After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 1

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Download the Odyssey app today. Throughout the 60s and 70s, cops hunted down key figures of the Dixie Mafia, including its enigmatic ringleader, Kirksey Nix. I'm in a rush to making money.

I'm not in a rush to hurting people. Fifteen years into Kirksey's life sentence, the Dixie Mafia was practically folklore, but that would soon change. I'm Jed Lipinski. This is Gone South, a documentary podcast from C-13 Originals, a Cadence 13 studio. Season 2, The Dixie Mafia.

Available now on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Robinson, back for the captain, Tyler Adams. Austin McKay, Des making a big run.

It's meant for him. Des is snuck in behind Des. Into the middle, Palazzo. Scores! Might have paid the price, but the U.S. takes the lead. And as the ball comes across, it's Captain America to the rescue for the United States. And he runs right into the goalkeeper at the end of this, but lays it all on the line for his team and for his country and gets his moment. Assist in the first game. And then a goal here with the United States tournament at stake.

And it's Christian Polisic. Right place, right time. And what a header. So brave to get there first.

The acceleration through. Sergino Dest with the header. Utter perfection. And Christian Polisic putting everything on the line. Thank you, Christian. Oh, my goodness.

He did make a major sacrifice as well that we've got an update on Captain America 2022. Team USA is through to the knockout stage, through to the round of 16 at the World Cup, which is the expectation. But now they've got everything in front of them. Unbelievable. Incredible and heart stopping. The second half nearly did me in.

So after the United States takes a one nothing lead into that halftime locker room, I'm barely breathing, for heaven's sakes. I know many of you were part of the conversation on Twitter. It's one of the reasons why I was determined to watch it live, because there are so many people. It's like everybody in the pool watching it and tweeting it and reacting to it. Everything from J.J. Watt to Patrick Mahomes. Many inside the other football. We're talking broadcasters and celebrities.

So many people who are part of the conversation on Twitter specifically. And at least I knew that in my stress and my anxiety in the second half that I had company. The second half was hard on the ticker. It was tough on the ticker.

I was definitely feeling the palpitations. And all I could think about was prevent defense often prevents nothing. Prevent defense often prevents victories.

Stay aggressive. We had a couple of substitutions that changed the tenor of the game in the second half, but the Americans left everything they had out there on the field. From, hmm, I would say the second half of the second half on through the stoppage time. So we're talking about 30 or so minutes that felt like the longest 30 minutes of my life. I didn't know whether to sit or stand. The dog is staring at me.

She thinks because we're awake in the afternoon it's time to go out. She just had to hang on. And there were times where I almost couldn't watch.

I was peeking through cracks in my fingers because my hands were covering my face. The clock wasn't moving. You guys, the clock wasn't moving. Somebody was screwing with the clock in Doha, Qatar.

And then in the final minutes, you want to talk about heart stopping. All I could think was, holy crap, no! This man back is Hosseini. He'll lift it up, Reem back, tracking out, jump, flicks, header! It's loose and cleared away by Zimmerman. Job not done.

US gotta get back there screaming. Iran, it's a penalty. Adams blocks it. Musa, feed to the second ball.

Someone just get rid of that thing and they do. This is going to be reviewed. Oh, it was reviewed, but ultimately there was no penalty. Were you all getting flashbacks of what happened against Wales when Walker Zimmerman incurred a penalty and there was a PK late in the second half?

That's not what happened here. I liked this referee. He allowed them to play. Yes, there were a couple of yellow cards, but there was also contact. There was contact all over the field, but not as much contact as the Iranian flopping would have you believe.

There was one moment in the second half, which I'll make light of just because it was so funny. There was an Iranian player that went down toward the corner. He was rolling around on the ground. He was screaming. I can't remember if it was Weston McKinney who was checking on him to make sure he was okay. Somebody from the United States was kind of standing with him because he was literally screaming bloody murder. And then he gets up and he just goes back down the field like, well, like he was barely touched. And so there was a review. There was no penalty.

It was a hand on the shoulder. Ultimately, though, the referee decided it did not incur a penalty. And those final few seconds, even as Walker Zimmerman is heading away, ball after ball after ball, man, he really made up for his mistake in that opening game against Wales.

