Even the Hoosiers, Gamecocks, Cyclones, and Bobcats

I'm ready to take a break from the heavier stuff I've been writing about, so...here goes!

We've just entered the 2026 college football season...and, with that in mind, I'd like to share the results of my version of the 2024 NCAA Division 1-A football playoffs. (Thanks, Dave Koch Sports, for bringing out Action! PC Football.)

FIRST ROUND (seeding in parentheses): Arizona State (9) 49, Jacksonville State (24) 28/Iowa State (16) 48, Clemson (17) 24/BYU (13) 35, UNLV (20) 31/Miami (FL) (12) 55, Louisiana-Lafayette (21) 14/Tennessee (14) 59, Ohio (19) 31/Ohio State (11) 37, Alabama (22) 31/Marshall (18) 38, Memphis (15) 21/Syracuse (23) 38, Army (10) 35

SECOND ROUND: Oregon (1) 44, Arizona State 24/Iowa State 38, SMU (8) 24/Georgia (5) 31, BYU 24/Miami (FL) 49, Indiana (4) 40/Tennessee 42, Texas (6) 21/Ohio State 35, Notre Dame (3) 32/Penn State (7) 38, Marshall 24/Boise State (2) 34, Syracuse 17

QUARTERFINAL ROUND: Oregon 30, Iowa State 27/Miami (FL) 41, Georgia 34/Ohio State 35, Tennessee 14/Penn State 38, Boise State 24

SEMIFINAL ROUND: Miami (FL) 38, Oregon 30/Ohio State 30, Penn State 7

CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: Miami (FL) 42, Ohio State 28

PLAYOFF MVP: Cam Ward, Miami (FL) QB

The Hurricanes nabbed their third "shoulda-coulda-woulda" championship (they also won in 1992 and 2001)...and they got it done in a season where Indiana, Iowa State, Jacksonville State, and Ohio made it to the playoffs for the first time ever.

Can't wait to see how the 2025 D-1-A playoffs would've turned out!

The most unlikely champion

It's been a while since I last posted anything about my version of the NCAA Division 1-A football playoffs. (That's what happens when you're asked to take on different things in life...such as a couple of GoFundMe projects.)

Anyway...I actually DID play the 2023 version, and I've been itching to post that. Well, here's how it turned out:

FIRST ROUND (seeding in parentheses): Boise State (24) 63, James Madison (9) 44/Oklahoma (16) 38, Penn State (17) 24/Iowa (20) 27, Miami (OH) (13) 14/Louisville (21) 38, Tulane (12) 20/Mississippi (19) 45, Toledo (14) 31/Notre Dame (22) 36, Troy (11) 13/Missouri (18) 48, SMU (15) 34/Oregon (10) 42, North Carolina State (23) 27

SECOND ROUND: Washington (1) 63, Boise State 38/Oklahoma 24, Ohio State (8) 14/Texas (5) 34, Iowa 10/Florida State (4) 38, Louisville 34/Alabama (6) 28, Mississippi 17/Notre Dame 42, Liberty (3) 21/Georgia (7) 45, Missouri 31/Oregon 35, Michigan (2) 28

QUARTERFINAL ROUND: Oklahoma 52, Washington 45/Florida State 37, Texas 21/Notre Dame 38, Alabama 21/Georgia 28, Oregon 17

SEMIFINAL ROUND: Oklahoma 52, Florida State 42/Notre Dame 45, Georgia 37

CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: Oklahoma 41, Notre Dame 24

MVP: Oklahoma QB Dillon Gabriel...in the title game, he went 16 for 25 for 232 yards and three touchdown passes. Not only that, but he also ran 24 times for 163 yards to lead all rushers that night. What made the 2023 Sooners the most unlikely of the "shoulda-coulda-woulda" champions?

They were the lowest seeds EVER to win it all in these playoffs. (UCLA was seeded 13th out of 16 entries when it won it all in 1988...the same seeding USC drew when the Trojans won the 2003 playoffs, two years after the 1-A playoffs went to a 24-team format.) Oklahoma wrapped up its time in the Big 6/7/8/12 by winning these 1-A playoffs for the first time since the Sooners three-peated in 1985-87. Funny thing: This time around, Michigan had a chance to duplicate the Sooners' 1980s effort...but in the second round, Oregon's Bo Nix took matters into his own hands (23-30-217-2 TD passes plus 16 rushes for 88 yards and 2 TD runs) to end the Wolverines' two-year reign in these playoffs.

