Conference Eruption Coming? + Major Portal Moves | Late Kick Live Ep. 388
Don't feel sorry for people often, but I really feel sorry for the people in our world.
Who want to take a vacation?
How are you going to do that?
I told you there was no off season, but boy, you ever doubted, you don't doubt anymore,
do you?
It's not a problem for us.
Like Jesse.
I kid you not, producer Jesse got a cyst, cauterized off his neck like five hours ago,
and just came right into work.
I still have no clue how Colin came into work during that snowstorm last year.
So we have a bunch of savages on our staff.
Like you would have to physically detain them to keep them out of work, but not everyone
lives like we do.
Some people do recognize the off season, and some people want to take a vacation, and
the ACC is not letting you do it.
The powers that be are not letting you do it.
Re-alignment?
They're earthquake perhaps on the horizon for college football.
There's what they're telling you, and then there's what is really going on.
We are jam-packed.
We are high atop an active downtown Nashville, Tennessee.
It's Thursday, May 18th, the year of our Lord 2023.
Someone tells me we have a hundred days and counting until Hawaii makes their way to Vanderbilt
Stadium for some good hot week zero action.
But in the meantime, anybody know who's in the ACC at this hour?
Anybody know who will be in the ACC this time next year?
We'll take a nice hard look at that tonight.
Also, I'm going to take a look at the SEC West because we've got several questions there
as we continue to scan the magnifying glass across this great land of ours.
Several transfer portal moves are still happening, and some of them are very, very big.
Case in point, Kian Coleman in Florida State.
So we're going to stay tuned in on that.
I'm going to talk to you about it tonight.
And some big 10 big games this year.
You know, you got the whole division thing and we're in the last year of it, thankfully.
So we don't really have to worry about whether like the three best teams in the league are
all in the same division, which spoiler alert they are.
I don't need you to wait until December to find that out.
At least I think they are.
So we'll talk about all that tonight.
They're watching us, you know where they're watching us in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
They're also watching us in LaRosa, Louisiana, which they tell me is the Kuala Lumpur of
the Bayou.
So hello to both parties.
They're watching us in Clemson, South Carolina and Westland, Michigan.
It's not a mailbag episode tonight per se, but boy, I got asked about two things a lot
this week.
The first was, of course, conference realignment and all the rumors coming out of Amelia Island,
which sounds like either a great place to take a vacation or the kind of place where
you test moms.
There's no in between.
And a little bit of both actually has been going on with the ACC this week.
So I got asked about that and you want to know what else I got asked about a lot this
week, Pat McAfee signing that deal with ESPN.
Because a lot of you wanted to know what it means for our show.
And you know what?
I'll talk about it.
Not right now, but I'll talk about it a little bit later.
So hang tight.
We got a just a grab bag of all sorts of things happening right now in the middle of May,
no less.
But let's start where we need to start.
It's actually a mocking clearing of the throat.
A lot of smoke coming out of the ACC.
A lot of rumors, a lot of actual reports coming out this week.
Now I'm not going to bore you with rehashing all this stuff.
If you want to read about it, there are a number of great and reputable websites and
reporters out there who have been following the every move of athletic directors and presidents
and commissioners.
Brandon Marcelo is among them.
Works for us here at 24 seven.
So you want the latest check out Marcelo's feed.
Our buddy Ross Delinger has been on top of this.
A number of people have been on top of it.
So essentially what we have here is we have a bunch of people who don't really want to
be in the ACC anymore, but they are content with lying to you publicly and saying they
are happy to be in the ACC as long as you give us a little bit more money because we
mean more to the conference.
Now the latter is not a strategy that I frowned upon.
If I mean more, if I'm Clemson, if I got the tiger paw on the side of my head, if I got
the spear on the side of my head, if I'm Florida state, yeah, I just matter more than Syracuse.
It just is what it is and you got to get comfortable with it or we're going to leave if we can
leave.
And then that was part B of figuring out how many teams does it take to break a grant of
rights?
How do you separate just the media rights portion versus taking your copyright with you?
So it's a whole convoluted mess.
It's not your job nor really is it my job to sort through all that.
There's not a lot of skill in forecasting something that changes by the hour.
So that's not what I'm going to take up your time or waste your time doing on the show
tonight.
But I do think there is skill in something here.
So whether the ACC stays together through 2036 or whether a bomb goes off next week,
there is skill in something, there is skill in using your instinct and using your wisdom
and discernment from watching sports over a long period of time to kind of smell what's
coming.
And here's what's coming.
You've got a course that's already been set in college football.
No matter which team is in which conference, the end game here is we're headed towards
an expanded playoff.
Twelve team playoff, the format starts next year.
So this is the last year we got four teams in the playoff.
So in a lot of ways, the course has already been decided here.
It doesn't matter about realignment.
It doesn't matter whether Clemson goes here.
It doesn't matter whether Oregon goes there.
The bottom line is for a lot of you, you're about to be left out in the cold and it just
happens to come at a time where we're expanding the college football post season at the same
time as the gap between the top two and everyone else will have never been larger.
You're going to have the big 10.
You already do.
You're going to have the SEC.
You already do.
And then you're going to have everyone else.
I heard the commissioner there in the ACC yesterday trying and trying hard to remind you
that well, we're third when it comes to revenue, we're third.
We've got two folks who are stuffed and still have a plate full at this table and you got
three folks starving over here at this table.
And the one who just happens to have a little more meat still on his bones is looking over
there at the other two saying, we're not so different.
You and I, you're very different.
You're so different that folks are actively trying to get out of your conference right
now.
And that's not necessarily anyone's fault.
Not here to throw fault or blame at anyone's feet, but there was a lot that Swofford said
yesterday, the commissioner over there that really shouldn't have inspired much confidence
than anyone who understood what they were listening to.
And so we're headed into this world where even though the current pressing matter is
conference realignment and who's going to go where I'm losing interest in it a little
bit.
It's spicy, makes for good headlines.
And yes, I guess I am interested in in a Florida state where to move somewhere.
Georgia Tech landed in the Big Ten tomorrow.
Yes, we would talk about it on this show.
But what are we really changing here?
We're not really changing anything.
You're either going to have an extremely strong Big Ten and SEC and everyone else with just
a few more parties on board before everything else sinks.
Now, you may ask Josh, how do you figure it's going to sink?
Isn't there an auto bid process?
In this new college football playoff format, include with it half a dozen auto bid spots
for the six highest ranked conference champs?
Answer, yes, it did.
And it's going to be a joke.
And I think a lot more people are coming to realize that you can make whatever format
you want.
It has to be taken seriously, like it has to have integrity and some sort of competitive
respectability woven through it.
And right now, you're looking at a situation where you're rolling down, Jesse, stop typing
that, please.
