The Pour Over Today - College Football Playoffs Explained: Who Decides Who’s In? | 12.20.25

Episode Date: December 20, 2025

Readers of The Pour Over pick a topic to have explained, and Jason and Kathleen have to get Joe to understand it in less than 30 minutes… This week, they’re explaining college football playoffs. ...Looking to support us? You can choose to pay⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Check out The Pour Over's Gift Guide!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our sponsors! We actually use and enjoy every single one. ⁠⁠Cru⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Safe House Project⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Life Application Study Bible⁠⁠ ⁠⁠CCCU⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Upside⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Mosh⁠⁠ ⁠⁠LMNT⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Theology in the Raw⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Not Just Sunday Podcast⁠⁠ ⁠⁠She Reads Truth⁠⁠ The Pour Over’s Newsletters: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Pour Over⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Decaf⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠News Health⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Praying the News⁠

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Today's episode is brought to you by our lead sponsor, Crew. Okay, so today we're going to talk about how the college football playoffs work. We're going to talk about who's in, who's out, what's the controversy, why is Notre Dame so mad, what happened before the college football playoffs, before we had this committee and what were they thinking? We had the BCS and what was wrong with the BCS. Do you guys know what the BCS is? No. We're going to talk about it.
Starting point is 00:00:22 We're going to talk about why the playoffs are a much better system. We're going to talk about who has the most national championships in history. Spoiler alert Yeah, we're just going to talk about all things College Football Playoff with some fun facts about when football first started and where some things came from. Yeah, the bowl games. The New Year's Six.
Starting point is 00:00:42 Do you know what the New Year's Six? No. Sounds like a band. Excited to learn. Ooh, yeah. The New Year's six. That'd be a great band name. The three of us should start it.
Starting point is 00:00:52 I'm out. Okay, so I will say the biggest reason for me the first year of the college football playoffs the Alabama was in semifinals number one and they played number four Ohio State and lost and Ohio State number four went on to win and so it was like the first year of the playoffs
Starting point is 00:01:14 you immediately saw the number four team take the championship and you're like this wouldn't have happened last year right like immediate it was justified exactly and then last year it was number seven and the first 12 team playoff it was number seven and number eight who played against each other and number eight, Ohio State beat number seven, Notre Dame. And so you're like, again, the best, arguably the best team, if you trust the playoff format, would not have gotten the trophy without the number 12.
Starting point is 00:01:37 At the very least, a better team won, or like this system is better, whether or not you still, like there are still issues with it, but you did a better job at trying to find the best team. Right. I mean, it is a little coincidental that the first year of both of these formats, like a team outside of the previous format, one, to like substantiate the fact that, you know, we We should have moved for this. Oh, man.
Starting point is 00:01:59 Should we go into the conspiracies? Everything's rigged. No, it just hit me. But I will say, like, as an Alabama fan, the first year, everyone was like, oh, man, I can't leave the loss. I'm like, I don't know. I'm happy about it because I hated the BCS and to see that, like, a number 14-1 makes it worth it. Yeah. And they knew.
Starting point is 00:02:15 They danced puppets. Yeah, Alabama really sacrificed to make the playoff system work. So you're welcome. All right. I do want to hear from each of you. You get to choose maybe one or two. What are some Christmas traditions that you guys do in your family, amongst your friends maybe? What you got? We open gifts on Christmas Day. What? Gosh. We, so something that I feel like is, actually I don't know if this is unique. We have flank steak on Christmas. Christmas Eve, that I think the specificness of it is unique. But my mom hates Thanksgiving food, but my dad likes it. So we, you know, do the whole turkey and mashed potato thing.
Starting point is 00:03:08 But then on Christmas Eve, that's the meal that everyone likes get good steak. And that's a tradition. Who's cooking the steaks? Oh, Sherry. Okay, I'm wondering, do you not have the recipe unless you're out of the state? I think I could get the recipe. It's, yeah, it's just more like the quality and, you know, all we're going to invest in this as a great meal. We might lose followers depending on how you answer this, but how do you like your steak done?
Starting point is 00:03:40 Still kicking, you know? No. Medium. Medium, medium, rare. Good answer. Medium rare. What do you have on Christmas Eve? We, this is from Emily's family, so I did not grow up with this tradition.
