College Football Foolishness Redux

In January of 2017, I wrote a post regarding the NCAA College Football Championship system.  Standing here nearly two years later, little has changed.  College football is still ruled by the NCAA Carnival of Clowns who decide, in their infinite wisdom, when a good loss is superior to a bad win.  Who decide that simply because team A defeated team B in the regular season, and all other things being relatively equal, there is nothing to prevent them from deeming team B a more deserving team as far as the college championship selection is concerned.  Additionally, and most wonderful of all, they can determine that regardless of what their respective regular season won-loss records are, certain teams deserve favorable selection treatment because they are playing their best football at the end of the regular season.  How the colleges of America can continue to allow their athletic programs to be held hostage by this power-hungry band of bungling bureaucrats is simply beyond my comprehension.  It is like watching a person witness their car burning up while holding a fire extinguisher in their hands…unused.  Just in the last couple of weeks, Washington State coach Mike (the Pirate) Leach pontificated about a college football playoff possibility.  Is there no one else thinking about the absurdity of the status quo?

Once again, under the worst case scenario, the NCAA College Football Championship should be settled from a pool of not less than eight teams selected to play in a single-elimination tournament with pairings being determined by common-sense seeding.  Under the best case scenario, the NCAA will look at Dan Wetzel’s plan (coming up below) and return the college football championship back to the people who deserve it; the schools, the players, and the fans.  Now…let’s take another look at that post from January 15, 2017…

College Football Foolishness.  Any NASCAR fan has noticed a significant happening over the last few years…the crowds are shrinking.  All professional sports are contending with the newfound competition of affordable home viewing of sporting events.  High def televisions are easily affordable and when paired up with cable or satellite packages, watching the big game from home has become (for many) preferable to the stadium experience.  Even though the game-day experience is a unique and exciting process, the fact is that it has become very expensive and logistically more challenging.  There is a reason that new stadium and arena projects are focusing more on the individual fan experience rather than the number of fans the structure can accommodate.  Consistently selling out seating capacity is far preferable to impressive, but less than capacity, crowds. 

Enter the college football post-season carnival.  What is the NCAA’s response to this new viewer challenge from the world of high tech?  In all of their wisdom, how have they decided to expand and improve their area of college athletics?  Why, of course…we will expand the college bowl landscape!  And because there will not be enough teams with winning records (such a pathetically low bar to clear) to populate the ever-increasing number of bowls, we will annually allow select teams with .500 winning percentages to complete in bowl games.  Pure genius!  And now, having created this master stroke of marketing, NCAA football is right there with NASCAR; the television cameras never show the stands because they are most times sparsely occupied.  I love college football, but post-season play should return to the traditional value of representing an award for outstanding season play; not an excuse for X number of additional practices and corporate sponsors wallowing in salary and expense excesses. 

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This brings us inevitably to the NCAA college football playoff.  Perhaps I see things far too simply in black and white shades, but I continue to be astounded at the NCAA’s refusal to conduct an expanded college football playoff that will crown an annual champion, that is determined by actual plays made on the field, that will return the true excitement of the college football games to the campus where it best exists, and will once again make a conference championship something worth obtaining.  As long as a committee, or a computer program, or a combination thereof selects who is and who is not qualified to complete for the annual college football championship, there will be injustice in the process.  We need only look at the NCAA basketball tournaments for guidance.  Undeniably one of the most exciting events in sports, the NCAA basketball tournaments showcase the best of college basketball and effectively integrate the players, the students, the fans, and the media in an effective and mesmerizing blend of broadcast coverage.  Do the big name schools from the Power Five conferences usually win the tournament?  Yes, they do; but that is no reason to discount the occasional Cinderella that goes deep into the tournament with upsets and, on that rare and truly special occasion, wins the tournament outright. 

There are many who say that NCAA college football cannot logistically accomplish a tournament similar to the basketball model.  That is bull.  Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports long ago put forth the best blueprint I have seen for NCAA football championship playoff; here is your link: https://www.yahoo.com/news/college-football-playoff-plan-132100316--ncaaf.html .  In his proposal, Wetzel shatters all of the shallow and self-serving arguments put up by the vested interests (including the NCAA) that control college athletics.  THIS is how a college football champion should be decided and crowned.  With this system in place, every single regular season game will be meaningful because it will lead to the conference championship.  With this system in place, the treasure trove of dollars that postseason college football generates will go largely back to the universities that create the game; not the corporate carpetbaggers who profit from it.  With this system in place, every NCAA school that competes in football will have a real opportunity to compete for a championship on the field of play (not be arbitrarily eliminated by a committee of “chosen” men/women).  And with this system, the excitement and participation in the NCAA college football playoff will reach levels never before dreamed of and will be well-positioned to address the evolving landscape of college athletics going into the future.