And then, if you haven't seen it, we'll have to retweet a couple of these moments from our show Twitter After Hours CBS. There's a ball that squirts through the legs of the goalie Matt Turner. Zimmerman is racing behind Turner. The ball is drifting, drifting, drifting toward the goal line. Just rolling all by its lonesome.

And Walker Zimmerman comes racing through the box and kicks it away. Those were the final few seconds. And yes, I did cry. Happy tears.

You know me. I cry when I'm happy. I cry when I'm sad. I cry when I'm angry. I was definitely crying because we did it. Survive and advance, baby.

On to the round of 16. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. We're live from the Rocket Mortgage Studios.

Do you need to know what it takes for a home to fit your budget and your family? Rocket can. It was so much fun to connect with so many people, new people even, because I'm typically not tweeting at 2 o'clock in the afternoon Eastern time. So it was a lot of fun to connect with people over this game and to see, as I say, the running conversation. It's not going to be easy to have that same conversation on Saturday because the game begins at 9 a.m. Eastern. That's 6 o'clock for those of you hanging out with us right now in the Pacific time zone. In Alaska, 5 o'clock in the morning.

In Hawaii, you might as well just stay up overnight. Saturday. Saturday morning. I keep saying this, but it's the biggest game for Team USA on the World Cup stage in 8 years.

This is 8 years in the making. The knockout stage. Where, by the way, it's not nil-nil draws. It's not a draw at all. You have to play.

You have to fight to the finish. We do not have any update on Christian status for Saturday, but he himself was on Instagram from the hospital. So he did go to the hospital, get checked out, and according to the reports and the word from US Soccer, he has a pelvic contusion.

So got banged in one of his hip bones. They originally called it an abdominal injury, but he was in the team hotel. Producer J, if you can share the video of the US Men's National Team arriving back at their hotel in Doha, Christian is standing there waiting for them. So it clearly looks like he didn't take the team bus.

He got back to the hotel a different way. He's standing at the front. Actually, I should say at the back.

At the back of the lobby, and the team is coming through as the fans are screaming their brains out. And Christian is there taking photos and taking video and greeting all of his guys. He looks like he can stand upright, which is good. Though a little wobbly. And there are a few days now to recover onto the Netherlands.

So you can find me on Twitter, ALawRadio, if you want to see how I was going completely nutso in the moment. Yes, I finally did walk Penny, but she had to wait. The dog was fine. She went out before the game.

She was fine. And then also on our Facebook page, After Hours with Amy Lawrence. It's great to connect with you.

Always on social, but more so here on the show. We would love to have you vote for TD of the Week. A few hours left for that.

You know, the other football. And if you want to share your thoughts, your emotions during Team USA's victory over Iran, you can do that on the phones as well. 855-212-4227.

That's 855-212-4CBS. We're going to hear from manager Greg Berhalter, as well as some of the guys who were part of this victory. I can't get enough of the videos, though. So if you go to the USMNT Twitter site or Twitter handle, you will see all the videos of them. Not just on the field, but in some cases they're miked up and you can hear their reactions after that final whistle blows. Some of the guys collapsed to the field, of course. Some of the guys were walking around saying the same thing, hugging everybody. You know, there was one that was coming onto the field from Team USA in the bench. Certainly there were exultations.

Matt Turner, there's a great snapshot of him in goal as they move on. But man, it was dicey at the end. And I'm fairly certain that I lost a couple of years off the end of my life. No, I shouldn't speak that. It wasn't a couple of years, but it might have been a few months to be sure.

It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. So yes, the big deal is Christian Pulisic and what happens with him moving forward. And he's earned that title of Captain America. He's not the captain, but he's earned the title of Captain America. He is the best player for Team USA. He also competes for Chelsea and he waited a long time.

He was heartbroken eight years ago when they didn't make it. And this has been his entire focus. He sets the tone for this team as well. And obviously the goal was his signature moment on the international stage. His teammates all know it like fellow forward Tim Weah. He's huge. I mean, going back to him not qualifying for the last World Cup and then being here and qualifying us through, that's just a work of God.

God bless him. I mean, I love him and he's so important to this team. He's a key player and a leader. I mean, someone that we definitely need. I've been saying all along, it's a wonderful thing when one of your best players is also one of the hardest working. And he's certainly that.