Starting point is 00:03:55 we eat stromboli do you guys know what stromboli is guys really love italian food yeah yeah so it's like a calzone if i don't know if you've heard of this a stromboli a stromboli thank you that oh stromboli oh sure sure sure yeah and i asked emily and her family like is this where does this come from and i think she um emily's mom made it for the family one Christmas Eve years ago, and they're just like, Mom, you got to do this every year. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:04:29 This is our tradition. And so every year, we each scrumbole. You know, another, well, I think this isn't really a tradition. But, like, in our family, you, in the Woodruff family, you open gifts one at a time. And everyone watches every gift to be open. I think we've talked about this. Yeah. That's not true with Hannah's family.
Starting point is 00:04:48 So the first year I'm, like, opening gifts with Hannah's family. it's like, okay, open gifts. And I just sit there and watch everyone and it's all happening and it's like chaos, you know. And then I watch and then I've opened no gifts. And then uncomfortably everyone watches me open all the gifts. I'm like, I did this wrong. Oh, all of them at once? Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:05:09 It was just like you have like five gifts in front of you and it's just like. No, for your family. It's like one person opens all their gifts and the next part. It's like one by one. You go youngest to oldest. Oh, wow. Around in a circle. And then it's like, it takes a while.
Starting point is 00:05:21 and then you pass around and everyone looks at it and it's like, oh, cool. And then you stop and go get another cinnamon roll. So it's a whole, it takes a whole morning, you know, whereas at Hannah's, it's like. Free for all. Yeah. Fireworks. Just done. Real quick.
Starting point is 00:05:35 Wrapping paper flying everywhere. It's gone. Yeah. Yeah. All right, Kathleen. What about you? Yeah. On Christmas Eve, we have breakfast for dinner.
Starting point is 00:05:44 I don't know how old we were, but my dad took me and my sister to Waffle House one Christmas Eve because my mom was sick. And I think before that we probably had like a roast or something, some sort of traditional Christmas Eve dinner. But we were, she was sick. And so we just took us to Waffle House. And it slapped. It was so good. And so we went every year after that.
Starting point is 00:06:05 And they don't have Waffle House here, which is really disappointing. We've tried like, IHOP. Yeah, we've gone to IHOP once. We've gone to. Perkins? No. It's an Iowa thing. But it's tough because like a lot of places aren't open on Christmas Eve.
Starting point is 00:06:20 Like Waffle House. Always open. Yeah. As a matter of fact, if Waffle House is closed, like, something is wrong. Yeah. Okay. Waffle House Christmas Eve, what's the clientele like at that time? You know what's interesting?
Starting point is 00:06:32 It's like... Just the Waffle House clientele in general. First of all, be careful. Okay? This is sacred. Oh. Year to year, we would see the same people on Christmas Eve. It was like they had the same tradition.
Starting point is 00:06:46 And even a couple years when I was at school, my parents would come up and we'd go to Waffle House on campus. and one year Santa was there. Oh, wow. That was crazy. I love that. Big night. Honestly. Yes, that was fun.
Starting point is 00:06:59 And we, I think we're somewhere in between for opening gifts. So Todd's family, he has, we have two Christmases with his parents and one of their houses,
Starting point is 00:07:09 it's same thing. It's one by one, like very methodically. We're going to go, you know, clockwise. And then the other one, it's like,
Starting point is 00:07:15 you might get there and somebody else has opened your gifts. Like you just don't know. It's just a free-for-all. And then somewhere in between is what we do at my house. And so, like, where the kids love to play Santa, they'll come and, like, bring you your pile of gifts. And then, okay, now, wanted you open one of your gifts?
Starting point is 00:07:33 And once somebody has a pile in front of them, won't you go ahead and open one of them? So somewhere in between that is where we land. Joe, any final closing or closing Christmas traditions? This episode is Christmas for me. Oh. I'm so excited Any closing Christmas thoughts or you got your tradition out
Starting point is 00:07:56 The strumbulli? There's one more real quick We do a Christmas decorating contest every year And then you Everyone submits their final one Because you can like have What are you decorating? I do the same thing every year And I never win but it's still funny to me So there's always like the cookies
Starting point is 00:08:13 They're different templates of shapes Right so there's always a shape of a star is one of the options. So I do the Hardy's logo star with like the red eyes and the yellow outline. You do it every year. Yeah, every year. Yeah, and so how the contest works is you take a picture and we post it on Facebook and de-identified.
