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The college football season is down to just one game as the Georgia Bulldogs will try to repeat as national champions when they face the TCU Horned Frogs on Monday.

I live in Big 10 country and there were two Big Ten teams in contention to play for the national championship, but they both lost. Michigan dropped its game to TCU and Ohio State was beaten by Georgia. Overall, the Big Ten had nine teams in bowl games and I’m not counting USC or UCLA as they’re not officially part of the conference yet. In those nine games the Big Ten managed to have a winning record at 5-4, but it wasn’t quite the performance that anyone was hoping for.

I don’t watch a ton of college football, but I have friends that watch multiple games every week and they pointed out to me that it seems as though teams are just faster than the Big Ten teams. Obviously the Big Ten gets top tier recruits like the other big time college football programs but is it possible that this is the case and that other teams are finding faster athletes than the Big Ten is.

For years the Big Ten has been thought of as a conference were running the football is king, but I think just about every team in college football has moved away from that kind of a game plan. Maybe Big Ten teams aren’t finding those faster players because they do at times have weather to deal with and speed doesn’t always benefit you in cases like that.

Now I’m not sure what the reason could be. All I know is the Big Ten had a 50% chance to get a team into the national championship game and neither one of them got in.

It appears as though college football is headed to a point where there will be four super conferences and the Big Ten will be one of them. I guess will have to wait and see once this situation starts to set up if the Big Ten can compete with those other conferences.

There’s a lot going on in the NFL, but first and foremost is the condition of Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin. I haven’t heard any new updates on his condition, but like everyone else I hope that he’s able to make a complete recover and is released from the hospital very soon.

It’s unclear what the NFL is planning for the final week of the regular season, but I’m under the impression that they’ll play the games. I did like the way they set up this final week. We knew which teams would be playing which, but the NFL waited to announce which games would be at what time. I thought that made things interesting and it allowed the NFL and their television partners to get the games with playoff implications into prime television spots.

The Sunday night game for Week 18 has the Green Bay Packers hosting the Detroit Lions. The winner of this game will get the last NFC wild card spot. Who would’ve thought that the Lions would have a chance at making the playoffs after starting off the season 1-6. You could almost ask the same thing about the Packers after the trial and tribulations they had this season, but one of these teams will be a playoff team.

The other game with pretty big playoff implications has the Baltimore Ravens visiting the Cincinnati Bengals. Both of these teams will be in the playoffs, but the winner of this game will win the AFC North and get a home playoff game while the loser will go into the playoffs as a wild card team.

As of right now I don’t believe that the NFL has announced a start time for the Cincinnati vs. Baltimore game. The last listing, I saw for the game had the start time as TBD.

The Jalen Hurts injury has also given teams the opportunity to take the #1 seed away from the Philadelphia Eagles. Currently Philadelphia has a one game lead on the Dallas Cowboys, San Francisco 49ers and Minnesota Vikings. I believe that the Cowboys hold the tiebreaker advantage over the Eagles, but I don’t know where the 49ers or the Vikings sit in a tiebreaker situation.

Minnesota and San Francisco both have very winnable games in Week 18. The Vikings are in Chicago to play the Bears while the 49ers are at home against the Arizona Cardinals. The Cowboys are on the road in what is a rivalry game against the Washington Commanders while the Eagles are at home against the New York Giants, and it’s been reported that Hurts is on track to play.

Now it’s possible that the Giants might rest players as they can’t improve their playoff position. Will have to see what those teams with a shot at that #1 seed do.

Remember it’s just the #1 seed in each conference that gets the bye in the first playoff round.

Let me know if you have any NFL predictions for this final week of the regular season.

Don’t forget to look me up on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.