Stewart Mandel

Mandel’s Final Thoughts: Lee Corso salute, Arch Manning’s shockingly bad day and more Week 1 Plus: LSU and Florida State make statements, Alabama flops again under Kalen DeBoer and more from the first three days of Week 1.

It's Year 6 of Final Thoughts!

And so much to get to:

-- Lee Corso's triumphant exit and Arch Manning's rough "debut."

-- FSU's remarkable 180 and Kalen DeBoer's crisis point.

-- Brian Kelly has a defense now.

-- Did Tennessee win the QB swap? And more.

www.nytimes.com/athletic/658...

Tennessee and UCLA Swap QBs Podcast Episode · The Audible with Stew & Bruce: A show about college football · 04/23/2025 · 58m

New Audible: We had a fascinating conversation with Syracuse coach Fran Brown talking about the realities of NIL, the portal and much more; plus we discuss the UCLA-Tennessee QB swap: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

Really think you'll enjoy this week's Audible.

A convo w/ the retiring @dennisdoddcbs about his career covering CFB. We reminisce about the late '90s "What is this Internet thing?" era of reporting.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sta…

Stanford GM Andrew Luck fires football coach Troy Taylor following bullying investigations New Stanford general manager Andrew Luck made the decision Tuesday to terminate Taylor.

Stanford fires Troy Taylor.

www.nytimes.com/athletic/621...

Coming tomorrow!

Power ranking college football’s top 25 coaches in 2025: Where are Ryan Day, Brian Kelly? Disappointing seasons for a few coaches dropped them out of Stewart Mandel's top 25 entirely. Who made the cut?

Every year, Bruce and I each do our own Top 25 coach rankings and let you decide who did it better.

It will definitely be me this year, because he somehow still has Lincoln Riley ranked.

Mine:

www.nytimes.com/athletic/618...

Bruce's:

www.nytimes.com/athletic/619...

Mandel’s mailbag: Will Florida State, Clemson stay in ACC? What’s Ohio State’s outlook? What's next for the ACC, Clemson and Florida State after they settled their lawsuits this week? What are the Buckeyes chances in 2025?

This week's Mailbag:

Did FSU/Clemson "win" their ACC settlement?

Did Ohio State lose too much to reload?

And why I'm pretty ticked off about spring games going away (thanks, Matt Rhule.)

www.nytimes.com/athletic/617...

How Pop-Tarts turned an easy-to-forget bowl into one of the college football season’s best moments "It makes us all feel good about sacrificing a giant anthropomorphic pastry at midfield in the middle of a bowl game on live TV.”

People ask me all the time. "What do you write about in the offseason?"

Now I can tell them: 2,000-word takeouts on the origins of the Pop-Tarts Bowl.

This was a fun one.

OK, that is wild.

Folks, we have a developing crisis. Starbucks has changed to compostable lids, which is admirable but *you cannot drink out of them.* (I tried.)

Who wants to drink hot coffee with a straw?

And you can listen to that full interview here!

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

Nick Saban, Urban Meyer among class of 22 to be inducted into College Football Hall of Fame Former Virginia Tech star Michael Vick and broadcaster Michael Strahan are also among the class of 18 players and four coaches.

New Mailbag:

How NIL/portal lessened the SEC's grip on college football

Is this Notre Dame's once-a-decade chance?

Does Will Howard not get enough credit?

More.

www.nytimes.com/athletic/606...

I need to engage more on here. It's tough bc the CFB world is still very much on Twitter, so it's twice the work.

Thanks! ... Teams like Miami, Iowa State, South Carolina and BYU were in the conversation to the end. Lots and lots of people watched their bowl games.

What is the best account to follow on here for LA fire updates?

College Football Playoff’s successful arrival proves sky didn’t fall — as so many said it would What changed? How did college football evolve from doomsayers bemoaning a postseason to a 12-team tournament kicking off Friday night?

