CFB Coaches VS Deion + Star Ranking Conspiracies | Late Kick Extra Ep. 169

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I'm not going to bore you with numbers, but the pods blowing up. I have empirical evidence. I have a text from management just in 13 minutes ago. This is from him. Quote, I met my son's school picnic. And boy, can we imagine how fancy that school picnic is. And I'm getting asked about one of your Oregon segments. I cannot escape you. People, that is how we like to roll. You confront management peacefully, but you confront management on the street at every turn. Side note. What is a school picnic for a child of management like? How expensive is that charcuterie tray? What do they drink? How many courses are those meals? Can you imagine how silver those platters are? But I digress. For the late kick extra podcast, I'm happy to have you. It is your one stop shop for all things college, football and beyond. There is no off season, but today we have a loaded wall to wall mail bag. If you want to submit a question at late kick Josh, that is how you get in touch with me and we're less than a minute in. It's a coffee kind of day. It's not even a meo kind of day for me full blown coffee. And that's because we are wasting no time. Let's get right to it. Andre is first up and Andre asked, why is there so much movement in the summertime in player rankings when no one's doing anything? This sounds like a really, really good. It doesn't sound like it. It is a good question by Andre. It sounds like it's a gotcha question for people who don't really follow recruiting. They just follow college football and there are a lot of you out there who do that. So I'm not going into the weeds of recruiting, but I'm going to explain this to you. So what Andre is saying is how could players star rankings be changing when there are no high school football games happening? Don't football players get judged on football games? And the answer is in part, yes, they do football games game tape. In other words, is if you look at the pie chart, it is a large majority of what makes up that players evaluation, which leads to a star ranking, but it's not all because unlike a college Saturday and certainly unlike an NFL Sunday, you don't get, you get a large disparity in competition level sometimes. And if you've ever been to a high school football game, we're an elite athlete, like a four or five star athletes on the field, you know what I mean. If you got a five star edge rusher, if you watched Will Anderson in high school, it was abuse for four quarters every Saturday night, even in like high four or five and six a football or wherever he played in Georgia. So here's how it works. Think about this logically. What would you value more? Would you value watching a kid who overmatches his opponents every week on film solely? Or would you value that? And then also getting eyeballs on him when he gets out into the camp circuit. Now you see where I'm going with this a little bit. It's the same reason that player rankings move in December after their senior year because I get that question a lot too. Andre might as well have asked, why are player rankings changing in the summertime and why do they change after high school football seasons are over? And the answers are both the same. Either in December, you've got like delayed film. You're just now getting, but that's that's the minority reason. The majority reason is because guys get out in the camp circuit or in December, they get to the army or under armor, all American games and you get eyeballs on them and you get to see them go good on good. You get to see a four star defensive end against a five star offensive tackle instead of the guys that he's been going against that weigh 240 pounds and bear no semblance of what he's going to see on the college level. This didn't used to be the case, but now there are millions seemingly of camps out there and there are so many different exposure points. Therefore, for our staff coast to coast to get out on the road, just like college coaches do and they get to see guys in spring football settings or in camp settings that are organized by different apparel companies or what have you. So that's my answer, Andre. It changes because you get them in a controlled environment. You get to control the reps. You get to verify a lot of information. So far, what you have is you have maybe a height and weight that the school's given you and you get to go and see a guy in person and sometimes it's a legit six four and sometimes it's a six four that's really a six two and a quarter. You know what I mean by that because we've seen that happen in the NFL draft. You thought a guy was one thing his whole career and then the NFL draft shows you he's another thing. You also want to see that there are any injury concerns if they have them that are cleaned up that they're all sorts of different technique questions that you may want to verify. One way or the other. So it helps greatly, Andre, to get your own personalized, if you're the evaluator to get your own personalized on guys. That's also why I think quarterback evaluation has become a much more exact science, not perfect, but it's much more exact because even within the world I'm talking about quarterbacks go above and beyond anyone else. You take even an elite linebacker compared to an elite quarterback that elite quarterback, you get so many more reps and eyeballs on even than the elite people in any other position. We're going to elite 11 next month out in California. You'll have the best quarterbacks in the country there and you'll be able to watch them do every drill back to back. Where else would you get that? Where else would you be able to watch like last year? Where else would I be able to watch Malachi Nelson do something and then Jackson Arnold step in right behind him and do the exact same thing? Is it a full game rep? No, it's not. Is it as close in simulation to a game rep as you can get? Yes. And can you measure a lot of the characteristics both tangible and intangible on that player in that setting? Yes, you can. Also, and let's not overlook this in these camp settings, you get to talk to the players. You get to watch them interact. You start to feel out their character a little bit. They could put on a show. Yes. They could put on a mask. Yes. Figuratively. But you do at least start to see them as opposed to just watching them on a YouTube clip with like music played the background. So Andre, that is my answer. That's why you see a lot of player rankings move. And when you see those player rankings move, it's not, it's not slide of hand. It's not anyone playing tricks on you. It's the recruiting industry operating exactly how it should operate. So that gets a send of things this morning. I've always found it fascinating that I know our audience very well and I know there are some of you who are die