Playoff Tweaks Needed; Pac-12 Alums Shine; All-ACC Teams Diss Stanford & Mendoza; Women's BBall Coverage Rising

This is the first year of a 12-team College Football Playoff, a welcome development after 10 years of a four-team format.

But some tweaking needs to be done.

First off, the top four seeds, all of whom receive first-round byes in the tournament, should be the teams ranked No. 1 through 4, not the top four conference champions. 

This year it's particularly ludicrous that Boise State, champ of the Mountain West, and Arizona State, champ of the Big 12, receive first round byes, since Boise was ranked No. 9 and ASU No. 12 in the final rankings. They get to sit at home and heal while No. 3 ranked Texas and No. 4 Penn State must play first round games.

The current format disadvantages the No. 1 seed. Top seeded, undefeated Oregon will get a very tough draw--the winner of Ohio State vs. Tennessee, the No. 8 vs. No. 9 seed game. If the top four had been seeded by rankings instead of conference champs, Oregon would face the winner of No. 8 Indiana vs. No. 9 Boise State, a much more appropriate matchup for No. 1.

Second, I've never understood why the four teams that get the byes--seeds No. 1 through 4--don't get to host a game in their own stadium, while the teams seeded No. 5 through 8 get to host their first round games against No. 9 through 12.

After the first round, when the quarterfinals begin, all games are played in bowls.

It seems to me the first round and quarter-finals should either all be played in bowls, or they should all be played on the home campuses of the higher-seeded teams. 

The inconsistency actually benefits seeds 5-8 and disadvantages 1-4.

Here's this year's bracket:

The four first-round games will be played on Dec. 20 and 21. The four quarterfinal games will be staged at the Fiesta Bowl, Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1. 

The two semifinal games will take place at the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl on Jan. 9 and 10. The CFP National Championship is scheduled for Jan. 20 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

Former Pac-12 Teams Shine: Cream always rises to the top. Two of the alumni from the old Pac-12 have emerged as conference champions in other leagues.

The Oregon Ducks are the No. 1 seed in the playoffs after their undefeated regular season and Big Ten championship.

The Arizona State Sun Devils, picked to finish last in the 16-team Big 12, finished 15 places higher, winning the conference championship. 

Ironically, another former Pac-12 team, Utah, was the pre-season favorite in the Big 12, but the Utes were done in by season-ending injuries to QB Cam Rising and other key players.

Skattebo Stars: The biggest reason for Arizona State's surprising season has been the emergence of running back Cam Skattebo.

Skattebo is a human battering ram who rivals Boise State's Ashton Jeanty in broken tackles and long runs. He has rushed for 1568 yards and 19 touchdowns this season, most of those yards coming after contact.

In the Sun Devil's 45-13 thrashing of Iowa State in the Big 12 title game, Skatebo had runs of 53 and 47 yards, along with two short touchdown runs and a 33-yard TD reception. For the day he gained over 200 yards rushing and receiving.

Many are unaware that Skattebo's college career started under current Stanford coach Troy Taylor at Sacramento State.

Skattebo flashed his potential as a freshman in 2021, averaging over 9 yards per carry, then as a sophomore led the Hornets to a perfect regular season and 12 straight wins, before they lost to Incarnate Word, 66-63, in the FCS playoffs. For the '22 season, he rushed 195 times for 1392 yards (7.0), caught 31 passes for 371 and scored 10 TDs.

Given the lack of production from his running backs the last two years. Taylor would love to have had Skattebo at Stanford.

Heisman Handicap: If I had a Heisman ballot, I'd vote for Boise State's Jeanty, who's rushed for 2497 yards and 29 touchdowns this year, leading the Broncos to the Mountain West Championship and a No. 3 seed in the College Football Playoff. He's had 12 runs over 50 yards, including a 65-yarder in the Mountain West title game.

And for those who claim he played an "easy" schedule, you might remember Jeanty gained 192 yards and scored three touchdowns in Boise's 37-34 loss to No. 1 ranked Oregon.

No, 2 on my ballot would be Colorado's two-way star Travis Hunter, followed by Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel, Skattebo and Miami QB Cam Ward.

Most likely, Hunter will win the award this year because of the massive exposure he's had on Fox throughout the season, while most of Jeanty's games have been played late at night, often on Fridays.

All-ACC Teams: The All-ACC football teams were announced last week. The conference selected first, second and third teams all league, and also included a lengthy list of honorable mentions.

In all, 84 players were honored on the All-League teams, with another 92 receiving honorable mention.

Stanford had one player selected. That's not a typo. Only one Cardinal, wide receiver Elic Ayomanor, was deemed worthy of being honored. 

Ayomanor made second-team All-ACC. No other Stanford player was listed, not even for honorable mention. So out of the 176 best players in the ACC, Stanford has one, according to the league's 17 head coaches and 54 media members who cover the conference.

You might say coach Taylor has quite a talent gap to close.

Where's Mendoza? One curious omission on the All-ACC teams was Cal quarterback Fernando Mendoza. The conference honored five quarterbacks, one each on the all-league teams and two honorable mentions.

But Mendoza, who was selected as the ACC "Quarterback of the Week" three times during the season, was left out.

As one of my neighbors likes to say, "that doesn't compute."

How Times Have Changed: Twenty-eight years ago, when Anne Cribbs, the late Steve Hams and I founded the American Basketball League, we had to fight to get any media coverage.

The country simply wasn't ready for women's professional basketball, and we had a 900 pound gorilla in the way.

Our games were well-covered by newspapers in most of the ABL's home markets, but national recognition was another matter. Big city newspapers didn't report on our games, ESPN didn't do "crawls" of ABL scores, and we had to piece together TV coverage on several regional networks and BET. 

ESPN wouldn't touch us out of fear of offending the NBA. which was getting ready to launch its own league.

The only time we got any national coverage in the first year (1996-97) of the league's existence was when one of our players cold-cocked an opponent during our All-Star game.

We attracted strong attendance on the Coasts--in Connecticut, Portland, Seattle and San Jose-- but struggled in Atlanta, Columbus, Denver and Richmond. 

It was an uphill battle that we ultimately lost to the WNBA.

Today, thanks to Caitlin Clark and the incredible surge in popularity for the women's game, national and local coverage have exploded. 

College and pro women's games are setting attendance and TV viewing records.

The Athletic, ESPN and the San Francisco Chronicle breathlessly report any development in the Bay Area's new Valkyries franchise, which has over 20,000 season ticket deposits.

The Valkyries' expansion draft attracted more media coverage than the entire first season of the ABL did.

It's nice to see. It's long overdue. And the ABL is even getting some recognition--recent features on ESPN, NPR, the NBA Network, and in the Washington Post--for being "ahead of its time."