August 7, 2025 • 48 mins
Colorado coach Deion Sanders has a team that is capable of winning at a high level, but will the Buffaloes begin as a top 25 team?
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Episode Transcript
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(00:10):
What's up, Ken folk, it's RJ Young.
I am not on a step. Mel, if this is your first time
watching adapt and respond, thank you for joining us here.
We talk college football. We talk football year round.
If you're into that, and I know you are, go ahead and hit that
subscribe button. Like this video and answer the
question in the comments below. Which team do you think starts
(00:30):
in the preseason coaches poll but won't end there come Martin
Luther King Day when we play forthe national championship?
Yeah, January 19th, round the corner, right?
But we're doing this now. Do you think that college
football should need a red zone?And I absolutely think it should
need a red zone. Do you think that Texas Tech is
going to do something they haven't done since 2009 and why?
(00:52):
That ought to be in reach for them.
But history says no, Sir. Probably not.
I want to talk about just what it means for Texas Tech to spend
as much money as they've spent. And I do want to get into
college football. Having a red zone.
ESPN, go ahead and do right by us here.
But I want to start with the preseason top 25 that came out
in the coaches poll because the AP poll has not dropped yet,
(01:14):
dropping on Monday. And we'll talk about that and
we'll go through it because I don't think they're going to do
what the coaches did, which is put Boise State into this thing
and leave Oklahoma out of it, which I think is a great place
to begin the conversation about who's in and who's out.
But as I've said, this is a prove it year for Brent Vinables
and bringing in guys like John Mateer, Jay Knott, Jim Naggy.
(01:38):
Oklahoma needs to finish as a top 25 team in 2025.
So everybody feels safe. We're already getting odds that
Brent Vinables has better odds to be fired, according to Bed
Online. Thank you for sponsoring the
show to get fired than Sam Pittman, right?
Like it's right there and you go6 and 710 and three, six and
(02:00):
seven after not having a losing season at Oklahoma since, you
know, the 20th century, people are going to lose their minds
and rightfully so, right? Oklahoma's about excellence.
Oklahoma's about winning at a very high level.
And I'm getting tired of the SECfolks telling us, hey, welcome
to the SEC. You know what?
Tell it to Mississippi State. Yeah.
I mean, tell it to Ole Miss. Tell us somebody who won no
(02:21):
national championships ain't gotno Heisman Trophy winners.
Miss me with that garbage. All right, Oklahoma's great.
Texas is Texas. That's the number one team in
the coaches poll. I would assume it's the number
one team in The Associated Presspoll, but that's about where it
is. So interestingly enough, Bregman
Murphy does really cool job of keeping us up on this stuff.
And he noted that in 20/24/13, that's more than half of the 25
(02:45):
teams in the preseason AP top 25finished unranked.
And he listed them and they are Michigan who started at 9:00.
They finished eight and five, right?
Florida State, my God, egg on myface.
They start at 10 here, they started 10.
The AP, they start 5 for me and then they go 2 and 10 for one of
the worst season that Florida State has had in nearly 50
(03:05):
years. Utah was garbage, but we didn't
think that they were going to begarbage because we thought Cam
Riding was going to be ready to play.
Instead, they go five and seven.I think they'll be better this
year. LSU finished at 13.
They're out, I mean, or started at 13.
They're out of top 25 last year because, well, LSU plays in the
SEC. See how that works?
Garrett Nutsmeyer Think it's going to make them a little bit
better going into a second year as a starter.
(03:27):
OU at 16 last year to start finished out of the top 25.
Oklahoma State at 17. They were garbage until you use
the French term 3 and 9. I don't Mike Gundy gets to keep
doing his job, but we going to fire Brent Venables.
You know, neither here nor there.
It's actually Stillwater and warming, but you get it.
Then we get Kansas State at 18, OK 20 Techs, A&M, OK Arizona.
(03:52):
My God, we have a lot of faith in Brent Brennan what he could
do in year 1. Kansas, they just, if they
played the second-half the way they play at first half, they'd
be, they'd be one of those teamsin top 25.
They're still good. SC at 23, NC State at 24.
What the hell were we thinking there?
Iowa at 25 makes a lot of sense.So that's the teams that were
(04:13):
starting in the preseason top 25and then we're out of it by the
end of the year. Now we played twelve games and
now it takes about 16, 1515 to win the national championship.
But it's never been more difficult as we've gone to a 12
team playoff. But as I've given this some
thought, I wondered. The slam dunk for me is Oklahoma
(04:34):
finishing in the top 25. Now I know I'm saying that.
RJ, tell us more about how OU, who's sorry last year, is going
to finish as the top 25 team. Well, I will John Material's
3000 yard passer last year, 800 yard rusher Jay, not when he was
last healthy, went for 1300 yards.
Dion Burks can be a 1200 yard receiver and Brent Venables is
calling the defense. He's got our Mason Thomas and
(04:54):
the Bowen brothers over there toname a couple.
Like Oklahoma's got the personnel to go compete.
It's just the schedule kind of sucks.
I mean, you go look it up and down, there's 5 ranked opponents
on the schedule because that's what it means to play in the
SEC. But Oklahoma wanted this.
Oklahoma wanted this challenge. Now is the time to rise to that
occasion. And I'll give you one that's
kind of squirrely here. Colorado entering the top 25 and
(05:18):
ending it as a top 25 team is not out of the question to me,
especially if Marshall Faulk cangive them the kind of run game
that just makes Kaden Salter or Juju Lewis feel better.
Remember, last year they were dead last 136 out of 136 in
rushing per game. So when they average 1 yard per
rush per game, they won the football game.
Mischa Dewar Sanders is doing all this by himself along with
(05:40):
Travis Hunter, who won the Heisman Trophy.
Now, both those guys are gone, but I think they've got enough
talent at wide receiver to make up for what they're going to
lose. And not just Travis Hunter, but
Lejante Western, Will Shepard and my goodness, Jimmy Horn,
who's from Carolina Panther now.And I think, you know, Prime
going into this is getting better at it.
He's got a couple of capable quarterbacks.
Think both of them start. And Robert Livingston's defense
(06:00):
is going to do its job. Again.
Just run football well in your top 25 team.
The easy one for me to pick out here, and I think this is low
hanging fruit. Obviously it's not Boise State
because I think Boise State's got a schedule that can keep
them in the top 25 if they just keep their business.
Even though Ashton Gente is no longer there who rushed 2600
yards last year. It's that Jake Retzloff is not
(06:22):
quarterback at BYU. And I think most of the coaches
or the folks that are voting hadto know this because he withdrew
from BYU last month. Now you know the reason Man was
accused of rape. The case was dismissed, but he
broke the honor code. And this is kind of where I want
to bring in one of my best friends, Producer Kate, joining
(06:44):
us today for the first time. Producer Kate, you got to ask
this question with a straight face.
Did you know that BYU has an honor code?
I mean, they certainly, you know, haven't been behaving like
that. They have an honor code.
So I mean, that's kind of news, I think.
(07:06):
Hello everyone. And part of the honor code is
not to have premarital sex. So are they are they one of
those weird like religious, not weird.
They're not weird like religiously founded college that
have like these really old, you know, honor code system things
like, you know, religious colleges is fine.
(07:27):
I'm not saying that. I'm just saying, you know, do
they have like, oh, only, you know, like men have to have like
their hair a certain way sort ofdeals.