You're rolling down the road towards a world where, yeah, you got 12 teams and yes, six
of them are about to be from different conferences.
Is anybody taking it seriously?
Like, are you really watching the Big Ten and the SEC down the road and then juxtaposing
it to what the Pac-12's doing or what the Big 12's doing or what the ACC is doing, what
the AAC or the Sunbelt's doing and saying, yeah, yeah, you know, every conference champ
who comes out of there, I'm going to take seriously, I'm going to treat equally.
Is that how you're going to watch the playoff is my question?
Maybe your answer is yes.
My answer is no.
And I really never was going to because I've never really been for auto bids, but I especially
won't when I know that like 12 of the 15 best brands collectively or worse are sort of in
the same two boats.
And it's only going to get worse as the disparity in revenue only grows larger.
So there's that.
Now, on the other side of things, I had a lot of you ask, well, what do you hope happens?
Well, I hope the ACC figures out a way to keep themselves together because you could make
the argument that if you want competitive balance nationally, I think probably that
train's already left the station.
But if you do want to maintain some sense of competitive balance nationally, you really
need to be rooting for the ACC because the ACC, although the conference has underachieved
mightily outside of Clemson, South Carolina over the last decade, the ACC is still the
conference that if its member institutions are operating at a high level, has the best
chance to challenge one of those other two big conferences in any given year because
of what Clemson has done, but also what Florida State should be doing or Virginia Tech should
be doing or Miami should be doing.
Those are institutions.
Those are programs that A, have done it before, B, could do it again, and C, are in recruiting
hotbeds.
They are where other schools come to recruit in many cases.
So the ACC is the conference still with a handful of teams that if everything were going
right could actually be legitimate challengers.
Whereas moving forward, once Texas and OU leave, I'm just telling you like it is most of America.
Most of the college football public is going to look at the big 12 and say it's great that
you added Central Florida.
It's great that you added Cincinnati or Brigham Young or Houston.
It's great that you have occasional stories like TCU or like Kansas State, but the bottom
line is we're not going to take them as seriously as Ohio State Penn State, Michigan or LSU
Bama, Georgia, Tennessee.
We're not taking them seriously.
We're not viewing them in the same light.
That's what's always concerned me about this.
It's always been the yin to the yang of the playoff conversation that I've talked about
because it's always coincided.
This whole expanded playoff notion with a lot of conference realignment, a lot of renewed
media rights deals.
And you were never going to have a world where the SEC continued to swallow up chunks of college
football, ditto for the Big Ten.
You were never going to have a world where the Big Ten cashed these like seemingly endless,
bottomless barrels of cash coming to them via checks from media rights holders and likewise
for the SEC, you were never going to have that world and then also have a world where
oh well, doesn't matter, the Pac-12 will just chug merrily along.
Oh well, you know, the ACC or the Big 12 will just always be what they've always been.
That's not the way it works.
It's not the way it's ever worked.
So am I concerned about it?
Well, of course, of course I'm concerned.
I've been concerned for a while because of the core principle that I have continued to
hammer home on the show.
Is it complicated?
Sure it's complicated, but really it's not guys.
At the end of the day, it's just money.
That's all it is.
It's just money that's driving all the decision making and anyone who claims otherwise is
lying to you.
I am not anti money.
I'm not anti profit.
I am all for it.
But I also believe that there are too few people in the room who prioritize the love for
college athletics up against that pursuit of profit and understand that there is this
line in the sand that once you cross it, you start to delude your product.
You start to delude what gave the product the very value that it is you're cashing in
on now and leveraging.
And it doesn't, it doesn't erode.
It doesn't go away overnight and maybe it won't at all.
That is certainly my hope.
But for the time being, I'd be lying to you if I said I have immense faith in the people
who are driving the boat here.
Notice I said people plural calls there is no one person in charge.
If that's not already readily apparent to you, there is no one person in charge.
And therefore, when it seems like a lot of people are guessing, when it seems like a
lot of people are probably waking up in a cold sweat at 3 30 in the morning and checking
their phone to see if anything happened, it's cause that's exactly what they're doing because
it's out of their hands, it's out of their control.
Even the people you think are immensely powerful to a certain extent have power that only goes
so far.
And that's the world we have to live in now.
We don't have any power.
I mean, at least we have a microphone we can talk into, but really what does that do?
So here we are, you know, what my strategy personally, if anyone's interested, my strategy
is going to be, we'll talk about it through the summer and then the football season will
get here and we'll ignore it entirely because games are actually what matter.
And as long as we got them coming to us, that's what we're going to talk about.
All right, let us move on.
Oh, by the way, what Jesse was typing is Swofford.
I said Swofford, he's the old commissioner there.
I just got used to talking about him.
And so who is Phillips over there now?
Yeah, Jim Phillips.
Okay.
I mean, actually I was going to say it started with the same letter, but it didn't.
It was not even close.
All right, let's move on.
How should I describe this?
When I did the show the other night, I did not give any great big teasers as to what
was coming.
I just kind of, I laid it on you.
Hey, bold predictions are bad.
And I did that the other night.
And I really, really underestimated how popular the bold prediction segment was last year.
We did 30 some odd chapters of it and hundreds of thousands of you have come to our show
since then.
So you weren't around last year.
It was listen to this.
It's a really, really bold premise.
So I ask you what's your boldest prediction that you have that you would bet money on
and then you submit them bold, right?
Crazy, right?
And we have gotten thousands at this point now and they continue to pour in by the minute,
by the hour.
So we got four more of them tonight.
Boldest predictions as we roll into 2023.
And we got one that sounds pretty familiar to lead off the segment because it happened
a couple of years ago just with different teams.
So the first prediction is from Brendan and he said Georgia and LSU will both play in
the SEC Championship game and the National Championship game.
Yeah, it's pretty bold, but the reason it sounds familiar is because Bama and Georgia
just did it in 2021.
Having said that, this is a 9.5 on the boldness scale out of 10.
As I said, yet happened a couple of years ago, you just have to thread such a fine needle
for this to happen.
Number two, you got to have two elite teams and both of them could be that.
Certainly we won't doubt Georgia and LSU played in the SEC Championship game last year
and they don't figure to go anywhere anytime soon.
So you probably need LSU to win the thing is what we kind of decided internally here today.
Because if you try and map it out, you probably need LSU to win it because LSU number one,
they are more likely to have lost a game along the way just because they're schedules tougher.
Georgia schedule is a bakery, just cupcake city outside of a couple of you.
And so Georgia can get there.
And even if Georgia is undefeated and they lose in Atlanta and they have a soft schedule,
there is no world, I don't think, where the committee takes the, what they would call
the two time defending champ.
We don't really use that word here, but the two time defending champ and they lose one
game and they're out.
I think that's still put Georgia in.
