pretty sure the Big Ten would be fine with an unofficial 4-game agreement if it involves playing traditional rivals like Purdue, MSU, Michigan, and USC almost every year.

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True, I guess I considered USC as an automatic/separate. So something like:

USC
Navy
Stanford
Clemson
^(Those top two should be annual. Stanford has recently been annual, even though I hate it. Clemson is scheduled to be annual starting 2027. I wouldn’t mind making Michigan basically annual again, like it more-or-less was for a while.)

Then annually:

4 SEC or B1G (per agreement)
3 total from the ACC / Big 12 / (non-agreement) SEC/B1G
1 additional G5 besides Navy

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Couldn't the playoff committee get around this like they have with everything else by manipulating the rankings to get the teams in that they want? If putting Notre Dame at 12 knocks out a team they think is better, just put them at 13. Maybe I am not understanding the change here.

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Correct, which is why it’s not actually a big deal in practicality.

We literally just saw the committee leapfrog Alabama over ND to 9 after they beat a 5-7 team by 7, then keep them there after they lost by 21 and ran for negative yardage against UGA. Only 2 CCG losers out of the past 88 that were ranked haven’t dropped at all, and 2025 Alabama is one of them.

11-1 ND will be safely in, definitely inside the top-10. Some years, 10-2 ND would be in, others not (and they won’t be with next year’s schedule. Even if they’d otherwise be #11 or 12, they’d be bumped down to #13 by the committee). That’s it.

Certainly better than 24.