Monday: Future of the American

The rise of a Group of 5 conference that’s leaving a national impression.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
So UTSA beat Charlotte the other day.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Have you ever watched a basketball game, especially when two
teams are kind of lopsided in talent, Yes, and one
is the team that's supposed to win by forty is
struggling because they're playing too fast and they kind of
get rushed and it's like they're trying to score twice
on the same possession. To me, that's kind of what
I saw in the first half with UTSA and Charlotte

(00:26):
the other day. UTSA drove the ball on their first
drive and scored second drive. They got down to the
ten yard line zer one through a pick. Third possession,
they had an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty made it you know,
third or second or third and thirty or whatever.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Weren't going to convert that.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
And then finally in the second half they settled down
a little bit. They won twenty eight to seven, but
they probably left at least twenty one, if not twenty
eight points on the board. So it was good to
see the offense going over five hundred yards of offense today.
This weekend, they're gonna play Charlotte, Light play East Carolina,
and East Carolina is not a bad foot all team.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
They're still a laugh for the American run and they
are there there.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
They have one loss. Navy has one loss, and North
Texas has one loss. North Texas, I think trying to
remember who they have left, but it's two terrible teams.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Uh, They're they're not losing. I think they have Temple
pretty much, Temple and Rice simple and Rice.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
Oh, Rice might be. The thing is about Rice is
they're still a Lifer Bowl game and those teams.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Can be Danning right right right.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
I'm gonna get to Rice in the second with some
other thoughts, but I'm just not sold on Rice. I'm
not sold on that program. But I I think, well,
first of all, Drew master Makers probably playing for somebody
else next year and getting paid five million dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
That guy's good. Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
And I I just don't see North Texas losing. And
Navy I think only has one conference game left because
the Army game in December doesn't count in the conference standings.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
And I believe our Navy is there.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
And then the other one loss team in the American
is Tulane, and so you could have Tulane in North
Texas and Navy in a three way tie and you
got to figure out what the tiebreaker is. Right now,
North Texas is the highest rated team.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
Navy plays Memphis on Thanksgiving.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
That's good to knop them out because they're not going
to beat Memphis. Memphis probably should not have lost to
East Carolina.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
Yeah, but I mean they have the talent to do so.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, although they did. Navy and Memphis should be a
good game. But it's at Memphis, right.

Speaker 4 (02:32):
Yes, it is Navy, by the way, because I remember
I had the feed with you all during the UCSA game,
so I had.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
The A and M game and the two lane game
on my monitors.

Speaker 4 (02:39):
Navy has a passing attack, which is crazy because they've
been a running gun team for decades.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
But that they run, but they pass out of a
run formation right out of that.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
They ran a few times out of shotgun, but they
do primarily.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
A lot more understounding.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, they're still they're a little bit more pass happy
than Army is. They've advanced a little bit, right UTSA
has got obviously East Carolina and Army to finish. Both
teams are going to be at two point thirty. The
conference announced that this weekend and today. So here's my
thought on the future of the American Conference. I think
you have three schools in the conference. Actually, I think

(03:12):
you have one too. I think you have four schools
in the conference that are making the investment necessary to
be contenders for the championship every year. South Florida, Memphis
to LANDA, North Texas. I think you have two schools
that are on the cusp of doing that but aren't
quite there yet.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
And that's UTSA. In East Carolina.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
East Carolina is a very historical program. They Greenville is Greenville,
North Carolina is. If you look at college sports in
North Carolina, it's North Carolina basketball, duke basketball, East Carolina football.
East Carolina football has had more tradition than North Carolina

(03:53):
football or certainly duke football or Wake Forest or North
Carolina State football. From a football standpoint, it's probably the
most important football program in North Carolina. Now you can say, well,
why did Bill Belichick go to North Carolina? Tell me
when was North Carolina ever relevant in college football? And
not that East Carolina is either, But the atmosphere, the

