The Morning Stake | 2018.12.13

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Texas Tech Basketball

Game recap should be posted by the time you read this.

Texas Tech Football

I like this and interesting use here of “Join The Family” at the end of the video.

A walk and talk with Robert Giovannetti and head coach Matt Wells. I first saw this from the Double T Insider from December 5th. So this is a bit dated and Wells again says that he’s wanted to focus on the players and then go see the committed players, which is what he’s done. Wells finishes with, “You can be great here at Texas Tech.”

The big news from yesterday was from The Athletic’s Nichole Auerbach about how there are a handful of college football bigwigs who want to see the playoffs expanded to 8 teams. I don’t have a subscription to The Athletic, but thankfully Awful Announcing’s Phillip Bupp has us covered. It should not surprise you that Chuck Neinas is at the forefront of getting all of these big decision makers together, that’s what he seems to do:

An idea from former Big 12 commissioner Chuck Neinas has been picking up support among administrators, though according to CFP executive director Bill Hancock, “There have not been any conversations in our meetings with commissioners or presidents about expanding or starting to think about a new format.”

Neinas’ idea for an eight-team playoff would have a guaranteed spot for each Power Five conference champion and then a spot for the top Group of Five team. This year, Alabama (SEC), Clemson (ACC), Oklahoma (Big 12), Ohio State (Big Ten), Washington (Pac 12), and UCF (Group of Five) would be six of the eight teams in the playoff. The final two spots would be at-large, and this year, Notre Dame and Georgia would get those slots. Conference championship games would be eliminated and the higher seeds would host quarterfinal round games. The semifinals and final would be unchanged, and would be held at a neutral site at one of the New Year’s Six bowl games.

Bupp correctly notes that the SEC and Notre Dame would likely lose out in this scenario, eliminating the SEC Championship game would be tough and the SEC is already pretty much guaranteed a spot anyway. The other issue is the 9-game conference schedule vs. the 8-game conference schedule issue, i.e. these things are not equal, but also not likely to change. Notre Dame would have little margin for error in getting in since there would only be 2 spots for an at-large bid.

Seems like the simple solution would be to just pick the best 8 teams, I dont know, maybe an average of the various top 25 polls and take the best 8 teams would be the easiest way to do this.

Miscellaneous . . . Via Witchita Eagle’s Kellis Robinett, Kansas State is paying former coach Bill Snyder a $3 million buyout that should have been paid had he been fired without cause. As you may recall, Snyder retired so he wasn’t technically due the buyout money, but here’s Kansas State paying it anyway? There’s also the thought that new head coach Chris Klieman may have to hire Sean Snyder, Bills son and this is who Bill wanted the university to hire as the head coach (allegedly) . . . AthlonSports has their Big 12 awards with a few Texas Tech players for their all-conference teams . . .

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