Certainly though, if LSU loses along the way and then they lose again in Atlanta, they're
going to be out.
So you know, unless LSU is undefeated in Atlanta, you probably need LSU to win the SEC title.
Now that's just the first hurdle.
The second hurdle is if you're going to have them meet in the national title game, that
means they have to avoid each other in the semi-final.
So not only do you need the right balance of things to fall your way through the conference
championship Saturday portion of this, you also have to make sure the committee does
not just pair them up again in the semi-final.
And there will be conspiracy theories abounding if we were to get to that point and it would
sound a little something like this.
Hey, two years ago, this happened and the committee did not put Bama versus Georgia in
the semi-final game and look what they got stuck with.
So are we really going to watch this 14 playoff era go out with another all SEC championship
game?
Certainly not.
That's what it'll sound like.
Who knows?
They may be right at this point.
So I'm going to put the 9.5 on that one.
Really, really tough.
Not impossible.
Really, really tough.
Next up.
Boy, that big 10 East.
Eco hit us up from Strongville, Ohio.
He said, Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State will three way tie in the big 10 East.
Now I know what logic says.
I know what the math says.
I'm supposed to put a nine at least on this.
This is really bold.
But the thing about it is I don't feel it's all that bold.
So I only put an eight.
I think this very well could happen.
It's really high too, but I think it very well could happen.
There's such a clear top three in this conference, not just the division.
There's such a clear top three in this conference and you're looking at them right there.
What it would have what it would probably take probably is just this little this little
round robin whack-a-mole scenario where they all beat each other.
Now that's not necessarily what his prediction said.
That's just how I see it happening for the record.
Vegas kind of sees a version of this.
If you just look at the over under wind totals, Michigan's 10 and a half, Ohio State's 10
and a half, and Penn State's 9 and a half.
So none of them are up in Georgia territory where it's 11.
Some books have Georgia at 11 and a half.
It's not quite there.
So there is the expectation.
Everyone drops one along the way somewhere.
Michigan, Ohio State Penn State, obviously one, two, three to win the big 10 championship.
I really think that this is an eight.
I think there's a path where this happens and then you get into the tiebreaker scenario.
I think we got like three deep before we saw that that's where they would go to decide
it and it's really convoluted.
I want to wish your time on that.
So that's an eight for me.
Next up, we've gotten this prediction two years in a row from Anchorage, Alaska.
It hasn't come from Anchorage two years in a row.
It's just that we've gotten it two years in a row.
I need to say something about Alaska after this.
So Drew said each Power Five conference will have a new team that wins their conference
that didn't win it last year.
So we'll have five new conference champs.
Now someone predicted this last year.
It didn't happen.
It's really hard to make this happen.
Utah and Michigan for the record, they both repeated.
So Michigan and Utah screwed it up for you.
Out of the teams that won their conferences last year, Georgia, Kansas State, Michigan,
Utah and Clemson.
Here's where they sit in terms of preseason odds.
So Georgia is again the favorite to win the SEC.
Kansas State is the number three favorite to win the big 12 Utah, number four favorite.
Although it's pretty tightly packed out there to win the pack 12.
Clemson right there with Florida State, but Clemson's number two right now in terms of
odds to win the ACC and Michigan is the favorite to win the big 10.
There is no single one conference here that would be crazy.
If we saw a new conference champ, even in the SEC, if Alabama or LSU won the SEC, it
wouldn't be crazy.
If we were to see USC or Washington or Oregon or whoever win the pack 12, no, of course,
that's not crazy.
But if we have to have new blood all across the board and keep in mind, that means someone
else other than Clemson has to win the ACC, if we have new blood across the board, that's
several dominoes.
So I'm putting a 7.75 on this.
Here's what I kept thinking to go back to Clemson for a second.
Colin, do we have Clemson schedule?
Just out of nowhere.
I didn't even ask for it.
Okay.
It's always nice to hear your voice, by the way.
So with with all the other ones, like you know, Ohio State plays Michigan way late in
the year.
You know that Utah, they've got that whole stretch way late in the year.
But with Clemson, if you're starting to try and figure them out, they play at Duke to
start the year.
And that's a Monday night game, by the way.
They play Charleston, Southern and Florida Atlantic, so that week four game comes against
Florida State.
And that's the biggest game of the year in the ACC.
Highly suspect will be there, even if Notre Dame and Ohio State do still play on that same
day.
Um, that's a conundrum that we'll have to deal with internally.
What if let's just let's just humor ourselves here.
What if Clemson were to win 38 to 14 against Florida State or yeah, against Florida State
in week four?
You'd look the rest of the way, their toughest remaining game probably is against Notre
Dame.
That's non-conference.
And you would be telling yourself, well, if they just drug Florida State like that, I
don't even care if there's a rematch in the ACC title game.
Florida State's not beating them.
And so already my point is in week four, you could, you could feel really, really bad
about this prediction or maybe that game's close or maybe Florida State wins the game.
And Clemson still got some treacherous back-to-back road games there.
So we'll see.
Last prediction here, speaking of the ACC, they didn't beat around the bush with us.
When Tony just said Florida State's going to win their national championship, fourth
national championship from Orlando, Florida.
Eight and a half is my prediction.
Did I just start instinctively chopping on the desk as I, yes, do we take that as a sign?
Perhaps I won't say no.
But I just make my national championship prediction in May.
Absolutely not.
But feel free to suggest otherwise over on the unconquered board over there on Knowles
24-7.
They're plus 1600 odds to win the title right now.
That is tied for seventh in the country.
So they're up there.
They're in the mix.
There is a path regardless of week four.
So I was just talking about that Clemson game.
They got a path regardless.
What they need to do basically is make sure they at least split the LSU and Clemson games.
That's week one and four.
So both of those games are happening in September and then they get the buy and they'll be favored
the rest of the way.
Unless something weird happens, they should as we sit here now be favored the rest of the
way.
They got to split those first two games.
And if they win both of them, then really look out because then they become well, those
odds drop significantly.
And when I say drop, I mean, they become a lot more heavy a favorite to be in that mix.
I'm making this an eight and a half.
They have such a unique challenge in that receiver room right now that they're going
to pose.
I am going to read you this later.
Okay, but I do want to read you this now too.
So it's going to sound a little redundant later in the show.
Do you realize that Florida State actually, you know what?
I'm not going to read it to you.
They got a lot of kids, six, four or taller on that team.
They can catch a football.
That's what I'm trying to tell you.
They got Keon Coleman recently.
They got three of them in the tight end room.
They got like three or four more of them in the receiver room.
Such a unique challenge.
There's not another team out there that's going to pose that kind of challenge to where
if Florida State looks like they're tracking towards being a favorite to be in the playoff,
all of a sudden you'll start looking at a Georgia or an Ohio State or a Michigan or
Penn State or whoever's coming from the other portions of the country and you'll start asking,
how does Florida State match up with that secondary?