(04:16):
traditions at the games, the community support, all of that
is amazing at East Carolina. I just don't know that
they can get enough cash into their system. To parally
be there, but they can be the role of spoiler.
And they're coming to San Antonio and a lot of
people are going, well, it's in the dome. They're gonna
win anyway. They always win getting games in the dome.
Then you can't look at that this way because if

(04:37):
you don't play well, they're going to beat you in
this even at home. So that's important to look at.
And then I think there's the two military schools are
sometimes going to be there in sum or not. And
the reason for that is is now that you have
the nil and transfer portal, there is a really good
chance that a lot lot of those players are going

(05:01):
to leave their military commitment after their second year in
school if you go to Army or Navy, and after
your sophomore season, because they don't red shirt there after
your sophomore season. If you don't want to stay and
you don't want to make the five year commitment after graduation,
you can leave. And in the day where you can
get paid to leave and you can get in AOL

(05:21):
money to leave, there's going to be a lot of
young freshman talent that both of those schools recruit. They're
going to hit the road as so as soon as
their eligibility is over, if they can keep a team
together to where they're junior and senior leyden which Armis
teams were the last couple of years and what Naves
teams are this year, then both of those two teams
can can compete. But in years where they're building, when

(05:44):
they have a lot of freshmen, or years where they
lose that sophomore class to a bigger program and they
can't sit there and develop them and get them bigger
and stronger, because really Army and Navy's role is to
trade football for an education. Oh, by the way, we're
going to make you a soldier, don't care about anything else.
That's their motto that that's their thing. Great if we win,

(06:04):
great if we don't. But we got to make sure
our military is good. And that's why you're here. And
then I think Florida Atlantic and Temple are probably on
the outside looking in. And I think Tulsa, UAB, Charlotte
and Rice are four schools that if they don't start
making some major investments, are probably going to be in
a boat.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
Do we even want to stay in this league?

Speaker 2 (06:24):
Yeah, they'll probably stay in the league because all of
them have good market size. Birmingham, Tulsa, Charlotte, and Houston
are all good market sizes that the conference wants so
that you can increase the value of your advertising because
you're in those markets and I don't know who you
would replace them with that are better. But none of
those schools are doing what's necessary right now to even

(06:45):
come to even win two or three games in the
league every year.

Speaker 4 (06:47):
Yeah, and also for at lank contemple are waiting for
basketball season every year anyway.

Speaker 3 (06:51):
But you're right right from a perspective of that.

Speaker 4 (06:53):
Even the lower level programs, they're in the big markets,
and that gives you a recruiting advantage because in most states,
a lot of the biggest named recruits will come out
of like larger market areas well.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
Even Ford Atlantic did they they got excited about their
final four basketball team, but they're no longer excited because
everybody that was on that team left for bigger opportunities
and they're starting back over.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
And let's say Boca.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
Ratone is one of the most expensive zip codes in
the world and basketball is about fourteenth on their priority list,
if even that high.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
So I've never been to Boca'm and take your word
for it.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
I drove through a parking lot at the mall across
the street from the hotel that we were staying at,
Yah and the valet lot had cars in it that
were well, we were on a road trip there about
five years ago, and I wanted to go to the
store to get some drinks, and the store was a
little bit further than I wanted to walk. One of
the coaches was renting a car because he was recruiting

(07:46):
in the area, and I asked if I could use
the car to go get you know, go get stocked
up on my buy coconut drinks, and so he said yes,
and I got it, got turned around and I had
to cut through this parking lot to get to the
convenience store. And this this this small parking lot had
valet service, and I drove past the valet service and
there wasn't a car in that valet lot that was

(08:07):
under four hundred grand. They were all McLaren's and Bentley's
and high end porsches and all kinds of stuff. So yeah, yeah,
they were not struggling to pay those bills. And why
you would even let somebody park it, I'm not sure,
but they were in the valet lot.

Speaker 4 (08:23):
Everybody's ensured by Chubb and all that stuff like that,
I got you, I got you.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
All right, guess who's atop the NFC North. How about
the Chicago Bears and ANFL weekend that we have to
talk about next on the Ticket