So just out of curiosity. I don't think that they go
toward the Bob Jones University style of school at BYU.
However, I would be remiss if I didn't tell you, like, private
(07:48):
schools and being founded on religion is big part of college
football, right? So like, yeah, that's BYU.
You know, Church of Latter Day Saints, Jesus Christ, Baylor
Baptist University, right, also private in Waco also had a
sexual assault scandal happened just in the 20 tens Notre Dame,
right Catholic school for everybody.
(08:12):
And then we there's one more that I always am missing that
oh, Texas Christian right down the road and they hate it.
What I call it Texas Christian because they say RJ we're TCU.
I'm like, no, no, no, it says Texas Christian on letterhead.
So I will call you Texas Christian.
You didn't want to be Texas Christian, change name Baylor,
didn't want to be Baylor Baptist.
(08:32):
So I don't have to call him Baylor Baptist.
I just call him Baylor unless, you know, I want to start
talking about him the way that they would like to be talked
about. Because, you know, the thing
about Baylor and BYU, Kate, is there's not enough Doctor Pepper
in the world to satisfy those fan bases.
And they both really love their football.
But if I told you that the quarterback that led them to an
(08:55):
11 win season last year, high watermark for them, they joined
the Big 12, which is a step up for them, and they finish atop
it and they beat Colorado in theAlamo Bowl.
If I told you that dude is no longer their quarterback, do you
think they're going to be any good?
Probably not, considering they've lost a integral part.
Integral. That's a great word.
(09:17):
Integral part of their, you know, everything.
Maybe not everything, but. Getting.
Together with a new quarterback,I'm assuming no one else left
the lineup. I haven't heard anything about
that, right? Or.
Did well, No. They got Chase Roberts, a wide
receiver still. They got LJ Martin at running
back, who I think is going to doa lot of heavy lifting.
(09:37):
But the problem that you point out, it's not just that you lose
Jake Retzlaf, it's that we don'tknow that the guy you have
behind him are as good. Like they're losing 2900 passing
yards and 20 TDs, but they're not necessarily gaining anything
either. And I, I don't pretend it, I say
it. Quarterback is the most
(09:58):
important position in any team sport.
If your quarterback is sorry, you're not going to be any good.
Ask Michigan about how that wentlast year when they basically
elected to play the game withouta quarterback.
I'm being facetious here. Right, but their quarterback
play was atrocious. Had it been decent, they
probably finished as the top 25 team instead of out of it.
So I I'm beating up on BYU therebecause BYU happened to be in
(10:21):
this coaches poll and I don't think they'll be in the AP poll,
but I think Oklahoma is the obvious one to put there if you
want to leave Boise State there.I also think that it's kind of
interesting that we're having this conversation around the
College Football Playoff kind ofchanging its seeding.
So last year we had seeds based on did you win the conference
championship and where? So your five highest ranked
(10:43):
conference, excuse me, your fourhighest ranked Power 4 champions
and your highest ranked Group ofFive champion got the better
seeds, which led to an imbalancethat nobody really enjoyed.
So Penn State ends up playing SMU, Penn State beats SMU, they
play Boise State. They beat the brakes off of a
Boise State team that probably got a seed and they shouldn't
have. Arizona State won the Big 12
championship, Texas didn't lose,didn't win the SEC championship,
(11:05):
but they end up in the quarter final.
People didn't really like it. It also led to the SEC being
skunked from being the national championship for like the second
year in a row, which the SEC obviously did not like.
I don't know if you've got to this part of our sport yet, but
I tried to tell this to people, Kate, if you don't like the
(11:26):
Electoral College. Really.
You're really not going to like this.
And that's that's it, man. It's not popular vote right?
Like, and even if it was, we like our brands.
Like I tend to tell people you would much rather watch Ohio
State, Notre Dame playing a national championship game than
you would Boise State and SMU. So let's stop acting.
There's another one, Southern Methodist University.
(11:48):
Yeah, yeah. You know you would much rather
watch Notre Dame play Ohio Statethan you would Southern
Methodist and Boise State play each other.
I think what this is really going to come down to is just
who gets out the gate running and who takes advantage of their
schedule. Like Miami doesn't play a game
outside the state of Florida until November, which is wild.
(12:09):
Missouri's got 8 home games and a sport that where you
traditionally just get 6. Just the way the schedule works
out. So some of these things come
into play when we're talking about ranking teams, but I'll
give you the opportunity here tobe the audience when they're
trying to come at me about this particular bit of our sport.
Do you like pre season rankings?I mean, yes and no.
(12:33):
On one hand, it's, it's, it's interesting.
It's just interesting to hear what people think about stuff.
And, you know, I, I tend to trust like that people are
informed about rankings, the, the coach's ranking that you
like, you know, that we've been kind of looking at and
everything. I, I don't know if I trust it
(12:55):
like as much as I would trust the AP ranking because like, I
mean, you, you know, that there's somebody like, there are
people voting because like, I don't like want to vote for this
part, you know, like, I just know that there's drama going on
behind it. I, I know that it is a motivated
vote, I guess is the right word.It's not but.
(13:19):
It's interesting. Yes, yes, I know.
Very good. Thank you for finding the word
that I was looking for. It's funny because that's what
people accuse me of and accuse the AP voters of.
That's that's why it's funny. It's, it's, it's can you, can
you give a, an, an opinion that people can trust?
And I'm going, yeah, Oklahoma's sorry.
And I'm not hiding behind that. It's still my team.
(13:41):
But I can do this job and have done this job without needing to
lie to you about how good or badOklahoma is.
And, and I, I, I, I mean, I knowthat they're what just kind of,
I'm not, I'm not saying that allof the coaches are biased, but I
do know that all of the coaches are very invested in their brand
(14:03):
and their team and what's going to happen in the season.
And, you know, I'm sure that like, you know, they want to,
you know, who whomever them and their PR people have, you know,
talked a lot about like, OK, nowwe all can't just vote for
ourselves. You know, it's not like a prom
queen sort of competition, you know?
(14:24):
Well, well. Maybe it is.
I was really laughing at this islike the others receiving votes,
Like the only team that receivedone vote was Buffalo.
Who, by the way, was good last year, Like they won nine games.
And I'm sure that the Buffalo, you know, Buffalo Goats is like,
you know what, I'm going to go ahead and we're top 25 teams.
(14:47):
I tell my team this all the time.
I did a good job. We did a good job.
Well, and that's, that's a good,that's a good point, right?
Like as much as we want to talk about the growth of young men
and the values that we want to espouse, we fire people for
losing. We don't fire people for
winning. We fire them for losing, so it
(15:08):
is in your interest to try to doeverything in your power to give
the illusion that you are winning until such a time as you
can no longer hide behind that illusion.
I mean some At some point the wizard got to show himself.
And if the wizard is Ohio State,cool.
If not, damn. It's, it's, it's almost like a
philosophical thing, right? Like it's almost like, you know,
(15:31):
someone has to lose this, right?We, we know that there have to
be losers, but we're just all gonna pretend like we're
winners. Like like you said, it's like
how how long can you know? You know what you believe
yourself into? Like Can you believe yourself
into having a good season? Like, you know, I guess you can.
(15:52):
Right. I mean, you know, in the Ted
Lasso way you can, but that Ted Lasso team does not win
championships. And that's.