And that's the kind of conversation that you could start having later in the year, but
you got to get the job done on the front end.
And that just means splitting those first two games.
They're not technically the first two.
I don't want to disrespect the Boston colleges of the world.
Just the two games that people are going to focus on.
I am focused right now as you should be on Academy Sports and Outdoors.
Not just because this bright blue mural is behind me, but also because, well, to put
it plainly, they are the only partner we have on this show.
Not because we don't have other opportunities, mind you.
I fielded three of them this week and politely, but sternly said, no, thank you because we
don't need it because Academy Sports and Outdoors makes it such that we don't have to
treat our show like NASCAR, race car, and put stickers all over it.
We got one.
We ride with Academy Sports and Outdoors.
You know, I had someone DM me.
What was it?
Yesterday.
And they had a picture of a bright, shiny new baseball bat.
I already knew where it was going, but I always read the letters and I always look at the
receipts anyway.
And it was a doubter.
This is why I'm telling you the story.
It was someone who had doubted me.
I occasionally get these emails where it goes a little something like this.
You know, you tell me on that show all the time that I can find pretty much anything I
want at Academy and I doubted you.
And I actually in this email, he said, I actually looked elsewhere for the product, couldn't
find exactly what I needed.
And then I remembered Academy and I, I, while I can't endorse that order of priority, I do
endorse how it ended.
And guess how it ended friends?
He found the batted Academy for a nice price too.
So Academy Sports and Outdoors has you set obviously for all things outdoors sporting
good supplies plus.
And that plus is in like 72 point font because there's a lot of stuff there.
As I always tell you, you just need to go in the store one time and you will thank me.
And Academy.com is your online source if you can't get there in person.
We thank them.
We thank them.
We thank them.
A lot of exciting things coming up with them.
I am told via a very solid source placed deep within Academy that we may see our guys
at SEC Media Days.
Hoops to nose.
We'll see.
We'll see like two blocks away.
This year we can walk to SEC Media Days.
How about that?
I sneezed.
I think the over under on sneezers was 56 and a half today and I hit the over.
That's been a time.
We've been doing some conference spotlights.
In this case, I'm going to do a division spotlight.
I'm going to take a sip from the chalice as is my constitutional right.
And then we're going to get back to it.
Okay, here we go.
Now, hold on.
Someone asked me if I'm at work right now.
Um, yes.
Okay.
Thank you for bearing with me through that.
While we're at it, like and subscribe to the channel strictly due to the professionalism
of this show.
If nothing else, please subscribe to the channel and like the video.
Hey, we got to get to 200 K somehow by the start of the season.
I just decided that tonight, 200 K the drive to 200 K begins now.
The SEC West, it's interesting.
Isn't it?
It's not Alabama in that defending championship position.
It is LSU.
The same LSU who had a over under preseason win total in the six or seven range last year.
So even in the SEC West, yes, friends, anything could happen.
So the first thing I need to ask you as we do this little, this little post spring kind
of examination of the SEC West is what is Alabama?
What is Alabama?
Whoops does Alabama?
What are we going to see from Alabama this year?
You know, we've talked about this a lot.
I think it bears repeating one more time.
There is a talking point circulating the college football public ether that this team's down
a little bit.
The roster's down a little bit.
The roster's not down, man.
Quarterback rooms down.
The roster's not down.
Out of the six highest ranked recruiting classes in history, Bama's got three of them on campus
right now.
That's what their team's made of.
They've got talent elsewhere on par with anyone in the country.
It's the quarterback room that could be an issue.
Now it also bears repeating when Tyler Butner transferred in there.
No one transferred out.
Make of that what you will.
Anyway, I'm not here to tell you what you already know.
I'm here to ask you, what is that team going to be this year?
Like my personal take on it is I'm kind of in a way more butly excited about them having
questions at the quarterback position.
And it's not because that's a good thing overall for most teams.
But for a team as talented as them and a team that used to butter their bread in an entirely
different style than just disproportionately leaning on quarterback, I'm excited to see
them know several months ahead of time we are not going to be able to lean on quarterback.
We have to win play in defense.
We may have to win run in the ball.
We may have to win a few games where we scored 24 points.
I'm actually excited to watch that.
I mean, I'm just a sicko, but I'm excited to watch that.
But in that whole, what is Alabama?
There's always the rosy glass half full or chalice half full, if you will.
But let's go chalice half empty for a second.
Let's just be full negatiders.
What happens if they go nine and three or eight and four, which is boggles the mind
to even conceptualize that?
But I've seen a few of those predictions out there.
What happens if last year's close win turns into this year's loss?
And last year's loss remains a loss.
They certainly have teams on their schedule that pose a challenge.
They have four of the top 13 odds favorites to make the playoff on this schedule here.
And obviously they play some of them on the road, play some of them at home.
That's the way scheduling works.
I would I cannot prepare myself and nor can you prepare yourself adequately for the conversation
if Bama were to not win double digit games.
That's a first world problem, obviously.
But I think it's in everyone's best interest down there.
Just go ahead and make it back to Atlanta this year.
But if they don't, that'll be its own segment.
I can assure you of that.
Meanwhile, down the road in Baton Rouge, another question we could ask is, has LSU just permanently
ascended to the head table?
That doesn't mean win the conference every year or even win the division every year,
but you know what I mean.
LSU was at the big boy table for a long time.
So where you knew if Alabama is going to win the West, it's got to go through LSU.
They're going to have something to say about it.
They were always a tough out.
Even when Bama was running off that string of wins against LSU, most of them were not
blowouts.
Most of them were not even double digit wins.
They were really close back and forth.
So LSU just out of nowhere wins the division last year.
It wasn't luck at all.
Although some people would call it that I would just call it a faster than expected
start and the fact that Brian Kelly is a really, really good coach and understands how to
structure a program the right way and has sustainability about that structure.
So for the doubters out there, I guess I asked the question, are they permanently at the
head table?
Because they're sitting here this year and you open up that preview magazine season when
it arrives in the mail in a, I guess, a few weeks at this point, you're going to see them
ranked inside the top 10.
When they play Florida State in week one this year, it's going to be a highly, highly ranked
matchup that is two top 10 teams that a couple of years ago, we weren't saying about either
one of them.
And so there they are.
Brian Kelly, Mike Norville, there they are.
Well, I'm not a believer that college football needs any one team to be good to flourish.
However, I am a believer that college football is a sports kind of better when certain teams
are good.
LSU is one of them selfishly because I love LSU and some of them even love me back.
No, LSU treats us great.
We may be down there soon.
We'll see.
So if LSU isn't that head table, then you start to ask questions elsewhere.