Let’s put the fans back in the stands.  Let’s put the dollars back in the university budgets.  Let’s give every team a fair chance to compete for the top prize in their sport.  And most important of all, let’s get a true champion that is determined on the field of play and not as the result of NCAA Committee wrangling, dealing, and compromise.

College Football Foolishness.

College Football Foolishness.  Any NASCAR fan has noticed a significant happening over the last few years…the crowds are shrinking.  All professional sports are contending with the newfound competition of affordable home viewing of sporting events.  High def televisions are easily affordable and when paired up with cable or satellite packages, watching the big game from home has become (for many) preferable to the stadium experience.  Even though the game-day experience is a unique and exciting process, the fact is that it has become very expensive and logistically more challenging.  There is a reason that new stadium and arena projects are focusing more on the individual fan experience rather than the number of fans the structure can accommodate.  Consistently selling out seating capacity is far preferable to impressive, but less than capacity, crowds. 

Enter the college football post-season carnival.  What is the NCAA’s response to this new viewer challenge from the world of high tech?  In all of their wisdom, how have they decided to expand and improve their area of college athletics?  Why, of course…we will expand the college bowl landscape!  And because there will not be enough teams with winning records (such a pathetically low bar to clear) to populate the ever-increasing number of bowls, we will annually allow select teams with .500 winning percentages to complete in bowl games.  Pure genius!  And now, having created this master stroke of marketing, NCAA football is right there with NASCAR; the television cameras never show the stands because they are most times sparsely occupied.  I love college football, but post-season play should return to the traditional value of representing an award for outstanding season play; not an excuse for X number of additional practices and corporate sponsor wallowing in salary and expense excesses. 

This brings us inevitably to the NCAA college football playoff.  Perhaps I see things far too simply in black and white shades, but I continue to be astounded at the NCAA’s refusal to conduct an expanded college football playoff that will crown an annual champion, that is determined by actual plays made on the field, will return the true excitement of the college football games to the campus where it best exists, and will once again make a conference championship something worth obtaining.  As long as a committee, or a computer program, or a combination thereof selects who is and who is not qualified to complete for the annual college football championship, there will be injustice in the process.  We need only look at the NCAA basketball tournaments for guidance.  Undeniably one of the most exciting events in sports, the NCAA basketball tournaments showcase the best of college basketball and effectively integrate the players, the students, the fans, and the media in an effective and mesmerizing blend of broadcast coverage.  Do the big name schools from the Power Five conferences usually win the tournament?  Yes, they do; but that is no reason to discount the occasional Cinderella that goes deep into the tournament with upsets and, on that rare and truly special occasion, wins the tournament outright. 

There are many who say that NCAA college football cannot logistically accomplish a tournament similar to the basketball model.  That is bull.  Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports long ago put forth the best blueprint I have seen for NCAA football championship playoff; here is your link: https://www.yahoo.com/news/college-football-playoff-plan-132100316--ncaaf.html .  In his proposal, Wetzel shatters all of the shallow and self-serving arguments put up by the vested interests (including the NCAA) that control college athletics.  THIS is how a college football champion should be decided and crowned.  With this system in place, every single regular season game will be meaningful because it will lead to the conference championship.  With this system in place, the treasure trove of dollars that postseason college football generates will go largely back to the universities that create the game; not the corporate carpetbaggers who profit from it.  With this system in place, every NCAA school that competes in football will have a real opportunity to compete for a championship on the field of play (not be arbitrarily eliminated by a committee of “chosen” men/women).  And with this system, the excitement and participation in the NCAA college football playoff will reach levels never before dreamed of and will be well-positioned to address the evolving landscape of college athletics going into the future.

Let’s put the fans back in the stands.  Let’s put the dollars back in the university budgets.  Let’s give every team a fair chance to compete for the top prize in their sport.  And most important of all, let’s get a true champion that is determined on the field of play and not as the result of NCAA Committee wrangling, dealing, and compromise.

