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ALT: two men are standing next to each other and one of them is saying " allamaraine count to four allamaraine then three more "

_Welcome to theDefector College Football Watch Guide, where Israel Daramola and Ray Ratto will tell you which of the weekend’s college football games are worth giving a crap about._ **Israel:** Last year when we did this, the assumption was that the committee would finagle things around to provide fewer potential blowouts and unwatchable games. Since then, I've started to put together that ESPN might be more committed to their _Survivor_ -esque weekly playoff tribunal than to actually producing good games. Even the games that ostensibly look worthwhile seem like they could be terrible. Alabama has been stinking it up for the past month; Oklahoma hasn’t been dependable at any point this year; Miami and Carson Beck could absolutely implode at any moment; and Texas A&M is … well, Texas A&M. Suddenly the Gasparilla Bowl between **Memphis and NC State** seems like the only must-watch game of the weekend. Unfortunately, there is only one solution: MORE EXPANSION.

_Welcome to theDefector College Football Watch Guide, where Israel Daramola and Ray Ratto will tell you which of the weekend’s college football games are worth giving a crap about._ **Israel:** It’s conference championship weekend … a thing that matters! Right? There are rematches and gritty duels and a 1 vs. 2 matchup between undefeated juggernauts, and no one can be bothered to give much of a shit about any of it. Is it the expanded playoff’s fault? Have they really ruined conference championships the way they ruined the bowls and threaten to ruin the regular season as a whole? It’s hard to disagree with that idea. This year especially, it feels like the sport has devolved from significant games that build toward a national championship matchup to a rankings-reveal television show orchestrated by a shadowy committee, where the games merely provide window dressing. This is not just about whether Notre Dame should be in the playoff; it is about the playoff debate itself overwhelming the sport. Not one outcome from this weekend will actually determine anything regarding the playoff. It all comes down to what the committee decides they want, which is what’s good for their television show: a new era of fantasy football.

_Welcome to theDefector College Football Watch Guide, where Israel Daramola and Ray Ratto will tell you which of the weekend’s college football games are worth giving a crap about._ **Israel:** We finally made it to the end of a knotty mess of a college football season. The road has been paved with the bodies of formerly high-paid coaches and transfer-portal casualties. But after all the hootin’ and hollerin’ we are here at Rivalry Week, where your record isn’t supposed to matter and everyone, audience and players alike, is weighed down by Thanksgiving dinner. The highlights of this weekend likely revolve around whether Ohio State could actually blow it again, or if Auburn has enough black magic to sabotage Alabama’s season once more for old time’s sake. But even the rivalries with lower stakes should be lots of fun; it’s fun to hate and fun to watch other haters inflict their hatred upon one another. At the Hater’s Ball, it’s hard _not_ to have a good time.

_Welcome to theDefector College Football Watch Guide, where Israel Daramola and Ray Ratto will tell you which of the weekend’s college football games are worth giving a crap about._ **Israel:** This week certainly made it clear that the playoff committee is mostly operating off of vibes instead of any concrete, verifiable assessment of who the best teams are. But it doesn’t really matter that much, because no one can tell you which of these teams are actually good anyway. As soon as you think you have a handle on the landscape, a ranked team will just go and do something stupid like almost blowing it against Iowa or actually blowing it against Wake Forest. Why should anyone be expected to go off anything other than vibes?

_Welcome to theDefector College Football Watch Guide, where Israel Daramola and Ray Ratto will tell you which of the weekend’s college football games are worth giving a crap about._ **Israel:** We got our first edition of the college football playoff standings, and hoo boy, it’s time to get MAD ONLINE. The main takeaways from the first bracket are that the SEC and the Big Ten are swallowing up all the real estate, the Big 12 makes a decent show of it, and literally no one has any respect for the ACC, which is a huge blow to Miami’s chances.

_Welcome to theDefector College Football Watch Guide, where Israel Daramola and Ray Ratto will tell you which of the weekend’s college football games are worth giving a crap about._ **Ray:** Good news for SEC teams across the land: The next coach at LSU is almost certainly going to be a spectacular failure. This news comes after Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry suggested, and probably not tongue-in-cheek, that "Maybe we'll let President Trump pick it. He loves winners.” This came in a presser in which he also announced that soon-to-be-no-longer athletic director Scott Woodward, whose last two football hires totaled $124 million in buyouts, would not be picking Brian Kelly’s doomed successor, adding, “We're gonna put metrics on it because I'm tired of rewarding failure in this country and then leaving the taxpayers to foot the bill." Ignoring the fact that Jeffy was deeply involved in the process when the Kelly contract was negotiated, this leads to the obvious conundrum: If you had only Trump, Landry or Woodward to pick your next coach, how soon would it be before you shut down the program? However badly it plays, it’s all good news at the other 15 campuses—even Kentucky.

_Welcome to theDefector College Football Watch Guide, where Israel Daramola and Ray Ratto will tell you which of the weekend’s college football games are worth giving a crap about._ **Ray:** Does Alabama (9) still hate Kalen DeBoer? Has enough time passed since the opening weekend loss to a Florida State (34) team that has since lost its last four, including a weekend loss at Stanford (101)? The answers are, respectively, yes and no—yes, they still hate him, and no, the Earth has not exploded so there is still not enough time for him to be cured of what the fan base believes ails him. Still, for those of us not pot-committed to the return of Nick Saban, the Tide have been mighty impressive since that loss. Their past four wins have been over ranked conference rivals Georgia (10), Vanderbilt (15), Missouri (8) and Tennessee (18), which is what the gerbils in the football committee call “a good strength of schedule index.” Never mind that Tennessee rallied in the second half after giving up a 99-yard pick-six to Zabien Brown on the final play of the first. Wins are wins when so few teams can claim a clean sheet at this point in the year. So yes, they still hate Kalen DeBoer, but they are less likely to toss a lit M-80 in his mailbox in the middle of the night. And as long as he keeps winning, he won’t be Billy Napier. Napier, freshly divorced from Florida (38), was the eighth guy in seven full weeks to suddenly have his weekends free (Jay Norvell of Colorado State (108) became the ninth hours later), which is more than just an epidemic—it’s a tradition! Speaking of which, Notre Dame (6) is back in action too after Stooge-slapping USC (16), in case you were worried about their December plans, and by “worried” we of course mean “not worried at all.” In other words, all the fretters and fussers about the new college football are about to be reminded that by new, we of course mean old.