Starting point is 00:08:35 You just write like A, B, C, D, E. And then we send it out publicly on Facebook and it's like comment with which letter you're voting for. And over the years, people have noticed like that same Hardy Star keeps showing up because no one knows who's who. And so I'm just going to keep it going until somebody's going to give it to you one year. Yeah. All right.
Starting point is 00:08:55 It's Kathleen's Christmas with this topic. Joe, what are we talking about? Yeah, you guys voted. Today's winner, college football playoffs. Yes. I am going to see what you two know about college football playoffs. Yeah, the message was Joe, do you know anything about college football? Because if not, I can play the, uh,
Starting point is 00:09:18 uninformed audience member here and then I said I'll just teach you both that's right all right let's do it all right let's just start with how many teams are in the playoffs this year my guess is 12 yes I know this it's 12 it used to be fewer than 12 I think it was four and for a while there was just a champion like it was just two right and yeah is that right yeah Can you name any of the teams in the playoffs? Not. There's an obvious one that she wants you to say. Yeah, I'm sure Alabama made it.
Starting point is 00:09:57 Yeah, they did. Yeah, I'm going to say Georgia. Indiana is number one. Yes. I don't think Iowa made it. They sure did not. Okay. I'm going to throw Michigan in there.
Starting point is 00:10:11 No. Ohio State. Yes. Oh, boy. You shouldn't me tell you? Yeah. All right. We got Indiana, Ohio State, Georgia, Texas Tech, Oregon, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Alabama, Miami from Florida.
Starting point is 00:10:26 Tulane and James Madison. James Madison. Man, I knew Texas A&M. I should have. Is that Archie Manning or is that Longhorns? Did Texas make it? Oh. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:10:40 Better luck next year. Big Arch Manning fan. You are. I mean, as much as I am any college football, which will be exposed. very quickly. All right. How do you think these 12 teams were selected?
Starting point is 00:10:55 Instagram polls is not the answer. I think they beat more teams than the teams that didn't make the playoffs. Yeah. They just have a better record. Yep. There's probably a threshold of wins and rankings
Starting point is 00:11:10 that is kind of like a prerequisite, I'm going to say. And I am going to say there's also there's like a committee that chooses that is like weighing this but there's also like strength of schedule and some other things sure okay um there is a committee there's the college football playoff is actually like a business college football playoff and there's a committee of 13 this year there's 12 of people um any guesses like what types of people are on the committee wait wait wait hold on you said usually there's 13 but there's 12 yeah i don't know i don't know why
Starting point is 00:11:46 It's just, like, if you look up anywhere, how many people are on the committee? They're like, 13. It's the perfect number, not too big, not too small. It's an odd number. And you go to the website, it's like, this year we have 12 members. I don't know how much the other guy. All right. Oh, so who's on it?
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Starting point is 00:13:18 Available to U.S. addresses only. Not names, just like broadly speaking. Who do you think would be included? Man, it feels like, I want to say like coaches, but that feels like there's a pretty clear conflict of interest. Yeah, I'll throw in media members as a represented portion. Or maybe, like, maybe big football names. Peyton Manning.
Starting point is 00:13:43 Previous Heisman trophy winners. Okay. All right, so there's 12 former and current athletic directors, at least one sports journalist, former players, there's a coach, there are conflicts. And so what happens is they have recusals. So you either have a full or a partial recusal where if like the chair of the committee is the Arkansas athletic director. And so when you're talking about Arkansas, he cannot vote like for anything that has to do with Arkansas. and he cannot be in there for the discussions about Arkansas. Oh, so he has to like just go like sit and look at a wall.
Starting point is 00:14:22 This feels it's very like, you know, Supreme Courty, you know, like, hey, they take this seriously. They're also secret votes. Like, it is very, and I was reading the rules for all of it. I mean, there's a lot that goes into it. So you mentioned strength of schedule. Is that what you said? Yeah, it was a very sportsy term that I use there that I want credit for. So they look, credit is given.
