The End of the Year Special: College Football National Championships and the Best Team in the NFC

In this week's episode of The Wisconsin Sportscast, Lucas and Oates prepare to hibernate for the winter (episodes will return on 1/08/2025) with an end of year special that sounds suspiciously like every other episode… This week, it’s time for the college football championship. With the first weekend complete the games have been, so far, underwhelming. Some people have blamed the seeding, which Lucas can’t argue against. None of the games were particularly close, now were they particularly exciting. There were a few highlights, like watching some southern teams play in the winter north, but who really wants to watch Oregon go through Ohio State again? They need to move to seeding by perceived strength, says Oates, and forget about conference ties. Maybe then more than three or four teams will have a shot and the games might be more exciting…

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any interesting games coming up. Yes we’ve seen Oregon vs Ohio State already, but it’ll still be a great game. Boise vs Penn State could shape up to be a great game too, and Lucas thinks that Notre Dame (taking on Georgia) has been overlooked. So who do Badger fans root for? Do they go with the Big 10 teams and bring some acclaim to the division? Probably, but it’ll still be hard for Badger fans to do.

Moving to men’s basketball, the Badgers are coming off an easy win over Detroit Mercy this weekend, leaving them now at 10-3. The team is looking okay so far - all of their losses came from really good teams. But how can they compete with the rest of the Big 10? Well, take a look at the Big 10 these days, Oates says. How’s that “Number One” Indianna holding up these days?

Finally, turning to the NFL, Lucas wants to know: who’s the best team today in the NFC? Between the Eagles, the Lions, the Vikings, the Commanders, the Rams, and yes, the Packers, who stands above the rest? It’s an easy question with a not so easy answer, says Oates. It should be the Lions, given the talent in their players. But the Lions aren’t the full Lions right now, with injury upon injury. So does it go to the Eagles by default? Maybe, but Oates thinks that the Packers are looking pretty good going into the playoffs. Or at least he says that before Monday night’s game against the Saints…

The Wisconsin Sportscast with Lucas & Oates is a Cap Times podcast produced by Nate Wegehaupt. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

A weekly podcast with insights and analysis on the Wisconsin Badgers, Milwaukee Brewers, Green Bay Packers and Milwaukee Bucks from two of Wisconsin’s most experienced sports journalists. Mike Lucas is a veteran sports columnist for the Cap Times and was a Badgers radio color commentator for over 25 years. Tom Oates was a sports reporter and columnist for the Wisconsin State Journal for 40 years.