Ship of State? No...Ship of Fools

I have often addressed the issue of President Biden’s patronage appointees and how incompetent, radical, and harmful they are.  It is nothing short of a travesty.  As much as I criticize the Democratic Party, I will be one of the first to step up and admit that the Democratic Party has a sufficient number of intelligent (though deeply misguided) individuals to populate the Biden Administration.  Unfortunately, none of those people have any influence over this President.  He is apparently owned lock, stock, and barrel by the radical liberal element of his party.  In an early nod to this month’s seasonal celebration (Halloween), let us once again take a look at the damaged goods with which he stocked his Cabinet.

https://nypost.com/2021/10/11/scandals-from-top-to-bottom-in-joe-bidens-cabinet-of-horror/

https://www.jns.org/opinion/revolution-has-come-to-america/

https://www.dailywire.com/news/tulsi-gabbard-the-american-people-are-being-lied-to-by-the-biden-administration

https://nypost.com/2021/10/10/ag-merrick-garland-is-at-war-with-american-families-devine/

https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/attorney-general-merrick-garland-school-boards-fbi/2021/10/09/id/1039807/

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/10/garlands-conflict-of-interest-in-the-doj-intimidation-of-parents/

https://jonathanturley.org/2021/10/11/learning-to-fear-free-speech-how-politicians-are-moving-to-protect-us-from-our-unhealthy-reading-choices/

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/zoning-emerging-as-a-political-issue/?utm_source=blog-landing&utm_medium=desktop&utm_campaign=continue-reading

As if it is not sufficient to play these dangerous games with their social experimentation, Biden and the Democrats seem to be intent on destroying any vestige of economic recovery following our national pandemic.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-damage-done-by-deficit-financing/?utm_source=blog-landing&utm_medium=desktop&utm_campaign=continue-reading

https://www.dailywire.com/news/september-jobs-numbers-worst-of-the-year-as-u-s-struggles-its-a-pretty-worrying-situation

The Democrats in Congress and the White House are having a lot of trouble paring down their $3.5 trillion Green New Deal Infrastructure package so that it might draw enough Democratic votes to pass.  Will they take the pie that must be downsized and reduce the number of slices…or will they reduce the size of each slice…or will they burn the pie up completely by leaving it in the oven too long?  Who would have thought that spending TRILLIONS of dollars in tax revenues would be so difficult?  There is so little time and so many oxen to gore.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/10/what-to-cut-start-with-the-subsidies-to-health-insurance-companies/

If you voted for Joe Biden, this next link is for you.  Regrettably…you have screwed up the country not just for yourselves, but for everyone: https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/10/the-left-got-what-it-wanted-so-now-what/

I often wonder just how much “buyer’s remorse” is out there for last year’s Biden voters.  Is the reality of the Biden Administration and their liberal agenda sufficient to change the minds of those American voters?  Will the incredible damage being done to this nation and our economy by this group of clueless ideologues create an epiphany for the moderate Democrats?  Or…as is often the case in American politics…will the months preceding the ’22 mid-term elections and the ’24 general elections give the liberal machinery enough time to work their political magic of misinformation, misdirection, and Machiavellian electioneering? 

https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/democrats-belatedly-realize-joe-biden-is-a-lousy-leader/?utm_source=blog-landing&utm_medium=desktop&utm_campaign=continue-reading

https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-warned-in-letter-ripping-schumers-speech-even-democratic-senators-were-visibly-embarrassed

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/byron-yorks-daily-memo-the-democrats-dark-campaign-master

https://amac.us/seven-potential-game-changers-that-could-rock-the-midterms/

But to my Democrat friends I say…do not despair; hope springs eternal: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/576090-the-biden-harris-train-wreck-may-have-its-savior-2024-gop-nominee-donald

There once was a time when Americans trusted National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) to be the voice of fact, reason, and esteemed journalistic standards.  Sadly, those days are gone: https://www.cnsnews.com/article/washington/susan-jones/yamiche-alcindor-dems-disturbed-manchins-use-word-entitlement

Heck…there was even a time when most people trusted the media.  Those days are also gone: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/new-york-times-retracts-massive-exaggeration-of-children-hospitalized-by-covid-19/

I’m not sure we ever fully trusted Congress, but that sentiment has also been severely tarnished: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/klobuchar-apple-revolving-door-shows-how-congress-enriches-itself

And if you ever believed you could rely on a poll, perhaps you should rethink that position.  In today’s world, the entity paying for the poll can arrange for the poll questions to be presented in such a way as to preordain exactly what the poll results will be.  To put it plainly: The poll administrators can insure you get what you pay for.  Here is a good example: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/new-poll-on-abortion-asks-the-wrong-question/

As a follow-up to a previous item in this post regarding Attorney General Garland and his defense of authoritarian school boards and their woke agendas, here is what happens when the mentality driving the decision-making process is “if it feels good, or sounds good, or is politically correct…then do it”…with no thought for the collateral damage.  Any sentient being could have foreseen the tragic consequences of allowing boys and girls, men and women, or men and girls to share the same bathrooms.  I fear that our nation is not currently being led by sentient beings: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/loudoun-county-schools-covered-up-rape-prosecuted-a-concerned-father-to-protect-its-transgender-agenda .  The real tragedy in this episode is not only the idiotic gender-bending lunacy that led to bathroom sharing, but also the shameful and disgraceful deceit exercised by the school board when their errant policies go sideways. 

