Mary McFadden No one demands the physical and mental ruination of a losing quarterback as part of a winning score.

Gather round, kids. Uncle King's going to tell you a story about Deacon Jones ...

savetigerstadium You don't like it, Mary McFadden. That's what you're trying to say.

I thought she said a lot more than that.

leei World #1s tend to skew much older than in many other disciplines largely because of the importance of skill and strategy over speed and strength (the "chess" of racquet sports).

Well then we aren't talking about great athletes, in the sense of saying "the people in this sport are the greatest athletes in the world," as opposed to "the people in this sport really play this one particular sport at a very high level." I think we can all agree that baseball players are not "the best athletes in the world," because things like hand-eye coordination, understanding situations, etc. are more important than pure athletic ability.

My point about the champs skewing older was that, perhaps, with the sport lacking world-class athletes, guile, skills and strategy are enough. If the best athletes in the world were in the sport, I suspect those things would still be important, but by the time you hit 37, the superior athleticism of the 25-year-olds would overcome it.

jbstorch: No Wisconsin?

Sure, Wisconsin. I don't really care that much which eight.

Their only sin that would omit them from the tourney, I assume, is they're in the same conference as Ohio State and Michigan?

Well, if they'd played Ohio State, they'd either be a two-loss team or they'd be in the top eight for sure.

justdoitalready I guess I still don't get why there can't be a playoff. Really. I don't get it. There's talk about money, blah, blah, but honestly, I don't understand the arguments agaist a playoff. It makes no sense.

If you just want to dismiss money, then you're never going to understand. It's about money. It's not about total amounts of money. It's about who's making the money now, and who would make it under a playoff system.

M. Turner Here's how we get a playoff.

Find a company with deep pockets willing to front some serious money to promote the "Google College Football Championship"

Some company tried to do this two years ago. No dice.

Oakland boy fka No Name Given Just have the Bowl Games and let the world celebrate. Enjoy games for what they are and forget about whether there is or is not a true national champion.

I'm fine with that. If they went back to the old way, having the bowls and no "national championship game," so each bowl had its own meaning and tradition, sure that'd be fine. But it's not going to happen. The genie's out of the bottle. There's a system for allegedly trying to name a champion. All we can do at this point is try to get a better system. We're never going back to the old way.

MCBRIE You sports guys apparently think the sun rises and sets based on your need for an absolutely certain 100%, grade-A, no doubt cham-peeen.

Yes. This is true. Except for one thing: It's not true.

However, what are coaches who have been made an offer to do? Turn it down and hope it's still there when the season ends?

"I'm not going to talk about my future employment prospects right now. I'm the coach of the Dolphins. Let's talk about the Dolphins."

That's the way to handle it. Now, of course, people are going to parse that and speculate that it means this, that or the other thing, but guess what, they're doing that anyway.

Even this kind of lie is OK, I think:

"I'm under contract for five years and I plan to be here for at least five years."

What's not acceptable is this:

"I've never spoken to anyone from that university, and you are unprofessional and irresponsible for even asking me about it."

When in fact negotiations are underway between the coach's representatives and the university.

I think this is all fairly simple.

lezzbo Heya King - Are you ever going to explain your Chcago over Baltimore pick?

If they play each other, sure. You won't get much out of the answer, though. Cat entrails are involved.

Have you watched duh bears over the past few weeks?

Yes.

JG How 'bout the spread King? ... Head to heads are no fun unless you're in a suicide pool and then it's one and done. The joy of watching football, I think, is actually watching the game.

I agree. The point spread's about betting, not football.

The joy of prognosticating is being right because something is on the line - create a panel that has to pick using the odds!

Something's on the line in every game. The game for the players and the picks for the panel.

I don't find picking against the spread interesting at all. It's only interesting if you're betting on the game. The object of the game is for one team to beat the other, not for one to beat the other by X number of points because that's the spread. I realize everyone doesn't feel that way, and for those people there are about 60 million Web sites catering to them. This one doesn't. Sorry. No hard feelings.

maquimike You said it -- your ability to predict the NFL is indeed somewhat suspect.

"Somewhat suspect" is overly kind by orders of magnitude.

MattR Peter King's picks: see that Peter only picked 3 div winners (Hey, Detroit should have won the North, right?), which would give him only 11 points.

Right. I made a mistake somewhere and I had him picking Chicago. So yes, he has 11 points. I'll run a correction. It's only a four way tie!