Starting point is 00:14:41 They look at strength of schedule, head to head competition, comparative outcome. of common opponents, but interestingly, you don't get bonus points if you just run up the score. So like if Alabama and Ole Miss beat Texas, like, all right, you both, that counts. But if Alabama beat Texas by a lot more points, you're not going to get bonus points for it. Other relevant factors, like if anybody was hurt or if any coaches were out or like if that maybe would have impacted a regular season game, that'll be taken into consideration, or if somebody's hurt and it's like, okay, they were really good. now they've lost three of their star players, so I don't think they'll be as good in the postseason. That'll be taken into consideration.
Starting point is 00:15:18 And then they also look at stats, look at a lot of game video apparently. Man, I get it. Like, decisions have to be made. And when you come down to, like, two people have the same, what am I saying, the same record, like, you have to find a way to choose between them. But if we, like, if we're, you know, eight and three. and another team's eight and three and they're like, well, but like this guy rolled his ankle and we think you're worse now.
Starting point is 00:15:49 I'd be like, let me prove to you that we're not. I mean, I would hope it wouldn't come down to one person, but yeah, it's kind of wild. Okay, so these committee members, they're unpaid, and you get three years on the committee. There could be some, like, extenuating circumstances, like if somebody has to do a small, like they come in and do a partial term or whatever,
Starting point is 00:16:08 but more often than not, it's three years and that's it. You don't get three more years, like, it's three years and then other people come in. Okay. And so then, like I said, they do rounds of secret voting. They'll first, it's really interesting. They'll first list 30 teams that they think should be in. And then they'll, they have to pick, like, their top 10.
Starting point is 00:16:30 And then if three people have picked a certain team, then that team gets discussed. Like, they do seven rounds of voting when it's all sudden done to get to the top 25 teams. So this playoff committee starts assigning rankings in November. And so they'll do it, I think it was like six times maybe. And are those then released publicly? Yes. So on Tuesdays in November, you'll get like the top 25 rankings. And then after the regular season, usually after like the championship weekend,
Starting point is 00:17:02 when all the conference championships are played, they'll release their final rankings, the actual playoff field on that Sunday, election Sunday. you mentioned that or we've established that 12 maybe you're going to get to this but how long has it been a 12 team playoff this is just the second year so before that we were at four a 14 playoff was it the same committee and all this stuff yes the college football playoffs so the before that do you have any idea how national champions are selected before the four? Before the playoffs, which started in 2014. No.
Starting point is 00:17:46 Well, I think, I feel like there was a time when it was literally there were just two teams. Yeah, just the top two. Yeah. And so you're saying before even that? No, just like how are this top two? Like how did it is? How are this top two? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:17:57 I think the committee was just like we have to get down and narrow it to two teams and say these are the champion. They're going to play for it all. Yeah. No. Okay, so interestingly, the Division I football is actually split into two divisions. Divisions, yeah. So this is when we're talking about SEC, Iowa, you know, Big Ten, whatever, all the football that we talk about mostly, that's the football championship series. They're playing for a national championship.
Starting point is 00:18:31 Or sorry, that's wrong. It's a football bowl series because we have bowl games. All right. So FBS. The other side of Division I football is football. is football championship series. They have their own tournament. They have their own champion.
Starting point is 00:18:44 Who, who, like, what schools are in that? I want to say, like, North Dakota, like, where Carson Wentz went. So it's, like, it's, they're both, they're all division one, but let's be real. I mean, it is, yeah, FBS is going to be, like, the pinnacle of college football. And we're not trying to pretend that North Dakota's championship bowl is just good. No, but interestingly. FBS football is the only NCAA sport that does not have an NCAA sanctioned tournament, like to crown a champion.
Starting point is 00:19:19 And so there's always been different parties who are like trying to figure out the best way to determine across the country who's the champion. And when I was I was looking into like why that might be and it's like, oh, we can't just have like March Madness. Football is too physical for that. You can't have that number of games. And anyway, so before the playoffs, we had the bowl championship series, BCS, which was terrible. In middle school, I wrote a persuasive essay on why it should be abolished. Wow. So this dug up a lot.
