All Episodes

July 14, 2025 26 mins

Probably not.


--RJ gives his strong opinions on the biggest topics in college football, sports and entertainment every week.


--Tune in live on College Football Saturday Night, Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football, Tuesday Night College Football Playoff rankings revealed and Thursday Night Football.


--RJ also performs daily segments taking on the biggest breaking news stories in college football and the NFL.


Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Deion Sanders made his first public appearance since last May
at Big 12 Media Days, and as youmight expect, it was appointment
viewing. Let's talk about what he had to
say, from his health to the salary cap to what he feels is
going on with his Colorado Buffaloes.

(00:27):
What's up again, folks, it's RJ Young.
I am not on a step note if that if this is your first time
watching adapt and respond. Thank you for joining us here.
We talk college football year round.
If that is something you're into, go ahead and hit that
subscribe button like this videoand answer the question and the
comments below. Do you want to see Deion Sanders
in Colorado win the Big 12 championship because that is

(00:49):
what they are chasing in 2025. Make no mistake about it.
Also talked a little bit about himself, talked a little bit
about what he wants from collegefootball and talks a lot about
what his expectations are for his team.
Also going to remind you that wegot an audio podcast on Apple
and Spotify. Please feel free to go to those

(01:12):
places, download the podcast, listen to the podcaster team.
Previews are a little bit shorter, but most the episodes
between 30-40 minutes. If you like it, go ahead and
leave a five star review. If you leave five star review at
Apple and Spotify, I'm prepared to send you one of these
stickers as obey a thanks and a thank you note from me.
Just give me the five stars on Apple and Spotify and then go to

(01:35):
the link in description below and tell me where I can send
your sticker. So prime shows up and
understandably gets a good journalistic question about a
how's your health? And he said, I'm not here to
talk about my health. I'm good, I'm living well, I'm
fine. I'm here to talk about my team.
And he talked about his team. He brought both quarterbacks.

(01:55):
It is wild in this day and age to bring not one but two
quarterback to Big 12 media days.
Usually when you don't know who the starter is going to be, you
don't bring quarterback at all. You let everybody just say, oh,
well, I guess we're going to have a competition.
That's what Scott Frost did, Central Florida.
He didn't bring no quarterback. He don't know which one of his
guys going to start. Got 68 new faces.

(02:16):
We'll see what it is in preseason camp, but Prime knew
that one of these two guys, JujuLewis or Kaden Salter, is going
to start at quarterback for themat Georgia Tech, which leads me
to believe we might actually both of them.
And he just doesn't know which. But he says, look, I don't care
which one it is. They'll figure that out
Preseason camp. I know that whoever wins it,
we're going to be fine. We're in good shape.

(02:37):
And he is. He's got a guy who has rushed
for almost 2100 yards of the past two years, three years at
Liberty and passed for almost 6000 yards last three years at
Liberty and a veteran Caden Salter.
And he's got a five star talent in Juju Lewis, who's a point
guard on the field. And they're going to need one
going into this 2025 schedule, which is really up down, just

(03:00):
like the rest of Big 12. Difficult Prime said it.
He believes the team that wins the Big 12 Conference is going
to be 10 and two at the end of the year.
That is how deep this league is.And he's got a point.
Everybody last year in the Big 12 caught at least two losses
every single team. The problem with that is you
don't get the national respect for having a two loss champion

(03:22):
that you would otherwise for an undefeated or one loss champion.
And that shows up in the CollegeFootball Playoffs selection
committee rankings, right? Because they dock you for
beating up on your your your conference foes.
Whereas if you got a top heavy conference like the Big 10 or
the SEC, you'll have a couple teams that are one loss or even
undefeated at the end of the season that are just going to be

(03:42):
ranked higher than you because they got more wins than losses.
Never mind that the league is not as deep.
And I don't think it's untrue tosay Big 12's deepest power for
league that we got, but we just don't treat it that way.
We treat it as a team that just can't produce a national
championship and producing a national champion is what the
sport is about, right? But you got to have more bites

(04:04):
at the apple if you want to do that.
Last year the Big 12 got just one team in to the College
Football Playoff of the 12, right?
You look at big Big 10, you get Ohio State, you get Indiana, you
get Penn State, all Oregon, all in there, right?
Like think about that. Ohio State, Penn State, Oregon,
Indiana, that's just the Big 10.That's 1/3 of the field.