hard recruiting fans. Some of you kind of follow it. Some of you just watch on signing day. And then some of you don't care about it at all. But even the ones who don't care about recruiting, it's kind of like people who don't bet. You at least tend to have a passing interest in how it works. So that's how we talk about recruiting a lot of times on the show. I can't believe I'm drinking coffee. All right. David is next up from Madison, Alabama. David asked a question. A lot of you have been asking. He said, do you agree with Pat Nardouzi's latest comments about Deon Sanders and his roster moves? And now some of you may have missed this. So let me tee up the quotes for you first. Pat Nardouzi, the head coach at Pitt, right? Deon, obviously the head coach at Colorado. Colorado's taken like 147,000 transfers this cycle. It's been the talk of college football. Pat Nardouzi's not new to this. Pat Nardouzi's been outspoken about a few different things that are changing in college football. A quick reminder, just just a couple of weeks ago, he was on record. Pat Nardouzi was on record as talking about USC tampering with Jordan Addison last year. Jordan Addison, Jordan Addison was the Bilitnikov award winning receiver for Pitt two years ago. And then there was that, that great dust up last off season and Jordan Addison transferred to USC and Pat Nardouzi came out and just flat out said he got tampered with. We know USC tampered with him. So Pat Nardouzi's been outspoken. Okay. So here's what Pat Nardouzi said about Deon Sanders and the way he's gone about putting together his roster at Colorado. This was at the ACC Spring meetings quote, that's not the way it's meant to be. That's not what the rule is intended to be. It was not to overhaul your roster. We'll see how it works out, but that to me looks bad on college football coaches all across the country. The reflection is on one guy right now, but when you look at it overall, those kids that have moms and dads and brothers and sisters and goals in life, I don't know how many of those 70 that left really wanted to leave or where they just kicked in the butt and told to get out. Is this not the question that a lot of the detractors have had? And it's a question that people who are even indifferent on Deon Sanders have had. Is this college football now? Is this what you can do? You come in and can you essentially just cut the guys that you don't want and bring in a ton of guys because there's really no restriction right now. As long as you've got roster room, the NCAA has decided there is no limitation in year one for a coach for how many portal guys that you can bring in. Some of you may not have known that, but that's how Colorado is doing what they're doing. So Colorado, an update on the numbers, 57 kids have left via the portal. A lot of them not by choice, some of them by choice, they have added 48 kids via the portal. That's crazy. It's just amazing. So we've never seen that before. So what Pat Narduzzi is saying is that's not what this was meant to be. The transfer portal was not meant to be a mechanism to overhaul your roster. The transfer portal was meant to be, wait for it. These are my words, not his, a player's rights tool, right? That was how we debuted it in college football. For what the cry was, the cry was, well, coaches get to move around all the time. Why should players have limitations on how many times they can move? And then there was kind of a compromise that was presented to where, okay, as the NCAA, we're going to take away the one time transfer penalty. So you don't have to sit out anymore. Now that's really what changed. The NCAA did not just say you can go anywhere, anytime you want. They said you can transfer for the first time penalty free. And that used to not be the case. It used to be then unless you got an exemption, when you transferred, you'd have to sit out of here. It feels like a long time ago, doesn't it? So they waved that rule. Now, I don't want to play the, I told you so game because someone told me I do that too much. But when we heard that rule come down, there was a pretty high profile segment we did on late kick where I said, this is certainly a move towards the professionalization of college football. Not completely, but it was a move that was much more in line with making it a world where you could move about however you wanted to. And all I said, I didn't take a side on it. I didn't say it was good or bad. I said there would be pros and cons. And one of the cons was you need to understand, because this was happening the same time NIL was happening. So the time where we started to move towards the portal will let you move wherever you want to, as long as you haven't transferred already, the portal let you move wherever you want to. NIL is going to give you the ability to capitalize off your name, image and likeness. I said, both of those things are okay. Both of those things are fine. And there was a pause just as long as you understand what you're getting into, because what you were getting into is a world where you got treated like an employee. Now, you weren't going to be called an employee yet. We'll see where that goes. You weren't going to be called an employee per se, but you were starting to enter the world where more things were going to be given to you. And in return, more things were going to be available to your, for lack of a better term, employer. And it's not any different than if Jesse starts double parking in the garage out here. And Jesse starts coming in late. Jesse can get fired. Why can Jesse get fired? Well, that's the trade off of us paying him a salary and benefits and giving him a job. He's given something, something's expected of him. And if he doesn't measure up, then he's out the door, but also Jesse could be doing everything that he's supposed to be doing. And if management's out and new management comes in, management could just not prefer Jesse and they could go a different direction. And Jesse's not even given a good reason. He's just said, we don't have a spot for you anymore. Bye. Back to Pennsylvania, you go, Jesse. Is that fair? Some would say no, but I would respond with it doesn't make him any less fired if it's fair or not. It's just the way of the world. College football wasn't like that. College football was a snow globe where you could exist and you got a lot of benefits, but you were largely exempt from a lot of those consequences that existed in the real world. And when we went portal route and when we went NIL route, it was good for a lot of players. It still is good for a lot of players. It was just going to come with the potential consequence of a coach being able to do it. Dion Sanders is doing Lincoln Riley did it too. A lot of coaches are going to do this. It's still new. That's why it's, it's got that effect of still shocking people and certainly very few people are going to walk