Starting point is 00:19:58 Any guesses on how it was three components that were combined to give just a score to a team. Yeah. So there wasn't like a championship game? There was, but it was just throughout the season, three components were added up and averaged together to give each team a score. And then just the top 25 scores, that was your top 25. And then at the end of the year, the top two teams played for the national championship. All right. The record has to be one of the components.
Starting point is 00:20:27 Yeah. Seconded. Yep. Okay. Is that one? No. Oh, wow. I mean.
Starting point is 00:20:33 All right. Points scored. So it was. Tell us. Yeah, it was two polls where they, one of them was a poll of like 115. It could have been like former players, sports writers, whatever. And then a poll of 59 head coaches. So the Harris poll and the coaches poll.
Starting point is 00:20:48 So two very subjective. I mean, I'm sure they looked at strength of schedule and stuff. But like at the end of the day, it's a poll. And then a combination of six computer scores. And that's where like most of the controversy came from is because like nobody could. I mean, you could go and look it up and like read about it. But it's like, these computers. scores were never, I don't know, it was, huh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:21:10 So it was polls and then whatever the robot said. Whatever the robot said, which gave it like 66% of this subjective, this is who we want to see, and people had an issue with that. And then there were times when the computer, like, maybe the polls both said this is number one, but the computer was like, they have a really low score. And it dropped them just enough to be number three. They're out of the championship. Okay, so here's, you mentioned that like football's hard because the games are so long and physical and whatever, so we can't just like, every team can't play every other team.
Starting point is 00:21:46 But this seems like we've gotten better, but that seems like just the worst possible strategy. Like there are so many others, like this happens with sports all the time. Like you have tournaments and you see who the best is. plugging it into an algorithm and letting the coaches decide, I don't need to read your essay. I'm persuaded that feels silly. Well, and there were, I mean, there were enough, like, instances of controversy where teams went undefeated and didn't get into the national
Starting point is 00:22:17 championship or teams that already played during the, you know, during the regular season ended up being one and two. And there was an undefeated team that was left out. Like just enough, there were enough instances of it not being fair for people to continually say like we need to do something different um but bulls also generate a lot of money and so it's kind of like how do we keep the bowls and and go to a playoff so um but anyway so before that before BCS you had like a couple of other iterations of trying to get the bowls you know to have the top teams in the country and then before that it was really just polling like they would
Starting point is 00:22:58 poll the AP poll would poll sports writers and say like well who do you think are the best teams before that schools and groups would just name their own champions they'd be like you know what we went undefeated this year so we're going to go ahead and claim it let's see the bowls as we know them really kind of started in the 1930s oh wow yeah um football itself do you know when it started that the 19 teens 19 teens 19 1908 1869 Any guesses on who played the first football game Is this someone we're going to recognize
Starting point is 00:23:41 I don't know if you're a Big Ten fan you should I think we've pretty well established that I'm not a college football fan Rutgers and Princeton played in the first Oh okay Rutgers will say like the birthplace of college football It's like one of their taglines You know all to just shame myself
Starting point is 00:24:01 I thought you were looking for like a player. Like I was like, I was like, some like politician that I've heard of. Like, okay, Rutgers and Princeton. Let's talk about who's won the most national championships. Oh, let's not. I can tell immediately that it's Alabama. Auburn, Auburn. Not on the list.
Starting point is 00:24:24 I'm just kidding, they have six. Princeton and Yale. Top the list. Alabama has 24 that. like are given to them, but Alabama only claims 18 of them, which is... How humble. Yeah. Anyway, let's see.
Starting point is 00:24:39 What other questions do you guys have about the playoff system? Yeah. Is it only a matter of time where they're going to extend, expand it even more than 12 teams? I don't know. I mean, it's starting to get really late in the season. Because right now, like the national championship goes to the second. week of January so I do have another question so what is the latest balance of the revenue that bowl games bring and having this college football playoff like are these bowls then
Starting point is 00:25:16 hosting some of these playoff games so that was my question as well you the bowl games are part of the college football playoffs or we've just like added more games yeah there's a lot of bowls, like bowl games. They've already started as a recording, but there are six that are sanctioned for playoff games. They're called like the New Year 6. So you have the Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl, Peach Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Fiesta Bowl. And then one of those is like, it goes on a rotating basis.