In fact, we can go to it right now because you've got overhauls going on at Texas A&M.
You got overhauls going on at Arkansas.
I mean, at A&M, it's pretty high profile.
I don't think as many people have talked about Arkansas outside of this show, not as
many people have talked about Arkansas, but at A&M, you know, they brought Petrina in.
Okay.
Why did they do that?
Obviously they sucked water through a garden hose offensively last year.
They were 101st points per game.
They were 75th in explosive play rate.
And honestly, I didn't know they were that highly ranked when it comes to explosive plays.
They were 93rd in yards per game last year.
Uh, Trocious.
And the talent in the cupboards far better than those numbers.
So Connor Wegman, think you'll start at quarterback.
Great.
I got good pieces around him.
They've got guys that could be stars.
Like Evan Stewart could be a star out there.
You've got to have the right offense to have him plugged in too.
So if Bobby Petrina comes in there and he truly is the magic elixir that just over
hauls everything wonderful.
Is that going to happen?
That's the great question that we get to ask ourselves for the next couple of months.
But you kind of know about that.
Like that's the going question for everyone around the country when it comes to Texas A&M.
But at Arkansas, I think maybe most people don't remember they're replacing both coordinators
up there.
And not only that, I mean, Petrina did a flush on a number of different compartments
of his program strength, the conditioning overhaul, nutrition overhaul, not to mention
both of the coordinator spots overhauled.
Oh, and his roster via the portal overhaul.
But what they didn't overhaul is the quarterback position.
Now there are different opinions out there on how good KJ Jefferson is.
I happen to think they're far better with him than without him.
Let me just let me just make that bold proclamation here.
So they were 56th out of 65 teams in power five competition last year defensively.
So it's got to be better.
I mean, they had some injuries early early early in the year, obviously, but it's got
to be better.
So with that going on, okay, that's one kind of churn.
Then you got the portal churn.
It places like Auburn and Ole Miss, which is just a fascinating story.
So at Ole Miss, Lane Kiffin has, I think, as good as anyone in America dialed into what
he can do and what he can't do.
And realistically speaking, what he can't do is just go toe to toe on the high school
recruiting trail with Georgia.
That's not going to happen.
But what he can do is he can get selective and he can be really good selectively in NIL
and keeping guys like Quench on Jutkins on campus.
And then also he can go via the portal and replenishes roster.
It's not an ideal world.
It may not be long term sustainable, but you got to, look, you got to worry about tomorrow
before you can worry about 2027.
And Lane Kiffin's doing that right now.
So they needed wide receiver help.
And it's been interesting there because there have been some guys that they've gone after,
Coleman, the latest example that ended up going to Florida State and they've missed on,
but they're still in it for kids.
And so this is going to be an experiment every year we're talking about with them.
They're over under wind total seven and a half.
So we'll see with them.
And Auburn, Hugh Freeze is killing it in the portal right now.
In fact, you know what I'm going to do Colin?
Because they put us in their hype video the other day and I appreciate that.
I saw that by the way.
I'm going to wait for us to get an Auburn graphic on the screen.
I was, look, there's a half decent chance they use what I'm about to say.
Here's how it works right here.
Watch this.
Hugh Freeze is killing it in the transfer portal and cut.
All right, you guys can use that part.
Now let's talk for real.
Hugh Freeze is killing it in the transfer portal.
So that wasn't an act.
He really is.
They have brought in a ton of kids.
They've had, they've got the number three class in the portal right now.
They just brought in some more kids and they've had I think 20 go out and 19 come in.
It's either one way or the other.
So a lot of kids have exited.
A lot of kids have come in.
They also got themselves a quarterback in Peyton Thorne.
They've got some receiver help in the last couple of weeks.
They have the number 18 recruiting class and number three transfer class.
Hugh Freeze has given himself an opportunity and he's given the Auburn Tigers an opportunity
to be competitive in year one.
They have just for comparison sake, they've brought in more four star players via the portal
than any other team this cycle.
That includes Colorado.
That includes USC.
That includes anyone.
Auburn has brought in more four star or higher rated talent via the portal this cycle than
anyone else.
That was an optional.
That was a necessity and Hugh Freeze got it done.
And also Mike Leach passed away at Mississippi State and it dominated the headlines as it
should and Zach Arnett took the reins as head coach there, the defensive coordinator.
And because of what happened with Leach and understandably so, there's been a hesitation
to even start talking about Mississippi State on the field this coming year.
Well, it's about time to start talking about that.
I'll do respect.
And you do you guys understand there's a quarterback in the SEC that is already the leader in the
history of the conference and completions.
There's a quarterback that just passed Eli Manning for all time SEC touchdown passes and
he's coming back this year.
Like he has another year to play.
That's Will Rogers at Mississippi State.
Now there they're very content over there with no one talking about him.
At least one show is going to talk about him because I'm sitting here and I know they
got LSU and Bama in the first five weeks of the season and play them both at home.
They go to South Carolina first five weeks of the season.
They could aggravate a lot of people to say the very least in the first few weeks of the
season, but it's a great unknown also because we don't even really know what to expect the
team to look like because it goes from a Mike Leach philosophy to a defensive coordinators
philosophy as you knew head coach.
And so that's a great unknown over there.
Mississippi State may have the worst odds in the SEC West.
They got better odds than several teams over in the SEC East.
It's just a deeper, deeper division.
I've had a guy coming at me on Twitter over the past week saying you still haven't explained
what makes the West better than the East.
I haven't.
I don't think I need do I really need to?
I don't think I need to.
They're watching us in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
We tried to spell it without help earlier to no avail.
They're watching us in Pensacola, Florida and Greensboro, North Carolina, home of the
Greensboro Coliseum.
Thank you guys so much for watching.
You may think if you just listen to your neighbor, you may think the transfer portal's
done.
It's closed.
And in a sense, they're right.
I don't want to I don't want to trash your neighbor.
Sounds like a good dude from what I know about him, but the portal is closed.
You can't get in it, but you can still be in it if you were already in it before the
deadline.
And after a sip from the chalice, I got some big news for you.
In fact, it's appropriate that the color of the choice liquid in the chalice is sort
of garnet, maybe a little garnet because the latest out of the transfer portal has to
do with Keon Coleman.
Colin, that's probably your end point there.
Keon Coleman was the biggest target remaining in the transfer portal by my estimation.
Literally and figuratively, six, four and change.
And he was a receiver from Michigan state.
Um, put up about 800 yards receiving and seven touchdowns in a bad year last year.
He picked FSU over Ole Miss.
This is the one we've been monitoring for a while.
Remember he and Peyton Thorne, both went in the portal at Michigan State about the same
time.
He has landed at Florida State.
Now, I told you earlier in the show, let me paper pop for this one.
I told you earlier in the show, I was going to give you a little list of the heights.
