Good morning. It's Friday, December 6th. Welcome to the weekend preview edition of the Sports Curious podcast. I'm your host, Amy Buchan Siegfried. We have so much to talk about in the world of sports, so I'm not even going to waste time. Let's dive right into a huge weekend in college football. It's championship weekend, conference championship weekend. There's a spot on the line for the newly expanded 12 team playoffs, and there's four conferences that are playing.
The top... four highest ranked conference champions get a bye, which means they don't have to play in the first round of the playoffs. And Notre Dame does not have a conference, so this is their bye week if you're a Notre Dame fan. Now here's the games we have. We have number 17 Clemson versus number eight SMU. Now SMU is their first season in the ACC and they've opted to take no money from media rights just to join this conference. Great game ahead. We're talking next about Georgia, Texas.
Georgia's number five, Texas is number two. It's Texas's first season in the SEC and ESPN College game day will be on hand for this game and their guest picker, Timothée Chalamet, will be present as well during the Saturday morning show. Number 16, Iowa's playing number 15, Arizona State. My alma mater, go Sun Devils. But ASU was picked to finish last in the Big 12 at the start of the season and here they are playing in the conference championship game. And then we have obviously number one.
And then we have number one Oregon playing number three, Penn State. Big weekend of football. Now, the NFL. We have a great story here. Joe Burrow for the Cincinnati Bengals, he's having an MVP caliber season, but due to his bad defense, the team is really out of any sort of contention for a Super Bowl, which makes sense because Burrow bought the Batmobile because he has to be a superhero to win every week. Yes, he bought the Batmobile.
If want more on the NFL, check out our NFL Conversation Starter today on social media where we give you everything else you need to know about the NFL. Moving on to the WNBA. It's the first expansion team in more than a decade and the Golden State Valkyries will build their inaugural team tonight via an expansion draft. So what does that mean?
The existing 12 teams submit to the league a full roster of every player that they have rights to as of the final day of the 2024 regular season in September. teams were able to choose up to six players on their list to protect to make them ineligible for the Valkyries. The teams will not be listing. The teams will the league will not be releasing these lists from the teams. And so the Valkyries can choose from the team.
So the Valkyries can choose from the lists of players that are not protected to build their team. Moving on to Major League Soccer, it's the MLS Championship game this weekend featuring the L.A. featuring the LA Galaxy against the New York Red Bulls. It's Saturday night at 4 p.m. Eastern time. Now the Galaxy have won five MLS cups more than any other team and Red Bull only has one MLS cup appearance ever.
Now here's two stories to share at a child's birthday party or maybe on the playground this weekend. Parents, these are for you.
Four star linebacker Tyler Lockhart, well he initially made huge headline switching his commitment from Mississippi State to in-state rival Ole Miss. But turns out his mom never actually signed the proper paperwork to sign with Ole Miss and the team kept trying follow up with her to get her signature and she refused before he and she ultimately signed with the Mississippi State Bulldogs.
And last but certainly not least, the son of rapper Master P and two other students were arrested for allegedly stealing refrigerators from campus at Southern Utah University, according to multiple reports. All three of these players play on the teams. All three of these players play on the Southern Utah University basketball team. That's what we have for your weekend. If you want more, check us out at lastnightsgame.com. Have a great weekend ahead.