Starting point is 00:25:49 Thank you. Now if I can remember where they're all played, that would be impressive. It goes on a rotating basis. One of those places will also host the National Championship. Nice. Got it. Okay. So part of what sparked this was my ignorance and editing story on the, and you were saying there was like Power Five and there's all the, and it's like, well, that's, they're not in this conference. So are there like, there's a lot of different divisions and conferences that do they all funnel to the national championship game? Like can any, can any old college or university? If they do well enough make it.
Starting point is 00:26:30 Yeah. Okay. So in FBS, there's 11 conferences. There's 10 conferences and then there's independents, which are not in a conference, but they're a group of independence. And FBS is the bowl championship or the bowl series. Okay. So you have FBS. Not North Dakota.
Starting point is 00:26:49 Right. The premier. Right. Okay. So Division 1, FBS. Got it. Yep. Division 1 has 2.
Starting point is 00:26:56 We're in the FBS. And then historically, like, the teams, the conferences that get the most revenue, the highest TV viewership, they have the biggest budgets. And those are going to be the Power Five conferences. That's like your Big Ten, ACC, SEC, SEC, Big 12. We're getting somebody. So the PAC? The PAC 12, I think, I mean, technically still, yes, that'd be one of the Power Five. It's a little slim right now.
Starting point is 00:27:29 Yeah. And they've all been moving around because the Big Ten has way more than ten teams. Absolutely. It does. Yeah. And, or, yeah, it's now like coast to coast. Yeah, not geographically. No.
Starting point is 00:27:41 And I think Big 12 also has more than 12. So, yeah. So the Power 5 is, are the divisions and there are divisions that I've heard of. The conferences that you've heard of, yes. And then there's others. So could a, could a non. Non-power-five. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:28:00 Part of the week, the week five. Can they make it into the playoffs? They're called group of five. Because there's five, there's five power five and five. Non-power-five. So, group of five. Yeah, but we don't call them. Right.
Starting point is 00:28:13 Non-power five. Yes. So one of like the bylaws of college football playoff is that anybody can get in. There's no like automatic. Yeah, sure. People who get in. But the rankings for the 12 spots, the top five conference champions have to be in those 12. So as they're going through in ranking, let's say like the first 12 get ranked and only three conference champions are in there.
Starting point is 00:28:43 What they'll do is look and say like, what's the next highest ranked conference champion? And that person will jump up into the 12. So if you win one of, so there are 10 conference championship games. if you the highest five ranked conference champions will get in. Yes. So at least five of the ten conference champions will be in. Yes.
Starting point is 00:29:09 Okay. But you can win a conference championship and not get in. Correct. So if, yeah, if you're the sixth ranked conference champion, you're not going to get in. But so, for example, whenever we read the teams that ring, you're like, oh, James Madison, their final ranking was 24. but they were the fifth ranked conference champion and so they jumped up over other teams who had a harder schedule like might be better teams exactly kind of universally agreed to be better teams
Starting point is 00:29:41 let's take nothing away from James Madison no no and yeah I will say if that's fun I like I like the potential for a Cinderella story yes yeah but yeah I'm also I'm not the like 13th team team that's then... Yeah, their social media has been top-notch. James Madison? Yes. They've been like, we've been doing the math. And, like, you know, Oregon has never been us.
Starting point is 00:30:12 They've also never played you. They've beaten, you know, all these other teams, but they've never beaten us. And it's like, it's great. Anyway, so Tulane was 20. and James Madison was 24, but they were the fourth and fifth ranked conference champ. So they jumped up, which means that, like, number 11 Notre Dame got pushed out.
Starting point is 00:30:38 Yeah, and number 12, BYU. Should have been better. Well, that leads us to some controversy. Yes, love it. Notre Dame did not like that outcome and has chosen to not participate in bull season at all. so wow yeah sorry sorry Notre Dame hey you know like this happens every year and I get it the system's been flawed and you can complain about the system but yeah I don't take your ball and go
Starting point is 00:31:07 home the other issue is hot take hot take they don't have a well I guess they played with the but anyway they're they ended up with having a record of 10 and 2 and Alabama had a record of 10 and And so the same number of wins, but Alabama had one more loss because of the SEC championship. And so it's like, well, how do you? A three-loss team in the, you know, in the field of 12, like, No Dream only has two losses. Okay, well, they played one less game. So that's the controversy of the year. Wow.