Even in my home county, a very rural county in western Kentucky, we are being impacted by this school board mania where groups of Karens (both male and female variety) attempt to commandeer our children’s schools under the guise of the Woke Police.  These people are ELECTED by parents; they are obligated to operate TRANSPARENTLY as to be held accountable to those PARENTS that elected them; and they are tasked with the mission of educating future generations in reading, writing, and arithmetic.  They are not ORDAINED to establish agendas that serve their personal political tastes; to hold their meetings in private, away from those to whom they are appropriately answerable; nor to presuppose themselves SURROGATE PARENTS. 

In closing, let us revisit the greatest sport currently taking place in America…college football. Though not totally unscathed by the political poisoning that has occurred in most of our American sports (even NASCAR); it is still the closest thing to amateur athletics that accurately reflects the excitement and vitality of the college campus.  The death grip that the NCAA has held on college sports is being slowly loosened and perhaps the day is coming when the universities will once again manage and benefit from their own product; rather than have it pirated by the bowl game carpet baggers. 

The tall and sturdy wall of the college football establishment that has financially fed off of this sport for so many years is beginning to crumble.  It will not come down easily.  But the day may soon arrive when the football colleges of America can…simultaneously…make their product more accessible to their students, their athletes and families, and the faithful fans who have made the sport the spectacle that it is…and then reap the financial benefits from that sport in order to further enrich the university experience for all students. 

The first step in this direction is the proposed playoff expansion so that more teams can be involved in a championship that is decided on the field rather than by a backroom committee.  The next, and natural, step will be to move these playoff games back to the college campus where the students and fan bases can more easily embrace their beloved home teams.  Here is a good article on the current effort to expand the playoffs and another visit to what I consider to be the best plan to refashion the college football championship into what it should be. 

https://sports.yahoo.com/a-few-key-characters-standing-in-the-way-of-12-team-college-football-playoff-232022782.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/college-football-playoff-plan-132100316--ncaaf.html

Cannot pass up the opportunity to link some music...Ship of Fools...Choose your Bob...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h-TmhXavdw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDsZ2hiCi2g

Stuffing the Sack with Goodies.

College Football Playoff.  Well, were you offended when the almighty NCAA Committee selected Alabama instead of Ohio State for the College Football Championship series?  I was.  I don’t really care for either team; they are arrogant, entitled, and have way too much influence on the college game.  I would have rather seen UCF go into the Series as the fourth team.  Is UCF better than the other two?  Not likely; but they did go undefeated and Cinderella in the Series would be interesting.  My beliefs aside,  here is a real plan from a professional sports writer that makes a lot more sense than the current system… https://sports.yahoo.com/heres-make-college-football-playoff-even-better-032144320.html.  Once again…championships should be settled on the field and not in a board room with old gray-haired men sitting around a table.  Additionally under this plan and as Wetzel points out, a much larger share of the playoff revenues would go to the schools and not to the corporate bowl conglomerates.

The Shadow DOJ Persists.  And now we are discovering for a fact what has long been suspected about the Department of Justice under Obama; it was corrupt and politicized to the max.  Can any objective person put any faith or trust in Mueller, Comey or any other individual coming out of that politically-biased morass?  The Obama Administration politically-weaponized any governmental agency that proved useful to it and its agenda; the corruptive stain will take a long, long time to remove.  Trump was a fool not to get rid of Mueller early on when he had the opportunity.  Now he must deal with the idiocy that springs forth from this special-prosecutorial theater of the absurd.  With the mainstream media breathlessly waiting to slurp up every idiotic, anti-Trump morsel his team leaks or discloses, this special counsel foolishness will continue to hemorrhage tax money and political poison for who knows how long.  And now Republicans want their own special counsels to investigate this or that…Really?  Please…no more special counsels!!  Congress; do your job.