Yeah, yeah. That's that's really what we're
talking about is can you do that?
Can you win a championship? No.
Can you believe yourself into a championship now without
tremendous talent? But is the is the sweet spot,
(16:14):
you know, just being not mediocre, that's not the right
word. But you know, just making sure
you have that perfect level of wins and losses, right?
Like what it what is the, you know, like you know what I'm
just gonna like coast on into retirement with like my
whatever, $1,000,000, you know? So I I have a word for you.
I have a word for you. We have a word for this.
(16:35):
We have a word for this, Right? And I promise, we come right, we
break. We don't talk about this college
football red zone, but the word for this is Iowa.
Iowa. Just Iowa.
Just Iowa. OK, Kirk Ference wins seven
games, wins 9 games. That's a good margin for a Big
(16:56):
10 team and that keeps him in his job for 20 plus years.
You don't have to win the Big 10championship.
You don't have to play for national championships.
You do have to go bowling, whichmeans that, you know, you
finished six and six or better. Sometimes you end up 6:00 and
7:00 because you lose that game.Oklahoma.
But yeah, it's called Iowa. Anytime you want to have that,
like, thought of what's the sweet spot?
Where can I keep my job but not be bad but not have to be great?
(17:20):
But not but not have the crushing stress of like I have
got to deliver, you know, or they're going to fire me as soon
as I lose, you know, no. No, we got a word for that too.
We got it. We got a word for that too.
That word is Alabama, Ohio State.
Actually, we got multiple words for that one, right?
Or, or where what's the word for?
You know what? All I got to do is show up and
(17:42):
not run it into the ground. Texas, Texas.
Somehow Tom Herman goes 5:00 and7:00 to Texas.
Matt Brown goes 5:00 and 7:00 toTexas.
Charlie Strong goes 5:00 and 7:00 to Texas.
We're going how, how did you, how did you, how'd you do that?
Like, that's a magic trick, right?
Well, RJ, you know other teams show up to play too routinely,
(18:06):
Kate, routinely. Texas, Ohio State, Alabama, they
have the best recruiting classesin the country every year, top
five, right, Which means that they've got better players than
you. And in our sport, you got better
players than the other team probably going to win.
But you know what? Before Iowa was the word for
this, for the sweet spot, it used to be Georgia.
And now Georgia is the word we use for juggernaut.
(18:27):
They're just that team that is going to sit on your chest like
a £900 gorilla and just make it impossible to move.
It's one of my favorite footballteams to talk about because they
finally got a coach who was ableto unlock their potential, and
now that's just what they do, right?
This is who they are. This is who they will be, I
think, for as long as Kirby Smart is there.
(18:49):
Come back. I want to talk about the idea of
a college football red zone and why it needs to happen right
friggin now. My God I want this so bad.
(19:21):
Music back on a deck and respondwith me RJ Young if you're new
to the show, go ahead and hit that subscribe button if you're
listening on the podcast thank you so much for doing that.
Leave us a five star review on Apple or Spotify and you fill
out the link in the description of the YouTube video below.
I'll send you a sticker and I'm not making that merch available
for purchase because I want thatback and forth between you and I
(19:43):
yes, I'm sending them by stale mail.
So they're coming slowly, but they are coming.
So you should continue to, you know, listen to that and or
don't, don't lose faith that I haven't sent you your sticker.
It's coming. I'm one man and I'm doing this
by hand. Don't judge me.
I'm old, or at least I want to be old.
Old enough to remember when we didn't have an NFL red zone.
It's for damn sure. So for those of you that don't
(20:05):
know or live underneath that particular rock.
ESPN and NFL came up with a landmark deal where NFL gets 10%
equity stake, up to 10% equity stake in ESPN, right as ESPN is
getting ready to go direct to consumer.
Doesn't mean it's going to leaveyour cable station or your
YouTube TV lineup. It does mean, however, that
they're going to try to make that their primary business.
(20:27):
So one of the ways in which you try to make that work at a price
point that's probably going to be between 30 and 50 bucks a
month is you get as much NFL as you possibly can.
I tell people this often and they don't often believe me, but
you will because you watch the show.
Of the top 100 shows on television every year that rate
the top 8075 to 80 are just NFL games.
(20:51):
It's a couple of college football games.
That means the worst watched NFLgame usually outranks your
highest rated scripted television show.
So for those of y'all that are all loving Tracker, I will
remind you that Tracker debuted after the Super Bowl was over.
So it had the largest audience that it could possibly have to
launch the show. These things matter, right?
So if you're just outside of sports and you don't care about
(21:14):
football, give that to someone. Tell them, hey man, you're
missing the boat on how the United States of America moves.
And it is with this sport that, you know, has this oblong ball
that bounces kind of funny, is made out of pig intestines.
OK. So Rodger Goodell tells
everybody what they want to hearafter we get this deal where
ESPNNFL media are going to be inpartnership in a very big way.
(21:37):
And it is Redso. So Redso's coming to ESPN Plus,
which probably means or ESPN I think is what they're going to
call it. You're going to buy, pay that
same amount of money that you were to NFL Network or DIRECTV
to get red zone through ESPN, which is great as a pass through
for them. It's going to make it, you know,
really difficult for those of uswith, well, family members who
(21:57):
just don't care to learn how to use streaming services.
But we're going to have to because that's where the red
zone's going to be. Then there is, Oh my God, the
idea of college football red zone.
So this is the quote that Roger Goodell gave.
Obviously in the context of that, though, ESPN purchased the
red zone name and they will be able to utilize it for other
Sports, College football and other things.
Thinking about basketball, thinking about softball,
(22:19):
thinking about all these things they have rights to that they
could exploit. And I think that it could be an
exciting thing for our fans to also see red zone maybe in
college football or other sportsas something that they now own
and have the ability to do that.But as far as red zone, NFL red
zone, they won't be making any changes to our plans, which
means that they're still going to produce NFL red zone in house
(22:39):
at the NF LS offices. But they're going to pipe it
through ESPN, which is fine, right?
You use YouTube to watch the show.
Same difference. The show is made here.
Now, the idea of a college football red zone is really,
really, really fun, Kate. And the reason I want to tell
you that is imagine you get to watch your sport without
(23:03):
commercials, a host that understands how to throw to and
from those games, and you're only going to watch what is
essentially scoring plays. So red zone being, you know,
inside the 20 yard line when thedefense is most likely to get
scored on or the offense is the most likely it's supposed to
score. That's where the action is for
many. Now, if you're traditionalist
like me, you're watching the game all the way through and you
(23:24):
want the ebbs and flows, but it's basically baseball
highlights, right? Or NBA highlights.
Would you be more willing to watch college football on a,
let's say, a longer day? It's like, say, 11 AM to
midnight. Would you just leave that on or
would you just want to tune in to see, you know, your team
play? I, I, I have split minds about
(23:50):
it. I think that they're some very
wishy washy sort of phrase, but I there's something about what
you're saying that's kind of bringing to mind like, oh, so
they just want little snip things that they can just throw
on like Tiktok or YouTube basic like, you know, like 'cause
(24:13):
that's kind of what it's feelinglike this is almost watering
down a whole game. Like, you know what I mean?
I feel like we've got the whole game.
Then we're going down to this format like you're saying, which
honestly sounds great. And but I feel like then that is
going to be cut even more to just, you know, like the YouTube
shorts sort of or like you were saying Tiktok or that sort of
(24:36):
thing. So on one hand, that's good.