in and do exactly what Dion's done. He's overturned an entire roster, but my thoughts on what Pat Narduzzi said was I fully get it. I fully get it. I probably in my own personal preferences, even lean towards the world that Pat Narduzzi would prefer, but that's all that is. That's one man or in this case, two men's preference on how the college football world should look. Just as soon as I say that, just as soon as Pat Narduzzi says that, Director Colin could walk in the room and say, no, I actually, I like the wide open landscape. I like players being able to go wherever they want to. I like the NIL component and come what may, I prefer that world. Which of us is right? Which of us is wrong? It's just opinion. And I don't, I'm not necessarily sure what majority is on that. I haven't done the focus group polling. I'll let you know when we get around to that. But I get it, I get the frustration from Pat Narduzzi, especially in a position where he's leading a program like Pitt. You probably won't hear head coaches at more major universities publicly say that because the head coaches at the major universities, I'm talking about like the tier one universities, they know that they're eventually going to use that. They're going to use that mechanism a lot more times than it uses them. And so it's the world we live in. Take it or leave it. It's the world we live. Don't leave it. But it is the world we live in. Here's a question. Should I just, since I'm going, I already drink a coffee today. Should I take one sip between each segment? Now I know what some of you are going to think. Some of you have taken it upon yourselves to be my second mother out there. And you know my history with cold brew and how it forced me into partial blindness last year. This is not cold brew. This is just coffee and not even good coffee, just coffee. It kind of tastes like it's been filtered through a jockstrap. It's just coffee. So we're going to, we're going to take one little safety sip there and we'll see how it works out. Wyatt is up next. He said, I do not see a head and shoulders front runner this year. Your thoughts, your opinions. I agree with you. There certainly is a favorite in Las Vegas terms to win a national championship and that's Georgia. But Georgia is not a runaway favorite. Alabama would be up there. Ohio, the same usual suspects are going to be up there. Michigan's up there. USC is going to be up there. So the usual teams are going to be up there. But you're right, Wyatt. There's not a runaway favorite. Now you know that's a huge deal, right? You know that that's, that's kind of flying in the face of what we normally see. What we have normally seen to remind everyone, if you are new to college football or you've just taken a sabbatical, what we normally do is we pull up in May or June or July when you guys start to get those preview mags and you start to really go into season preview mode. We never get out of it. But when you start to go into that mode, you start to look around. First thing that your mind wants to know is where are the star quarterbacks? Who's got the returning quarterback? And in this case, it will be USC. They have the returning Heisman Trophy winner. And normally what your mind would do is your mind would say, okay, if you've got a returning Heisman winner on a team that I think they won double digit games last year, they went to a new year six game. So USC was really good last year. That would be your overwhelming favorite in a normal world. That would be your preseason national title favorite. But here's the catch. USC is fifth in the odds this upcoming year. USC's over under wind total is 10 that ties them with Clemson and Alabama. And that puts them in a three way tie for fourth in terms of overall odds. And the reason is because the defense hasn't been good enough. So that leaves it wide open. So the team with the returning Heisman Trophy quarterback, they're not the favorite. The favorite in Georgia is breaking in a new quarterback. Ohio State sitting there, not even knowing who their quarterback is going to be, although they have two legitimate options to choose from. You also are looking at a team in Ohio State that had to go get an offensive tackle out of the portal because they were so vulnerable at that position. Buckeye fans would hope that's a plug and play from San Diego State remains to be seen. How seamless that transition is. Michigan's right up there. Michigan's not an overwhelming favorite to win anything because they haven't been able to win a playoff game. So that wouldn't make them an overwhelming favorite. They're up there. That wouldn't make them an overwhelming favorite. Vama's up there. There is many questions right now about Vama as there have been in several years, not because they're incapable, but just because the quarterback position is the way it is. So why are you right? There is no overwhelming favorite. There's no odds on favorite. Now what that does is twofold. First thing it does is it just it just opens up the preseason market for predictions. You will probably not see like 60 or 70% of the college football media land on one team to win the title. Even if it's Georgia, I don't think it's going to be an overwhelming favorite. And the second thing is you start to ask if it's wide open. I didn't even mention LSU. If it's wide open, does that open the door for a surprise? Does that open the door for this year's TCU to emerge? And I'd say, yeah. Now my question to follow that up is how big a surprise is Tennessee if they're in the playoff to you? How big a surprise are they? How big a surprise is Texas if they make the playoff, Washington if they make the playoff, you know, because these are going to be highly ranked teams, but those are teams that Washington made it one year, but those are not playoff contenders perennially. Would that be a surprise to you? I think a mild surprise to a lot of the country. I think if you pay attention, you wouldn't be that surprised by it. But go the next year down. What if, oh, I don't know, Texas A&M comes out of nowhere. What if a Louisville comes out of nowhere? What if Oregon State jumps up there and takes a bite out of the college football playoff? Now that would be back to back to back scenarios that I think would be everybody surprising as TCU was last year. I think for that matter, maybe the big 12 spits out another team. Maybe Iowa State, maybe we triple chest thumper right there. Maybe we in Ames, Iowa finally get what we have deserved, frankly, for a long time. And that is that is our rightful spot in the 14 college football playoff. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. I don't expect everyone to join me in that fight, but I got several Iowa State T-shirts that I am ready to wear publicly. Only one of which has been done so far. We got some work to do, but we're up for the challenge. Okay. A very, very important question here from Osgoode, Ohio. This question refers to me in a certain term. And I gave myself this title. No one else did. As a noted cinephile, which is translation movie expert, as a noted cinephile, what is your number one movie you've seen that was made before you were born? The answer is Jaws. I think that's the best movie that was made before I was born. It was made well before I was born. It was made in the mid seventies. It was made before like 90% of our audience was born. So I got in an argument with one of you the other day and I, I think I talked about another movie on air. Can't remember which one it was. Okay. One of you hit me up and your message was you've gone two for three in movie suggestions on the show recently. And I didn't even know which movie he was talking about. Apparently I just mentioned a movie on the show and I've done it a few times. And so some of you have just been going and watching the movies when I mentioned them. So anyway, he said two of the movies were good. I said naturally, well, which one did you not like? He said, Jaws didn't like Jaws. And I was like thrown against the wall. I've never heard anyone say they didn't like Jaws. And I said, how? That's what actually it. I just asked how, but I meant, how can you not like that? He said it didn't age well. There are opinions and there are facts. Okay. It can be your opinion. You don't like Jaws to say it doesn't age well is crazy. It's 2023. This movie is about to be 50 years old and they filmed it in the ocean. Steven Spielberg and his crew went out on water, which seems easy to you now. In 1975 or whenever that came out, it was not easy. And they went out and they had a mechanical shark, by the way, named Bruce that did and didn't work at various points of the filming. So I did not dive deep because frankly, I was very angry with the viewer that offered that submission. But if I were to dive into that argument, I would say, how do you think it does? It doesn't age well. Because some people say it doesn't age well because the shark doesn't look real. That's kind of the point though. The shark's not supposed to look like a normal shark. It's supposed to look like a monster mixed with a shark because it's supposed to be above and beyond even Matt Hooper from the Oceanographic Institute. It's in the movie. He's stunned by the shark. He works around sharks. Like so any shark that has that kind of impact on a shark expert, it's like me seeing an EF5 tornado. That doesn't look like a normal rope tornado does it? It's not supposed to. It's supposed to look one and a half times what a tornado looks like. And it's the same thing with the shark. The story is brilliantly told. Half of the movie is on land. The second half of the movie is out in the ocean. You've got multiple plot lines, but at the center of it all, there is a monster out there just offshore that wants to eat people and it's going to stop until you take care of it. It's a spoiled ending of a 50 year old movie, but it's great. It's great. So I know if you're in college right now and you think something made in the 70s is too old for you, most of the time you're going to be right, but rumors, the album by Fleetwood Matt, you're wrong about. And Jaws, you are wrong about. Star Wars, we could go either way on that. But Jaws is a great movie. I don't care if it was made before I was born. It's a wonderful movie. It ages fantastically and there is zero CGI. Believe it or not, movies can be great with zero CGI. I've spoken my piece. That's all there is to say about that. Let's move on. I'll only get angrier. We got a question here. Do we have a name? No. Okay. So armored night from Fort Lauderdale, Florida asks, with the freeze announcement at Washington State, does the Pac-12 house of cards fall? Most of you don't know what this is about. So Washington State has announced that they have budget issues out there. And so they're putting a freeze on all discretionary spending and they're trying to get their affairs in order. And it's just a, it's a poverty plea. That's what it is. It happens sometimes, not all the time as it publicized, but it happens sometimes. It's not good. The Pac-12 is not in a good place. I had a submission from one of you or a comment from one of you when I woke up this morning and it said, hey, I'm, I love the show, but I'm kind of tired of these doom and gloom segments. You're like a, like a fire and brimstone preacher. I made that second part up. He did say the first part. I'm trying as best I can. I don't like doing these segments, but I can't escape the reality of the situation. So for example, I would love to talk about the Pac-12 future in glowing terms. I can't. It doesn't feel like it's going to exist in two weeks from now, which is a little bit of a stretch, but, but seriously, what's the last time you heard good messaging from the West coast? What is the last time anything substantive was said or done out there that inspired confidence in your own mind that the Pac-12 is going to sustain itself long term? This is just another in a long line of really, really bad signals. They still haven't gotten the media rights deal taken care of. They don't have a major player to hitch their wagon to. They don't have a major network. You're dead in the water if you don't have that and it's bad enough if your member institutions are stuck with you and they don't have options. Arizona State and Arizona and Utah, they have options. Oregon and Washington have options. I think they're going to bail. I don't know what in the world you can do at this point to save yourself out there. And here's the downside of it. Okay. And here's where I can go on the field for you. The downside of this whole Pac-12 fiasco out there is it's threatening to overshadow what could be a phenomenal year on the field. The Pac-12 could very well be the most entertaining conference in college football this year. They have got one, two, three, four, five, six teams with over under preseason wind totals of eight and a half or higher. That's more than any power five conference in America. And no one's talking about it other than us because it's all about media rights. It's all about conference realignment. And yes, we have spoken about that too. I'm talking about it right now. But the terms I'm talking about it in is not necessarily relishing in it. I hate it, but it's reality. And it's bad enough that it's happening, but it's even worse that the Pac-12 has a year coming up that they should be able to package and market as a great big billboard for how great the conference is and what it could be. And instead, I don't know how you avoid it getting overshadowed at this point. So I just kind of wish whatever is going to happen. I could press a fast forward button and have it already happened. So we don't actually have to be drugged through that mud, but it's going to happen. It's coming in. I don't think