(04:28):
Big 12 is never going to get a third of the field, which is one
of the reasons why they want the5 + 1 model.
And the way that they would perhaps get this national
recognition, at least at the front end, is by going to play
their non conference games and winning them.
So when Baylor plays SMU, when Baylor plays, oh, they got
another Auburn, when Colorado plays Georgia Tech, you got to

(04:50):
win those games. You got to win those games.
When Iowa State plays Iowa, you got to win those games to earn
your national respect and get tosay at least going into regular
conference play that we beat up on these teams.
Remember that. And we're making all sorts of
excuses, right, as to who did what and how.
But I also think that it's important to point out that
Prime is, I think going into this with gloves off.

(05:14):
Daddy Prime is in the house. He bringing out Switch?
Yeah. I I don't know about some.
Some of y'all ain't from the South.
Some of y'all wasn't raised. Say how I was raised.
Tell you how I was raised. Tell you I was raised.
Both my parents ex military. OK, so making the bed every
morning, part of it push ups is punishment.
Thank you. Because punishment could be

(05:34):
something else. See some of y'all don't know
about the switch. You think you know about the
switch? Think you know about the belt,
but you don't know about the switch.
OK, the belt is go get the belt,right?
Go get the belt is is diabolicalbecause you got to go get the
device that's going to be used to whoop your ass.
And I got to tell you, when you 7-8 years old, that's playing on

(05:56):
your mind, that's the longest walk.
That's that's the closest that achild gets to walking death row
right there. I got to go get the thing you
gonna beat me with. That's diabolical.
But you know what else? It was more diabolical.
My grandmommy Hasburn, Mississippi, she had a Peachtree
out front. Grandma had a green thunch make

(06:16):
anything grow like that Peachtree.
And if you ever seen a Peachtree, it's got some real
strong, sturdy limbs. Mind you, a lot of bamboo cuz
that mug it'll it'll swing and it'll flex on you and it hit
you, but it don't break. You keep you keep thinking it's
gonna break, but it's not break.You try to break it with your
hands. It's gonna take a little bit of
effort on this. OK, I bring I bring that up the
same grandma me said go get the switch.

(06:41):
She not talking about no, no, nobroom handle.
That's too hard, you know, don'tdo it.
Come on now, come on now. She not talking about, you know,
a foam pad. I've seen something about a
child getting beat with a foam pad.
I'm like, what's that? Who who went in that one?
I don't know, because the child ain't feel nothing you but you
feel better. I guess you getting it out.

(07:02):
I don't know. Grandma said go get switch.
You walk out that man, She probably said it to me in the
kitchen. So I got to go out the kitchen.
I got to go through the living room.
I got to catch everybody's eyes looking away from me because
they know I'm a dead man walking.
I got to go through the screen door.
I got to go out the front porch.I got to take them steps down.
And then I got to look at this dead, at this, this, this, this,

(07:23):
this big old Peachtree. And I got to decide which one of
these branches I'm going to break off because I know I can't
just break off any branch. The big one, that's the big one.
I don't want to get beat down with the big one.
Don't nobody want to get beat down with the big one, The small
one, Small one. Mean she going to tell you go

(07:45):
back out there if you lucky. But if our patience is gone,
she'll go out there herself and she going to bust off something
that you wouldn't even thinking about, something that you would
like. Surely that would not be the one
that's the one she would go get.I know this because it went that
way for you. Man's couple times only two
times only took two times, but I'm about to turn 38 at the end
of this month and they are seared into my brain.

