Alabama, Notre Dame Flip Flop in Latest Playoff Rankings

And now for your sports news, we're joined by entities Dave Martin Day. Plenty of NFL news, but let's start in college football as the latest playoff rankings were released last night. Did anything surprise you? You know, I was a little surprised that they switched Notre Dame and Alabama around despite both teams winning last week. And frankly, Bama's win over a Auburn was much less convincing than the Irish's win over Stanford. So, I'm really unclear on why that happened. But also, you know, we have Virginia now ranked uh at the highest ACC team to make the conference championship game at number 17 where they'll face seven and five Duke. That probably means fellow ACC member Miami is probably out despite being ranked higher. number 12. The Hurricanes still have a remote chance to make it as an atlarge bid, but as I said yesterday, that would take really convincing losses by BYU and Alabama for them to get in. Now, I can see Miami possibly getting past BYU in that case only because it means the Cougars really would not have a signature win this season. But if Bama got blown out by Georgia, I mean, Bama already beat Georgia earlier in the year. And then it's either Miami or Notre Dame, who Miami already beat, but both are idle this Saturday. And then the committee would have to move Miami up two spots ahead of uh Notre Dame despite both being idle. I mean, they would take take a lot of flack for suddenly flip-flopping those at the end here. So uh they do have that option. >> All right. Well, staying on the same topic, there seems to be some questions about what would happen if Duke won the ACC instead of Virginia. Why would that complicate the playoffs? Yeah, it's really because Duke, they're seven and five. They're unranked. Now, they won a very complicated tiebreaker between four other ACC teams to make the ACC championship game. But those automatic playoff bids, you got five there, don't necessarily go to the winners of the four power conferences and a group of five champions. Now, it seems intended that way. It's simply though the five highest ranked conference champions get an automatic bid to the playoffs. Now, Duke beats Virginia then for the ACC title. they probably wouldn't rank high enough, if at all, to make it. Now, whichever team, you know, wins the SEC, Big 10, and Big 12 on Saturday, they will they're all ranked in the top 10, so they will all get in. So, that's three of the five bids. Now, the American Conference comes down to 20th ranked Two Lane against 24th ranked North Texas. If either of these teams win in, they'll likely have a higher ranking than Duke. In fact, Tlane already beat Duke earlier this season, so that'll be four. Meanwhile, the Sunbell Conference, that's down to between 25th ranked James Madison and unranked Troy. If James Madison wins, they'd be 12-1. They would be likely still be higher than Duke, making the Blue Devils then the sixth highest ranked Combin champion, and they would not get an automatic bid. Now, that at that point, the ACC then would likely be shut out of the playoffs unless, like we said before, the committee finds a way to move Miami in as an atlarge bid. But, of course, if 17th ranked Virginia, Big Stoop, it all goes away. So, I'm rooting for Duke now. Just I just want to see how this plays out. >> All right. All right. Well, looking at NFL news, last week's Thanksgiving game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Kansas City Chiefs was the most watched regular season game in league history. >> Yeah, more than 57 million people tuned into to watch a couple of teams that, you know, if the playoffs started today would not be in. I mean, kind of surprising from that angle. From another angle though, it's America's team versus the team that's been to five out of the last six Super Bowls, and they've won three of them. Now, either way, that they smashed the old record of 42 million viewers, which was between the Cowboys and Giants in 2022. But there must have been something extra about watching football on Thanksgiving last week because the early game, that was 1 p.m. game between Detroit and Green Bay, averaged 47 million viewers. So, now it's now number two all time. Meanwhile, the evening game between Cincinnati and Baltimore was the highest rated Thanksgiving evening game, evering just averaging just over 28 million viewers. So Tiff, I'm proud to say that I'm part of that record crowd. >> All right. Well, on that note, Dave, as always, thanks for joining us.