I used Dave Koch Sports' Action! PC Football to do these playoffs...and now, I want to slow down to see just what the 2024 D-1-A playoffs would've looked like.

What's left to say about 2024?

I can't help but say it...but here it is: 2024 was a year where, here in the United States, hate and bigotry won out at the polls.

And the price of eggs was used as a cover.

We, as a group, put a convicted felon back in the White House...a man who called for an insurrection when he didn't win the 2020 election...a man who, like his runningmate, ran with the nonetheless-debunked belief that immigrants in Springfield, OH, were eating their neighbors' dogs and cats...a man who won't take responsibility for his actions.

77 million voters showed they'd rather stick a twice-impeached man back in the Oval Office than put a woman of any color in there.

Yes...I admit that the Democrats would've been better off running a brokered convention at Chicago's United Center last August and finding Joe Biden's successor at the confab. (The leaders of America's legacy media probably would've trotted out the old "Dems in Disarray" headline.) And things would've been better if Merrick Garland and his people would've acted sooner (like on 1-20-2021) to make sure an insurrectionist never again held the nuclear codes...even if Garland would've been accused of doing this for political motivation.

I can't help but think the rest of the world looks at us Americans in light of last year's election and comes away feeling that our laws are toothless.

I remember what happened to Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro and how that country's government dealt with him.

Power-abusing Bolsonaro lost his presidential reelection bid in 2022...and went on to cast unfounded doubts about Brazil's electronic voting system. So...in June 2023, that country's top electoral court ruled him ineligible to run for any political office until 2030.

What if America's government officials had mustered the courage to do the same to a former reality-TV host?

Instead, starting on 1-20-2025, we'll be taking a ride many of us just might regret...the kind of ride we've been on before.

We'll see what happens.

Let's just wait and see what happens

Now that the College Football Playoff has begun its new phase as a twelve-team affair, I decided to go ahead and check out the four first-round games that took place this past weekend. Had the CFP still been a four-team event, my answer would've been a resounding "NO!"

I wasn't really surprised at how the first four games turned out...but quite a few people who commented online, from casual fans to NCAA experts, were ticked off at how easily Notre Dame took Indiana down (27-17) and how Penn State exposed SMU (38-10). Texas' 38-24 win over Clemson and Ohio State's 42-17 humiliation of Tennessee rounded out the weekend.

Some called the results- the first CFP games ever played on college campuses- lackluster. Others labeled the whole thing disappointing. And then came the calls denouncing the CFP committee for letting the Hoosiers (11-1 before meeting the Fighting Irish) and the Mustangs (11-2 coming into their date with the Nittany Lions) in there.

To those critics, Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina (each team 9-3 on the eve of the 2024 bowl season) would've been better off in this year's CFP than SMU and Indiana.

I don't agree with those critics...and I don't care if the Crimson Tide, Rebels, and Gamecocks are all part of the same SEC that Georgia and newcomers (and ex-Big 12 foes) Texas and Oklahoma are in.

Rhett Lashlee's Mustangs (the 2023 AAC champs before joining the ACC and almost beating Clemson in this year's conference title game) deserved to get in. So did Curt Cignetti's Hoosiers...a team that went 3-9 last year under Tom Allen, now Penn State's defensive coordinator.

The two clubs did what teams are called on to do. They won...even if the naysayers are troubled with the lack of pedigree.

While Penn State gets ready to take on Boise State on 12-31-2024, Notre Dame prepares to play Georgia on 1-1-2025, Texas bones up for its 1-1-2025 date with Arizona State, and Ohio State works to iron out the kinks in a 1-1-2025 rematch with Oregon, lots of people (fans and pundits alike) are proposing solutions to tailor the next CFP to their liking. Some want to see reseeding happen after the first round...some want to eliminate giving the four biggest conference champs first-round byes...others want the CFP knocked back down to four squads (or even two!).

Know what I'd like to see?

I'd like to see the NCAA take control of the CFP...and then make it either a sixteen-team event or a twenty-four-team tilt. [With two dozen clubs in there, maybe all Division 1-A (okay, FBS) leagues can get an automatic bid for their champions.]