The Distinction between Product and Service.  As the SCOTUS continues to hear the baker’s case, we are presented with the question of discrimination applied to products versus discrimination applied to services.   Some would say that while banning discrimination from the sale of off-the-shelf products is fair and proper; it is nonetheless acceptable to discriminate, based on one’s personal beliefs, in the sale of professional services.  To me, this is very thorny issue and I am very interested in the SCOTUS decision.  I can see logic in allowing one to abstain from participating in a ceremony that they object to in principle; but I also see the danger in that logic traveling down unanticipated highways.  If a service provider can discriminate against gays; what is to keep this discrimination from expanding to gender, race, ethnicity, hair color, shoe size, college alma mater…you get the point.  If one’s profession entails providing service, should that service not be available to anyone seeking said service; the same as a cake on the shelf is available to anyone having the means to purchase it?  On the other hand, perhaps a provided service is the equivalent of an unbaked cake.  If a baker objects to a male wedding, he or she will not bake a cake with only male figures on top.  No decision has to be made whether or not to sell such a cake because such a cake is never created.  Might it be reasonable to say that a service provider’s cake is not baked until the service is provided; thus giving them the option to select which type of cake they choose to bake with their talents?   This is not an easy question.   Where do the rights of an individual to practice their personal beliefs as they see fit end and the obligation of a merchant not to discriminate begin?

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Obamacare Redux.  The Republicans have passed their tax reform legislation packages in each body of Congress.   They have done this in the first year of the Trump Presidency.  They have done this after failing to address the health care crisis in America.  They have done this after failing to pass and approve the required appropriations bills for our government’s normal operations.  They have done this in an unorganized, chaotic, insufficient, and irresponsible fashion.  They have done this in a clearly partisan way.  It is fair to observe that the passage of these tax reform packages by the Republicans is eerily similar to the passage of Obamacare by the Democrats.  The Republicans had time to do this the right way; using normal rules of order.  The Republicans had campaigned for eight years that this tax reform was one of their top priorities.  The Republicans caved into every single potentate Senator who dared, at the last minute, to threaten a desertion of the unified Republican tax message.  No matter how much this nation needed tax reform and how effective this possible reform may prove to be (once reconciled), this manner of legislating is shameful.  There can be little doubt that just as Pelosi’s Obamacare claim of “having to pass it to see what’s in it” was true; the same likelihood of unanticipated consequences will rule in the eventual passage of this Republican tax reform. 

Who Shall Judge?  And as a final note, let us turn to the fates of Al Franken, John Conyers, and Roy Moore…and others both present and yet to arrive.  Specifically; what standing might Congress have to judge whether or not a person is suitable to serve in its hallowed halls? Without addressing the merits of each of the mentioned politicians’ alleged transgressions, I will suggest one clarifying point at which to begin.  The appointed Congressional powers-to-be, be they the Ethics Committees or whatever, should restrict their resources and jurisdiction to the actions and behavior of its members while they are members.   Once a politician leaves Congress through defeat, death, or retirement, there is obviously little cause for any type of ethical judgment to be passed.  However, if the actions or behavior in question occurred prior to the individual assuming their elected office in Congress, then there appears to be a temptation by some within Congress to determine whether or not that particular individual is fit to serve in Congress.  Without going into the low altitude that the moral and ethical standards of Congress reside at, suffice it to say that matters that occur prior to assuming political office should be left to the auspices of the law, the people, and the Lord.  It is simply too ridiculous to consider the good members of Congress sitting in judgment on the wisdom of any particular state’s voters.  

CFP Madness and Trump Coming to Town

Now that the NCAA College Football Playoff lineup has been announced https://collegefootballplayoff.com/sports/2024/12/2/bracket.aspx , so-called experts are coming out of the woodwork to criticize the way it is being administered.  SMU is ringing bells while the Crimson Tide is shedding tears.  I really believe that the explanation for most of the issues is very simple…the plan was drawn up without the benefit of knowing how college football was going to evolve so quickly in the past year or two.  They simply were not able to think this thing through.

 

NIL has quite simply changed the universe in college sports; none more dramatically than football.  I have addressed NIL in prior posts https://centerlineright.blogspot.com/search?q=nil and I have also advocated for a Dan Wetzel-type playoff scenario https://www.yahoo.com/news/college-football-playoff-plan-132100316--ncaaf.html. The CFP plan we have today is not really that far removed from what Wetzel was talking about four years ago.  It is a vast improvement over what we have had…but it still has some glaring issues.  No doubt, lessons will be learned from this first year’s experience and it will be a different…and hopefully improved…creature in future years.  Joining the chorus of amateur experts borne of the internet, I am going to add my two cents worth in three suggestions that I believe would improve the CFP. 

 

First off: All the games in the first and second round of the playoffs should be played on the higher-seeded college campus.  Under the current scheme, only the first round is on campus and from there, it moves to the sites of the traditional bowl games.  There is one explanation for this and it is spelled MONEY.  Put the games on the college campus.  It will geometrically spur the excitement quotient; it will create income opportunities for colleges and their surrounding communities; and…it gives proper credit to the meritocracy of seeding teams based on season performance.

