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Former President Donald Trump previewed his Wednesday night town hall event with CNN by contending the network is “rightfully desperate” to get ratings up again. “I’ll be doing CNN tomorrow night, LIVE from the Great State of New Hampshire, because they are rightfully desperate to get those fantastic (TRUMP!) ratings once again,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday, previewing the event. The former president said CNN “made me a deal I couldn’t refuse” and pondered if this could mark the beginning of a “New & Vibrant CNN.”

The College Football Czar: Week 14 Week thirteen in review: LSU has decided to keep coach Fewer Miles, although the College Football Czar wonders why he bothers to stick around. In 11 years in Baton Rouge, Miles has compiled a record of 111-32, highlighted by the 2007 national championship. Yet, athletic director Joe Avella allowed rumors of the coach's imminent firing to swirl for two weeks before finally addressing the question, at which time he insultingly advised Miles to focus on his upcoming game against Texas A&M. The Tigers won that contest by a typically LSU-ian score of 19-7, after...

The College Football Czar: Week 13 Week twelve in review: Clemson and Iowa are the only remaining undefeated teams after Ohio State, Oklahoma State and Houston were all toppled last Saturday. In the new CFP ratings, OSU has now plummeted past the Michigan State team that upset them, a development that would not likely have happened under the old BCS system. As much as it may feel right to the CFP committee that the head-to-head winner should have the higher ranking, it isn't really logical, which is why the computer-influenced BCS might have figured it differently. The Buckeyes' only loss...

The College Football Czar: Week 12 Week eleven in review: For those readers who are unsure about the chronology, last week's issue was published the night before Gary Pinkel announced his retirement due to his having been diagnosed with lymphoma. Had this been revealed a day sooner, the College Football Czar would have thought it distasteful to criticize the coach over the previous week's events. Nevertheless, Pinkel's unfortunate personal circumstance and his handling of the campus "hunger strike" are two separate issues. What the Czar wrote about the latter is accurate, and he retracts nothing. The number of undefeated teams...

The College Football Czar: Week 11 Week ten in review: The number of unbeaten teams has dwindled to six, as TCU, LSU, Michigan State, Memphis and Toledo were all defeated. There can be no more than four left by the start of the bowl season, because Baylor and Oklahoma State must play each other, and Ohio State and Iowa are on course to meet in the Big Ten title game. The CFP isn’t placing such a high value on that 0 in the L-column, though, and that's a good thing. As great a season as 9-0 Iowa is having, it's...

The College Football Czar Week 10 Week nine in review: The College Football Czar had his best week to this point in the season, although it would've been one game better if not for the officiating slapstick routine that took place at the end of the Miami-Duke game. The Hurricanes were allowed to score on a last-second kickoff return, which involved eight laterals, one pitch while the ball-carrier was already down, at least one illegal block, one announcement that the play was under review, two more announcements that the play was still under review, and the apparent review of an...

The College Football Czar: Week 9 Week eight in review: The number of undefeated teams was reduced by two with USC’s rout of Utah, and Georgia Tech’s upset (as predicted here) of Florida State. That leaves twelve teams without a defeat, eight of which would be championship contenders if they stayed that way. One of those eight, however, is Baylor, whose starting quarterback Seth Russell suffered a broken bone in his neck last Saturday against Iowa State. As explained here last week, this edition of the College Football Czar’s picks is being issued a day early. The good news from...

The College Football Czar: Week 7 Week six in review: Another strange week has resulted in the first four coaching casualties of the season. The first of these was Maryland’s Randy Edsall, whose imminent dismissal had already been known, although the College Football Czar admits to being surprised that he’s the first coach from a recent Big Ten expansion team to get the boot. He must have beaten out Rutgers’ Kyle Flood by at least a few weeks. In four-plus seasons with the Terrapins, Edsall was 22-33, after going 74-70 in 12 years at Uconn. The Terps’ interim coach is...

The College Football Czar: Week 6 Week five in review: The lesson through the first five weeks of the season is that, apparently, nobody is really very good. Four of the Top Ten teams lost last Saturday, while numbers one and two, Ohio State and Michigan State, looked terrible in clinging to victories against conference foes they’d normally be expected to steamroll. Even as parity dominates, there are 20 undefeated teams at this point in the season, partly because most teams had scheduled at least one phony game against a lower-division opponent, and one deliberately uncompetitive game against a small-conference...

The College Football Czar: Week 5 Week four in review: The College Football Czar had another bad week, although the week the replay officials had around the country was far worse. A completely unjustifiable reversal on a fumble call to decide the Thursday night Memphis-Cincinnati game set the tone for a long Saturday of blown calls on replay. The Czar accepts the fact that instant replay reviews are here to stay, but he’ll thank announcers to stop justifying the practice with the asinine assertion that “the important thing is to get the call right in the end.” Those teams that...