And I feel like that that's a lot more palatable for some
people, but then also like kind of, I don't know it it.
I think, I think you're on to something here because a Tiktok,
YouTube Shorts, Instagram reels.Yeah, Instagram.
(24:57):
That was the other one I was forgetting, Yeah.
These are all powerful ways to consume content, and the
scrolling is addictive, right? One of the reasons TikTok is
TikTok is the most dominant social media platform on the
planet. It just doesn't compete with
YouTube. And as far as its reach and its
base, like Mr. Beast has more YouTube subscribers than the
(25:18):
entire global subscriber networkof Netflix, which is wild, but
it's making the point here that YouTube is a much bigger place
than say Tiktok. And more importantly, there is a
ready made revenue stream for everybody that qualifies at
YouTube rather than at Tiktok. It's a little bit higher for
barrier entry because they can'tafford to pay out like YouTube
(25:39):
can afford to pay out. That aside, I think the part of
this that is more fun is if you are that kind of person that
doesn't want to have to scroll or wants to see it in real time
because it's going to get clipped to TikTok, it's going to
get clipped to YouTube, then you're going to get this.
But one of my favorite TV shows is actually the way in which
(26:01):
people watch. I'm going to do this here.
OK way, which white people watchfriends.
I watch another white people show called sports night.
OK, Sports night is one of my comfort foods.
Really love it. It's it's fun.
I also love seeing Isaac work and I like the relationship that
you got between your host. But there is a there's a super
(26:25):
sports nerd named Jeremy and that dude was tasked with
cutting up a baseball highlight and highlights are usually like
30 seconds tops. You get in, you get out, he cut
a 8 minute highlight and they said you got to make the shorter
and he goes, I can't. What do you mean you can't?
I mean, I can't like, dude, you got like a seven pitch sequence
(26:46):
to 1 batter that ends in a ground to shortstop.
Cut that out. No, the battle, that's what
you're missing. I mean, he fouled off like 6
pitches. It's like, OK, we get it, you're
a nerd about it, but we've stillgot to make a 32nd highlight.
And that's what we're going to miss as football fans is if you
don't see the sequence of plays that come up to the red zone,
(27:08):
you're missing the cadence of the game.
But for many people, that's not what it's about.
Like produce Kate. And I've gone to baseball games
and I'm geeking out about littleshit all the time.
Whoops, broke my own rule. That's how that's how
comfortable Kate makes me. But that's not what other people
are doing. They see a dinger and that's
what they're there for. I think red zone is a great
(27:28):
bridge, right? And it brings in many people
from the sport that otherwise wouldn't be there.
And I, I'm thinking about this in terms of like girl dads, but
also boyfriends and husbands andhow this show really got
started, right? This show got started with, I
mean, it was a few women that were asking questions about
football because they want to beable to relate.
(27:50):
It's easier to relate when you got something exciting going on
like scoring as opposed to a three and out.
Or why are they punting the ball, which is one of the one of
the dumbest and stupidest thingswe still do in college football,
in college football is punt. Just give the ball away.
Just just stop, stop punting. But because it's such a big part
of the game, we're loaded to take it out.
(28:11):
Like we've had controversies about kickoffs, but then again,
we had controversies about how we hit people.
Wasn't that long ago we helmet to helmet contact was just what
it was. What's targeting, you know, now
that's a personal foul and you get tossed for it.
When I was 10 years old, you might watch John Lynch go murder
a person or seem to and that's just part of the game.
(28:31):
Now we come a little bit wiser and a little more into, Hey, we,
we would really like it if this person was able to have the use
of their body at a high end at 56 years old as opposed to
needing hip replacements or kneereplacement.
So for so on. But in the interim, while
they're playing, let's get the most exciting parts of what
they're doing and in front of asmany people as we possibly can.
(28:52):
I think that is the sauce for red zone.
Like I originally they thought this was going to suck.
And I and I and I like and I like the concept for it.
Like everything you just said. I I'm sorry, I like finish what
you're saying. I just no.
Please, please no. Please, Oh no, it I just it kind
of reminds me of, you know, it takes almost it's one.
(29:14):
It's one of those things that like takes the hard work out of
or sorry, the visual hard work out of sport, just like, you
know, what we were talking about.
And I wonder what that does longterm like for people who are
fans of the sport or, you know, like for future fans, I guess is
what you, you know, it's like, Oh yeah, you see like these
(29:35):
amazing things happening, you know, in these these shorter
clips and stuff like that. And then, you know, like a kid
goes out and he's like, oh, I want to play football.
And then suddenly he discovers that football is not, you know,
all excitement, all, you know, there's all of these extra
things you have to do actually. And I, I, I just kind of wonder
(29:56):
what that does long term. Like it's, it's, it's not like
I'm saying that red red zone is going to, you know, erode, you
know, people appreciating the sports.
Like, you know, I'm not, I'm notsaying that.
I just kind of, you know, I don't know, just like from a fan
perspective, like new fans coming in with these kind of
things, it's like getting not quite the right idea about what
(30:21):
the sport actually is. I don't know it's.
Just and I don't, I don't think that's the thing about that.
It's a, it's a great observation, right?
Because you're right. Like I think about me and racing
cars, right until you start racing a car and you figure out
what a racing line is or that braking later makes you faster.
All you think is you put the gaspedal down, you turn the
(30:41):
steering wheel in that fun. Same thing is true of
basketball. You might think it's just
getting to the rack, but I thinkgetting into the sport is how
you get into the sport, right? Then as you are decided that
you're going to commit to learning it, there's a higher,
steeper learning curve where youmight be the kind of person that
goes, OK, red zone's no longer helping me.
(31:02):
But I also don't think that's necessarily a bad thing because
we got, you know, 2 decades of Red zone being active to show
all football has done is grown since it's a good thing.
And football junkies like myselfand newbies like it like it just
the same, which makes it a more or less perfect product because
it scales for everybody. And I think for kiddos, you're
(31:24):
you're going to go outside and play.
And as you go out inside and play, you get to learn, Oh,
there's much more nuance to this.
There's how do I take a snap? There's how do I spin to the
laces? There's how do I come out of
breaks? There's how many steps go into a
post route versus how many stepsgo into a go route and numbers
unlimited for the go route. And depending on what kind of a
post route you're running, it could be 7 and 9, it could be
(31:45):
14. Just depends on the depth of the
safeties. These are all things that are,
you know, technical that you're not going to pick up even from a
long football game. But that's just it, right?
Like you're how you get in is how you get in.
I tend to think, I tend to thinkthat we're going to find more
people receptive to this idea than not.
(32:08):
But the one thing that I would really be interested to see is
who gets to make it. Because the NFL has done a
really good job of making red zone.
And I don't know that you want to take that same team and make
them make college football red zone, but you would like to make
something like it if you were smart.
Because, Kate, ESPN spent $7.6 billion on the rights to the
(32:30):
College Football Playoff for sixyears.
It is in their interest to try to squeeze every single dime
they can out of that deal that they're paying out.
Because then Texas Tech gets to pay people even more money.
Question mark, take a short break, but I wanted to talk
about the money that Texas Tech has invested not just into its
(32:52):
football program but into its athletic program and what it
really does mean to say we want to win championships and we will
pay whatever we got to pay to doit.