I can't say enough positive things about Christian. First you hear Tim Weah and then you hear Greg Berhalter who was being interviewed in the moments right after that final whistle blew with Jettie Taft on Fox Sports. And John Strong did the play-by-play for Fox. It was really cool because toward the end of this game. So he was keeping his emotions in check as well through the course of the game, though reiterating over and over that the United States could not draw in this game. A draw meant Iran was through to the next round. US had to win outright, something they had not done in their first two games. Nearly had that victory against Wales.

It would have meant this was a whole lot less stressful. But that's not how it played out. And so they started out, I would say the worst possible way, worse would have been if they hadn't earned a point in that game against Wales. But it felt like their goal against Wales in the first half of the World Cup was a thing of the past.

It felt like a distant memory. Because they did not score against England and it took nearly all of the first half against Iran for them to find the back of the net. And it was teamwork. So if you check out my Twitter, ALawRadio, you'll see a snapshot of the ball coming off the head of Dest, Sergino Dest, who by the way could have played for the Netherlands in this tournament.

That is the US next opponent. So how did they do it? Ultimately, the two halves were different. The substitutions certainly changed things. Christian did not play in the second half.

They did it, but how? The first half we showed what we could do soccer-wise, played a really good first half. Second half we showed what we could do determination-wise. The guys grinded, they gave every single ounce of energy, and were undefeated going into the next round.

I like that. Undefeated going into the next round. I don't know what your expectations were. I believed that they could get to the knockout stage, but knew that it wasn't going to be easy. First of all, one guy. One guy with experience on the international stage. And while that doesn't mean everything, there is some adjustment to be made when you are playing against the best teams in the world. And also, the US doesn't score a lot.

That's their MO. They're much more of a defensive team. They're a possession team to be sure. They like to clog the middle.

We've seen various configurations and strategies from Greg Berhalter. But this is not a team that's normally going to blow you out. Four goals, three goals. We're not talking about England here. We're talking about a team that has to win with grit and guts. The blood, the sweat, the tears. We saw all of that against Iran.

But something else the US is known for, fitness. They continued pushing, even as they were about to pass out on the field. I mean, we have that in common because I was about to pass out in my chair. At least I got coffee before this game. So I didn't even sleep until the game began. I couldn't.

I woke up around 1.15 Eastern, so 45 minutes before kickoff. And I couldn't. There was no way. I couldn't get back to sleep. I started looking at my phone. I started seeing all the American flags that were being tweeted. And I was up.

That was it. I was up. And so at least I managed to get coffee before this one. Unlike the Whales game, where I woke up and turned on the TV.

And by halftime realized I had not even had my coffee yet. And so in this game, the fitness really played a role. But the other thing the United States is known for on the international soccer stage is teamwork. For whatever reason, the Americans stand out and always have been known for their chemistry, for their cohesion, for the fact that they work together. And we saw that. We saw them essentially take the stand of, hey, we're going to prove it to everybody else. Come hell or high water, doesn't matter our ages, we've got all the intangibles to make us a winner.

I always say it's us against the world because no one believes that the U.S. can play good football. We're just here trying to show the world. And I think it's no better than to do it with the people you love, our families in the stands.

We do it for them. And I'm just really happy that we're through to the next round. And it's a beautiful day.

It's definitely a beautiful feeling. We wanted to control our own destiny because we knew we could handle it. And you guys can see, I don't want to say a bad word, but we're a really close group of guys. We're brothers. We love this type of stuff. We love the pressure. We love the excitement because, you know, we're a young team. We have our own swagger. We have our own style. We have our own way that we play, the way that we connect with each other. And you see, we did it today.

At the end, it was a bit, you know, a heart drop, sinking moment. But we got it done and we're excited to still be here. Tim Waya and then Weston McKinney, the only one who had any World Cup experience coming into this tournament.

However, it doesn't matter now. They're on to the round of 16. And as Greg Berhalter points out, they are undefeated. They've not lost to this point. I hate ties in sports. We will not have any more moving forward into the final 16. So I'd love to hear your reaction.

Some of you finding me on Twitter, A-Law Radio. Mike says, those last 10 minutes of extra time seem to last longer than an entire NFL fourth quarter. Grueling doesn't even describe it. Way to go, USA. Absolutely.

I could break into all kinds of cheers. Did you hear the United States fans, the U.S. fans, whether they traveled to Qatar from America or whether other parts of the world, awesome. And this was a decided, I don't want to say home field advantage.

