Bowl Season Might Be In Its Bleak Midwinter

…Rob Mac and Ryan Reynolds brought in Atlético Madrid-owners Apollo Sports Capital as a minority stakeholder to hopefully help the owners-slash-actors get the world-famous Wrexham AFC the two promotions it needs to make the Premier League. I have a crisp $20 if you need any additional help, fellas. Let me know! 

These are the 67 Most Stylish People of 2025, and yes, I’m pretty sure they chose that number to personally annoy me! And it worked!!! Still, with names like Doechii, Bad Bunny, Paige Bueckers, and Pope Leo, the list is a pretty interesting and diverse set of folks.  

Everyone’s watchin’ WAGs these days, so if you’ve been curious about who exactly Lando Norris’s WAG is, you’ve come to the right place. Waste away in Margarida-ville. 

Which athletes did you spend all year Googling? These are the most searched athletes (according to Boardroom). And they’re……..not who you’d expect. Unless they are? I don’t know your life. 

Rich Paul and Max Kellerman debuted their new video podcast, “Game Over,” on Spotify (ahead of its release on Netflix). The talk show, part of The Ringer family, offers a BTS biz perspective from Paul, and the more typical sports-guy takes from Kellerman.

“Go Off” is a special edition of our daily newsletter, featuring my thoughts, takes, and general vibes, presented to OffBall readers every Tuesday. 

It feels like all anyone is talking about is the College Football Playoff. People are mad, people are neutral, people are happy. Alabama jumping Notre Dame is wrong. Notre Dame forgoing a bowl game is wrong. The conferences themselves are wrong. Cal and Stanford are in the Atlantic Coast Conference, for crying out loud. But I’m actually not here to talk about all of that. I’m just laying the groundwork. Giving context. Because now that 10 teams have decided to abstain from a bowl game, bowl season is about to be all wrong. 

I’m not happy about Notre Dame declining a bowl invite, but I don’t fault anyone for sitting out. If we’ve decided this is how we want college football to look (read: be driven by profit, featuring monstrous contracts and deals), we can’t get mad when this is the result. Why should teams risk playing in a game that doesn’t matter instead of focusing on putting their best foot forward for the coming season? You might answer “Because of whimsy! Fun! Tradition!” to which I agree. But if we’re doing away with whimsy in every other aspect of the game (conferences being killed, private equity entering the chat), why are we surprised when the players do the same? The rules have to apply to everything or nothing at all. We have to have consistency. And networks have to stop being biased toward certain conferences (even if they claim they aren’t). 

Plus, it’s worth mentioning that it was also wrong before. During the BCS days, when computers ruled all, fans insisted that a committee should be the decision-maker. That’s kind of how we got here in the first place. So, what’s right and what’s wrong? Maybe that’s not what it’s about, necessarily. Maybe we just have to acknowledge and label the vibe shift in college football. Maybe once we do that, it magically goes away. Is that anything? Probably not, but a girl can dream! 

I spoke to the Commish of the Sicko’s Committee (if you aren’t familiar, you need to be) to see how we got here, and if here means “in a place where college football has lost its spirit.” He blames many things for this fallout: “from the PAC-12 breaking apart…along with the fight for TV rights and big money in those TV contracts. It fractured what was a regional sport into conferences that don’t make geographical sense. Conference schedules are imbalanced, and divisions have disappeared...It makes for weird tiebreakers in all conferences, not just what occurred in the ACC this year.” 

In Peaky Blinders, every time (about 82 total) Cillian Murphy’s character, Tommy Shelby, thinks he’s going to die, he whispers, to himself, “In the bleak midwinter…” which is the first line of a poem by Christina Rossetti, about the birth of Jesus, and our need to seek and find comfort in the coldest moments. These days, that’s how it feels watching college football.  

@netflix

can confirm: we are in the bleak midwinter #peakyblinders #netflix

But just as my colleague (shout out, Mason) says when I wax dystopian about college football, the Commish reminded me there is still life here. 

“I’m really happy for Tulane and James Madison to get a shot in the Playoffs. It’s refreshing to me to see the smaller schools get a shot because that doesn’t historically happen ever! The right amount of chaos had to happen for this outcome, and I’m going to enjoy it,” the Commish told me. 

In terms of what we can do to fix it, that’s above my pay grade, but most people online have an idea. Or they at least acknowledge something is wrong. Then again, scroll through these quote tweets, and you’ll see many people think it’s just too far gone. 

Regardless, we’re losing more than just bowl games. We’re losing meaningful rivalries. And hate is a very important part of sports. 

Anyway, sometimes, when things get really bad, all you can do is laugh. 

It seems like no. Let’s rectify that. 

Myles Garrett and Chloe Kim have been sitting in a tree since May of this year when they showed up at the Crunchyroll Awards together. Since then, we’ve all been kinda wondering how serious things were. But this video answered any questions the public had, because they were seen k-i-s-s-i-n-g. At a Browns game. 

Chloe admitted the couple was very happy and said she’s in awe of him as an athlete. She also said she didn’t know who he was (or who any athletes besides Tom Brady and LeBron James are). 

Since the Browns have been eliminated from playoff contention, there’s no chance Myles will be in the Super Bowl (not that we were ever really worried about that, no offense) while Chloe’s participating in the Olympic Games in Italy. What I am getting at is: someone pays for me to go to Italy to cover Myles and Chloe. It would be really worth it. (At least for me.) 

@tifosports

"Who do you think you are, I am!" explained... #sportstiktok #sports #bowling #fyp