Welcome to Stars Matter, a recruiting podcast from the athletic.

I'm Mitch Light. He's Ari Wasserman.

Ari, how you doing, bud?

The number one team in the composite rankings won the national championship, so I'm feeling pretty good about myself. How about you? No, I think the number two team beat the number one. Oh, the number two team. You know what's funny about that? And I don't know what happened, or if somebody transferred out of the program or left, but Georgia was number one at the beginning of the year. And then Alabama jumped them in the middle of the year. I don't know how that worked.

Yeah. I did because when I was doing a little show prep and I was just confirming that those

were the top two. And I expected it to be Georgia number one, Alabama number two. I don't know if

there was some sort of correction. Like you said, someone left the team at Georgia or whatever, or someone from Alabama wasn't on

previously. But it validates your existence, right, that the top two teams in the 247 team

talent composite played for the national title. It's a little bit of a ding that the number two

team shockingly upset the number one team, even though the number two team was favored. Yeah, the thing that I said on Andy's show and, you know, people who listen to this podcast might be a little bit different and are recruiting nerds like we are that don't need to hear this. But like, I don't think that the Stars Matter mantra is all that profound. Like, I sometimes like wake up in the morning and think like, like, how did this become my brand? I like, all I'm saying is water is wet. You're master of the obvious. Yeah, yeah. It just the teams with the most good players win the most. And, you know, I didn't know that I still don't know how it is an ongoing debate with some people.

Like, it's almost like debating about whether or not the stars in the galaxy exist.

It's like you're looking at it.

Like, what do you need?

What else do you need?

But yeah, I think it was cool to see a playoff with new blood this year, as we talked about.

And if you go back and listen to Stars Matter and how we discussed the playoff before it happened,

exactly what we said would happen would happen because that's the way it works.

You know, and both teams that were down in the rankings and the 247 composite talent metrics got their butts kicked.

And, you know, when they expand the playoff inevitably, there will be some entertaining games like Michigan State Pitt might matter in the future.

And, you know, there might be some teams that win a few playoff games or won, and then they will eventually get matched up with the juggernaut that has the talent advantage, and they'll get their butts kick, too.

So that's just like the way it works.

And, you know, if you're listening to this podcast, you appreciate it, so I don't want to waterboard you with more of the audience.

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