 

Second: Do not give first round byes to the conference champions.  All conferences are not equal and they never will be; it will vary from year to year.  The top four seeds should go to the top four teams in the final CFP rankings…regardless of their conference.  Once again … meritocracy should rule.

 

Third: The whole SMU/Alabama debate about who should get the twelfth spot this year came back to one glaring mistake by the CFP folks.  Nobody realized how important the pre-conference championship poll would be.  That poll locked in the assessment of the entire season for each team in a comparative sense; the ranking was based on the performances during a common twelve game season.  Subsequently, some teams played a thirteenth game for a conference championship; each one featuring a winner and a loser.  The unanticipated dynamic was this: It is patently unfair to drop a team down in the post-conference championship poll based on their loss in a thirteenth game while most other teams were at home watching on television.  Point in case, SMU was ranked above Alabama in that pre-championship poll and it was simply unfair to move Alabama above SMU based on their ACC Championship loss.  Had Alabama been rated above SMU in that pre-championship poll (as it arguably should have been), there would have been no issue.  I don’t think anybody saw this coming.  The only way the conference championship results should have impacted the pre-championship poll would have been to move the championship winners UP.  Following those conference championships, the final CFP seeding could then be announced based on the top twelve teams in the nation, regardless of championship status.  Quite simply…the most important ranking of the season should be the pre-championship poll at the end of every team’s full season.  After that, factor in the changes for the winners of the championship game and then…let it roll.

 

Now let’s move onto another type of game…specifically the political game of changing over from the Biden Administration to the Trump Administration.  All of this is occurring in a helter-skelter environment of global conflict and the domestic intrigue that is surrounding the power shift taking place in WDC.  The game is on.

 

Everyone is speculating on exactly what Donald Trump’s frame of mind is as he re-enters the presidency.  Will he scorch the earth in a revenge-oriented crusade aimed at his past tormentors?  Will he fill his Administration with quality competent appointees or will he recruit loyalists who will restrict their actions to his bidding, regardless of its wisdom?  How intent is Trump in regards to DOGE and how successful could it possibly be in re-shaping our bloated behemoth of federal bureaucracy? 

 

What led us to this place in time?

 

https://amgreatness.com/2024/12/08/with-trumps-victory-americas-long-national-nightmare-is-over/

 

https://instapundit.substack.com/p/the-clock-strikes-thirteen

 

https://amgreatness.com/2024/12/08/312542/

 

What type of “resistance” will Trump have to deal with?

 

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/revolving-door-may-allow-biden-admin-top-officials-continued-influence-over

 

https://jonathanturley.org/2024/12/08/this-is-not-the-time-for-balance-la-times-columnist-resigns-in-protest-to-balanced-commentary/#more-226271

 

How long will Trump enjoy Republican control of Congress? https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/12/the-senate-map.php

 

What will be the first “targets” for the Trump Administration?

 

http://jewishworldreview.com/1224/lowry121124.php

 

https://amgreatness.com/2024/12/09/some-modest-proposals-for-president-trump/

 

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/in_focus/3256422/freeing-people-from-the-left-starts-with-the-us-census/

 

I expect there is a lot of “shredding” going on: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/investigations/3255734/state-department-congress-close-global-engagement-center/

 

 https://thefederalist.com/2024/12/10/merrick-garland-is-the-worst-attorney-general-in-american-history/

 

https://amgreatness.com/2024/12/09/education-priorities-for-trump-yes-to-excellence-and-accountability-no-to-ideology-and-business-as-usual/

 

https://americanmind.org/salvo/trump-must-break-up-the-college-cartel/

 

https://amgreatness.com/2024/12/11/still-stupid-in-america/

 

https://reason.com/2024/12/10/civil-liberties-lost-under-covid/

 

Is there any reform “target” more critical than that of American foreign policy?

 

https://amgreatness.com/2024/12/07/ukraine-bleeding-an-ally/

 

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/in_focus/3252596/trump-road-to-ukraine-peace-runs-through-tehran/

 

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/12/another-10b-for-iran.php

 

https://www.thefp.com/p/from-aleppo-to-tehran-a-middle-east-9fe

 

https://www.thefp.com/p/assads-fall-humiliates-washington-biden-obama-trump-iran-syria

 

https://www.jns.org/trump-should-trust-his-instincts-and-ignore-the-syria-experts/

 

A couple of quick notes to close out this piece…

 

Here is a good commentary on the recent Daniel Penny verdict.  This episode says a lot about where our nation is in many respects.  It is truly something to think seriously about:  https://im1776.com/2024/12/09/penny-verdict/

 