It's still the Middle East and and Iranians are able to travel a little easier, though obviously not their country. But there were, I would say, 75 percent of the stadium cheering for Iran. And yet our fans, the red, white and blue, they were loud. And after the game, once all the hugs were done and guys were able to catch their breath for a second. Berhalter was leading the cheers and he was applauding the U.S. fans who, as you can imagine, stuck around.

The stadium emptied out pretty quickly, except for those wearing red, white and blue. Awesome. So again, on Twitter, A-Law Radio, if you want to send your questions for Ask Amy anything, it is our hump show. And so on our show, Twitter after our CBS or on our Facebook page, you can vote for TD of the Week. You can let me know how you survived the U.S. match against Iran. We've obviously got links to our podcast and yada, yada, yada.

All that is available on our social media. Mostly, though, focused on how I knew it was going to be a really good week. Top of the hour, Jesse Bradley, former pro goalkeeper, will join us again. He's agreed to be our World Cup analyst and he was already sending me messages, emails, long before this game started. We were going back and forth. He told me the U.S. was an underdog and I said, no, I rebuked that.

I resisted that. And so back and forth at halftime we were exchanging emails. I know he's excited. He knows that I was fired up because my email to him when the game was done was simply this.

Woo! That was it. That's all I wrote.

I didn't even sign it. I figured he would know who it was. So we'll hear from him at the top.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Throughout the 60s and 70s, cops hunted down key figures of the Dixie Mafia, including its enigmatic ringleader, Kirksey Nix. I'm in a rush to making money.

I'm not in a rush to hurt people. Fifteen years into Kirksey's life sentence, the Dixie Mafia was practically folklore, but that would soon change. I'm Jed Lipinski. This is Gone South, a documentary podcast from C-13 Originals, a Cadence 13 studio. Season 2, The Dixie Mafia, available now on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Throughout the 60s and 70s, cops hunted down key figures of the Dixie Mafia, including its enigmatic ringleader, Kirksey Nix. I'm in a rush to making money.

I'm not in a rush to hurt people. Fifteen years into Kirksey's life sentence, the Dixie Mafia was practically folklore, but that would soon change. I'm Jed Lipinski. This is Gone South, a documentary podcast from C-13 Originals, a Cadence 13 studio. Season 2, The Dixie Mafia, available now on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Throughout the 60s and 70s, cops hunted down key figures of the Dixie Mafia, including its enigmatic ringleader, Kirksey Nix. I'm in a rush to making money.

I'm not in a rush to hurt people. Fifteen years into Kirksey's life sentence, the Dixie Mafia was practically folklore, but that would soon change. I'm Jed Lipinski. This is Gone South, a documentary podcast from C-13 Originals, a Cadence 13 studio. Season 2, The Dixie Mafia, available now on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. You are listening to the After Hours Podcast.

Night of Dreams. I mean, we worked so hard as a group to be in these type of positions, and Aaron played a beautiful game. But, you know, thanks to Christian, he put it away and got hurt in the process, but we love him and we thank him. And, I mean, we're through, so, I mean, it's a great feeling. This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Ooh!

That's all I can even say. At moments during the afternoon, I couldn't stop grinning. Honestly, I was walking Penny finally, and I just was thinking about the last two hours, well, two and a half hours, how it felt like two and a half days, two and a half weeks, even a month. And I couldn't stop grinning because it's all worth it, right? It's all worth it when you achieve this goal. So this is the next step, but there's more to come.

Congratulations to Team USA, advancing out of Group B at the World Cup 2022 in Qatar. The smiles, the exaltation, the exhaustion. And if you haven't seen it, I'm going to retweet it right now because it's amazing. Of course, it already has 1.1 million views, so many of you have probably seen it. But, retweeting the celebration in the hotel lobby when the team arrived back and leading the cheers, Christian Pulisic, oh my gosh, it's insane. They're treated like rock stars, which is awesome.

So yeah, check it out. And the smile on Christian's face, he is at least standing upright. He's holding his phone. He's wearing his warm-up jersey.

He's there. If you don't follow the USMNT Twitter account, it's cool. It's all hype.

But then, behind the scenes videos too, which is awesome. And so, Saturday morning, the coverage begins at 9 a.m. Eastern Time, 6 a.m. Pacific Time. I sincerely hope that you will be part of the conversation moving forward. It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. Let's talk to Jim, who's in Cleveland. What'd you think, Jim? It was great. It seemed like the whole second half was at the Iranian end.

