Playoff Selection Misery; Tavita's Debut; New Euphemism; White House War Crimes

The less said about yesterday's College Football Playoff Selections the better, but suffice to say they blew it.

Notre Dame, winners of 10 straight games, and losers of two games to quality teams by a total of four points, got left out.

Alabama, losers of three games, including an embarrassing early loss to Florida State and a humiliation by Georgia in the SEC Championship game, got in.

Miami, which couldn't even qualify for the championship game in the weak ACC, got in because of an early season win over Notre Dame.

This scenario points out the ability of the SEC and ESPN (the network that carries the entire playoff) to influence the committee.

It was nauseating to hear Kirk Herbstreit and other ESPN/SEC mouthpieces trying to explain why Alabama should get in. 

Apparently, the committee didn't want to "penalize" Alabama for losing in the SEC title game. Well, winning and losing has consequences. If losing a game doesn't matter, why play it?

As for the losses, Notre Dame lost by one point to Texas A&M (41-40) and three points at Miami (30-27), both early in the season with a freshman QB getting his feet wet. It's only mistake was scheduling Miami and Texas A&M to open the season.

Alabama lost by 21 to Georgia on Saturday. And if early season losses count so much, how 'bout Bama's 31-17 loss to Florida State in September, a team that finished 5-7?

A couple of good things might come out of this: 1) Notre Dame may decide that being an independent, rather than a member of a conference--where it can win a conference championship and get an automatic berth--is no longer such a good idea; and 2) the whole notion of conference championship games, which this writer has long opposed, will be re-evaluated. 

Five-loss Duke's presence in the ACC Conference championship game, and its upset win over Virginia, created the scenario where two Group of Five champs (Tulane and James Madison) had to be given spots in the playoff, and one deserving team--either Notre Dame, Alabama or Miami--had to be left out.

I can't help feeling this was pre-ordained last Tuesday, when the committee moved Alabama ahead of Notre Dame after its unimpressive 27-20 win over Auburn, the same day Notre Dame had crushed Stanford. The handwriting was on the wall.

The Bracket That Should've Been: For the record, we would've included Notre Dame at No. 8, Oklahoma at 9, and Miami at 10, leaving a three-loss Alabama team, the one that had minus 3 yards rushing Saturday, out of the playoff.

As we've advocated, they should go to a 16-team field next year. This season, that would've meant including Notre Dame, BYU, Vanderbilt and Texas, all interesting teams that would've enhanced the playoff.

Tavita's Debut: New Stanford football head coach Tavita Pritchard was introduced at a press conference last week by the man who hired him, general manager Andrew Luck, his former teammate and close pal for the past 17 years.

The packed gathering was kind of a Stanford love-in. Heisman Trophy winner Jim Plunkett was there, along with iconic women's basketball coach Tara VanDerveer and several of Pritchard's teammates from his years as a Cardinal quarterback. 

Luck and Pritchard had a humorous running dialogue about their years together on the Farm. And while Andrew claimed he had talked with almost 30 coaches about the job, I couldn't escape the feeling that he knew he was going to hire Tavita all along. He was beaming like a proud papa.

Pritchard handled himself well. He seems like a classy guy with legitimate football bona fides. His mantra of "belief and brotherhood" may resonate with the Stanford players.

He obviously knows the place very well, loves it deeply, and is not going to be out-worked by anyone. He plans to resurrect the smashmouth style of offense from the Jim Harbaugh/David Shaw glory days, which will require recruiting some top-flight offensive line types.

However, my concerns about his lack of head coaching experience, lackluster coordinator years, questionable ability to attract a strong staff, unfamiliarity with NIL and the transfer portal, and only two-and-a-half years of non-Stanford experience, all remain valid and worrisome.

Pritchard and Luck's quarterback credentials have already brought in one big recruit, Archbishop Riordan QB Mike Mitchell, who flipped from Vanderbilt to sign with the Cardinal.

Mitchell, the likely Bay Area Player of the Year, led Riordan to 12 straight wins before a 42-38 loss in the NorCal championship game Friday night at Folsom. He threw for 3,700 yards, 49 touchdowns and just 4 interceptions this year. After decommitting from Vandy, he chose Stanford over Cal, Arkansas, Arizona State and Ole Miss.  

Let's hope he's the first of many.

New Euphemism: "Student-athlete," the term the NCAA and many commissioners and athletic directors continue to force down our throats, has become a national punchline.

These players aren't student athletes. They're professionals, folks. A few, at places like Stanford, Vanderbilt, Tulane, Rice, Cal, Notre Dame, and the service academies, may actually go to class, but most players are there for the playing time and the NIL guarantees.

No one asks about academics anymore. It's all about, "can I play right away?" and "how much are you gonna pay me?"

Speaking of which, a new euphemism has come into play.

Schools aren't raising money to "pay players" or "buy transfers", it seems. No, we now have a more politically correct term, the funds are being used for "roster construction."

The money-grubbing in college football is actually worse than in pro football, because at least in pro football, you have contracts, and people have some semblance of stability. In college football, players can transfer every year. That has to change.

White House War Crimes: Our favorite tough guys--the president and his stunningly incompetent secretary of defense--have declared war on drug cartels in the Caribbean. They've bombed 21 small boats, supposedly carrying drugs from cartels, ostensibly to reduce the flow of fentanyl into our country. 

Of course, most of the boats were reportedly carrying cocaine and travelling away from the United States at the time they were destroyed. But President Donald Trump and SSecretary Pete Hegseth (as he was identified on a name card at last week's cabinet meeting) have purposefully destroyed all the evidence.

Now comes news that Hegseth and company may have ordered the killing of two survivors who were clinging to their boat wreckage in the water on Sept. 2.  Their "narco terrorist boat" was actually headed to Suriname.

The whole thing stinks, the whole operation is illegal. These are not combatants in a war. These are, at worst, civilian criminals. Somehow, in the decayed minds of Trump and Hegseth, that means they can be summarily attacked and killed.

It's shameful. Appalling. Un-American.

Drug Trafficking Question: The real question someone needs to ask the president is, if he's so concerned about drugs entering our country, why did he grant a presidential pardon to Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former president of Honduras, who was the biggest drug trafficker in the history of our country? 

Hernandez was convicted by the justice department of a vast conspiracy that brought over 40 tons of illegal drugs into the US. Surely Hernandez was a bigger threat to US citizens than the poor souls on those boats being bombed by Hegseth.

In considering these sad episodes, conservative columnist George Will recently opined that "this sickening moral slum of an administration should nauseate Americans."

Couldn't have said it any better. Trump has been making me sick since he came down the elevator 10 years ago.