(08:06):
These are core memories for you man's that is who Prime is at
Colorado right now that his boysgone said now I got it twisted.
Now I ain't got to even think about whether or not my boys are
OK. Now it's hey, did you come to
play today? Because as much as people want
to duck a dog on Prime, and I'vebeen saying this for years, he
is as old school as they come. He doesn't care nothing about

(08:28):
none of that. Did you show up and play?
Can you coach, show up and play?Did you practice?
Are you disciplined? One of the things that I think
they're going to have to work out and figure out is not being
as penalized. They were last year.
That is not being disciplined. It's just not it.
He understands that he is facilitating an atmosphere where

(08:48):
you are going to get what you earn and nothing more and
nothing more. So if you're Travis Hunter,
you're going to get treated likeTravis Hunter.
If you are not Travis Hunter, you will not get treated like
Travis Hunter. Which gets back to this part of
the salary cap that I think is most important for him and for
the conversation that folks wantto have.
Look, I don't want to pay a truefreshman more than I pay a
senior, but that's what we're doing now.

(09:11):
And it's well that that true freshman is really good.
That seniors not that good. Doesn't matter, right?
You want to have a hierarchy that you can depend on, that you
can trust. Otherwise just a free for all.
Now I only have but so little patience even for prime when I
know that the coaches at the Big12, all of every last one of
them makes more than $4 million a year.

(09:37):
You're not going to get much sympathy from the rest of us,
millionaire about your first world problems of trying to
retain talent. That doesn't make you any
different than any other good company.
Good companies have a hard time retaining talent because
yesterday's price is not today'sprice.
Some of y'all learned today thatChristian Horner got fired on

(09:57):
his day off. Man had been there for damn near
24 years. They won every single
championship, built that Red Bull team from nothing into a
juggernaut and Max stabbing his daddy, succeeding, getting him
pushed out. No explanation, no nothing.
So now everybody that was working for Let Red Bull gets

(10:19):
that exit clause where yesterday's price is not today's
price. Some of y'all going to earn just
how much a strategist cost. When Hannah hit the market,
Adrian knew it. Gone John and the weekly gone
Checko gone. Max might be gone for all we
know. Even as we got this turnover,
nothing is assured. That's what business is, right?
People want to talk about. Don't make it personal.
I mean it's either going to be so personal, that's what I do is

(10:41):
so personal and I run a business, or it's not personal
at all, in which case you just buy it and selling things.
I think what coaches want is something to be personal as a
business. They want familial, they don't
want transactional. Good luck with that dog when
y'all start getting paid $1,000,000 to coach football.
I didn't feel familial to us. I felt transactional as hell

(11:01):
when you got coaches that will sign a contract and up and
leave. People forget Manny Diaz was
supposed to be coaching at Temple and then a couple weeks
later he was coaching in Miami. You know, I got coaches that
they, they decide that they no longer want to do the job, they
just leave. That's how it goes, I think.
I think there's part of this that makes sense.

(11:24):
You want to get more guardrails going?
Fine, great, good for you. You want a salary cap?
That's great. Get a collective barding
agreement. Get a collective barding
agreement. You need a players union.
Get a players union with some teeth, somebody that's going to
fight for the labor's rights. But it's really hard to fight
for the labor's rights when they're 1718 years old and they
are aging out at 2223 and then you got a new crop coming in.
It's real difficult. OK, These are big problems.

(11:47):
But the money training continuesto run and nothing stops the
money train. As long as the money train
continues to function, people don't really have an incentive
to change up. We got revenue sharing.
Yeah, we got an image you like to share.
We got immediate transfer. We got transfer portal.
Yeah, we've got antitrust, antitrust, antitrust.
But the money rolling. And in the United States of

(12:08):
America, which is built on a capitalist system, that's going
to be the coin of the realm, that's going to be the gold.
And he who has the gold make therules.
OK, when the money start to try up, it's money start to get
clenched, then I expect to see some real change.
But for now, it's talk. It's July.