it's going to move all that fast. Unfortunately, it does not appear that we're going to, I don't know, I would love for there to be stability out there. It does not appear that that's on the horizon. Wish I had a better message for you. Let's move on. Craig next up, like playoff expansion, conference title games were money grabs that watered down the regular season. How long will schools be, let me slow down, how long will schools be willing to play that extra game? Would two undefeateds consider tanking for a home playoff game instead of expending effort against a team they could face again? This is actually a much more layered question than I thought it was. Okay. So Bradley, do me a favor. Put the question back up so I can just go through this piece by piece. So the first part is true technically. Craig said, conference title games are money grabs. Yeah, they are. The SEC pioneered this move back in the early 90s and no one in the conference liked it. A little history lesson. It used to be children that you didn't play a conference title game. You just, you crown the conference champ at the end of the regular season, kind of the same way you did in a national championship. You just kind of crown the national champ. Well, the SEC in the early 90s led by a man by the name of Roy Kramer, who was the commissioner at that time, like the 90s version of Greg Sankey. He said, what if we took divisions and we took the top team from the east and the top team from the west and we went to Birmingham, Alabama, Legion field. That's where they played for the first couple of years. And we had a conference title game cause the rules were if you had 12 teams in your conference, you can have a conference title game. It's just no one was playing them, but there was an obscure rule that said that. So none of the coaches liked it. Imagine that world. You can take it down now, Bradley. Imagine that world where you're used to doing things one way, your entire existence. And it's hard enough in your mind that you have to play the regular season and be undefeated or being one lost team. Then your conference commissioner comes along and says, because someone offered us a lot of money because a TV network offered us a lot of money, we're just going to create another game and we're going to make our two best teams play in that game. And the thing about it is the outcome is going to count on your record. So the first year they do the game, Alabama is undefeated. They haven't had a good season since Bear Bryant died in the late 70s. All right, since he retired in the late 70s and died in the early 80s, they have not been in the national title picture since then. And they finally are back under Gene Stallings and they go undefeated regular season and they go to Birmingham to play Steve Spurrier and the Florida Gators. And they they trailed. It was a close game. There was an Antonio Langham pick six that ended up winning the game, I think like 21 14 or something for him. But the point is everybody in the conference was convinced that Roy Kramer had just screwed him and they were sabotaging their own conference in the name of money. And if Florida had won that game in the first year, I think it's one of the great unknowns in the history of college football. If the SEC in the very first year of having a conference title game cost their team a shot at a title, what would have happened? Because Bama won the game and went on to Thresh Miami in the Sugar Bowl. Bama won the national title. They had won one in over a decade. Bama won the national title. They didn't win one again for another decade. So anyway, yes, it was a money grab. Now it's been successful, but yes, you're right, it was a money grab. Okay. So Bradley now throw the quote back up or throw the question back up. So then actually go backwards. Sorry about that. So the second part of his question was how long in the new world are teams going to be willing to play that extra game? We're going to we're going to go into an expanded playoff. How long are teams going to be willing to play that game? How legitimate will conference title games feel? Now keep it up, Bradley. So your response to that could be, Oh, Josh, the conference title game will always be important. Why? Well, because of the auto bid process, because we're, we're, we're emphasizing a conference champs value because we're giving them auto bid into the college football playoff. You can't have a top six seed unless you're a conference champ, which is a joke. And then there was this follow up. Would two undefeated teams consider tanking? So losing on purpose. For a home playoff game in exchange, instead of expending the effort against the team they could face again. Now that makes no sense to you. Here's what Craig is saying. If we had a Bama, Georgia situation in the SEC title game, they're both undefeated. Would one of them say, forget this. We don't care about the game. I mean, we'll, we'll try and win it, but we're going to rest starters. We're not going to, we're not going to, we're going to treat it kind of like a preseason game because they know they're still going to make the playoff. Whether they win or lose. And if they do lose, they're not going to drop very far. Now they can't have a first round buy or anything like that, but they would just drop to like a seven seed. And then what they would get is the opportunity to host a home playoff game in the first round. I don't think that would happen, Craig. But I'd be lying to you if I think, if I told you, I think college conference championship games are going to feel the same. I don't think they're going to feel the same at all. I think actually it's going to be kind of burdensome and they're not going anywhere because they're worth too much to conferences and television partners. It's part of your inventory package. When you sign these deals with CBS or Fox or NBC, it includes the fact that you're going to play conference championship. You're going to give us a conference championship game. So they're not going anywhere. And that's why the playoff is structured the way it is. Make no mistakes. Not about fairness has nothing to do with that. I think we've beaten that pinata to death on this show. Has nothing to do with fairness. The reason and the only reason that that college football playoff process includes auto bids for conference champions is because they have to emphasize the conference championship value to make you care about it because they have to maintain the value of the conference championship game itself for money. How about that? The last two words of every sentence for money. So Craig, I don't know how it's going to feel. I think like you and a lot of us. We got to get into that world. We got to feel it out a few years. We got to see how it goes because there are going to be things that you can't really know until you experience it. I remember the first time