the cautionary tale is that the #10 or 20 TV market generally may not be the #10 or 20 market for football interest when you factor demographics.

. Exactly, and college football in California is pretty passé compared to Midwest and South.

I thought Scott Gordon had some good insights and opinions in this recent episode. One….that there has to be some regulations put it place to rein in the Wild West show, and two-recruit kids that are stable. He mentioned the transferring even in high school these days. Teenagers don’t have a longer view of things (my wife maintains males don’t mature until past 30) and I think many think it’s all football or bust and want the easiest path to get want they want (and think they deserve). If things heat up in the kitchen, the grass is greener somewhere else (sorry about 2 metaphors in one sentence). Gordon mentioned Kirk Herbstreit’s path that i had not known about. Certainly a different approach.

I think CFB could now be living through consequences of recruiting covid-era high school kids

Covid was a “get out of jail free” card to the extreme. Maybe it’s a generational thing too. Remember when getting a “C” in college was a decent if not good grade. I wound up my career at a University and a couple of times I had to haul in graduate students for cheating and I could not believe their attitude. “Everybody does it”, “this is going to prevent me from getting a perfect GPA”. So glad I retired before Covid.

Legacy should have nothing to do with a decision on the starter

Agreed.

UNC Chapel Hill had that for students - had never heard of that before, and just seemed wrong to have different entrance standards. Probably due to money and donation considerations. The sad part of this Wild West transfer portal is that the kids are only thinking of themselves as athletes- but in most cases they are probably in academic programs that are not we would call “high level” and their focus is almost 100% on playing the coming Saturday. Maybe that has always been the reality for most college football players.

The weak spot for Montana State. Is their lack of downstream passing game and lack of multiple receiving threats. So if they get behind the chains it throws them a bit off.

Montana State dominating the line of scrimmage. Montana not used to playing in so hostile of an environment with the crowd noise - usually the other way around.

@agalum@BlueGoldAg Ditto to both of your comments

Tight End: Williams is better than either Simpson or Dixon so we'll have one

I thought Simpson really added a different facet to the tight end group. Averaged 4 more yards a catch than Williams in 2024 and was the fastest and best tight end for yards after catch. Brought a nasty attitude too. He will be missed.

It was disorienting because the broadcasters were on the west side and they’d cut to a west side camera to show the refs. So it was a lot of wait, who’s going which direction?

Agreed. Really confusing as to which team was being penalized.

Agreed on all points. While agreed that red zone offense sputtered, the glaring problem to me was defense. While patching and shifting things to get by, all the injuries and playing a big boy MVFC team were too much to overcome. Can’t allow 40+ points and expect to win.

Band has been pretty lousy since the rebrand. I was there last week and thought they were poor musically. I mentioned to the couple behind me that we were better in the old days and the wife completely agreed. Do they even cheer or are they preoccupied by other stuff?

Rooting for the Redbirds the rest of the way. I think you will get to Nashville.

273 yards rushing usually means you win the game

No joy in Mudville tonight. Sorry, couldn’t help but dig up that time-honored quote.

Well who would have guessed that we would have a special teams issue?

Shows how important recruiting good and plenteous lineman is when getting into the playoffs

Amazing to see only 17 points on the board after the race car start. Illinois State made the better adjustments and too much lack of execution for the Ags. Got to give credit to Illinois State

The most disappointing thing is that they had as good of a path to the championship game as ever. These don’t come around often.

Oh well. Good season over. They made all the critical plays.

Ball actually hit the ground.