College football now has bubble watch and poll results on Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson

The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to get The Pulse delivered straight to your inbox.

Good morning! You made it into our 53-man squad.

New bubbles: The never ending bubble is here

After last weekend’s taste of what’s to come, the full start of college football this weekend is drawing ever closer. And yet, all I can think about right now is college. basketballWhy? Because of the bubble:

• Anyone who has paid attention to college basketball over the last decade or two is familiar with the term “bubble watch.” a nice phrase that pops up in search trends every February as teams try to qualify for the NCAA Tournament. Suddenly, a February 10 game between two 17-14 teams seems crucial – because both are on the tournament bubble.
• And we love it, don’t we? That means more games matter. And thanks to the College Football Playoff expanding to 12 teams, we now have bubble watch all fall long in a sport that’s even more popular. Rejoice, everyone.

So yes, we already have a Bubble Watch article highWe will not Really We won’t know who’s in the mix until the games are actually played, but here’s a rough list based on preseason predictions:

Ole Miss, Utah, Kansas State, Boise State, Missouri, Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, Liberty, Oklahoma State, Memphis, LSU (hm), Michigan, Clemson, Oklahoma and Miami.

Remember that the only automatic bids come from the five highest-ranked conference champions, which is essentially the winners of the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and SEC plus one other champion. The other seven entrants are based on the CFP committee’s rankings.

We probably already have our first real resident of the bubble: Florida Statewhose Week 0 loss to Georgia Tech has already blown away some predictions. The Seminoles can still make it to the CFP (probably even with another loss), but they are already firmly in the balance before Week 1 begins.

We’ll have more coverage of college football later this week. For now, read Austin Mock’s current 12-team projection here.

news

A new payday for the Kelces
Amazon will pay Travis and Jason Kelce around $100 million to become the new home of the brothers’ popular podcast “New Heights.” The athleteAndrew Marchand reported yesterday. The show will run on Amazon’s podcast network Wondery, which has exclusive rights to ad sales and distribution. Fittingly, the boyfriend of a certain pop star also bought a stake in a racehorse named Swift Delivery yesterday. Don’t expect the Kelce brothers to fade from the national consciousness anytime soon.

The longest match in Open history
Dan Evans needed five hours and 35 minutes to beat Karen Khachanov at the US Open yesterday, setting a new event record and surpassing the 1992 semifinal between Stefan Edberg and Michael Chang, which lasted five hours and 26 minutes. The first three sets yesterday went to tiebreaks, which is making me tired just typing. Also: Indeed, world number one men’s tennis player Jannik Sinner played a nerve-wracking match yesterday – in his first appearance since his doping scandal – and survived an ugly first set to defeat Mackenzie McDonald.

Of course Rich Hill is back
Does it matter that new Red Sox pitcher Rich Hill is 44, an age at which most players are long retired? A foolish hypothesis, really, because we all knew this day would come: Boston called up Hill yesterday to bolster a beleaguered pitching staff as the team enters a hectic final stretch with four games left to make up in the AL wild-card race. So Hill will be in his 20. season in a row, a streak that began when George W. Bush was just beginning his second term as president. For more interesting Hill stats, click here.

More news

(Top photo: Brett Davis / USA Today)