After 25 years of covering BCS/CFP meetings, listening to commissioners/presidents/ADs tell us why an "NFL-style playoff" in college could never happen, writing this essay was quite cathartic.

It's really here.

www.nytimes.com/athletic/600...

Army-Navy rivalry game sets viewership record, SEC dominates most-watched games list Army-Navy drew 9.4 million viewers on CBS, the highest number on record for the rivalry game and good for 11th-highest of the season.

Last weekend's Army-Navy game drew its biggest audience (9.4M) on record and nearly cracked the Top 10 this season.

These were the 25 most-watched games.

www.nytimes.com/athletic/600...

Super Bowl rings he won coaching a different sport.

Here’s why North Carolina is going to regret hiring Bill Belichick What works in the NFL doesn’t necessarily work in college. Bill Belichick and North Carolina may find out the hard way.

I have a few thoughts on UNC hiring Bill Belichick.

www.nytimes.com/athletic/598...

So we're really going to do this?

Text message in a group chat of my brother telling my family that his roommate from summer class is Luigi Mangione, the UHC CEO prime suspect

Family group chat is CRAZY TODAY

Ranking all 36 College Football Playoff title game possibilities from most to least likely The expanded 12-team College Football Playoff gives us a lot more national title game possibilities. Some a lot more likely than others.

This was a lot of work and a lot of fun. Especially naming honorary captains.

www.nytimes.com/athletic/597...

The critics are correct: The College Football Playoff committee is not rewarding strength of schedule It's not a conspiracy. The committee this year has been wildly inconsistent when factoring in strength of schedule, one way or the other.

This year's committee has placed less emphasis on strength of schedule than any I've seen.

Warde Manuel was outright dismissive of it a couple weeks back.

"If that’s the case, then play the easiest schedule. If you’re 11-1 or 12-0, you’re golden."

www.nytimes.com/athletic/597...

Mandel’s Mailbag: Alabama gets benefit of doubt, and that’s neither right nor wrong Want to make sense of the CFP committee's logic? It's 'Bama, stupid!

New Mailbag.

Thanks!

Mario Cristobal makes case for Miami to be reconsidered in CFP rankings

Mario Cristobal came on The Audible today to talk about Miami's rankings snub.

"Never once were we in a blowout loss against a .500 team.”

www.nytimes.com/athletic/596...

College football bowl projections: The committee has spoken, and Alabama, not Miami, makes Playoff Tuesday's latest College Football Playoff rankings make for four SEC teams in the Playoff. How does that affect the rest?

Updated Bowl Projections with the domino effect of tonight's rankings.

Miami to Pop-Tarts.

South Carolina to Citrus.

Ole Miss to ReliaQuest.

And almost every ACC team moves down one rung.

www.nytimes.com/athletic/591...

I'm not generally a believer in the ESPN/SEC conspiracy theories, but the repeated insistence by Joe Tess and Jesse Palmer that UGA would lock up a CFP berth with the win -- Jesse called it "guaranteed" -- was semi-reckless. Casual fans watching might assume UGA formally clinched something.

Brian Kelly left Notre Dame for LSU to win a title. Why is he further away from that than ever? One former player's advice for Brian Kelly: "You have to let your players know that you really got 'em."

"When I was playing for (Brian) Kelly the last two years, I didn’t talk to him. I started every game for him," said recent LSU center Charles Turner.

Quite a story from my colleagues on the issues at LSU.

www.nytimes.com/athletic/594...

Mandel’s Final Thoughts: Kalen DeBoer’s bad night, Indiana’s silver lining mark wild Week 13 When four of the committee’s top 16 teams lose to opponents with 5-5 or 4-6 records, there's a lot of reimagining to do.

20 Final Thoughts from Upset Saturday:

-- After all that, Indiana may be just fine.
-- The SEC, not so much.

-- The seas part for a 2-bid ACC

-- An Arizona State-Iowa State Big 12 title game??

More.

www.nytimes.com/athletic/594...