Doug LaMaurice

As we try to think about these eight teams that are going to be left and who's really a national championship contender.

I thought maybe for Ohio state fans, you're sitting there saying like, man, I like our guy.

Cause there's just a couple, a couple moments in key situations where,

You know, John Mateer just threw it to the other team and gave up a pick six in a back-breaking way on Friday night, right?

That there's just moments that, again, Julian Sands had a couple of those, but barely any.

And competent quarterback play in the quarterfinals, I think, is going to be, it always is, is a decider.

And I think there's a couple teams that are going to have an edge there, and they're Ohio State and Indiana.

Yeah.

It's an interesting contrast to the first weekend last year because, as we know, with the different seeding last year and that Boise State and Arizona State had buys last year and you had a team like Ohio State lurking as the eighth seed, we know all the first-round winners went on to win in the quarterfinal.

So you had the five, the six, the seven, and the eight that were then in the semifinals.

And when you think about... So part of it is the structure, and I think they got it right.

Everybody agrees with that.

Don't give the four byes automatically to conference champs.

But a year ago, that five, six, seven, and eight were pretty darn good, right?

And I don't think we are... Partly because of structure, but I think also partly the reality of the situation.

If you think about...

The eight last year was Ohio State.

The eight this year was Oklahoma, Bill.

The difference between that eight and this eight, how vast is that?

How would you explain the gap between Ohio State 2024 and Oklahoma 2025?