The College Football Czar: Week 4 Week three in review: It was a dismal week for the College Football Czar, but he’s not the only one. Top-ranked Ohio State barely eked out a victory over Northern Illinois, while both Alabama and Southern Cal D-sintegrated before our eyes. It was a Saturday filled with seesaw battles decided by razor-thin margins, several of which turned against the Czar at the last moment. For the week, he was 9-11, causing his overall record to plummet to 39-21, for a .650 winning percentage. All the on-air personalities at the Seamy Underbelly of Networks have...

The College Football Czar: Week 3 Week two in review: You knew that when the AP put ten SEC teams in the Top 25, it was setting the league up for a fall. Three of those teams (Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi State) have fallen out of this week’s rankings, and Auburn has plummeted to #18 after barely surviving a challenge from Division I-AA Jacksonville State. The Czar, for one, did not think that highly of MSU before the season, nor during their opener against Southern Miss, but now thinks they’re actually more worthy of a ranking after a competitive loss...

The College Football Czar: Week 2 Week one in review: There were so few games of consequence during the opening week that Saturday’s highlight was when a Bowling Green defensive lineman attempted the worst fake injury in recorded history. DT Mike Minns lost a shoe between plays in a goal line series against Tennessee, and for some reason expected the officials to stop the game until he could put it back on. They didn’t, so he did what must have appeared to be the only sensible thing to do. Waving his shoe over his head, he pleaded for a stoppage,...

The College Football Czar: Week 15 Week fourteen in review: The College Football Czar nearly had another sub-.500 week, but rallied in the four late games on Saturday night to finish 14-13. As much as the Czar criticizes the SEC supremacy theory, he admits to have gotten caught up in it himself over Thanksgiving weekend. Not only had he become convinced that Mississippi State was a national championship contender, but he picked the SEC to dominate its traditional ACC rivals, when it turned out that the ACC went 4-0 in those matchups. For the season, that means the SEC is...

The College Football Czar: Week 14 Week thirteen in review: The College Football Czar started the week with a pair of lopsided Friday night losses, and it didn’t get much better from there, as he went crashing to a season-low record of 7-10. And talk about asking for it – did he really pick Penn State, Notre Dame and Michigan? Yeesh! For the year, the Czar’s record now stands at 164-98, for a .625 winning percentage, which, if it remained consistent through the end of the year, would be his lowest percentage since his first season of posting his picks...

The College Football Czar: Week 13 Week twelve in review: With its 25-20 win over Mississippi State, Alabama has vaulted to #1 in the new CFP ratings, with Oregon holding at #2. Florida State, the only remaining undefeated major conference team, failed to climb a spot in spite of the fact that they continue to win, while playing like anything but a national contender. MSU has only slipped to fourth, but the Bulldogs will have a hard time staying in playoff position if they don’t earn a berth in the SEC championship. It has started. ACC Commissioner John “The Lardhead”...

The College Football Czar: Week 12 Week eleven in review: Another national contender from the SEC took a hit, and this time not because they’re all playing each other. Instead, Auburn suffered an unlikely 41-38 upset against Texas A&M, which hadn’t really played a good game since the opening night of the season. Mind you, according to the SEC supremacy argument, this result only proves how tough the conference really is. Why, did you know that all three of the Aggies’ losses have also been to SEC opponents? In their nonconference schedule, they’ve pulverized four whimpering bags of cottage cheese,...

The College Football Czar: Week 11 Week ten in review: It was a tough week for the Mississippi schools, with top-ranked MSU slipping past Arkansas 17-10 on an interception in the end zone, and #4 Ole Miss losing a hard-fought 35-31 game to Auburn, with WR Laquon Treadwell suffering a broken leg on the decisive play. There were a handful of other key injuries during the week. Nebraska running back Ameer Abdullah left the first half against Purdue with a sprained knee, but the injury is being characterized as mild, and with a timely idle week to rest up, he...

The College Football Czar: Week 10 Week nine in review: The College Football Playoff Selection Committee released its first rankings of the season, and its members seem to have been determined to avoid controversy, by (a) ranking the two remaining undefeated major-conference teams first and second, and (b) buying into the SEC hype by awarding that conference three of the top four spots. Mississippi State deservedly received this week’s #1 ranking, but nobody who has watched Florida State this season can possibly believe they’re the second-best team in the nation. Ranking the Seminoles second because of their 7-0 record was...

The College Football Czar: Week 9 Week eight in review: For the third week in a row, those confounded games failed to adhere to the College Football Czar’s brilliant predictions. This time, he actually came in under .500, with a record of 9-10. For the season, his record stands at 101-66, for a .605 winning percentage. If that average held through the rest of the season, it would be the Czar’s worst since he began posting his picks online, and about 90 points lower than last season. At least he correctly picked the week’s biggest game, in which Florida State...