I don't know if that was just me or it was really that way. But I used to be a goalie. When I saw that ball trickle past Turner, I thought it was done.

Yeah, agreed. And there was Walker Zimmerman flying through the air with the greatest of ease and was able to kick that ball away. I knew he had fresh legs because he didn't play the first half and was a sub later in the game.

But man, the number of times that he was rising up above the Iranian players, literally I mean, was rising up to head the ball back toward midfield. And then that moment where he was able to get to the ball and kick it away, that had to be 90 seconds before it all ended. So that was huge. I mean, it was huge. Yeah, well, I only got to see the second half.

I just tried to get off of work early, but that's not always easy to do. But it was really exciting. Yeah, agreed. Well, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

You're going to be able to watch Saturday? Oh, yeah. Good. I'm glad to hear it. Thank you so much for calling, Jim.

Okay, thank you. It's After Hours here on CBS Sports Radio. One thing that I was feeling after the game, too, and I'll talk about this with Jesse Bradley when he joins us at the top of the hour, is that as thrilled as I am, as emotional as I was, and I mean over the moon hyped for U.S. soccer moving on to the round of 16, the knockout stage, I've told you before, I don't cheer like this for any other professional sports teams because I just don't feel that way anymore. After 20 plus years of covering professional sports, it's not the same. I almost can't separate being a fan of sports from being an analyst and being a talk show host. It's almost impossible for me to watch an event in a way where I'm able to drop the work part of me and just enjoy it as a human being or as a fan of sport.

And I obviously am working all the time on keeping any of my rooting interest, it's actually not that hard anymore, but keeping my rooting interest out of the radio studio because with a national audience, sometimes an international audience, I have to maintain my credibility and while you can't, you can accuse me of bias if you want, anybody who listens knows it's not true, but I've worked really hard to get to that point. Except for when it comes to the Olympics and international events like the World Cup, then I'm all wee wee wee, let's go, I'm all in, I can be a total fan. And so as hyped and thrilled and nervous and anxious and completely off my rocker as I was for this game and now for the results, it also dawned on me how thankful I am that we live in a nation where it's still just a game.

It's not life or death. Some of you probably heard the reports, I hope they're untrue, but you may have heard the reports that the Iranian players were threatened with beheadings or death if they lost this match. Again, I hope that is not true, but it's definitely a different type of expectation, it's a different type of pressure in nations where soccer's it. And so again, we'll talk about this with Jesse because he's played on the international stage, he's played in multiple other countries as a former pro goalie.

In the United States, we get all in, we're crazy, we're not so, not sure if you saw any of the videos from some of the watch parties around the country, various bars. I tell this story sometimes because I'll never forget it. During the last World Cup that the USA played, so that would have been 2014, I was coming back from Ecuador. So I had a long layover in Miami. I was returning from actually a humanitarian trip to play soccer with little kids in the Andes Mountains. We took school supplies and blah, blah, blah, it was really cool.

Three-year-olds could dribble around me like I was standing still. And so I was coming back and we had this really long layover in Miami. And so because the US was playing in the knockout stage, a friend and I, the friend I was traveling with, we went to a watch party in a bar on South Beach. There were 200 people if there were five in that bar. It was jammed full.

And the atmosphere was phenomenal. So if you have the chance to go to a watch party in a city where soccer is a big deal, even in New York City where our CBS Sports Radio headquarters are located, I was listening to the news on the way in. And there were all kinds of watch parties in New York bars. I wouldn't say New York's a hotbed, but it's the United States on the World Cup stage and people understand the impact and the significance.

Also, there are multiple players, including Matt Turner, who has ties to the New York area. So, yes, we're all in now. And the farther we go, as Americans, we love winners. We're bandwagon jumpers, of course.

We want to be part of something this cool. But when it's over, all right. There may be some pain or some frustration associated with it. It's not life or death.

And I'm so grateful that we live in the U.S. and that we're Americans where we have that perspective. Yeah, failure sucks. And maybe you get some mean tweets. Sometimes death threats because people are idiots. But they're not real.

