Skull Session: Playoff Contingency Plans, Terry McLaurin Welcomed Jeff Okudah to College Football, and Arizona Cardinals Stole From Ryan Day's Playbook

The specialists got jokes.

2 pictures with specialists?! Must be a bye week https://t.co/7ST5wH2rlX
— OSU Specialists (@BuckSpecialists) November 13, 2020

Word of the Day: Repine.

MOVE IT ON BACK! Moving the College Football Playoff back a few weeks seemed like far too obvious of a move for those blissfully inept goons to actually seriously consider it.

But sometimes in life, people surprise you.

With so many games postponed in college football this year, is there a possibility of moving back the @CFBPlayoff?

The Commissioner of the @Big12Conference, Bob Bowlsby, answered that question to @arisports & @archerqb16. pic.twitter.com/lGaFpUvZMl
— College Sports on SiriusXM (@SXMCollege) November 12, 2020

Except, maybe not.

Right now, the national semifinal games remain scheduled to be played on New Year’s Day. It would take a lot to convince the CFP’s management committee, which is made up of the 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, to move away from that date and those high-viewership time slots for the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl. College football would have to compete with the NFL postseason if it went later. Plus, there’s no reason to think a pandemic already made worse by cold weather and flu season would be any better in February than it is in January.

For these same reasons, there appears to be no momentum for extending the regular season just to get in a few more games. If any part of the schedule ends up getting a timeline adjustment, it would likely only be the postseason.

Translation: They value money more than picking the four best teams and preserving the integrity of the playoff. At least nobody's even trying to hide it at this point.

LET'S GET CREATIVE! So there's at least a chance that some conferences don't actually get to their conference championship games this year. But don't worry – they're already preparing for that!

Interesting nugget I gleaned today: FBS commissioners have been asked by the College Football Playoff to figure out how they will determine their conference champion if their league championship game cannot be played.

(please get creative with this!!) https://t.co/KQiI3tSqEe
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) November 13, 2020

Let's at least make this fun. Like, if Ohio State takes second place in the Big Ten because Tom Allen wins two of three games of Super Smash Bros against Ryan Day, I won't even be mad.

SCARY TERRY. Jeff Okudah got to Ohio State as the top-ranked corner in the country, and Terry McLaurin wasted absolutely no time teaching him that he was at the bottom of the food chain now.

Terry McLaurin recalls first time going vs Jeffrey Okudah at Ohio State. Fun story. pic.twitter.com/h6EYDnOKAV
— John Keim (@john_keim) November 12, 2020

Terry has this whole Jeckyl and Hyde thing going between his personality on the field and off it.

He's genuinely one of the nicest, humblest, thoughtful, and most soft-spoken players I've ever talked to off the field, but on it, he's a guy that will drive you into the turn and tell you about it afterwards – even if it costs him 30 penalty yards on a single play.

KLIFF KINGSBURY, PLAY THIEF. Turns out, Ryan Day doesn't even need to coach in The League to draw up NFL touchdowns.

But Kingsbury didn’t claim to have invented the play, and instead noted that the Cardinals had “stole[n] it from Ohio State. They [Ohio State] ran it against Michigan. Looking to the side like you’re getting a play and try to catch them off guard. Ohio State had it wide open, and the kid dropped it.” And that is exactly what happened:

Side note: It says a lot about how lopsided the past two Michigan games have been that I had absolutely no memory of Chris Olave dropping a sure touchdown pass because it didn't impact the lopsided outcome of the game even a little bit.

SONG OF THE DAY. "As We Ran" by The National Parks.