Mike Cagley, Co-Host Sports Spectacular

July 29, 2025

B1G Media Days are finished. The B1G conference seems to be the only conference backing a CFP (College Football Playoff) plan for with each conference assigned automatic qualifiers regardless of records during the season. As usual, I have some thoughts about this.

Hail Mary #1 – The B1G is an Outlier When It Comes to CFP Structure

The rest of the conferences across college football are wanting to go to a five plus eleven format for the CFP. This means the five highest ranked conference champions would get automatic bids and the next 11 teams are selected by an at large process. The B1G is still behind a 4-4-2-2-1-1 CFP structure that guarantees the B1G and SEC 4 teams each.

I can see both sides of this issue.

The 5 plus 11 plan is one that could really work well for the SEC. SEC football is one of the crown jewels of ESPN programming. One can see the talking heads at ESPN talking up the SEC all season long to steer public opinion in favor of the SEC getting as many selections as possible. It's not hard to understand why the B1G wouldn't be comfortable with this process where 11 bids are swayed by public opinion and rankings.

Don’t forget that poll voters are people too. They watch sports. They listen to talk shows and podcasts. They watch YouTube clips, and this can affect the voting process. Getting as many teams ranked in the Top 15 is critical. It means more money for the conference and its teams after the CFP payout each year. Increased payouts mean more funds to be used to win games – well, we really aren’t sure on the mechanics of how it can be spent with the rules not being fully set - but more money is always a good thing in terms of athletics.

The SEC still has the best conference in football from top to bottom. Maybe the B1G will pass them up, but that day is not today. The SEC play 8 conference games, while the B1G plays 9 conference games. Neither conference wants to give up what they perceive as an advantage – so the B1G wants the SEC to go to 9 games, and the SEC wants unlimited access to the CFP.

The B1G plan is more like the NFL where a conference knows how many playoff berths it gets, and the conference can set up a process to make that happen. The B1G as figured out a way to make money off of these automatic bids. The B1G would like to have a play in tournament to make even more money.

Mark my words - at some point the SEC will go to 9 conference games - not because they want to, but because ESPN can make more money with one more round of conference games having more money flowing in from advertisers. Until then, there is going to be conflict over the number of teams with automatic bids.

For my part, I like four berths for the SEC and B1G, but there will be down years. It may be rare, but in a down year, fans would hate seeing bids wasted on teams that don’t deserve those bids. I understand those saying there's 11 spots, earn as many as you can. I can live with either option, but if there were a five plus 11 format, the preseason polls should end. No more polls should be published until week four. This would prevent a conference from starting the season with 8 to 11 teams in the Top 25 and hanging on to get more than four teams into the CFP at the end of the season.

Root cause analysis tells me the argument is how do you judge a team's merit for the playoff? It seems crystal clear that the formula for getting into the CFP must be perfected. Balancing wins with schedule strength is a must. There must be a way to stop rewarding school for scheduling cupcakes for the sole reason of enhancing the chances of receiving a CFP bid. To make sure the best data possible is used, the teams should be reranked and evaluated weekly as the season progresses. This means teams that fade during the season could take down not only their own season, but the season of teams that have beaten them.

Instead of arguing about the format, get a ranking system that encourages teams to compete against like teams and discourages the easy games that fans aren’t interested in watching anyway. Either format will work - if the right teams are on the field. Focus on that and not on the numbers. 

Let’s not make this too hard.

Heat Check #1 – The Fantastic Four: First Steps – A Movie Review

The Fantastic Four: First Steps came out Thursday night and I had the opportunity to watch it a couple of times.

It was a fun movie, and I’d recommend folks to go see it.

Let’s talk about the movie:

Casting

The Fantastic Four is always about family. Yes, it’s a family that has superpowers - but the team is family first, superheroes second. I think they accomplished this.

• Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards. I thought Ioan Gruffudd looked more like the comic book Reed Richards in the 2005 movie. Clearly, Pedro has the acting chops to play the worlds smartest man, but why you want an actor with such charisma playing a character who is usually socially awkward is beyond me.
• Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm. Kirby was very believable in the role of Sue Storm the leader of the international diplomatic organization she founded called the Future Foundation, as opposed to Jessica Alba who seemed out of place in 2005 as a scientist. I thought Kirby was excellent.
• Ebon Moss-Bachrach as the Thing. Ebon had the voice for the Thing. He played the role well as this version of the Thing was focused more on the soft side of the Fantastic Four’s brawler.
• Joseph Quinn as the Human Torch. This casting was a miss in my book. Quinn doesn’t have the looks or personality to equal what we saw in Chris Evans’ portrayal of the Human Torch. Evans was the prototypical Johnny Storm and will be hard for any future actor to displace as the uber-cool Torch.

This Version of the Characters

There are multiple versions of the Fantastic Four from movies to cartoons and of course going back to the comic books. I have some thoughts on this movie’s take on these characters.

• Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards wasn’t given many opportunities to show he was the world’s smartest man. Writing at a chalkboard and being nervous didn’t translate as “super genius” to me. Additionally, while Mr. Fantastic can be socially awkward and is aware of this issue, he is confident in his own ability to solve problems with his intellect. This Reed Richards needs a bit more brains and much more confidence in his abilities.
• Johnny Storm was the guy who figured things out in this movie. He translated an unknown language into English. That was impressive. So much for the uber short-tempered, shallow and skirt-chasing Human Torch we’re used to. I’m not saying it’s bad, but it isn’t the Human Torch, next thing you know we’ll be seeing a pacifist Batman. Sigh.
• Galactus should not speak to humans aside from rare exceptions. Using the Watcher in the comics to be the communication “go-between” is a great way to keep Galactus more like a space god rather than just another human-like alien being with rather human motivations.

The Plot

The Fantastic Four are celebrating their fourth anniversary as a superpowered unit and the Earth is discovered by the Silver Surfer, the herald of Galactus. They are told that Earth will be destroyed as Galactus is going to devour the planet.

From there on it’s pretty much on between Silver Surfer, Galactus and the Fantastic Four.

Story Challenges

There were a few things I’d handle differently.

• Galactus – Motivation – Galactus not wanting to be a slave to his hunger and continuously devouring entire planets is believable. At this point, only comic nerds (like me) know why he eats planets and what his purpose is in the universe. It would be better to provide some sort of origin before him wanting Franklin Richards to replace him as Galactus (which is done in an alternative future in Marvel Comics). This seems like a movie for a Galactus that has been around for a movie or two.
• Galactus – Powers – Galactus has nearly infinite power – except when he is hungry and hasn’t fed. If you want to make the battle believable, instead of having him well fed (where he is nearly unbeatable) have him come to Earth starving (see Fantastic Four #243). This effectively gives the heroes the chance to beat the unbeatable. It wouldn’t take much of a re-write to make that happen. I wish they had more comic book fans looking at these movie scripts early in the film making process.
• The first extra scene during the credits was a waste – Doom was announced last year at the San Diego Comic Con. Having a green-cloaked, face hidden Doom is a bit of a letdown. Give us something that adds value, make them more like the buildups we saw for Thanos.

Overall

This movie was a lot of fun. The color pallet was great. The retro modern look of this Earth reminded me of what the world of the Jetsons (a late 60s cartoon) might look like. This version of Earth was an immersive experience that felt comfortable and yet strange at once.

The first 10 minutes of the movie effectively recapped the origin and the first four years of the Fantastic Four. This was a great way to start the movie without an extended origin scene that everyone knows already.

The interactions between the Fantastic Four were well done and it was clear that this was a family. One could see that regardless of their powers and what happened in life, this family would be close.

The Silver Surfer was changed from Norrin Radd (in the comics) to Shalla Bal (Surfer’s girlfriend in the comics). I’m not certain as to why, other than maybe there is supposed to be a kinship as two mothers combined to drive away Galactus. The moral to the story is don’t mess with kids when there are moms who are powerful around?

Overall, this was a very good movie that has a few flaws but like Superman did a very effective job of setting the table for the next movie.