The new, 12-team College Football Playoff brings with it a promise to be bigger, more exciting, more lucrative. Perfect or 100% fair? Well, nobody ever believed that. The first expanded playoff bracket unveiled Sunday left a presumably deserving Alabama team on the sideline in favor of an SMU squad that finished with a better record after playing a schedule that was not as difficult. It ranked undefeated Oregon first but set up a possible rematch against Ohio State, the team that came closest to beating the Ducks this year. It treated underdog Boise State like a favorite and banged-up Georgia like a world beater at No. 2. It gave Ohio State home-field advantage against Tennessee for reasons it would take a supercomputer to figure out. It gave the sport the multiweek tournament it has longed for, but also ensured there will be plenty to grouse about between now and when the trophy is handed out on Jan. 20 after what will easily be the longest college football season in history. All of it, thankfully, will be sorted out on the field starting with first-round games on campuses Dec. 20 and 21, then over three succeeding rounds that will wind their way through traditional bowl sites. Maybe Oregon coach Dan Lanning, whose undefeated Ducks are the favorite to win it all, put it best when he offered: "Winning a national championship is not supposed to be easy.” Neither, it turns out, is figuring out who should play for it. The Big Ten will lead the way with four teams in the tournament, followed by the SEC with three and the ACC with two. The lasting memory from the inaugural bracket will involve the decision that handed the ACC that second bid. Alabama of the SEC didn't play Saturday. SMU of the ACC did. The Mustangs fell behind by three touchdowns to Clemson before coming back to tie. But they ultimately lost 34-31 on a 56-yard field goal as time expired. “We were on pins and needles,” SMU coach Rhett Lashley said. “Until we saw the name ‘SMU’ up there, we were hanging on the edge. We're really, really happy and thankful to the committee for rewarding our guys for their total body of work." The Mustangs only had two losses, compared to three for the Crimson Tide. Even though SMU's schedule wasn't nearly as tough, the committee was impressed by the way the Mustangs came back against Clemson. “We just felt, in this particular case, SMU had the nod above Alabama,” said Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel, the chairman of the selection committee. “But it’s no disrespect to Alabama’s strength of schedule. We looked at the entire body of work for both teams.” Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne was gracious, up to a point. “Disappointed with the outcome and felt we were one of the 12 best teams in the country,” he said on social media. He acknowledged — despite all of Alabama’s losses coming against conference opponents this season — that the Tide’s push to schedule more games against teams from other major conferences in order to improve its strength of schedule did not pay off this time. “That is not good for college football," Byrne said. Georgia, the SEC champion, was seeded second; Boise State, the Mountain West champion, earned the third seed; and Big 12 titlist Arizona State got the fourth seed and the fourth and final first-round bye. All will play in quarterfinals at bowl games on Dec. 31-Jan. 1. Clemson stole a bid and the 12th seed with its crazy win over SMU, the result that ultimately cost Alabama a spot in the field. The Tigers moved to No. 16 in the rankings, but got in as the fifth-best conference winner. The conference commissioners' idea to give conference champions preferable treatment in this first iteration of the 12-team playoff could be up for reconsideration after this season. The committee actually ranked Boise State, the Mountain West Champion, at No. 9 and Big 12 champion Arizona State at No. 12, but both get to skip the first round. Another CFP guideline: There’s no reseeding of teams after each round, which means no break for Oregon. The top-seeded Ducks will face the winner of Tennessee-Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. Oregon beat Ohio State 32-31 earlier this year in one of the season’s best games. No. 12 Clemson at No. 5 Texas, Dec. 21. Clemson is riding high after the SMU upset, while Texas is 0-2 against Georgia and 11-0 vs. everyone else this season. The winner faces ... Arizona State in the Peach Bowl. Huh? No. 11 SMU at No. 6 Penn State, Dec. 21. The biggest knock against the Mustangs was that they didn't play any big boys with that 60th-ranked strength of schedule. Well, now they get to. The winner faces ... Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl. Yes, SMU vs. Boise was the quarterfinal we all expected. No. 10 Indiana at No. 7 Notre Dame, Dec. 20. Hoosiers coach Curt Cignetti thought his team deserved a home game. Well, not quite but close. The winner faces ... Georgia in the Sugar Bowl. The Bulldogs got the No. 2 seed despite a throwing-arm injury to QB Carson Beck. But what else was the committee supposed to do? No. 9 Tennessee at No. 8 Ohio State , Dec. 21. The Buckeyes (losses to Oregon, Michigan) got home field over the Volunteers (losses to Arkansas, Georgia) in a matchup of programs with two of the biggest stadiums in football. The winner faces ... Oregon in the Rose Bowl. Feels like that matchup should come in the semifinals or later. Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here . AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football