The heights of the guys in their receiver room now.
So you got Johnny Wilson at six, seven.
Keon Coleman just walked in the door.
He's six, four.
Hiking Williams is six, three.
Ken Tron, Poitier, six, three.
Do span a six, four, Damien Williamson, six, three.
And then they got three tight ends that are six, seven, six, four and six, three respectively.
I think the average male is like five, ten, right?
You walk in there.
This look, they look like Lithuanians.
It's crazy.
Watching the Olympics when I was younger saying, dad, what country are they from?
And he just tells me a long way away from Harris County, Georgia.
They have monsters in Tallahassee, Florida right now.
And so I'm going to keep asking you, and a lot of people will pick up on it as the season
gets closer.
How many secondary rooms right now?
How many DB rooms feel totally comfortable that you have the size and physicality to
match up with not just that room?
But remember, Jordan Travis is returning at quarterback there, Brendan Sonone from Knowles
24 seven.
Add a really, really good tweet here.
If you're on podcast, listen to this.
So Kian Coleman was among the best wide receivers nationally last season in production on go
routes, hit routes and in routes.
Jordan Travis, quarterback there had the fifth best passer rating nationally when throwing
those three concepts.
Look at that.
They told me data and analytics would just confuse me.
Well, I let Sonone put it in terms, even I could understand and I appreciate that.
And then he put up a fancy chart that just thoroughly confused me again.
Running backs are coming off the board too.
I think it was about a week ago when I said, hey, there are two running backs here that
you need to pay attention to.
Well, they're gone now.
They have, they have found new homes.
Logan Diggs was out of Notre Dame, had a little over a thousand yards total and six touchdowns
last year.
He's gone to LSU.
It's not just the Auburn Tigers in the West that have been making moves.
The LSU Tigers have been on a roll in the portal and recruiting too.
Brian Kelly is killing it at LSU right now.
So Logan Diggs goes to LSU.
Alton McCaskill, that was the kid who was the AAC freshman of the year a couple of years
ago.
He goes from Houston to Colorado.
So Dion got him one here two years ago.
He was injured last year.
Two years ago, 1,074 yards rushing, 18 touchdowns and he was a true freshman.
So they got a good talent there.
If he's healthy, he came on Lee, kind of a depth chart casualty from Penn State.
He goes to Mississippi State.
He's had 1,000 rush yards over three seasons there.
He's really versatile.
He can catch the ball out of the backfield for him.
And look, the thinking there obviously is if he's putting a more feature role, he could
do some things for you.
It's just that it's really hard to crack that rotation when you have what you have at Penn
State right now.
And also the kid whose last name really is hard for me to pronounce, Demi Sumo, and then
it starts with a K. Well, he went from NC State to Kentucky.
And really what you need to know there is, Richard Freshman, a little over 450 yards
rushing four touchdowns.
He's just staying paired up with Devin Leary, who was his quarterback.
So those are big time, well, those are big names at the running back position out of
the portal who have moved on.
The wide receiver from North Texas that I mentioned a little while ago, Jair Shorter,
that is another big time name that Auburn landed had two kids out of North Texas.
Big pass catchers had gums, the tight end who went to Arkansas, then didn't then stated
Arkansas.
A classic transfer portal recommitment, if you will, which was a term that was, I think
coined by Webster's like 10 minutes ago.
Well, Jair Shorter was on that same team.
And he was number one in all of FBS in yards per catch last year.
Did you know that?
You freeze did.
That's why I went and got him 13th best available player in the portal at the time.
He is a four star receiver.
Really good deep threat here for Peyton Thorne, who himself is a transfer portal edition for
Auburn.
So Auburn now number three class in the transfer portal.
They've lost 20 kids to the portal.
They've added 19.
10 of those 19 players are ranked four stars.
That's the most in all of America.
Who's still in this thing?
Who are the best players still available?
Because you might think that it's empty.
It's not quite empty yet.
If you need wide receivers, the last thing you do before you go on vacation out there,
coaches, if you need a wide receiver or two, six out of the top 10 available players in
the portal as of tonight are at the wide receiver position.
And we also, you know, on our show, we took a little interest in Isaac, who, that is the
seventh year kid out of James Madison, the defensive end.
He's still available and paint states put out an offer.
It's conditional though, like we'd like for him to go to some place that actually exists.
But if no one else offers him, we got a spot for a seventh year senior last name, U K
W U at paint state.
So there's that we move merely along.
What have we done tonight?
We've done conference spotlights.
We've done bold predictions.
Well, why not throw in a mood tracker?
We got all our different concepts in play here tonight.
It's a fun time.
You know, imagine, I was thinking I was talking to someone about this yesterday who was having
a bad day at work.
And then they said, you couldn't imagine what I'm going through.
And they were absolutely right because we get to drive to work to talk about football
every day.
And it's even better than some of my other friends in sports media, because some of my
other buddies, they got to talk NBA if they say talk NBA, they got to talk major league
baseball, they say talk major league baseball.
We just get to do college football all year round.
I mean, we are so synonymous with year round college football that people send us cowbells
with our faces on them.
Isn't that great?
So yeah, if you had a bad day at work, I hate it for you.
But here, at least we're going to give you a show to where you can escape for a little
while.
Escaping is exactly what some of our brethren down at Miami wanted to do last year.
It's not fun to get beat by Duke.
It's not fun to get beat by middle Tennessee state at home emphatically.
I know it's not fun to get beat by Florida state by 42, but yet all those things happen
last year.
This is the mood tracker though.
We're talking about what the mood of the fan base is.
And I had to play a classic 70s tune for producer Jesse earlier today to explain why I was going
the direction I was going with the Miami mood tracker.
So looking for a reason to believe is exactly where Miami finds themselves right now.
I think it's Rod Stewart for the record.
A reason to believe that's all they need.
I think that's kind of how we would have classified them last year.
I think there was a little more enthusiasm falsely based enthusiasm maybe as it related
to the 2022 season, maybe, you know, being favored or right up there with being a favorite
to win the division and that's on odds makers by the way.
That's not just your fault blindly.
Maybe that was a little aggressive.
So here we are now coming off a five and seven season and no, the expectations aren't nearly
as high where they really shot themselves in the foot last year was they whiffed on the
coordinator hires.
They know that internally.
They whiffed on the coordinator hires.
You got to suck it up and deal with it.
Mario did.
Kevin still moved on.
He fired Josh Gaddis and went and hired new coordinators each side of the ball.
Kept his quarterback, which is really important in Tyler Van Dyke, but also signed the seventh
ranked recruiting class, seventh ranked portal class.
That is what you get when you hire Mario Christoball.
You know you're about to have assassins on the recruiting trail and that's what they've
done.
But I think that they will even up it a notch from what you've seen so far if a couple of
things happen.