(33:24):
Back on Adapt and respond with me, RJ Young.
If you are new to the channel, go ahead and hit that subscribe
button like this video and answer the question in the
comments below. Do you think Texas Tech is going
to get its money worth? Money's worth on the roughly $25
million it spent on its footballroster.
You can hear Kate laughing because it's just a.
It's a ridiculous number. It's also a great story by Sam
(33:45):
Khan, junior in the Athletic. You should go read it.
But before we start unpacking this bet online, who has
partnered with the show for the start of the college football
season. We're very excited about that.
They give high payouts. They pass, they, they, they pay
quickly and they're into a record-breaking wager.
So go visit them. If you are into placing a
(34:08):
friendly wager like 1 you might on Texas Tech.
They got over unders there. So the, the over under is -165
for Texas Tech winning more than8 1/2 games and plus 135 for
them to win fewer than 8 1/2 games.
So do you think they're going towin 9 or fewer than 9 or fewer
(34:29):
than eight? Yeah, fewer than 9.
You're 9/8 and 1/2. So what is it, 8 in the hook?
This fascinating me for a numberof reasons.
Number one. Number one is Texas Tech hasn't
won nine games in a single season since 2009.
So history says they're just an 8 win team when they're good,
and they were eight win team last year.
But because they have spent as much money as they have on
(34:51):
players to bring in the talent they need to go win, you might
feel this is the time to bet on them winning at a high level,
which I think is why you get the, you know, you got to place
165 to win 100 if they're going for 9 games.
But I'm going to go through thisreal quick.
And then I want to throw it to producer Kate because she she's
been looking at these numbers and has opinions.
(35:14):
So we got $55 million that the Red Raider Athletic department
NIL Collective has paid out in player compensation 20/25/2026
through 17 Sports $55 million. Thirty 5 million of that was
paid out before the House versusNCAA settlement that officially
took effect with revenue sharingwhere the conferences have to
(35:37):
not the conferences, schools have to take the money they make
from the conferences and pay outa sizable chunk of that.
At Texas Tech where you got to pay out about 20 and a half
million dollars, 15 of that is going to go to the football
team, so about 74%. And then 3 1/2 of that is going
to go toward we think your basketball team, your men's
(35:58):
basketball team, 2% to your women's basketball team, 1.9% to
your baseball team and the rest of Texas Tech's remaining
sports. But even that's kind of wonky
because Najeri Kennedy, who was pitcher last year for Texas Tech
softball team, made the college women's College World Series.
Well, I should say the softball College World Series for the
first time. They pay her $1,000,000.
(36:19):
So it's if you're a star, you'regetting paid.
We we really don't care about gender as long as we're winning.
And that's always going to be true.
Cody Campbell enters this conversation then Kate.
Now this is the part that I think is going to speak to the
college football of it all. Cody Campbell played offensive
line at Texas Tech, became a land man and then built an oil
(36:39):
company. He since sold that oil company
with his partner for more than $4 billion, and one of the first
things he said was Texas Tech football's about to get a lot
better. That is how powerful it is for
some of us to have a winner on the field.
And because people don't look atspending money on player
(37:01):
compensation and football as an investment, they they think of
it as this is my amusement, thisis my entertainment.
There's there's no bottom to this pit.
Like SMU got really good. Imagine being able to forgo
making $30 million for about 3 years because you just want to
take the step up. A lot of people can't do that,
(37:22):
but Southern Methodist could because they got billionaires as
boosters who are going to make them whole because they would
much rather see Southern Methodist play in the ACC than
the American because they know what it can mean for their
profile. And it worked.
They were very good last year. They made the College Football
Playoff before teams like Wisconsin, USC, other blue
bloods. That's the gamble here.
(37:42):
It is. If I got the money, why not
spend it? So Cody Campbell goes to the
athletic department, goes to JoeMcGuire, the head coach, says,
what do you need? And they went out and bought it.
So now that they're giving this context like, what are you
thinking? Well, I'm thinking they better
win or they, you know. Yeah, somebody's like.
(38:05):
Give me my $25 million back. Sorry, no receipt, no, no
refunds. It's just gone now.
No, it's, it's interesting like these big public like, Oh yeah,
I'm going to spend, you know, they're going to get a lot
better now. It's like, but if you don't,
there's that they, they should, they should get better.
I mean, they've invested and they're, they've recruited
(38:27):
players that can, you know, helpthem and they they should.
But it's just like, Oh my gosh, guys.
It's so much money and it's it'sso much money for a school like
Texas. Tech.
You know, Texas Tech is on Mars.I knew this because I drove
there and I was scared of my mind because I'm going, why is
(38:49):
everything just desert red? What happens if I catch a flat
out here? That sort of stuff, it's way
over there, right? You got to want it to get to
Lubbock. But once you get there, it's
cool. And you know what?
They've also spent a lot of money around the program, like
they got a $242 million footballfacility they just opened.
They just opened it. They want to win.
And one of the ways you win is you have better facilities and
(39:12):
better living places and pay people.
More people will come to you to play is the idea here.
But are they Ohio State, who spent, you know, $20 million on
their roster last year, won the national championship?
No, because Ohio State was already moving in this
direction. I talked to Cardell Jones for a
piece as he runs one of the NIL collectives at Ohio State, won a
(39:36):
national championships quarterback at Ohio State.
And he said he talked to an economics professor at Ohio
State to ask what the economic impact of an Ohio State home
football game was in Columbus and across the state.
And they said they did across the state first because they
thought it would be more beneficial, you know, Grant
University. And he said it, each Ohio State
(39:57):
home game is worth a billion dollars in economic impact
across the state and you get at least 6 every year.
And if you are good, we're talking about that billion
dollars being the base level. That's how important football is
at that level. So you can understand the
investment that they might want to put into it because it
expands out. Another example of this would be
the ACT score that went up with Nick Saban being head coach to
(40:19):
Alabama when your football team went at a high level.
Better students and more importantly, students that can
afford to pay will come to you, right?
So do you need to win? Absolutely, positively.
But I don't know if they won eight games this year.
I don't know that they're going to fire Joe and McGuire, their
(40:41):
head coach. He's beloved.
He's a great coach. I really love him.
But it would be clear that they did not get the return on
investment that they wanted because we've been very clear
about we want to win the championship.
Like Kate last year, the team that was picked to finish dead
damn last in the Big 12 won the Big 12 Championship.
Yeah. And it was so embarrassing.
(41:01):
And so setting back they think for the league that they blamed
us, the media, because it was a media poll.
And they're going, we don't think that helped us for wait,
you guys set out a poll asset tofill it out.
And they said, yeah, we need to do that this year.
So it's our fault that Arizona State turned out to be good at a
time when everybody can quite literally change their roster
year to year. No, we're not saying it's your
(41:22):
fault. We're saying that why would we
give ourselves this opportunity to have this bad publicity?
Like, well, man, look, news is reporting what other people
don't want to hear about, right?Like, that's part of it.
But I think you're on to you better win.
I also think with the revenue sharing, we're going to see more
money paid out. But this is getting to the
(41:42):
quagmire that is college sports right now.
The creation of the College Sports Commission, a real thing
that just came online that's probably going to supersede the
NCAA because shocker, Kate, people are cheating.
Oh, what people would do that? They would.
They would cheat. They would lie.
(42:04):
My favorite is coaches. Can't they?