(12:29):
Could it happen? Sure.
Will it happen? Not with any kind of haste.
You'll get some, you'll get somechanges, but I don't think
you're going to see anybody absolutely, positively throw a
grenade into this. Because if you're willing to pay
$8 billion for the rights to theCollege Football Playoff on top
of the rights that you pay for the conferences to host those
games, and you're just ESPN, youdon't care about the rest of

(12:53):
this, that's their problem. You make sure that my product
hits the field, that I can advertise and I can air go with
God, right? So they better figure it out.
They better talk to the coaches,but it is going to be a
thankless job. It is going to be a thankless
task, especially at programs like Colorado, which I believe

(13:14):
are just below, right, being premier programs, right?
They're not mid majors, they're not premier programs.
They're just outside, right? We're talking about Top 40
programs really among 136 teams.By the way, we're continuing to
add teams to FBS because the money keeps going up, OK?
It's going to start to look a lot more like Formula One off in
here with Concorde agreements and revenue share purses that

(13:38):
are getting larger and a lot less transparency, which I hate
because I I think we should all have insight into the process.
It's what the clearinghouse is supposed to do.
But we'll see. Again, we're talking about Deion
Sanders, Colorado as a harbingerof what's to come.
Because Prime would say, look, when I was in the league, that's

(14:00):
the way it work. Salary cap is how we got it
done. You can pay the quarterback this
much and everybody knows it. You'll pay the wide receiver
this much and everybody knows it.
You get franchise tag, you couldrelease.
They want all of the advantages of the NFL and none of the
disadvantages. And I get that.
But no, you're going to have a salary cap.

(14:20):
You're going to have slot values, you have a CBA.
You have to give these kids somerights to protect their money,
protect their Chuck. And that also means that you
going to have to start being OK with signing checks that are 6
figures to 1718 year old kids and dealing with their agents,
dealing with their parents. You got to want it to be a

(14:41):
college football coach today, but you get paid to want it too.
So if you don't want to do it nomore, there's a bunch of us out
here that would, you know, we'lltake that opportunity which
they're going yeah. Are you going do a graduate
assistant? You're going to be quality
control assistant. Why prime and do it?
That's what y'all go say, right?And I will tell you we don't
treat prime like we treat everybody else.
And that is the issue right now.The issue is you want equality

(15:06):
and fairness across the board, but what people here is you want
to treat everybody the same. No, you want to treat everybody
as you should. You're going to treat UMass like
UMass. You're going to treat Alabama
like Alabama. That doesn't make it equal.
Makes fair. When that gets unsettled, we got

(15:26):
a problem. We got a real problem because
your queen is your queen. Your princesses is your
princesses daughters. I mean, your Princess is your
Princess. Your king is your king.
If I come to you and tell you your queen ain't all that
there's a better queen over there and that queen is married

(15:48):
to someone else, you might want to dot my eye or you might want
to get yourself a new queen. I don't know how you built.
I don't know what your honor like.
I'm a single childless 37 year old man just moving around right
now. OK?
I'd be looking at y'all asking some real questions about what
y'all be doing meanwhile, you man's I'll let y'all know when

(16:11):
she shows up. I'll let y'all know.
No. And stop.
Stop doing that thing where y'all telling me go overseas.
That's that's nasty. I'm gonna do none of that.
They I'm in Tulsa. I'm from the United States of
America. It's fine.
It's cool, right? I like, I like that.
Stop all of that nasty. Say it with me.

(16:40):
Equality, that is what Coach Prime and Big 12 coaches want as
relates to the salary cap that they want implemented.
Name, image and likeness revenuesharing.
Let's talk about why this topic came up and why it is rankling
most powerful coaches. Once again, folks, it's RJ

(17:07):
Young. I am not on a step mill.
If this is your first time watching, adapt and respond.
Thank you for joining us here. We talk college football year
round. If that is something you're
into, go ahead and hit the subscribe button like this video
and answer the question in the comments below.
Do you want to see a salary gap in college football?
Because it looks like most coaches want.
We've don't see a whole lot of consensus on what it is that