Number one, if they win this year, you don't have to win 10 games, but just like be way
better than you were last year.
That'll ease the doubts on a lot of people's minds.
And then number two, what will have happened if that occurs is one or hopefully both of
these coordinator hires will have validated themselves.
And at that point, you can go on the recruiting trail and you can take dudes who know they're
going to be there and you can take a product that's a little more proven and gives a little
more confidence that we're headed in the right direction.
So they're already recruiting really well.
There's probably still a different gear that Miami recruiting can hit than it hasn't hit
yet.
So that's, that's one of many reasons to believe.
That's what they're looking for down there.
The fan base needs a reason to believe it would be foolish also if I did not mention
what Florida State's doing right now.
So for a little while, you didn't really matter if you were down in the ACC because other than
the Clemson, everyone else was down too.
Maybe not the case anymore.
Maybe your arrival up the road has gotten its act together.
And all of a sudden you're using that Florida State logo being mentioned in college football
playoff conversation and certainly ACC Championship conversation.
They're the favorite to win the conference as we sit here right now.
I know you don't think so, but I will suggest from afar here in Nashville, that's a good
thing for Miami.
Not because you love to see them enjoy an ounce of success, but because if there's any added
heat that needs to be placed on your program, that'll do it.
That dynamics existed for a long time with various rivals.
I mean, think about, think about the Alabama Auburn rivalry for a little while.
Think about what Nick Saban come into Alabama forced Auburn into doing and they ended up
winning a title out of it and went to play for another one a few years later.
Does anyone think that Gene Chiswick and then Gus Malzahn respectively are winning and
then playing for national championships if Alabama is just humming along at seven wins
a year?
I don't.
And so likewise down there in the state of Florida, yeah, you've underachieved.
That is what it is.
You can't change the past.
I don't think it'll do anything but help Miami that Florida State is all of a sudden
in Ascension mode.
So, you know, I'm someone who is not necessarily affiliated with either program, but you know
my thoughts on the state of Florida.
You know my thoughts about how important recruiting in the home state is as is the case in Texas,
as is the case in California for getting yourself some more balance nationally because
as long as I can remember through this last decade, yet it's been a few teams on top.
You've seen the end result.
You've seen all that orange and white confetti or that crimson and white confetti or that
black and red confetti.
I have watched them go into South Florida and poached talent to build the rosters to achieve
that.
It sure would mean something if they had a little tougher time doing that and to achieve
that, you got to have a Miami that's flying high and in an ideal world of Florida and
a Florida state as well.
They start with Miami of Ohio, which is the match up the country is long for by the way.
And then they got A&M coming in there in week two.
That was a back and forth game last year.
They lost it in college station.
And then they got a couple of out of conference, then they get the bye week and then it's all
conference play from that point on.
They do get Clemson at home.
They do go to Florida state later in the year.
Reason to believe still I look to find a reason to believe.
Those are the exact lyrics.
That is the exact vibe I get out of Miami right now.
I promised you that I would give you some thoughts now that we're deeper into the show.
Um, most of you know who Pat McPhee is.
Some of you may not.
Um, there are a lot of options out there.
Pat McPhee is the biggest name in sports media today.
And he built that empire entirely in digital media, which means YouTube.
Sometimes cause that's what we did with our show.
Sometimes you still struggle with the generation that is 35 and older, conveying to them that
this is where it's at now.
The reverence that you used to treat linear or what would you call legacy media, traditional
television that yesterday is this today.
And the bonuses, there's more freedom over here on this platform, ie you can wear a white
t-shirt on air and not get in trouble.
So Pat McPhee signed a bajillion dollar deal with ESPN announced it a couple of days ago.
Those of us in this world were emphatic for him for many reasons.
But my thoughts about it, cause I had hundreds of you asking, Hey, what do you think about
that?
Is that going to impact you?
Yeah, it'll impact me in a very good way.
It'll impact all of us in a very good way.
High tide raises all boats and whatnot.
But my thought was it's interesting to see how far we've come in such a short amount
of time on two fronts.
If I were to rewind a decade ago, it was like taboo to have sports in Las Vegas.
Now everyone's got a team in Vegas.
And in reality, it was never off limits.
It just took one, just took one.
And then all of a sudden the floodgates open also that Supreme Court overturned of the federal
sports betting ban in 2018 didn't hurt.
But over in our world, the same thing happens.
It's like you've got, you've got something that can't be.
And it's why I talk all the time on the show about the difference between haven't and cannot.
It calls there are some things that haven't been that absolutely can be.
And I look at Pat McAfee situation and I can only compare it to what we've experienced
here.
He's going to ESPN and they've promised full creative control.
Now some of you, because of the content in his show, some of the language in that show,
you're doubtful that ESPN will follow through on that.
I know what creative control means.
I know what it means to have it in your deal because I got it in mind.
And I work for a great company and to this very moment.
We've been here what Colin?
Since 2020.
To this moment.
No one at CBS or 24 seven has ever stepped in for a second and tried to steer the direction
of our show.
So they put it in writing and they have followed through on it.
So we don't, I told you, we don't really have bad days here.
Like we're not constantly fighting back and forth.
In fact, we get great help from the powers that be here.
I mean, I could not be happier with the way that they treated us and the yeses we get
that we're so oftentimes knows in this business until like five minutes ago.
So anyway, my point there is, and my point will always be it is because of you.
It's not because of anyone else.
It's not because Pat McAfee.
It's not because anyone else.
It's because of you.
You determine that.
You determine it with your viewership.
Just like in our world, just like with our show, you determine that management gives us
yeses because you watch the show and you support the show because hopefully we're
delivering something that you want.
And if I know you like, I think you do, we're delivering something that you want that you
couldn't get anywhere else, especially the places you used to get it.
And the reason I say it like that is because that's why I started the show because I used
to get good college football content from certain places.
Then they stopped and went down different roads.
And so that gave us a wide open lane.
And you've been here for us every step of the way.
This will only continue.
So there are going to be opportunities for a lot of folks and it will only continue.
Just like I heard him say to his audience, I'll tell you the exact same thing.
We're in a really good spot.
There is no desperation.
We don't need to do anything.
So any opportunity that comes down the road for us in the future will always be made with
authenticity and adherence to what our product is in mind.
So you won't see me in a tuxedo anytime soon.
That's what I'm trying to tell you.
All right, lastly, I need to take you up to the Big Ten for a second.
I need to talk about some big, big ten games.
Yeah, that was right.
Big, big ten games.
I'm going to go chronologically here because I think we all know where this culminates.
But in week four, there is a game in state college, Pennsylvania, and it features Iowa
and Penn State.
Now the last time these teams played was two years ago and that's the afternoon out in
Iowa City that Sean Clifford went down.