Biden out/Trump in; CEOs being gunned down on the streets of NY; the entire planet seemingly in conflict and flame; the holiday season in full blitz….do you think that maybe the angst meter is in the red zone?  Hey…I got the solution, courtesy of Wet Willie; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGEwir-QJZA

 

College Football Madness and Trump’s Dangerous Weapon

Our college football playoffs are upon us once again and parity rules supreme across the pigskin landscape.  No team…with the possible exception of Ohio State…has demonstrated a clear competitive separation from its rivals.  This is a good thing for the sport, but a terrific challenge for its administrators.  The swirling combination of conference expansions, NIL, transfer portal free agency, the coaching carousel, and the continuing foolish influence of subjective injections into the playoff selection process has brought this season to a tumultuous conclusion … and it shows no sign of abatement.

 

I do not…and doubt that anyone else does…have a failsafe solution to this runaway train that is college football.  It is a whirling dervish of moving parts that is constantly morphing from one crisis to another.  The effort required to keep the lid on it at the moment makes it nigh on impossible to prudently plan for the future.  But…that must be done.  Somebody has to make a call.  Clearly, given the parity we are seeing and the lack of consistent dominance by any small group of teams, the future playoff invitations need to be reconsidered.  How that is accomplished is the million dollar question.

 

I want to throw out rules and reason and think outside the box about a new college football configuration.  Our conferences have become far too scattered and we need to return to a fundamental, regional conference setup composed of six major conferences.  The foolishness of seeing BIG 10 schools flying coast-to-coast…crossing multiple time zones…for weekly games is simply stupid.  The mere fact that the ACC faces the possibility of not having its league champion in the playoffs is a clear result of having diluted talent and a too-complex tie-breaking formula.  I say let’s go back to the PAC 10 to represent the West Coast; the Big 12 to represent the Southwest; the BIG 10 to represent the Midwest; the SEC to represent the Southeast; the ACC to represent the East Coast; and a conference to be named later that can represent the Northeast.  That’s six conferences that are easily defined by region and cover the nation.  Ideally, all the conferences would have the same number of teams…at least, close to the same number.

 

I will go one step further and advocate for a new FBS Division I championship that includes only these major conferences.  Any current Group of Five team or FCS team that wants to up its game and competitive challenge could also be included by joining one of the six FBS conferences.  These teams would have 85 scholarships each; the current number allowed. A starting point for the championship could be a 12-game season with 9 conference games and 3 out-of-conference games with other DI schools.  That would provide some valid conference-to-conference comparisons.  There would be no conference championship game with the top two teams from each conference qualifying for the playoffs, and playoff game matchups and bracketing would be decided by national rankings and committee seeding.  All twelve teams get a plate at the table, but their performance will determine where they sit.

 

Then we would have an FCS Division II domain that would encompass the remaining Group of Five teams, along with any existing current FCS teams that did not move up to one of those six FBS conferences.  The conference structure would evolve to cope with the teams leaving and the teams remaining in DII.  These teams would have 50 scholarships; that is 14 above the current level of 36.  The current FCS playoff system can serve as the foundation for this division’s playoff factoring in the conference realignments.  If this idea were to play out, there is an excellent chance that the talent and competitive level in DII will be raised dramatically and its playoffs could rival the DI folks for excitement.

 

The final Division III grouping would include the current DIII, academic-centric schools along with any of the current FCS schools that did not want to step up to the newly-formed DII level.  This division would offer no scholarships.  This would include those schools that are simply looking for a way to continue a football program without breaking the bank.  The current NAIA and NJCAA divisions would be unaffected by this new restructuring.

 

In my humble opinion, this would reinvigorate schools by reestablishing the regional concept, preserving regional rivalries, and by making college football administration far more affordable and manageable.  It would also make the DI championship tournament more meaningful and easier to administer in an equitable fashion.  Current middle-tier schools (Group of Five and FCS) could decide whether to increase their investment in their football program to join DI or pull back a bit and go with DII or DIII.  The exploding increase in the expense to fund a current college football program will make this a welcome option for many schools, with a few likely moving down to DIII,

 

Now let’s talk about the latest Trump indictment.  No…there is not a rogue state Attorney General in some blue state that has conjured up a new case against the President.  What has indicted him this time is his own mouth.  Donald Trump has always been…and will always be…ridiculously irresponsible with his rhetoric.  Many of us suffer from having no filter between our instincts and our mouths; but Donald Trump is the poster child for this affliction.