Starting point is 00:31:41 Well, big, big eternally weighty things coming out of college football. I think I think everyone knows where my Christian perspective will end. but um fun facts i feel like the whole thing has been kind of a fun fact session for you so i've had a timer in the bottom i do have one one fun fact and i'm calling it a fun fact because it really has almost nothing to do with the playoffs but i came across this while i was researching i'm like this is so cool um okay fun fact is the ivy league all has to do with football so yeah Yeah, when football was first started, and they started seeing, like, we need to figure out how to govern this sport. In 1869.
Starting point is 00:32:24 And Princeton, I mean, Ivy School, yep. So the ivies were to be a place where athletes were primarily students who participated in sports as part of an overall educational program, not professionals who are recruited for their physical abilities, nor students who are exploited for the material gain of their institutions. So the Ivy League was formed, which is not in the FBS. It's in the FCS. Anyway, and it includes Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton. Yeah. That is fun.
Starting point is 00:32:58 Yeah. Knowing it came from football. I know. Cool. We've come a long way because athletes, college athletes, absolutely are recruited for their. But the ivies were supposed to be a safe place from that. And feels like they are. are at least do it better than other places.
Starting point is 00:33:18 Yeah. I mean, it feels like they've stayed true to their intent. Yeah. Yeah, we might need to do a future episode about NIL and all that and what it has become. Yeah. Yeah. I would love to continue talking about football. That would be, that would be a good, that'd be a good episode.
Starting point is 00:33:32 Yeah. Awesome. All right. Should we move on to Christian perspectives? Sure. I know, I know what Jason says. You want me to go first and then you can clean up? I'll take the low-hanging fruit and, which is.
Starting point is 00:33:46 is sports are great. And I love sports. I play sports. I think they have a value in a use and are good and can teach us great things and discipline and be useful. I think that sports just occupy the wrong place in lots of people's heart. And if you are upset, if you are like fuming mad, your day is ruined because of people that are wearing a certain color shirt lost,
Starting point is 00:34:19 when they will have another chance next year to win. I don't. It'll never be the same team. That's right. But it's for me, when you zoom out and you consider Eternity, hey, work hard, work to be the best, do everything as unto the Lord, and also hold it with an open hand. And eternity is not writing on whether or not you make it into the college football playoffs.
Starting point is 00:34:45 That's good. Kathleen, save us from the sports fans out there who hate me. I mean, I think there is something to say for like making sure that you hold it in a place where your emotions aren't tied to it. But for me, it's like I'm not going to stop like being passionate about it and caring about football. I love watching it. I love talking about it. I love like caring if my team wins. But I also think that just being able to appreciate these things, like being able to appreciate.
Starting point is 00:35:15 the minds that like came up with this game the people who are continually trying to put rules around it and make it better and make it safer and make it um i don't know just the it's just really cool to see like how passionate people are about it and just the amount of talent that you get to see by watching the sport the amount of talent you get to see by the people who make tweets about the sport like that's really fun um so just this appreciation i don't know if it i don't know if it i don't know what pillar best fits into, maybe above all love, choosing to like really just view everything through rose color glasses and be like, man, this is so cool to get to witness this and and to think about like the way that God has blessed people and given people talents and how
Starting point is 00:36:01 they lean into them. So of course, hold it with an open hand and in the right place. But also I think there's definitely a space to appreciate it and even to use your platform. Like if you're an athlete or a coach or anything like that, like coaches who can impact their players and lead them to Christ, like, that's it. That's awesome. Tim Tebow, baby. Kathleen, great job. Thanks for educating. Yes, well done. Do you feel like you get it now? More. I feel like I will be less embarrassing around at the Christmas parties. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Take it.
Starting point is 00:36:34 All right. Well, thanks everyone for joining us on another episode of TPO Explains. As a reminder, you can watch this episode on YouTube or Spotify. Make sure to like, comment, and subscribe. We'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time. Bye. We need to stay sharp. Honestly, it's the real MVP of the pour-over. Stay fresh and hydrated with us. The pour-over listeners get a free eight-pack of elements' most popular drink flavors
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