{"id":111011,"date":"2018-12-26T05:19:01","date_gmt":"2018-12-26T10:19:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=111011"},"modified":"2018-12-26T05:19:01","modified_gmt":"2018-12-26T10:19:01","slug":"random-thoughts-football-and-more-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2018\/12\/26\/random-thoughts-football-and-more-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Random thoughts: football and more"},"content":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent sports editor<\/em><\/p>\n

This week\u2019s Random Thoughts center around the college football playoff, bowl game goodies, Urban Meyer, polls and Week No. 17 of the NFL season.<\/p>\n

CFB Playoff<\/strong><\/p>\n

Alabama-Oklahoma and Notre Dame-Clemson college football playoff games will be played on Saturday, with the winners advancing to the national championship game.<\/p>\n

In last week\u2019s Monday Mailbag, I noted I was against expanding the playoff to eight teams and I heard from a lot of people who said I was wrong, that all five Power 5 conference champions and three at-large teams should be let in.<\/p>\n

My response to that: You\u2019d really want to see 9-4 PAC-12 champion Utah and 9-4 Big 10 champion Northwestern (assuming the Wildcats would have upset OSU) in the playoff? What if Texas beat Oklahoma \u2013 would you want the 10-3 Longhorns in the playoff? Here\u2019s another one: imagine if Pitt upset Clemson in the ACC title game \u2013 under the eight team scenario, the 8-5 Panthers would have been in the playoff.<\/p>\n

There are plenty of people (myself included) who don\u2019t think a two loss team belongs in the playoff, but a team with at least four losses would be okay?<\/p>\n

Still think eight teams is the way to go?<\/p>\n

Bowl game swag<\/strong><\/p>\n

Did you know that players of bowl bound college football teams get some nice gifts from their bowl? Most of the stuff is pretty nice.<\/p>\n

If you want to check out the list, click:
\nhttps:\/\/www.si.com\/college-football\/2018\/12\/11\/bowl-game-gifts-guide-rankings-player-swag<\/a><\/p>\n

Urban Meyer<\/strong><\/p>\n

Does anyone know what Urban Meyer is really going to do after the Rose Bowl?<\/p>\n

He\u2019s going to co-teach a class and apparently be the assistant athletic director. He also says he wants to stay in Columbus, but something just doesn\u2019t feel right.<\/p>\n

I could be very wrong, but I get the impression he may be coaching again in a couple of years.<\/p>\n

High school basketball polls<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first girls\u2019 and boys\u2019 high school basketball polls of the season will be released shortly after the New Year\u2019s holiday. While I don\u2019t treat the polls as gospel, it\u2019ll be interesting to see how the teams are ranked in the initial poll.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh Steelers fans<\/strong><\/p>\n

In an ironic twist, Steelers fans will be forced to root for the Browns on Sunday. Pittsburgh needs Cleveland to defeat Baltimore for the AFC North title and a playoff spot.<\/p>\n

Of course, the Steelers need to defeat Cincinnati, but I don\u2019t see that being a real issue at this point.<\/p>\n

As a Browns fan, I don\u2019t want to help the Steelers in any way. However, I\u2019m good with possibly knocking Baltimore out of the postseason.<\/p>\n

As always, if you have thoughts on any of the above subjects, feel free to email me at sports@thevwindependent.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent sports editor This week\u2019s Random Thoughts center around the college football playoff, bowl game goodies, Urban Meyer, polls and Week No. 17 of the NFL season. CFB Playoff Alabama-Oklahoma and Notre Dame-Clemson college football playoff games will be played on Saturday, with the winners advancing to the national championship game. In last week\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-01 00:37:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}