They hate tampering and poachingso.
I thought that they had put in some sort of like the the
players can't like I thought that there was something that
players can't switch though veryfrequently and they can't.
So there was this, so 2018, we put in a thing called the
(42:27):
transfer portal, which allowed for players to enter their name
into what is a glorified spreadsheet and say, hey, I'm
leaving this school and I'm leaving in good standing.
If you would like me to come play for your school, reach out.
And then that, that was fine, right?
That's work. That's OK, But you still had to
sit out a year if you want to transfer within the division.
(42:48):
So all the 136 is in the FBS. If you want to transfer to
another team in the FBS, you hadto sit out.
And then we did away with this rule and it's immediate
eligibility, which means that you can transfer every single
year if you want to, which has led to a unprecedented turnover
at that level. And people hate it.
(43:11):
A, they need me to tell them who's on their football team,
but, B, they don't think that loyalty means anything.
I'm going, hey, man, coaches leave all the time.
Coaches get fired all the time. They take better jobs all the
time. They're also getting paid.
So why are you mad about this? But now that the players are
getting paid, they're going, OK,we need to have some sort of
collective bargaining agreement that bakes it blanket, you know,
(43:33):
this is the punishment for transferring within this time
frame. And I go to have a collective
bargaining agreement, you need alabor union I.
Was going to say you need a union.
Guess what we ain't got? And good luck having a union
with any teeth with a labor force that changes literally
every four years. Yeah, yeah, I know.
So I I'm not in favor of ACBA atall because I don't think, you
(43:55):
know, it's basically going to beeverybody telling the kids what
to do again. Yeah, Yeah.
Even as they're getting paid this money.
And what's loyalty now? The loyalty part of this is, I
think more interesting than anything else because unlike say
the NFL, like I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan because I like to
make bad decisions. You go to school at the
(44:15):
University of Tulsa, You go to school at the University of
Oklahoma, You go to school at Oklahoma State.
You wear that for the rest of your life.
It's it becomes a part of you. It is family, it is blood.
So when things like I'm going topick on University of Tulsa,
Tulsa loses its friggin accreditation trying to devalue
(44:36):
my diploma, I catch an attitude,right?
Imagine that being your footballteam.
And I do because Tulsa sucks. God, dog, do we suck.
And you know what? Producer Kate pointed this out.
Football chops, man. Beat Notre Dame and.
I was like, I was like. RJ, 2010.
Yeah, when we were going over the the coaches thing, I was
(44:59):
like, oh, Notre Dame. Hey RJ, you remember when TU
beat Notre Dame? And it was the he like graduated
and. And he was, he was talking like
this was ancient history from the, you know, like the before
times or whatever. I'm like RJ, listen.
Well, hey, look, what are you talking about?
A lot has happened to your man in the last 15 years.
(45:20):
However, GJ Kinney, who said I thought to Texas State was
quarterback at TU also ran the ball 20 times in that game time
to Reese's quarterback at Notre Dame, who is the Cleveland
Browns off It's a coordinator. Just wild that TU beat Notre
Dame 2827. Now Notre Dame team was sorry
and a couple years ago we're playing.
A couple years later we're playing a national championship.
(45:41):
But I totally wiped that out. And.
I'm I really got to do some investigation here because
apparently I have just been absolutely destroyed by
basically the last eight years of TU football because.
I mean, it's not been great, so.You know, I, I guess, I guess we
could be some other school, but I don't know what other school
(46:03):
that might be. I just know the TU's got 4 Pro
Football Hall of Farmers, which is like four more than Clemson,
you know, have two first round draft picks in the last five
years. And we're getting our behind
handed to us by service academies, which is like, it's
like Bixby High School getting beat by a six by an 8 man team.
(46:25):
Just it's not supposed to happen.
It's not it's not supposed to happen.
And I, I, you know what? I was doing so good until that
moment. And I think before I absolutely
blow the gasket talking about TUfootball because I'm here,
everybody wants to hear about that.
We're going to wrap up the show.Producer Kate, thank you so much
for joining us. How?
(46:46):
Are you? Thanks for having me, for having
me you. Want to come back?
Sure. I mean, I'd love to come back.
Maybe, you know, I can actually have a what is the right word?
Another way of saying maybe college football coaches or
caddy and they wanna, you know, get together and like.
(47:09):
No, I like that would. Do no, I I know we're trying to
wrap up the show, but that was Iwas trying to figure out how do
I say that? Maybe like the college football
coaches get together, like, you know, you know, caddy teen girls
or something, They're like, we're going to vote for this
person's team and blah, blah, blah.
It's like I was trying to figureout we're going to.
Squeeze out those people over there, yeah.
(47:30):
Yeah, we're, you know what? I.
Mean girl em. 'Cause like, like I said, I'm
not saying that they're all likegoing to be biased, but it just
kind of, you know, it just feelslike that.
It's like we're going to get together and we're going to vote
on whose team is the prettiest or something.
I don't know. I I think they're a little too
self-serving to do that just yet, but give them give them
(47:50):
time. All right, that's going to do it
for this episode of adapt and respond.
If you like the longer show format you like the longer
shows. Let me know that in the comments
below. Otherwise we will see y'all on
the flip side have. A good one.
(48:22):
Music.
What's up, Ken folk, it's RJ Young.
I am not on a step. Mel, if this is your first time
watching adapt and respond, thank you for joining us here.
We talk college football. We talk football year round.
If you're into that, and I know you are, go ahead and hit that
subscribe button. Like this video and answer the
question in the comments below. Which team do you think starts
(00:30):
in the preseason coaches poll but won't end there come Martin
Luther King Day when we play forthe national championship?
Yeah, January 19th, round the corner, right?
But we're doing this now. Do you think that college
football should need a red zone?And I absolutely think it should
need a red zone. Do you think that Texas Tech is
going to do something they haven't done since 2009 and why?
(00:52):
That ought to be in reach for them.
But history says no, Sir. Probably not.
I want to talk about just what it means for Texas Tech to spend
as much money as they've spent. And I do want to get into
college football. Having a red zone.
ESPN, go ahead and do right by us here.
But I want to start with the preseason top 25 that came out
in the coaches poll because the AP poll has not dropped yet,
(01:14):
dropping on Monday. And we'll talk about that and
we'll go through it because I don't think they're going to do
what the coaches did, which is put Boise State into this thing
and leave Oklahoma out of it, which I think is a great place
to begin the conversation about who's in and who's out.
But as I've said, this is a prove it year for Brent Vinables
and bringing in guys like John Mateer, Jay Knott, Jim Naggy.
(01:38):
Oklahoma needs to finish as a top 25 team in 2025.
So everybody feels safe. We're already getting odds that
Brent Vinables has better odds to be fired, according to Bed
Online. Thank you for sponsoring the
show to get fired than Sam Pittman, right?
Like it's right there and you go6 and 710 and three, six and
(02:00):
seven after not having a losing season at Oklahoma since, you
know, the 20th century, people are going to lose their minds
and rightfully so, right? Oklahoma's about excellence.
Oklahoma's about winning at a very high level.
And I'm getting tired of the SECfolks telling us, hey, welcome
to the SEC. You know what?
Tell it to Mississippi State. Yeah.
I mean, tell it to Ole Miss. Tell us somebody who won no
(02:21):
national championships ain't gotno Heisman Trophy winners.