I ever tried roller skating. I had an idea of how it was going to go. I had an idea of how it was going to feel. I had to get out there to find out for myself though. And it turns out in some cases I was right. And in some cases I was wrong. A lot of you guys think you know when this is coming, but you don't. What you watch depends on what kind of major in. Sometimes you're craving comedies like Friends or South Park and sometimes you're more into dramas like HBO's Succession and House of the Dragon. There's also cooking shows like Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay and even movies like The Lord of the Rings and Shazam, Fury of the Gods. Well, Max is the streaming destination that has the best of entertainment for whatever mood you're in anytime. And plans start at as little as $9.99 a month. Max, the one to watch. Subscription required, visit max.com. Paramount Plus is your home for the elite action of the NWSL all season long. This league is packed with world class talent featuring the biggest stars from around the globe including the US Women's National Team as they compete for the glory of an NWSL title. Iconic legends Alex Morgan and Meghan Rapinoe are still on the top of their game while show stopping breakouts Rose Level, Ashley Hatch and defending MVP Sophia Smith usher in the next great generation. Don't miss a single moment and stream the NWSL all season long on Paramount Plus. Gotcha, no questions asked, just gotcha. Sorry, we'll heal together. Zach from Aurora, Colorado in reference to the recent Oklahoma message board comments about Zadavian Sims. Do you agree that every fan base does the same thing when they lose a recruit or is this out of the norm considering how many other recruits have commented on it? Do you guys have any idea what this is about? I do, I know what it's about, but most of you are out there living your lives and if you're not an Oklahoma fan or an Oregon fan or maybe a voyeuristic Texas fan, do you know what this is about? It doesn't matter if your answer is no. That's why I'm here for you people. Zadavian Sims was a big time recruit who just committed to Oklahoma. He committed to Oregon. Oklahoma just thought they had a good shot at him. These things happen, right? You would say, hey, recruiting battles are won and lost all the time. That's true, but it doesn't mean it hurts any less if you lose out on a kid. Now that is 2015 logic. Two thousand twenty three logic is that and then you replace a little bit of it with, well, they bought him. And then you have people like me over in the corner saying, what if they did? That's the breaks. That's the new world we live in. Also, it's never entirely like that. I don't know that you will believe me when I say this, but I am telling you the truth. Kids are not making decisions based solely on money. Ninety nine percent of them are not. I can't. I'm just telling you we talked to them off the record where they have no reason to lie. I have a good read on a lot of this stuff and money does matter. I'm not telling you it doesn't. The NIO package does matter when it's presented to a recruit, but look, kids are not looking your coaching staff in the eye consistently and saying, coach, I'd love to come to Oklahoma, but I got to go to Oregon. That's not the way it's breaking down. You can take my word for it and not take my word for it. So anyway, Oregon beats Oklahoma for the Sims kid that we were just talking about there. Oklahoma message boards up in arms and this can happen sometimes when you build up in your mind that you're going to land a kid and you think you lead for a kid and then all of a sudden you don't. That's not the first time this has happened. It's not even the first time this cycle, nor is it the last time this cycle had happened. Oklahoma fans are angry about it. I don't blame you. Oklahoma fans have done exactly what angry folks do when they lose out on a recruit. They go to message boards and they talk amongst each other about it. It's not always pretty. Now this is the downside of message board culture. No one ever sees the good parts of message board culture, of which there are several. I think the most valuable commodity that you have if you subscribe to the 24 seven sports network is access to all the team message boards and forums. There are some good insiders on there. There is good conversation on there. It keeps you plugged in to the most hardcore level of your fan base. Are there some crazy folks on there? Sure there are. But I never demonize that. People can go over the top sometimes, but I would so much rather have to tell a fan base, whoa boy, then have to tell them, hey, get it up. Get it up. It's the same with the football player. I listened to Will Muschamp one time talk about penalties and how South Carolina at the time they were getting penalized a little bit too much. And he said, yeah, we don't like being penalized, but I had a whole lot rather guys be a little bit too over anxious than me constantly have to get on them and tell them to play with more fire. So I love the fan bases that are passionate like that. Some of the trade off visit goes over the line from time to time. Now in this particular case, what's happened is Oklahoma fans, they say some terrible things about a kid. It's the exception. It's not the rule. That is that does not represent Oklahoma fans. Some Oklahoma fans have taken it a little bit too far and they've taught negatively about the kid and then rival fans have screen shot at it and they've put it out there. The recruits have seen it and not really knowing any better and get caught up in the emotion of the moment. They've taken it and they've retweeted it themselves and they said, wow, I don't want to go play at Oklahoma. Here's the thing about that. Don't fall for that stuff. My message to recruits would be don't fall for that. There is no fan base out there that is made up of majority psychopaths and conversely, every fan base out there has a small sliver of psychopaths. It is what it is. If you're going to play college football, you will not escape the fact that you're going to go play for a team where there are some people who pull for that team that are a little bit off their rocker. In no way does that reflect on the entire fan base. Think about this. Take the craziest member of your family. Who's the craziest person in your family? Do they represent you? Because the craziest person in your family comes a whole lot closer to representing you than some rando on a message board comes to representing an entire fan base. You would never say that Crazy Uncle Charlie represents you. How in the world are you about to say, sooner fan 38 represents the entirety of Oklahoma fandom? He doesn't. They don't. It's just it looks bad because sometimes it can get screenshotted and it can go viral on different socials and all of a sudden, because it's convenient and because you hate