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Moni scores 25 in North Dakota State's 91-62 win against Wisconsin-Stout
US stocks take a breather, Asian bourses rise in post-Christmas tradeRussia conducted mass cyber attack on Ukraine's state registries, deputy PM saysLEE Mack's The 1% Club has returned for a festive special, with Christmas themed questions already catching out contestants. The ITV show sees contestants faced with questions designed to test how their brain works, rather than their intelligence level. They have to use their logic, reasoning and common sense as they are whittled down to one final question that only 1% of the country can answer correctly. This is all in an effort to try and take home the jackpot prize of up to £100,000. This year's Christmas special featured festive themed questions, but it wasn't long before those trying to win the money were stumped. With the second question focusing on a Christmas 'spot the difference', viewers at home were left stunned to find that 28 contestants had failed to get the answer right. The question pictured a festive scene where contestants had to spot what was differing between the two, with the answer being a missing pair of Santa's legs. Taking to X, one viewer wrote: " 28 people getting the second question wrong!" Another shared: "28 people. Wow". "What on earth were those 28 people looking at?" asked another baffled viewer. This wasn't the only question that viewers at home were shocked to see the contestants struggling with, as some questioned whether the Christmas special quiz had been made 'easier'. One viewer shared on social media: "these questions are exceptionally easy . how anyone’s getting them wrong i’ll never know." Another simply put: "Too easy." The festive special sees comedian Lee Mack back at the helm of the quiz show, which won Best Quiz Game Show for the third year in a row at the NTA Awards. The series has also been recommissioned for a fifth series , with ITV bringing back the show for this festive special and also a charity one for Soccer Aid . A source previously told us: "The show has well and truly proved its popularity with viewers, and so it’s only natural to bring it back for not one, but two more rounds. "This will also include two Christmas specials, which will air on ITV after the main series have run." Previous episodes of The 1% Club are available on ITVX.
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Black Ops 6 and Warzone having the Squid Game crossover as the only scheduled event in January shows me that Activision and the other supporting development studios don’t have faith in themselves to generate new, original ideas. On December 23, Raven Software and Treyarch signed off and departed for their holiday breaks. Before heading out, the Warzone development team promised an update in early 2025 that will address several community-requested issues such as Perks not working correctly . Meanwhile, Treyarch left Multiplayer fans with eight days of Double XP to help fill the void of no substantial updates during the holiday break. When the devs return from vacation, they will have their hands full in rebuilding the game’s image. Ex-Call of Duty pro Scump worries about the franchise’s future since the BO6 topped 300,000-plus concurrent players on Steam at launch and is now struggling to pull in 100,000. None of this decline would be an issue if the development team had a sure fire plan in place to restore faith. That plan is... Squid Game? BO6 and Warzone Season 1 Reloaded conclusion falls flat Based on the promo trailer for the Squid Game crossover event , which starts on January 3, I am confident that the new red light, green light limited-time-modes in Warzone, Multiplayer and Zombies will be a hit, along with the new operator skins. However, the real issue here is that Archie’s Festival Frenzy and all of the Warzone holiday-themed limited-time-modes expire on January 3, leaving Squid Game as the only available event. And, based on the current Battle Pass timer, we don’t expect Season 2 to start until January 29, leaving three and a half weeks with no content currently scheduled. Related: The development team should have used this window as an opportunity to introduce new content, but it put all of its eggs in the Squid Game basket instead, and relied on a massive IP to tide players over rather than creating something truly original. This event will probably be great for Squid Game fans, but also risks alienating hardcore CoD fans. Considering that the core fans are the audience that will keep the game alive in the long term, this strategy feels like a real miss from Treyarch. It proves that CoD may have lost faith in its ability to create something wholly original to draw players in. Call of Duty is having a real identity crisis at the moment, and relying on a TV show’s hype to promote the game does nothing but make that identity even less clear.