 

The reckless language that many Democrats have been tossing around over the last several months regarding resistance to the Trump Administration has been increasing at an alarming rate…both in volume and in tone.  There is simply no excuse for much of the uncivil, irresponsible, and ethically-criminal language that many Democrats are tossing about on a daily basis.  Not only is it wrong, it should be embarrassing.  Donald Trump has every right to be furious at these words.

 

Bearing the mantle of the opposition party has always translated into vigorous disagreement with the majority party.  But when that opposition takes the form of careless, baseless, and incendiary remarks that clearly provide cover for violence of varying degrees…it is time to shut the hell up, fall back a bit, and reconsider your approach to the issues.  To any objective observer, the Democrat Party, from the top down, has demonstrated a lack of self-awareness by its obsessive Trump Derangement Syndrome and has allowed itself to ratchet out of control.

 

But as bad as the Democrat behavior has been, Trump has somehow managed to meet it blow for blow.  More and more, the crudeness and venom that is reflected in his response to the Democrats’ rhetorical onslaught has done nothing but inflame the verbal explosion.  Schumer, Jefferies, AOC, Swalwell, Omar, Pritzker, Johnson, Newsom, Mamdani, ABC, CBS, PBS, CNN, NY Times, Washington Post…all of these sources have been undisciplined loose cannons as far as reasonable political discourse is concerned.  But entitled as he is to respond to ridiculous attacks on his person and Administration, President Trump is not justified to respond in equal measure when that measure is so inflammatory.  The simple fact is that our nation has one President and he is that.  Schumer, Jefferies, and the rest of the heel-nipping pack do not distinguish themselves by their words and actions; but they are much smaller pieces in the machinery than our President. Their actions and words simply make them more irrelevant. 

 

Donald Trump has essentially three years left in his final term as president to accomplish his policy goals.  Every time he leaps down into the mud to wrestle with Democrat flamethrowers, he is wasting the precious time that has been allocated for him to serve this nation.  The plain and simple fact is that Donald Trump is all too often his own worst enemy.  He is a wise man…a strong man…with good instincts.  But he is also an undisciplined egomaniac with an atrocious lack of self-control whose entitled life has been ruled by a “shoot first and think later” philosophy.  America deserves better from our president and Trump is capable of being so much more than what he is.  He could be historic

 

Now on to the news of the day….

 

Priority One: Restore the integrity of our National Education system…

 

https://amgreatness.com/2025/11/26/public-schools-are-failing-and-parents-are-bailing/

 

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-pernicious-effects-of-grade-inflation/

 

Why is national education so critical?  Just consider what the results have been…

 

https://amgreatness.com/2025/11/27/can-the-lost-generation-be-found/

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wellness/why-we-actually-should-worry-about-gen-z/ar-AA1RbJUx

 

The Russia-Ukraine war continues its tragic harvest of death and destruction.  There are no good answers, but one must be found…

 

https://amgreatness.com/2025/12/01/the-war-in-ukraine-lots-of-questions-and-a-few-answers/

 

https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/11/lets-hope-the-russia-ukraine-peace-proposal-improves/

 

https://freebeacon.com/columns/why-the-ukraine-peace-plan-may-be-pointless/

 

https://thefederalist.com/2025/11/24/former-zelensky-spox-ukraine-must-sign-peace-deal-to-avoid-even-greater-losses/

 

https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/darin-gaub-deception-vladimir-putin/2025/11/28/id/1236341/

 

https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/remember-vladimir-putins-promises-are-worthless/

 

Everything is “legalnomics” these days.  Do you ever get the impression that our nation is led by the judges and not by our elected officials?

 

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/justice-alito-issues-stay-in-texas-redistricting-case/

 

https://thefederalist.com/2025/11/21/exclusive-lawsuit-claims-leftist-benson-is-breaking-michigan-election-law/

 

https://jonathanturley.org/2025/11/22/the-eleventh-circuit-finds-that-covid-beach-closures-constituted-unconstitutional-takings/

 

https://amgreatness.com/2025/11/24/obergefell-will-be-overturned-we-can-wait/

 

The mainstream media continues to struggle internally with its own conscience…seeking to regain some credibility, integrity, and respect…

 

https://jewishworldreview.com/jonathan/rosenblum112425.php

 

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/11/geographic-reveal-exposes-fakes.php

 

https://amgreatness.com/2025/11/28/is-cnn-about-to-turn-red/

 

We can only hope and pray for our President’s success when he pursues good, common sense policies…both domestic and foreign…

 

https://justthenews.com/accountability/waste-fraud-and-abuse/sunus-comptroller-who-spent-decades-trying-shrink-government

 

https://amgreatness.com/2025/11/30/the-two-calls-to-the-pacific-president-trump-unravels-the-myth-of-a-special-us-china-relationship/