Oklahoma if you're a rival fan. You're you're incentivized to fan the flames of that sort of thing. And I hate to be the one to have to douse it here, but I'm here. Fire Patrol paid is here. Let's put that out. I don't I don't think this goes above and beyond to answer the question. No, I don't think this is this is above and beyond any other example I've seen. It is what it is. And it's it's the middle of the time between spring football and preview magazine season where these sorts of things are going to get a little bit more attention because there's not a whole lot else going on. The end. Oh, we had another question about non stadium campus experiences. What is your favorite non stadium campus experience? That was worded very well, by the way. I got to tell you what happens every time we announce where we're going on a tour. So we have not named our tour for this fall yet, but when we name it like we had the Renaissance tour two years ago, we had the the every given Saturday tour last year when we announced every week where we're going, my DMS get flooded and they get flooded with people who give me restaurant recommendations, a ton of tailgate invitations and just just different things letting you know, Hey, here's what's going on in the town this week. Here's where you should come here. Here's the parking lot that will be in. Hey, if you want this food, come there. If you want that food, go here. That's my favorite part. Like when we go to an LSU game, we have invitation lists a mile long. Attorneys invite us to their places. Perhaps sororities. I'm not on or off the record admitting such, but we get so many different invites to experience so many different things when we go on a campus. Now here's the thing. It varies week to week. Number one, when do we get in town? Number two, what time is the game that day? But if we're in town for like a three 30 or a prime time kick, especially, it's a really good morning and afternoon for us. Now we're not getting slosh. I don't drink anyway. We wouldn't be going out there doing things irresponsible, but there is plenty that you can soak in and experience. And actually, sometimes if there's a noon game, like I'll give you an example. If I were at Penn State for a noon kickoff, it is really hard to get out of state college. It is really hard to get to an airport and get back home, even if we're at a noon kickoff. So the chances are, even if I go to an early Penn State game, I still have to wait to fly out the next morning. Well, that affords me the opportunity to do our post game stuff and then go out into the tailgate scene and hook up with any of like 37 of you who have invited us and hang out at your tailgate and watch the afternoon and evening games. Now where in the world else are you going to be able to do that? No one else has the opportunity to do that. So that's my favorite thing about going on the road. Yeah, sure, the stadiums are great. The people are great. And then you're in the airport and inevitably people are traveling to and from the same thing you were, which means your audience is on the plane and in the airport. So I don't know that I ever go on a trip where I don't meet several of you in the airport, whether it's a regional airport or whether it's Hart's Field or or Love in Dallas. Shout out Southwest. So yeah, that's my favorite part. Next up. Oh, what a question. I guess I should read it to you, shouldn't I? Hayden asked, is Texas A&M in Miami even going to be a good game? Are they both going to be bad again? Hayden, it doesn't matter if they're both going to be bad. And I'll tell you why, because the game is not in week 14. The week 14 doesn't exist. The game is not in week 10. It's in, what is it? Jesse is it week two or week three? It's really early in the season is the point. And so you won't even know we don't even have answers yet because they will not have played multiple teams capable of beating them. At least I don't think. And so what we'll have is we'll have Texas A&M going on the road and they'll head down to Hard Rock Stadium. And we'll see Jimbo Fisher and Bobby Petrina. And we'll see Mario Christoval and his two new coordinators and we'll have, we'll have Tyler Van Dyke starting to quarterback. Presumably we'll have Connor Wegman. And this is week two. That's the answer. It's week two. So Miami is not going to lose to Miami of Ohio in week one. A&M is not going to lose to whom, steverate is they play in week one. So we're going to have a battle of undefeateds. That's how I'm going to build it. The battle of undefeateds. Now this is on a big Saturday. That's the same Saturday as a lot of those out of conference games happen in Texas. This is one of them. Texas A&M is a Texas team that plays a big out of conference game this day. Texas at Alabama is on this day. That's going to suck up a lot of the national spotlight, but this is going to be a really, really important game because someone's going to have a big boost of confidence that all the all the seasonal moves they made have paid off and then someone else is going to be shouting disaster season ahead. And in reality, someone's going to be one and one and someone's going to be two and oh, I'm looking forward to that game though. I'm looking forward to that game because we will start to get answers. We won't get the total package of answers, but we will start to get answers. Just imagine in your head right quick what happens. We'll go to scenarios here. What happens if A&M goes down there and Tyler Van Dyke in this new offense, they hang 37. They win 37 to 20. Can you imagine what the headlines would be? Can you imagine the segment we would do on late kick the next night? Now conversely, what if Jimbo takes A&M in there and Bobby Petrino and his offense put up 37 or 42 or something like that. They put up a bigger number than they were putting up all of last year and all of a sudden A&M is looking like an offensive juggernaut and they're properly utilizing the pieces they have on that team. You guys know how college football works? You know what it's like early in the season? You got all these opinions built up and you spend months and months and months deciding what you think about teams, but then it changes. Boom, just like that, cause the season is actually showing you real football. A magazine's not a football game. A spring game's not even a football game. It's certainly summer workouts and fall camp practices. Those are not football games. That doesn't really matter what you think you learn from those. So if we start learning something definitive in week two about Tyler Van Dyke and that Miami offense or or Wegman and that Texas A&M offense, I mean, I'm discounting Max Johnson. We'll see if he wins the job. Either way, I'm looking forward to that game. We roll on. Good question from Brendan here. Tell me what you think about this. Tell me what you guys think. Brendan asked, what