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The best college football stadium in the country is…
The results are in
After weeks of collecting votes for the best college football stadium in the country, the field of 32 teams was narrowed down to just one.
The Beaver Stadium White Out sealed the deal, with voters calling the tradition “scary,” “unprecedented” and “the best spectacle in all of college football.” Still, this result feels like one of those games where the final score doesn’t tell how close it was. Some voters took this hypothetical matchup to OT, where Happy Valley outlasted Death Valley.
Here are some of voters’ favorite memories of Beaver Stadium:
- “I was there for kick six against OSU, but in a lesser game against Illinois a few years earlier, Illinois lined up to send a game-winning FG into the student section. We all crushed the student section to the “S” zone (I was so crushed my feet didn’t even touch the ground), the kick was up and hit the crossbar for the PSU victory. Almost every match is treated like a championship, it’s incredible.
- “I was a student at the very first Paternoville. Camping while Woody Paige and Cold Pizza showed up playing drums on trash cans at all hours of the night. It’s camaraderie more than anything. Everyone lives and breathes Blue and White during these 60 minutes that pass.
Thank you everyone for voting. I sincerely hope you enjoyed this light and fun off-season exercise in which I take no responsibility for the outcomes that ruin your mood/day/week. Here’s a look at the final installment.
BFC Super League
Could the NCAA and the CFP disappear for good?
A group of influential sports leaders are developing a plan that could transform college football as we know it. In a widely reported article Tuesday, AthleticismAndrew Marchand and Stewart Mandel detailed efforts to create a college football “Super League.”
The College Sports Tomorrow (CST) group is spearheading the project. The new model would create a system in which member schools would be divided into seven divisions of 10 teams, joined by an eighth division of teams which could be promoted from the second tier.
There would be no CFP committee. Instead, the playoffs would consist of the eight division winners and eight wild cards (determined by record and tiebreakers). Sports other than football would remain in their current conference structure. CSE believes this model would bring greater television value and sustainability to the CFB, and Chip Kelly agrees.
If you need a visualization, Sam Khan Jr. explained what an 80-team, eight-division Super League would have looked like last season.
Andrew joins us to answer some lingering questions about Super League. (Read the full story here).
How would the seven divisions of 10 teams of the CST model be constructed? And what kinds of criteria might be required for a second-tier team to be “promoted” to the first tier?
Andrew: The top 70 teams would likely consist of former Power 5 conference teams as well as Notre Dame and SMU. They would be distributed logically and geographically to preserve existing rivalries and best matchups.
The second tier could have its playoffs, I suppose, but that was not indicated in our reporting. The other option could be for the top two teams by record to advance, then you could have a play-in for a third place between the third and fourth teams. That would be a pretty exciting way to get promoted. I guess three teams move up and down in the eighth division every year.
The article says that “CST believes there would be added value in negotiating television deals as a single entity and creating more logical broadcast windows, much like the NFL’s approach.” What could these release windows look like?
Andrew: An important thing to understand is that trading with a single entity is advantageous. As things stand in college football right now, it’s as if the NFL is negotiating deals for the AFC East and NFC North separately. It’s better for the networks that way.
With a single entity, you can organize the games so that you have a prime-time Game of the Week on Saturday night (think NFL Sunday Night Football for competition), and then perhaps on a Friday night as well. Then, on Saturday afternoon, you could regionalize the games and consolidate the notes. I’m not sure there’s that much added television value, because as one executive said in our article, he thought it was perhaps “naive.”
List the biggest pros and cons of CST’s “Super League” plan.
Andrew: The biggest advantage is the fact that if you start from scratch, without policies or preconceived ideas, it’s a really smart and solid plan.
The biggest drawback? We don’t start from scratch. The SEC, Big Ten, ESPN, Fox and Notre Dame have the most power going forward. Their job is to look after all their members, in the case of the league commissioners, and their shareholders, in the case of the networks, so this must be overcome.
Upcoming lawsuits or settlements are wild cards that could lead to an outcome we may not be considering at the moment.
Feldman’s NFL Mock Draft
Four QBs in 4 picks?
Bruce Feldman’s NFL mock draft was released yesterday with selections made based on conversations with dozens of college football coaches and NFL sources. Here’s something that interests me after reading Bruce’s screening: How far will Michigan’s JJ McCarthy go?
Bruce’s top four selections are all QBs: Caleb Williams ➡️ Chicago Bears, Jayden Daniels ➡️ Washington Commanders, Drake Maye ➡️ New England Patriots and McCarthy ➡️ Minnesota Vikings. Other projections from The Athletic have McCarthy moving forward:
McCarthy talked about increasing his draft stock at Michigan’s pro day.
Here’s what one of Bruce’s sources said about McCarthy:
“I think too many people get caught up in trying to watch box set music instead of watching films. He makes a lot of plays for them after the play breaks down. There’s some “wow” stuff in there. He’s on a dead sprint and he’s making perfect throws. When he has to go out and play, he can really do it.
Quick snaps
Minnesota has his quarterback of the future. He was previously committed to Kalen DeBoer and the Washington Huskies. Stay up to date with Big Ten recruiting news today from Antonio Morales.
Deion Sanders enters year 2 at Colorado with the same bold personality. But as the Buffs return to the Big 12, the question is: Is his strategy working?
Nebraska maybe it looks like he has his new starter in the old five star Quarterback Dylan Raiola. But spring practice is a level playing field in Lincoln.
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(Top photo: Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)