This is a column to check in on the rest of the football world, but since it’s 2025 in America I will beat you over the head with The Agenda, which in case you’ve forgotten is “Big Ten Superiority Unless It’s Funny.”
You may have noticed that I haven’t really used the “Unless It’s Funny” clause yet. More on that later.
THE AGENDA MVP: INDIANA HOOSIERS
I have spent this entire season’s running of this column complaining about Alabama not being punished for losing to Florida State.
They still haven’t been punished for that, but they
have now been punished for having the arrogance to step on to the field with Indiana.
The Hoosiers were quite lethargic to start the game and clearly suffered from the long layoff. Nevertheless, they weren’t so deficient as to allow a middling team like Alabama to score against them. Look, Indiana is great and I have repeatedly sung their praises, but other teams in the Big Ten competed with them for a little bit. Conference dregs Michigan State hung 13 on the Hoosiers. Illinois, on the losing end of a historic blowout, managed 10. Slowhand Day and the Buckeyes got to double-digits as well. Alabama could manage nothing but a sad field goal in the second half with the game already decided. An absolutely pitiful showing by Finebaum’s Finest earned Alabama their FOURTH LOSS OF THE SEASON, because now it apparently takes FOUR LOSSES to decide that Alabama is not the national champion.
For years we were assured that G5 teams do not deserve a seat at the table because if they ever did get to the big stage to play Alabama? Hoo boy, what an ass whooping that would be. It would be so bad that nobody would watch it. Nobody would ever watch football again because it would just be so non-competitive. These fears were realized when Cincinnati lost 27-6 to Alabama in the 2021 CFP, prompting OutKick’s Glenn Guilbeau to opine:
The College Football Playoff national semifinal looked like a Power Five conference team playing a non-Power Five conference team Friday in the Cotton Bowl in Arlington, Texas.
Or a major brand power against a non-conference, rent-a-win outfit.
I wonder what he thought the Rose Bowl looked like this year? Let me see if I can approximate it:
The Rose Bowl looked like a Big Ten team playing an SEC also-ran that lost to 5-7 Florida State in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA
Or an industrial strength large-bore toilet against poop.
Poop from a butt.
This should be used as precedent to bar Alabama from all future national championship discussions regardless of what they do in any subsequent year. Some day they might go 13-0, but hey wait a second aren’t you the Alabama that got waxed 38-3 in a CFP game? Sit down kid. ESPN’s booth referred to Indiana as “underdogs” which made me wonder what in the world they’d spent the last four months doing instead of watching college football. They are the national title favorites! THE AGENDA proudly got over Helmet Scouting back in September.
B1G vs. SEC
Illinois, Iowa and Michigan all played SEC teams as well. The Citrus Bowl and Reliaquest Bowl are where they send the SEC teams that cry the loudest about being left out of the playoffs. Clearly the SEC refused to send their competitors to these two without a guarantee that Bret Bielema would not be there to snatch the chain off the SEC coach and condemn him to a 4-8 followup campaign like he did South Carolina last year. Vanderbilt allowed 34 points to the Iowa Hawkeyes to completely invalidate their already spurious claims of greatness, while Texas took advantage of a Michigan roster looking for the portal and a very expensive quarterback that doesn’t seem to see much value in winning games at the college level. Michigan losing would normally be very funny but I despise Texas so I found Underwood’s 3 interceptions less amusing than I perhaps should have.
I am still holding myself to a higher journalistic standard than Bari Weiss’ CBS newsroom.
The Tennessee Volunteers, of “We Took Georgia To Overtime!” fame, traveled like a hundred miles and change to Nashville to play the Fighting Illini. Illinois of course is famously Ass because they lost horrendously to the Hoosiers. We saw how high that bar is yesterday though.
Tennessee had the benefit of the Big Ten’s sack leader missing the game, the only NFL offensive lineman for Illinois missing the game, a bizarre bounce on a kick return leading to a touchdown and a highly dubious interpretation of the procedure for spotting the ball when a runner goes out of bounds, but they couldn’t pull off the win because they straight up got outplayed down to down. The Illini struggled to run the ball against even middling Big Ten teams but got everything they wanted against the Volunteers. I submit to you that it was beneath the dignity of Illinois to have to play a team that only beat SEC squads that fired their coaches. Tennessee should have gone to Detroit to play Nern. Or CMU!
ALSO OREGON
$20.5 million.
0 points.
That’s what Texas Tech did against the Ducks in the 4-5 game. People don’t understand what Indiana did and they think it’s the same as buying a roster. Tech proved that it’s not quite so simple. While other Big 12 teams fared better against quite middling B1G competition (although the Big Ten now has Kyle Whittingham, so was it worth it Utes?), Tech couldn’t even see the meltdown Dan Lanning was trying to have. Oregon kept converting turnovers into nothing and coughing it up on downs deep in Tech territory. Oregon fans even saw what Lanning was trying to do, but the Red Raiders were having NONE of it.
Oregon also held off a rally from James Madison, who scored 34 more points than did Texas Tech, in the 5-12 game. Once again we must revisit the question of who really doesn’t belong. Sure, JMU got boatraced, but they scored points. They basically did what Oklahoma always used to do in these and nobody said Oklahoma needed to be kept out of the field. For all the speculation that a progam like James Madison “wouldn’t even score” in a game like this, look who didn’t even score?
OTHER CONQUESTS
Northwestern soundly vanquished the MAC’s Central Michigan Chippewas. Similarly, Washington blew away perennial Mountain West look-at-me team Boise State. Penn State, who fired their coach for not being good enough, handled preseason #4 Clemson with ease. PJ Fleck and the Flecktones avenged UCLA by nipping John Eck’s New Mexico Lobos.
DISGRACE TO THE NAME
Texas A&M and Georgia had been the only SEC teams I took somewhat seriously as late as November. Both lost their first CFP game. A&M failed to log a touchdown against Miami, and Kirby did a series of non-Smart things to lose to Ole Miss.
I genuinely believe Lane Kiffin galvanized that team by giving players an ultimatum to “transfer now or lose your opportunity to play for me.” While Mississippi losing is always good for the country and in the long run will need to happen again, the Slaveowners’ victory over Georgia makes Lane Kiffin the loser as well.
Speaking of losers, Lincoln Riley continues to be too soft for this league. He wouldn’t run the ball against Illinois, he couldn’t keep our sacred tradition of beating Notre Dame alive and he choked a 10-point lead with five minutes left to play. John McKay used to play B1G T3N FOOTBALL. I know it’s in your DNA. When will you actually DO IT, USC?
I have spent all season accusing Ohio State of playing with their food and playing to run the clock out. I have warned that if the time ever comes where they need offense in a hurry, they won’t be able to just dial it up with no game experience on the year. Congratulations, Ryan Day! It’s a good thing I had absolutely no faith in you. Please go read Twitter X, The Everything App for a few days as penance.
Ohio State’s loss to Miami does nothing to damage my belief that the Hoosiers are the most inevitable national champion since Cam Newton Auburn. The Buckeyes were always unworthy of the crown. Ryan Day cannot win a national title without losing to Michigan.
You don’t have to root for Indiana, but rooting against them is pointless.