Social media is not real. And countries around the world, it's different. I'm glad we're not in that situation. It's a beautiful game, but it's still just a game. So I was thinking about the Iranian players after. Some of them were in tears. Now, I daresay the United States would have had some tears as well if they'd lost this game. But as I say, it's a completely different feel. There are different emotions.

And so I hope those athletes are not in fear of their safety or their family's safety. It is our hump show. So we're looking for your questions for Ask Amy Anything. Remember last week we had the video version, so we didn't do the radio version. But it's back. And so find us on Twitter after our CBS or on our Facebook page.

Jesse Bradley at the top of the hour to give us his insight and his reaction to the USA moving on. So my biggest fear is there's going to be snakes in the toilet. We're all afraid of that one strange thing. I'm Larry Mullins, the host of a new short 10-minute podcast called Your Weirdest Fears. We unpack where these fears come from.

A rat climbed into my toilet. And learn how to manage them. And subscribe to Your Weirdest Fears on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Wherever you are, whenever you want. And did we mention it's all free? Download the Odyssey app today. If you love to travel, you love cool experiences, you are going to love Viator. Viator is the world's leading travel experience marketplace. And for me, Sun Valley skiing is huge on my bucket list. So I just opened the Viator app, searched Sun Valley, and boom. Custom skiing boot fittings and tickets delivered right to our condo. Pretty unbelievable. Just download the Viator app now and use code Viator10 for 10% off your first booking. One app, over 300,000 experiences you'll remember.

Do more with Viator. On to the round of 16. Also, what we know about Christian Pulisic and his status for Saturday morning US time.

You are listening to the After Hours podcast. Music JJ McCarthy in a shotgun. Has the snap. Hands it off to Donovan Edwards and he's in the clear, John.

To the 30, to the 35, to the 40, to the 50. They will not catch Donovan Edwards. He will score. Donovan Edwards. Yes. Yes. 85 yards.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. I don't suppose Ohio State fans want to see any more of that or hear any more of that. It was definitely a runaway in more ways than one in the second half of the Michigan victory against Ohio State. And I happened to listen to the Tom Brady, Jim Gray conversation on his podcast, the Let's Go podcast. You may know that Brady is an alum of Michigan. And there they are talking about this devastating loss in Brady's opinion.

It was a devastating loss to the Browns. And he's really down in the dumps, actually. On Monday afternoon, he's telling Jim how he hasn't slept.

It's been 24 hours since the game is over. He hasn't slept. He has a few more minutes to think about it and to stew over it before he has to flush it because that's his rule. At a couple of different junctures, he was speechless. He was so upset.

And you'll hear about that coming up. But then Jim Gray brings up Michigan. He's like, ah, finally a reason to smile. I mean, you would have thought someone ran over his dog.

You don't hear Brady like this very often. But it was serious stuff for him, though Michigan gave him a bit of a jolt. It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio, Doug Karsh with the call from Learfield Sports. And yes, it was the clash of the weekend. Michigan, Ohio State. And it really was a second half in which the Wolverines were able to run away with the game. They outscored the Buckeyes in Columbus in the horseshoe, 28-3 in the second half.

And so to see what they were able to do on the ground was really what stood out to me. It was relatively astounding for them to finish up with 252 yards rushing. And we talked this weekend about Josh Jacobs, right? And the franchise record that he set with all those yards from scrimmage, the 229 yards rushing. Well, how about Donovan Edwards from Michigan? 216 yards and two touchdowns and that was the difference. There were others that performed well.

Of course, we know about J.J. McCarthy. He had three touchdowns and didn't turn the ball over, which was huge. So yeah, this was a game which for the second straight year we saw Michigan able to play its style of football at the expense of the Buckeyes.

Exert their will. And because of that, Michigan remains in the top four of the college football playoff standings, college football playoff rankings. These are the final set of rankings before championship weekend.

And so there is very little time left and very few opportunities left for teams to make an impression. Depending on what happens conference championship weekend, there could be jostling, but it's Georgia, Michigan, TCU and USC who right now are poised to make up that final four. The rankings revealed on Tuesday night. Boo Corrigan is the chair of the college football playoff committee. What put Georgia at the top over Michigan?

A lot of conversations, obviously, about the top four the whole time as we go through this. As we looked at it, Georgia, there was nothing they did last weekend against Georgia Tech to really diminish it. They're 4-0 against ranked teams in our top 25 Michigan.