(17:27):
coaches want, from rule changes to how we evaluate players.
But in as far as paying players,they seem to know exactly what
they want and they're using whatI think is the most popular and
the most well known head coach in college football to get that
message across. Deion Sanders, talk about what
he had to say here in a minute. I also want to remind you we

(17:49):
have an audio podcast on Apple and Spotify.
And if you are kind enough to goto Apple or Spotify and leave a
five star review, I should say Apple and Spotify and leave a
five star review, I'm willing tosend you one of these stickers
and a handwritten note from me thanking you for doing that
because it means that much to me.
We're fast approaching 500 ratings on Apple, 200 ratings on

(18:10):
Spotify. You can help us get there.
And if you do, go ahead and hit that form in the description
below and tell me where I can send your sticker.
So really cool thing happened toBig 12 media day, day two.
OK, they had a, they had a roundtable on stage with the 8
coaches that were there representing from Arizona's
Brent Brennan all the way to Deion Sanders, Colorado.

(18:31):
And Mike Gundy, who's got 25 years in this league, 20 as a
head coach to Rich Rodriguez is back in this league, who's also
seen this done at Conference USAlevel and even lower level
Jacksonville State. What is it that they want?
They want to know that the playing field is level wherever
they go, no matter what. And Prime was leading on this

(18:52):
and he's going, look, what I want is the salary cap.
I want it to be equal for everyone.
I want us to have the same opportunity to play for a
national championship as everybody else.
I think that is a very noble idea and I understand why he
would want such a thing. He actually makes this point.
If you look at the four teams that made the College Football
Playoffs semi finals and you seewhat they spent in name, image
and likeness, you can see why they make the playoff.

(19:14):
And he's got a point there rightnow.
He's also got the point that if with a, you know, play here or
there, you could be one of thoseteams in the playoff.
Think about Boise State, think about Indiana right?
Think about Clemson, SMU. But as you get into the deep
water trying to win the whole damn thing, the idea of a Texas
Christian getting there now justseems ridiculous.

(19:34):
Like they make the national championship game because they
only had to play 1 semi final game to get into it had they had
to go through the rounds. I don't think they hold up
because I don't think that roster is good enough.
Remember that Texas Christian team really did win more games
than it probably should have late and just get some fluky

(19:55):
stuff that had them in a position to have a really great
record where the committee says we think we're you're good
enough even though you lose to Kansas State in the Big 12
championship game. So now you have a Colorado team
that feels like it's got a greatchance to win the league, just
like this league is packed. Up and down, but also going a
There's two things that got to happen here from the start.
One, we got to know that we're dealing from the same deck as

(20:18):
everybody else. We got to know that there isn't
tampering. We got to get the agents that
are infested in our game out of here because you'll make a deal
and then they'll make another deal and you get parents want to
make a deal and everybody's trying to get paid.
The problem with this is, yes, everybody really is trying to
get paid because you have players that have gone from
making zero to making seven figures to making half,

(20:39):
$1,000,000, and you're not paying what you probably should
be to someone who is inexperienced, who hasn't done
much to someone who has. I think the coaches would love
to reward guys that have played for them and played well for
them in the past by escalating the pay.
But when you can afford to pay atrue freshman, you know, let's
take Bryce Underwood here, $12 million, it's going to guarantee

(21:03):
it's really difficult to go to your starting quarterback who's
been your starter for, say, the last two years and go, I can't
afford to pay you $3,000,000, even though I know that's what
you're worth. And that guy's going to go hit
the portal where he could probably get that money.
I thinking about some programs that have just come apart
because the quarterback or the offensive coordinator gone away.
Washington State John Mateer andBen Arbuckle at Oklahoma is an

(21:24):
example of this. It's frustrating for the coaches
because they came up learning todo it one way and now they're
having to learn to do it more orless another way.
And it's not the NFL way. The NFL way is actually what I
think Prime would want. Having a salary cap means you're
probably going to have, you know, cycles of teams being
good, teams being bad, because that's the nature of how salary