are your thoughts on college bands when it comes to game day atmosphere? And Brendan is a drummer from Athens. I got to be honest with you. I think half of the Georgia Red Coat Marching Band listens to the game. Let me rephrase. I think at least half of the Red Coat Marching Band at Georgia listens to the game. When I go to Georgia games, I talk to several members of that band and I appreciate it. I salute you guys. Not the only band is like that, but out of all the bands in college football, I don't have any more recognition per capita than I do with the Georgia Red Coat Marching Band. So my hat is often my salute goes to you guys. I think it's integral. One of the things about stadium environment that I'm not crazy about is the piping in of music, but I get why it has to happen. So I'm like 60 years old when it comes to this. When it comes to preference over on environment of a stadium, I like it to be authentic. Two things I respect about schools, sorry, two things I respect about schools is when they don't have a lot of advertisement in their stadium, Michigan, Notre Dame, they come to mind. They forgo the opportunity to make a ton of money within stadium signage. Why? Well, it's not because they're anti money, but they have valued the pristine look and maintaining the integrity of the look of a college stadium. That I respect. And the other thing I respect is when they let the band do their job. They let the band control a majority of the between the snap environment, between quarter environment. Now, truthfully, with how people have been conditioned today, where you've got music blaring between every snap, every third down, you got music blaring. If we were to go back to just bands, I don't think a lot of people would like it. I think it would be a shock to the senses. It's like if you, I mean, if you've been on an airplane for an extended period of time, how your ears don't properly adjust to sound for a little while when you're in the terminal, it would be a shock to the senses. It would be like swimming for three hours. You get out of the pool. Your skin is all pruning. Yeah. If you just had band after you've listened to all that for 15 or 20 years, I know it would be a shock, but that doesn't change my thought on that. Like my thought on that is if you've got a hundred thousand people in a stadium and you've got a band, you got all the noise making equipment you need. You got all the energy you need. You shouldn't need to use your loudspeakers. You shouldn't need to. It's one of those classic questions just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something. It's one of the great unknowns, even though I think I know the answer. We got one more here. Bradley, this is the last one, right? Let's go ahead and hear Bradley's voice. Is it the last one, Bradley? Yes. Okay, there's Bradley and that has been Bradley the associate. This is Angry Duckling 12 from Houston, Texas. And Angry Duckling asks if we were to see four completely new teams in the playoff, whoopsed would they be and why? So the teams that have never made it. Now remember, Florida State's made it before. Oregon's made it. Washington's made it before. So we got to get them out of there. Who hasn't made it? Well, Texas has never made it. I think Texas, if you told me four newbies are going to make the playoff this year, Texas would be one of them. I think that Penn State has found a way into the playoff. If you tell me four newbies are in there, Penn State is one of them. I think Lincoln Riley and USC have found their way in. That's right, kids. Washington has been to the playoff, but USC has not. So we got USC, we got Texas, we got Penn State, and I think Tennessee is in the playoff. I think Josh Heipel and the Tennessee volunteers have found a way to make it. Now if it's not those four teams, just for the record, if you're listening on podcast, which you are, although we will make a video from this particular question, it could also be Texas A&M. It could be Utah. It could be Wisconsin, Ole Miss, Oregon State, Kansas State. These are all teams that are in the mix this year, a figure to be in the mix that have never made the playoff. But for my money, actually I went with the top four in terms of odds. So USC, Texas, Tennessee, Penn State. Now if any of them make the playoff, it would be a big story. I think the least story would be if USC made it. Number one, cause they're the favorite out there. And number two, Lincoln Riley himself has already made it before. So it wouldn't be a shock to see Lincoln Riley make it, but Texas in the playoff. You're not ready for it. I told you guys two weeks ago, you were not ready for that. Tennessee in the playoff. You guys think Rocky Top is just a nice little song and you hear it every now and then. But Colin knows the director Colin endorses the Rocky Top behavior. Rocky Top is like a virus. And I'm just speaking on behalf of rival fans. So I'm not myself saying this. I'm the middle man as we have established. So I'm the messenger here. Rocky Top is like a virus. When Tennessee is on top of the world, you hear Rocky Top and it becomes like that Burger King commercial. And it, you hear it? Oh, that's nice. That's catchy. And then you hear it 15 more times and you say, oh, that's like an ice pick into my ear. And then you hear it 400 more times. And you say, I think I'm going to saw my ears off. I can't deal with this anymore. Tennessee makes the playoff and the nation just gets bathed in the song Rocky Top for a whole month. And it's not going anywhere after that. Trust me, you would sing a different tune. Any tune about Tennessee. The same goes for country roads. Take me home if West Virginia were to ever resurrect themselves. I don't think we're in danger of that happening this year. And then of course, if Texas A&M made the playoff. Oh my goodness, if Texas A&M made the playoff. So yeah, those are the teams I would go with. Southern Cal, Tennessee is up there, Penn State is up there. I will absolutely take credit in our preseason visit up there if Penn State makes the playoff. And that's the way I see it. I appreciate you guys so much for listening. Make sure you are subscribed to this pod. We've had some good reviews too. Those five star reviews and the written reviews always uplifting when some of you take the time to say some nice things. I read every single one of them and I appreciate it. Until next time, we're producer Jesse for DirectCon for Bradley the Associate. I'm Josh Pate. Take care. Have a great rest of your day. And God bless. CBS Sports Galazzo Network, the first of its kind, free 24 seven channel dedicated exclusively to global soccer coverage is now streaming on the CBS Sports app Pluto TV and Paramount Plus. Get your morning started off on the right foot at 7 a.m. with Morning Footy, our weekday soccer culture driven morning show. 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