And it just totally wrecked Penn State season.
I happen to believe that they were tracking towards some pretty special things.
Well, it all went sideways that afternoon.
They didn't play last year.
This year they play in how crazy is this?
It's the whiteout game on CBS.
My how the broadcast world has changed.
Iowa has a reworked offense or so they tell me.
And we've got Cade McNamara, formerly at Michigan, now at Iowa.
Presumably the starting quarterback there.
Eric All, the tied in, comes along with him.
And they're going to go in there and they're going to face probably the best defense they
will have faced all year.
Iowa's over underwent total seven and a half.
Penn State's is nine and a half.
It's the whiteout.
It's going to be wonderful.
It's the first chance that probably Penn State has to measure their own selves, them
owns, how do you say that?
Their own selves, I guess, measure their own selves against a quality defense about outfit.
I'll be at one that lost several pieces.
But that's one just because we got to feel out.
Guys like Drew Oller, new quarterback there.
We got to feel them out.
We got to feel like that offense.
Then in week eight, when it really starts going down, so week eight is a big week in
the Big Ten.
I got three games, three out of the six games on my must watch Big Ten game of the year calendar.
It's the same week.
And one of them is going to sound a little weird.
Wisconsin at Illinois sounds weird to you.
I think that game may decide the Big Ten West.
Remember this is the last year, thankfully, that we're going to have divisions up there.
Luke Fickle gets his shot here.
Like Luke Fickle could win a division in his first year as head coach there at Wisconsin.
Brett Bielam has got his shot too though.
And they were pretty good last year.
They're one of our favorite bets on the over for the win total this year.
I think Illinois and Wisconsin there in week eight.
While everyone's looking ahead to bigger games in the East, this game could be what determines
the other team that you see in Indianapolis.
Same week, week eight.
Same time as that one's going on.
You know what Michigan's doing?
They're playing at Michigan State.
Do you care about that?
Well, I do because Michigan, number one, is one of the best teams in the country.
But what is Michigan State?
Michigan State two years ago was wonderful.
Michigan State last year was horrific.
And I got a guy up there in Mel Tucker making tons of money.
What are they going to be this year?
Well, they will have played Washington already.
They will have played Maryland.
They will have gone to Iowa and gone to Rutgers.
And then they get Michigan and that begins a stretch that will see them end up facing
Michigan and Ohio State and Penn State.
They got to play all three of them.
I'm going to be a tough road.
29 to seven was the final score in this game last year.
The early line is Michigan minus 17 and a half.
And that's, I believe in East Lansing.
So that's the second leg of our trifecta there in week eight.
Also, this is the same day Penn State plays Ohio State.
And in the SEC, Tennessee plays Alabama on this day.
So how about I'm out in early paper pop for week eight.
Ohio State will have played Notre Dame so far on the road.
That'll be the toughest defense they will have faced.
This is the best defense.
I think that they'll face all year and it's the first time that will in conference play
at least get to see either Kyle McCord or Brown, whichever one wins the starting quarterback
job against an elite defense.
Ohio State's won the last six in this series.
They've won 10 out of the last 11.
Who is Drew Oller by week eight starting quarterback there for Penn State?
Who is he by week eight?
And I keep talking to you about how the offense may take a little time to settle in.
That's why it's a good thing.
Their schedule is not front loaded.
Well, by week eight, I mean, we should for better or for worse, we should know what we
have there this year over under wind totals, nine and a half for Penn State, 10 and a half
for Ohio State.
And the reason for that gap is probably this game and where it is.
It's in Columbus, Ohio.
I think the line there's about 10 and a half.
I think that's what we're looking at right now.
Week 11, the couple of weeks later, that's when Michigan goes to Penn State.
Obviously, depending on the outcome of that Penn State, Ohio State game, we may see Penn
State in do or die mode here.
And this is Michigan's first big test.
Now, I know that sounds crazy because it's in week 11.
That's the way the schedule breaks for them.
The big 10s Michigan is the SEC's Georgia.
When it comes to schedule this year, there's not a ton of unknown though for Michigan.
So it's not like they've got a bunch of new pieces and you don't find out about them.
I got a lot of returning pieces actually.
You just find out about like this year's version of Michigan a little bit more in this game.
Not going to be the white out.
Don't blame me.
Blame the television partners.
But you remember what happened in this game last year?
Penn State fans do Michigan fans do.
What does the number four hundred and eighteen mean to you?
Well, that is how many yards rushing Michigan had against them.
Not in this decade, not in the history of the series or anything like that.
They put four eighteen up on them on the ground last year, a little over seven yards per carry.
I was it was a bloodbath.
It was a splattering and what can change over the course of a year?
Well, I'll take the under on four eighteen rush yards for Michigan, but Michigan's still
going to be favored.
Short favorite, but a favorite in that game right now.
And then of course we build to the crescendo in rivalry week, week thirteen, Ohio State
at Michigan could have its own segment.
Don't really have anything to say that you don't already think or you don't already know.
But two in a row, I guess that qualifies as a streak, but certainly three in a row would.
Michigan is as of this moment, favored in this game.
Their favorite to win the big ten as a result.
Are both teams unblemished?
Does a team already have a blemish?
Is it a situation where the loser could still make the playoff so many unknowns?
But if Ohio State loses that game, I think a lot of a lot of folks are starting to talk
about this now.
It's what it is.
What it is, I guess.
The whole, does it matter what Ryan Day does elsewhere?
If he doesn't beat Michigan, my answer is, yeah, it matters a lot.
Because all those games count.
Yeah, this one's bigger.
Yeah, I understand that.
But I'm not in that camp that says, well, 11 and one doesn't matter if the one lost is
to Michigan.
No, the loss matters, but so do the wins.
So that is a look at the big ten.
The schedule, especially kind of like the Pac-12, you get a little bit deeper in the schedule
and it's loaded up pretty good.
I'm so glad they're getting rid of divisions.
That is one concept.
That is one change in this sport that I have embraced with open arms.
I mean, think about Penn State.
So Penn State's sitting there.
They're having divisions go away and the playoff expand.
It's a really good time to be James Franklin.
And it's a really good time to be us.
Why?
Because we have you with us.
That was lame.
Someone bet me to say that and thought I wouldn't and I have.
I appreciate you guys watching.
Do me a favor.
So we want 200k.
That's what I want.
Not even going to hide from it.
I want 200k subs on this channel by the time we kick off the season.
And we're at like 178 or 179 right now.
So we can do it.
We just have to, it's kind of like the ACC told you.
We all have to be in this together.
So unlike them, we can actually accomplish that here.
Let's all get in it together.
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So for producer Jesse, for Director Colin, for Bradley the Associate, I'm Josh Bait.
Take care.
Have a great rest of your evening and God bless.
Bye.
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