(21:46):
caps usually work, especially when you get into the NFL draft
and such. But to have a salary cap, you
have to have a collective bargaining agreement.
To have a collective bargaining agreement, you have to have
representation for the labor. To have representation for the
labor, you got to have a playersunion.
It's real difficult to have a players union in a sport where
you are only going to play for five years only, you know, like
we get 7 year players. But the point is you got you got

(22:08):
5 to play for most of the time. OK.
And now with financial aid agreements, you can come back
and get your degree anytime you want.
So what do you do? Well, you come up with these
contracts that you think you canenforce, right, With buyout
clauses in the nature and those things, and you find a way to
give the union some life. I don't think it's going to have

(22:29):
any teeth, though. That's really my issue.
I think any representation that players get is going to be
flimsy at best because there isn't a very strong players
union at all in North American sports.
And that's by design, right? Like the owners on the league,
That's why we can have lockouts,OK?
They lock you out of the building, you can't get in and

(22:50):
the checks stop coming. And usually when this checks
stop coming, people do what theynormally do, which is game
theory. They do what's best for
themselves. If they can cross the picket
line, feel good about it, they will.
And that's usually what happens.You and I have 1718 year old
kids that are going to stand up for their rights when you can
dangle $300,000 in front of themto just a sit down somewhere.
That's what it's about. At the end of the day, that is

(23:12):
capitalism in and of itself. Your rights and morals come with
a cost. You want to risk it for the
biscuit you're not going to eat.That's usually how this goes.
I think the coaches want to see this in force because it's going
to make life a little bit more easier for them to move around,
for them to make put together a program.
But it's also going to reinforcewhat I think is a philosophical
hierarchy, and that hierarchy ismanagement employee, not

(23:39):
employee management. At any time you feel as if the
employee is running the program,nobody feels good about that,
especially ownership, right? Because you want to be in
control. And if you feel like you're
losing control of the illusion of control, it's gone.
You're going to do something to put that illusion back into

(23:59):
place and remind people who actually runs this valley.
Like I take the John Dutton approach to this, all right, for
those of y'all that don't watch Yellowstone or didn't watch
Yellowstone, John Dutton own Yellowstone ranch, huge ranch
based on the King Ranch in Texas, but it's the biggest
ranch in state of Montana. And he would tell anybody,
listen, this is my land, It's not your land.

(24:20):
I can do what I want on my land.And the government and or
subdivision would keep trying tocrowd in.
He'd keep going. No, no way in hell.
So much so that he ran for governor and he won on this
platform. I am the wall that progress
thrashes up against. You will not move me.
You will not move us. I run this valley.

(24:44):
That's what you're about to get.You're about to get a lot of
people that with Brian Seeley coming in as college sports
commissioner, I'm going to remind you, I run this valley.
Television networks conference commissioners, the conference of
the conferences themselves, theyrun this valley.
It's their valley. If you want to play in it,
you're going to do it on their rules.

(25:04):
Or my favorite John Dutton quote, because this gets to who
we are in America, Jack. You got a bunch of tourists on
your land looking at a bear that's going to eat them alive.
And you got John Dutton's just trying to save their lives
coming out there with a gun. And they're like, hey, what you
doing? Running off the bear so you
fools don't get eaten. This is my land.
To which he says, or they say, this is all your land.

(25:26):
Yes, this is too much land for one man to have.
You should share, to which John Dutton says, and I felt this in
my bones. This is America.
We don't share land. All right, So you can even see
it in the comments. I will tell you, if you are
acting out, you're on the land. And in Oklahoma, that means what

(25:47):
it means in Montana. You're on the land.
When I talk about living in Tulsa and owning my home, you're
in my you're on my land. When we talk about rights,
mineral rights, water rights, oil rights, leases, you're on
the land. I think a lot of people have
forgotten just whose land they're on.
Big 12 coaches want to remind them.
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!

Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.

24/7 News: The Latest

24/7 News: The Latest

The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.