This is For The Win’s daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Did a friend recommend or forward this to you? If so, subscribe here. Have feedback? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey! Now, here’s Mike Sykes.
Good morning, Winners. Thanks for reading the Morning Win today. Thank you for visiting our site. You could’ve been anywhere on the internet, but you’re here with us. And that means a lot. Especially today.
I won’t skip over the elephant in the room. Tuesday began one of the most consequential elections in recent American history. That buzzer hasn’t officially sounded yet, but at this point everyone is just playing until the final whistle. Donald Trump will be the president of the United States again.
I’m not sure where you stand on that. I won’t completely get into where I stand on that, mostly because if you’re reading this, you likely already know. But, honestly, I don’t think it much matters anymore. The results are the results and we all have to live with them.
But that’s the thing I’m struggling with the most today. How do we live with them? How are we supposed to carry on from here?
For The Win is where you come to be on the internet when you need a reprieve from everything else. We like to poke fun at things. We try not to take ourselves too seriously. We love to have a good time and we love to show everyone else a good time, too.
But it’s hard to have a good time today, knowing that our country has descended into an irreparable state.
America is supposed to be a nation with a people that stand together, “indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” as they say. That’s supposed to be what sets us apart from the other nations in our world. Through everything, we’re supposed to prioritize compromise and togetherness over the herd mentality that seems to plague this country we all love. It’s not supposed to be “us vs. them,” yet that’s what it’s felt like for these last eight years.
That’s the pervasive feeling I see out there this morning. It’s everywhere. On my social feeds. In my text threads. Everywhere. It’s inescapable. I don’t blame people, given the circumstances of everything going on today. I won’t sit here and act as if I’m immune to it or above it myself. But it’s just so difficult to reconcile as someone who loves our country and wants to have faith in its people.
So that’s where I’m at today. I’d love to write about the College Football Playoff rankings or Joel Embiid’s suspension or — quite literally — anything else today. But the divisiveness permeating our country has become a hard pill for me to swallow, as I’m sure it is for you, too.
I don’t know how we move forward from here. I don’t know what awaits us on the horizon. But I just hope that one way or another, we can find a way back to where things once were before everything got all weird.
Because this ain’t it.
While you were doomscrolling …
The year’s first college football playoff rankings dropped. And, while I won’t write about them myself today, our Blake Schuster had a take that I think is worthwhile to consider on the topic.
Oregon is at the top with Ohio State (2), Georgia (3) and Miami (4) trailing. OSU has the best odds to win the entire thing. But things will change. Inevitably. That’s the nature of this beast.
“A year ago, when the first rankings were released, Ohio State was No. 1, Georgia was No. 2 and Florida State was No. 4. None of those teams made the final four-team field.
With an expanded 12-team playoff this season, the first rankings should tell us more about which teams are on the bubble than which teams are safely in.
That doesn’t mean Tuesday’s rankings don’t have any impact. Already we’re seeing the way the national title odds are changing based on the committee’s first poll.”
It’s going to be a long, weird season, folks.
Quick hits: CFP Winners and Losers … NFL Trade Deadline takes … and more
— Here’s Blake Schuster with winners and losers from the first round of the College Football Playoff rankings.
— Christian D’Andrea has five teams that got better and three that got worse at the NFL trade deadline.
— And here’s Christian, again, with his weekly QB rankings. Lamar Jackson remains the best of the best.
— Here’s Robert Zeglinski with trade deadline winners and losers, including a take on Jerry Jones.
— Here were 8 election day distractions we came up with as a staff that might still be applicable for you today.
— Here’s Meg Hall with the best moments from day 1 of women’s college basketball.
That’s a wrap, folks. Thanks for reading. Please, be well today. Peace. See you tomorrow.
-Sykes ✌️