Now...it's your turn. What changes would you like to see to make the current format better?

In the meantime, let's just let this year's historic version unfold.

I've got my mind made up

I'm just going to come right out and say it. My White House choice for 2024 is...Vice President Kamala Harris. Okay...I've probably lost some followers for making this decision. Here's my reasoning: 1. If Harris wins on 11-5-2024, it's the one way that all Americans of voting age, regardless of their party affiliation (or lack of one), will be able to cast future ballots. 2. The former US senator from California wants to end the filibuster so that (among other things) the Roe vs. Wade precedent (1973-2022) on abortion can be restored. (Okay...how would you like it if a politician got between you and your doctor when you needed to make a decision that could save your own life?) 3. She doesn't want to raise taxes on those Americans who earn less than $400,000 a year. In addition, she'd roll back the tax cuts for the wealthiest US citizens...cuts that were signed into law in 2017. And the tax rate for long-term capital gains for millionaires would go to 28%. 4. Harris would sign the bipartisan border security bill into law...you know, the Senate deal that fell by the wayside after Donald Trump told House Republicans to abandon it so that he'd have something to campaign on. 5. I like her proposal to get 3 million new rental units/affordable homes built...and her proposal to provide first-time homebuyers with $25,000 each for down payments (as well as legislation to outlaw new forms of price fixing by corporate landlords). 6. Harris is also in favor of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act (to prevent states from passing laws that make it harder for non-White people to cast ballots), the Freedom to Vote Act (designed to set standards for early voting and voting by mail...as well as to curb gerrymandering), and the Equality Act (extending the 1964 Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation). 7. And the former California attorney general advocates term limits for Supreme Court justices as well as a code of ethics for SCOTUS members. What's more, Harris wants to end America's record as the only major country without a national paid-family-and-medical-leave policy. You can check this and more out by going to politifact.com and checking out its article on Harris' 2024 campaign promises. I don't want to sit this one out...and if you're a voting-age American, I hope you won't sit this one out, either.

I'd never been in a parade before...

Until 7-13-2024, that is.

Seen parades on TV and in person in the past...but I'd never marched in one until last week.

I'm on a couple of committees at our church, and one of the things we wanted to do was take part in this year's Heartland Pride Parade.

And I'm glad I participated alongside thousands of other people.

I mean, for all the many, many things that make us unique individuals, we're still one...we're still members of the human race.

Age ain't nothing but a number

He signed into law the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, the $1 trillion (or so) bipartisan infrastructure bill, and the 2022 climate-and-health spending bill.

He got an albeit modest gun-safety law on the books...one that expanded background checks (if not universally), made it easier to prosecute illegal gun trafficking, and provided federal money for red-flag laws. (Still, a modest gun-safety law is better than no gun-safety legislation if you've been tired of all the mass shootings going on here in the US...let alone years of inaction at the top.)

And he ended the Afghanistan War...America's longest-running military conflict.

The CHIPS Act (hiking stateside production of semiconductors), the passage of a long-awaited postal-reform bill, much-needed military aid for Ukraine, and the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act all happened under his watch. So did executive orders to forgive student loans and to pardon folks who were busted for possession of marijuana.

He's nominated federal judges at a breakneck pace...breakneck according to historical standards. Plus, he nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson to this country's Supreme Court...and made some more history in the process.

COVID has claimed 400 American lives a day since this past April...far below previous rates of 2,000-3,000 dead per day. The United States has rejoined the Paris Agreement and has done away with that (fill in your favorite expletive) Muslim travel ban.

Speaking of travel...the Environmental Protection Agency has established new, higher fuel-efficiency standards for 2023-2026 vehicles. Service members have now been given a much-needed pay increase. We've now got legislation addressing acts of violence against Asian Americans partly by expanding access to the reporting of hate crimes and expediting the review of COVID-related hate crimes. And at long last, Juneteenth is a federal holiday...and at long last, lynching is a federal hate crime.

All if this under the watch of a man who turned 80 years old on 11-20-2022.

Still, some of his fellow Democrats are asking him not to go after a second term of office in 2024. (They want somebody younger to be the Donkeys' standardbearer.) The way I see it, though: Even with a lot more stuff needing to be done to get the US beyond the shadow of where it was on 1-6-2021, I'd love to see Joe Biden run for a second term in the White House.

How about you?