Huge win, particularly in the second half against Ohio State, 2-0 against teams in the top 25. And again, we didn't see any reason to move Georgia out of the top spot. So Georgia remains the same, as does the rest of the top four.

But you get a little more of the solidifying. So Georgia, number one. Michigan beats Ohio State, so the Wolverines jump up the one spot to number two. TCU stayed at number three. And then USC. That doesn't make any sense.

I don't like how I said that. TCU is still in the top four. But remains by moving up a spot. Yes, so Georgia, Michigan, TCU, and then USC.

How about this? First appearance in the top four this season. Buckeyes and LSU also lost. Ohio State is now at number five and really is rooting for chaos this weekend. But also Alabama.

And that's an interesting decision too. We hear from Boo Corrigan about what caused the committee to throw the Buckeyes ahead of the Tide, even though Nick Saban's been campaigning for the Tide to get in with their two losses. There's four teams in front of them that are still playing games that we need to go through as we go through this weekend. And again, coming out of this week as we looked at Ohio State and the wins that they have over Notre Dame and Penn State. You look at Alabama and their big wins are over Texas and Mississippi State.

They got a couple of games where they also played close to close losses. But again, in the minds of the of the committee, we came back to Ohio State at five and Alabama at six. Now, if you look ahead to this championship weekend, the schedule begins with the Pac-12 on Friday night. Excuse me, Utah at USC. That's well, it's not at USC. That's the home team, though, as USC is the higher seed. It's actually at the Raiders home in Vegas. Nothing says Pac-12 like Las Vegas.

And then starting on Saturday. You've got the Big 12. You've got the SEC featuring number one Georgia hosting LSU. At night, it's the ACC and the Big Ten championship, number two Wolverines against an unranked Purdue team. And so, yes, there could be chaos. But at the same time, this could all hold true to form. We'll see.

I always root for chaos when it comes to the college football playoff. It's after hours CBS Sports Radio, so find us on Twitter or show Twitter after hours, CBS or our Facebook page. And we're looking for your best questions, creative and unique questions for Ask Amy anything. Producer J will field those inside of the next couple hours. If you missed our latest video version of Ask Amy. On our YouTube channel, prominently displayed front and center, we're seeing a lot of new traffic to our YouTube channel whenever I mention it.

So thanks for that. J would love it if you would like and subscribe because that's all he wants for Christmas. His two front teeth and that you would like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. I don't even need to get him anything else for Christmas because the only thing he wants from me is to tell you all about the YouTube channel so that you go and you check it out. I like gifts.

Do you? How about Christmas cookies? Cookies work. Cookies always work. Sweet. Easy enough.

Done. Well, not always, but yours will work because yours are a gift. Not the fake ones that you buy from the store? No, those wouldn't do it. The shortbread cookies with the different colors and they're just, ugh.

Yeah, it's not the same. Donuts? I've never made a donut. I would like to make a donut.

I bet you'd make a good donut. Last year, my mom and I made a pumpkin roll for the first time and it was amazing. I was jumping up and down in her kitchen in Houston because I was so excited. Amy, what are you doing? I'm excited. She's like, you're a spaz. Making pumpkin rolls is an exciting thing.

My mother calls me a spaz all the time. That's totally fine. Alright, Bucor again. Philosophical debate. Do big wins carry more weight with the committee than the losses that raise the eyebrows? I think at the end of the day, we talk a lot about wins in this committee. And we talked about that earlier this year with TCU. And they kept winning games and they kept finding ways to win games. And, you know, that's a team that over the last four weeks is, I think on defense, given up about 19 points a game. So obviously winning these games does matter.

It's something that we look at, something we talk about more than anything else. One last set of rankings before we know who's into the Final Four. Looking forward to Championship Weekend. Oh my gosh, it's also the knockout stage with Team USA playing against the Netherlands Saturday morning.

U.S. time. That's the slot they draw because they did not win Group B. So England plays later. I think actually England plays as the champion of Group B, if I remember correctly. Sunday, early afternoon. I'm kind of glad that's not happening because I would not be able to handle NFL games and taking my notes and watching Team USA.

So I'm glad they didn't win the group stage. Jesse Bradley's next after hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio. So my biggest fear is there's going to be snakes in the toilet. We're all afraid of that one strange thing. I'm Larry Mullins, the host of a new short 10 minute podcast called Your Weirdest Fears.

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