Miss me with that garbage. All right, Oklahoma's great.
Texas is Texas. That's the number one team in
the coaches poll. I would assume it's the number
one team in The Associated Presspoll, but that's about where it
is. So interestingly enough, Bregman
Murphy does really cool job of keeping us up on this stuff.
And he noted that in 20/24/13, that's more than half of the 25
(02:45):
teams in the preseason AP top 25finished unranked.
And he listed them and they are Michigan who started at 9:00.
They finished eight and five, right?
Florida State, my God, egg on myface.
They start at 10 here, they started 10.
The AP, they start 5 for me and then they go 2 and 10 for one of
the worst season that Florida State has had in nearly 50
(03:05):
years. Utah was garbage, but we didn't
think that they were going to begarbage because we thought Cam
Riding was going to be ready to play.
Instead, they go five and seven.I think they'll be better this
year. LSU finished at 13.
They're out, I mean, or started at 13.
They're out of top 25 last year because, well, LSU plays in the
SEC. See how that works?
Garrett Nutsmeyer Think it's going to make them a little bit
better going into a second year as a starter.
(03:27):
OU at 16 last year to start finished out of the top 25.
Oklahoma State at 17. They were garbage until you use
the French term 3 and 9. I don't Mike Gundy gets to keep
doing his job, but we going to fire Brent Venables.
You know, neither here nor there.
It's actually Stillwater and warming, but you get it.
Then we get Kansas State at 18, OK 20 Techs, A&M, OK Arizona.
(03:52):
My God, we have a lot of faith in Brent Brennan what he could
do in year 1. Kansas, they just, if they
played the second-half the way they play at first half, they'd
be, they'd be one of those teamsin top 25.
They're still good. SC at 23, NC State at 24.
What the hell were we thinking there?
Iowa at 25 makes a lot of sense.So that's the teams that were
(04:13):
starting in the preseason top 25and then we're out of it by the
end of the year. Now we played twelve games and
now it takes about 16, 1515 to win the national championship.
But it's never been more difficult as we've gone to a 12
team playoff. But as I've given this some
thought, I wondered. The slam dunk for me is Oklahoma
(04:34):
finishing in the top 25. Now I know I'm saying that.
RJ, tell us more about how OU, who's sorry last year, is going
to finish as the top 25 team. Well, I will John Material's
3000 yard passer last year, 800 yard rusher Jay, not when he was
last healthy, went for 1300 yards.
Dion Burks can be a 1200 yard receiver and Brent Venables is
calling the defense. He's got our Mason Thomas and
(04:54):
the Bowen brothers over there toname a couple.
Like Oklahoma's got the personnel to go compete.
It's just the schedule kind of sucks.
I mean, you go look it up and down, there's 5 ranked opponents
on the schedule because that's what it means to play in the
SEC. But Oklahoma wanted this.
Oklahoma wanted this challenge. Now is the time to rise to that
occasion. And I'll give you one that's
kind of squirrely here. Colorado entering the top 25 and
(05:18):
ending it as a top 25 team is not out of the question to me,
especially if Marshall Faulk cangive them the kind of run game
that just makes Kaden Salter or Juju Lewis feel better.
Remember, last year they were dead last 136 out of 136 in
rushing per game. So when they average 1 yard per
rush per game, they won the football game.
Mischa Dewar Sanders is doing all this by himself along with
(05:40):
Travis Hunter, who won the Heisman Trophy.
Now, both those guys are gone, but I think they've got enough
talent at wide receiver to make up for what they're going to
lose. And not just Travis Hunter, but
Lejante Western, Will Shepard and my goodness, Jimmy Horn,
who's from Carolina Panther now.And I think, you know, Prime
going into this is getting better at it.
He's got a couple of capable quarterbacks.
Think both of them start. And Robert Livingston's defense
(06:00):
is going to do its job. Again.
Just run football well in your top 25 team.
The easy one for me to pick out here, and I think this is low
hanging fruit. Obviously it's not Boise State
because I think Boise State's got a schedule that can keep
them in the top 25 if they just keep their business.
Even though Ashton Gente is no longer there who rushed 2600
yards last year. It's that Jake Retzloff is not
(06:22):
quarterback at BYU. And I think most of the coaches
or the folks that are voting hadto know this because he withdrew
from BYU last month. Now you know the reason Man was
accused of rape. The case was dismissed, but he
broke the honor code. And this is kind of where I want
to bring in one of my best friends, Producer Kate, joining
(06:44):
us today for the first time. Producer Kate, you got to ask
this question with a straight face.
Did you know that BYU has an honor code?
I mean, they certainly, you know, haven't been behaving like
that. They have an honor code.
So I mean, that's kind of news, I think.
(07:06):
Hello everyone. And part of the honor code is
not to have premarital sex. So are they are they one of
those weird like religious, not weird.
They're not weird like religiously founded college that
have like these really old, you know, honor code system things
like, you know, religious colleges is fine.
(07:27):
I'm not saying that. I'm just saying, you know, do
they have like, oh, only, you know, like men have to have like
their hair a certain way sort ofdeals.
So just out of curiosity. I don't think that they go
toward the Bob Jones University style of school at BYU.
However, I would be remiss if I didn't tell you, like, private
(07:48):
schools and being founded on religion is big part of college
football, right? So like, yeah, that's BYU.
You know, Church of Latter Day Saints, Jesus Christ, Baylor
Baptist University, right, also private in Waco also had a
sexual assault scandal happened just in the 20 tens Notre Dame,
right Catholic school for everybody.
(08:12):
And then we there's one more that I always am missing that
oh, Texas Christian right down the road and they hate it.
What I call it Texas Christian because they say RJ we're TCU.
I'm like, no, no, no, it says Texas Christian on letterhead.
So I will call you Texas Christian.
You didn't want to be Texas Christian, change name Baylor,
didn't want to be Baylor Baptist.
(08:32):
So I don't have to call him Baylor Baptist.
I just call him Baylor unless, you know, I want to start
talking about him the way that they would like to be talked
about. Because, you know, the thing
about Baylor and BYU, Kate, is there's not enough Doctor Pepper
in the world to satisfy those fan bases.
And they both really love their football.
But if I told you that the quarterback that led them to an
(08:55):
11 win season last year, high watermark for them, they joined
the Big 12, which is a step up for them, and they finish atop
it and they beat Colorado in theAlamo Bowl.
If I told you that dude is no longer their quarterback, do you
think they're going to be any good?
Probably not, considering they've lost a integral part.
Integral. That's a great word.
(09:17):
Integral part of their, you know, everything.
Maybe not everything, but. Getting.
Together with a new quarterback,I'm assuming no one else left
the lineup. I haven't heard anything about
that, right? Or.
Did well, No. They got Chase Roberts, a wide
receiver still. They got LJ Martin at running
back, who I think is going to doa lot of heavy lifting.
(09:37):
But the problem that you point out, it's not just that you lose
Jake Retzlaf, it's that we don'tknow that the guy you have
behind him are as good. Like they're losing 2900 passing
yards and 20 TDs, but they're not necessarily gaining anything
either. And I, I don't pretend it, I say
it. Quarterback is the most
(09:58):
important position in any team sport.
If your quarterback is sorry, you're not going to be any good.
Ask Michigan about how that wentlast year when they basically
elected to play the game withouta quarterback.
