{"id":111153,"date":"2018-12-31T05:38:24","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T10:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=111153"},"modified":"2018-12-31T05:38:24","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T10:38:24","slug":"monday-mailbag-december-31-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2018\/12\/31\/monday-mailbag-december-31-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Mailbag: December 31, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong><em>independent sports editor<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This week\u2019s Monday Mailbag is a little different than previous installments. With college bowl games, including the College Football Playoff games being played, I asked readers to share their thoughts on the format, Ohio State and more. Below you\u2019ll see what was said. Some of the submissions from readers are presented in condensed form, but the meaning has not been changed.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It should be expanded to eight teams, period: The champions of the Power 5 conference and three wild card teams. What\u2019s so hard about that?<\/li>\n<li>Why not expand to 16 teams? The smaller divisions do it and it works just fine.<\/li>\n<li>Take the top eight teams, regardless of conference affiliation. If you\u2019re the top eight you get in, simple as that.<\/li>\n<li>Ohio State should have been in the playoff. The Buckeyes would have done better than Notre Dame.<\/li>\n<li>Tell me again how Oklahoma and Notre Dame should be in the playoffs instead of Ohio State?<\/li>\n<li>Someone explain why Ohio State and Georgia are not in the playoff. Notre Dame couldn\u2019t win the MAC and Oklahoma was exposed as a joke. Please explain.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The playoff committee had it in for the Buckeyes. No way they should have been left out. ESPN just doesn\u2019t want Ohio State in.<\/li>\n<li>At this rate, they might just as well have Alabama and Clemson play for the national championship every year.<\/li>\n<li>I\u2019m not sure what people expect. Alabama and Clemson are just better than everyone else. Either one would have beaten Ohio State, Georgia, Michigan, Central Florida etc. The right two teams are playing for the national championship.<\/li>\n<li>Why does Notre Dame get a free pass? So what if they went 12-0, their schedule was handpicked and horrible and they don\u2019t have to play in a conference championship game like everyone else. It\u2019s not fair.<\/li>\n<li>Keep it at four teams. If two of the teams keep getting blown out, what makes anyone think more teams would make it any better?<\/li>\n<li>Why on earth does anyone think Ohio State would have been Alabama or Clemson in a playoff game? Is it because of the Michigan game? Michigan was blown out by Florida, so all the sudden the win over the Wolverines doesn\u2019t look as good?<\/li>\n<li>What if Ohio State loses the Rose Bowl? Will fans still think the belonged in the playoff?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Monday Mailbag\u2019s regular format will return next week. If you have a question, simply email it to <a href=\"mailto:sports@thevwindependent.com\">sports@thevwindependent.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent sports editor This week\u2019s Monday Mailbag is a little different than previous installments. With college bowl games, including the College Football Playoff games being played, I asked readers to share their thoughts on the format, Ohio State and more. Below you\u2019ll see what was said. Some of the submissions from readers are presented [&hellip;]<\/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-111153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 01:23:08","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\/111153","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=111153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111153\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}