I'm being facetious here. Right, but their quarterback
play was atrocious. Had it been decent, they
probably finished as the top 25 team instead of out of it.
So I I'm beating up on BYU therebecause BYU happened to be in
(10:21):
this coaches poll and I don't think they'll be in the AP poll,
but I think Oklahoma is the obvious one to put there if you
want to leave Boise State there.I also think that it's kind of
interesting that we're having this conversation around the
College Football Playoff kind ofchanging its seeding.
So last year we had seeds based on did you win the conference
championship and where? So your five highest ranked
(10:43):
conference, excuse me, your fourhighest ranked Power 4 champions
and your highest ranked Group ofFive champion got the better
seeds, which led to an imbalancethat nobody really enjoyed.
So Penn State ends up playing SMU, Penn State beats SMU, they
play Boise State. They beat the brakes off of a
Boise State team that probably got a seed and they shouldn't
have. Arizona State won the Big 12
championship, Texas didn't lose,didn't win the SEC championship,
(11:05):
but they end up in the quarter final.
People didn't really like it. It also led to the SEC being
skunked from being the national championship for like the second
year in a row, which the SEC obviously did not like.
I don't know if you've got to this part of our sport yet, but
I tried to tell this to people, Kate, if you don't like the
(11:26):
Electoral College. Really.
You're really not going to like this.
And that's that's it, man. It's not popular vote right?
Like, and even if it was, we like our brands.
Like I tend to tell people you would much rather watch Ohio
State, Notre Dame playing a national championship game than
you would Boise State and SMU. So let's stop acting.
There's another one, Southern Methodist University.
(11:48):
Yeah, yeah. You know you would much rather
watch Notre Dame play Ohio Statethan you would Southern
Methodist and Boise State play each other.
I think what this is really going to come down to is just
who gets out the gate running and who takes advantage of their
schedule. Like Miami doesn't play a game
outside the state of Florida until November, which is wild.
(12:09):
Missouri's got 8 home games and a sport that where you
traditionally just get 6. Just the way the schedule works
out. So some of these things come
into play when we're talking about ranking teams, but I'll
give you the opportunity here tobe the audience when they're
trying to come at me about this particular bit of our sport.
Do you like pre season rankings?I mean, yes and no.
(12:33):
On one hand, it's, it's, it's interesting.
It's just interesting to hear what people think about stuff.
And, you know, I, I tend to trust like that people are
informed about rankings, the, the coach's ranking that you
like, you know, that we've been kind of looking at and
everything. I, I don't know if I trust it
(12:55):
like as much as I would trust the AP ranking because like, I
mean, you, you know, that there's somebody like, there are
people voting because like, I don't like want to vote for this
part, you know, like, I just know that there's drama going on
behind it. I, I know that it is a motivated
vote, I guess is the right word.It's not but.
(13:19):
It's interesting. Yes, yes, I know.
Very good. Thank you for finding the word
that I was looking for. It's funny because that's what
people accuse me of and accuse the AP voters of.
That's that's why it's funny. It's, it's, it's can you, can
you give a, an, an opinion that people can trust?
And I'm going, yeah, Oklahoma's sorry.
And I'm not hiding behind that. It's still my team.
(13:41):
But I can do this job and have done this job without needing to
lie to you about how good or badOklahoma is.
And, and I, I, I, I mean, I knowthat they're what just kind of,
I'm not, I'm not saying that allof the coaches are biased, but I
do know that all of the coaches are very invested in their brand
(14:03):
and their team and what's going to happen in the season.
And, you know, I'm sure that like, you know, they want to,
you know, who whomever them and their PR people have, you know,
talked a lot about like, OK, nowwe all can't just vote for
ourselves. You know, it's not like a prom
queen sort of competition, you know?
(14:24):
Well, well. Maybe it is.
I was really laughing at this islike the others receiving votes,
Like the only team that receivedone vote was Buffalo.
Who, by the way, was good last year, Like they won nine games.
And I'm sure that the Buffalo, you know, Buffalo Goats is like,
you know what, I'm going to go ahead and we're top 25 teams.
(14:47):
I tell my team this all the time.
I did a good job. We did a good job.
Well, and that's, that's a good,that's a good point, right?
Like as much as we want to talk about the growth of young men
and the values that we want to espouse, we fire people for
losing. We don't fire people for
winning. We fire them for losing, so it
(15:08):
is in your interest to try to doeverything in your power to give
the illusion that you are winning until such a time as you
can no longer hide behind that illusion.
I mean some At some point the wizard got to show himself.
And if the wizard is Ohio State,cool.
If not, damn. It's, it's, it's almost like a
philosophical thing, right? Like it's almost like, you know,
(15:31):
someone has to lose this, right?We, we know that there have to
be losers, but we're just all gonna pretend like we're
winners. Like like you said, it's like
how how long can you know? You know what you believe
yourself into? Like Can you believe yourself
into having a good season? Like, you know, I guess you can.
(15:52):
Right. I mean, you know, in the Ted
Lasso way you can, but that Ted Lasso team does not win
championships. And that's.
Yeah, yeah. That's that's really what we're
talking about is can you do that?
Can you win a championship? No.
Can you believe yourself into a championship now without
tremendous talent? But is the is the sweet spot,
(16:14):
you know, just being not mediocre, that's not the right
word. But you know, just making sure
you have that perfect level of wins and losses, right?
Like what it what is the, you know, like you know what I'm
just gonna like coast on into retirement with like my
whatever, $1,000,000, you know? So I I have a word for you.
I have a word for you. We have a word for this.
(16:35):
We have a word for this, Right? And I promise, we come right, we
break. We don't talk about this college
football red zone, but the word for this is Iowa.
Iowa. Just Iowa.
Just Iowa. OK, Kirk Ference wins seven
games, wins 9 games. That's a good margin for a Big
(16:56):
10 team and that keeps him in his job for 20 plus years.
You don't have to win the Big 10championship.
You don't have to play for national championships.
You do have to go bowling, whichmeans that, you know, you
finished six and six or better. Sometimes you end up 6:00 and
7:00 because you lose that game.Oklahoma.
But yeah, it's called Iowa. Anytime you want to have that,
like, thought of what's the sweet spot?
Where can I keep my job but not be bad but not have to be great?
(17:20):
But not but not have the crushing stress of like I have
got to deliver, you know, or they're going to fire me as soon
as I lose, you know, no. No, we got a word for that too.
We got it. We got a word for that too.
That word is Alabama, Ohio State.
Actually, we got multiple words for that one, right?
Or, or where what's the word for?
You know what? All I got to do is show up and
(17:42):
not run it into the ground. Texas, Texas.
Somehow Tom Herman goes 5:00 and7:00 to Texas.
Matt Brown goes 5:00 and 7:00 toTexas.
Charlie Strong goes 5:00 and 7:00 to Texas.
We're going how, how did you, how did you, how'd you do that?
Like, that's a magic trick, right?
Well, RJ, you know other teams show up to play too routinely,
(18:06):
Kate, routinely. Texas, Ohio State, Alabama, they
have the best recruiting classesin the country every year, top
five, right, Which means that they've got better players than
you. And in our sport, you got better
players than the other team probably going to win.
But you know what? Before Iowa was the word for
this, for the sweet spot, it used to be Georgia.
And now Georgia is the word we use for juggernaut.
(18:27):
They're just that team that is going to sit on your chest like
a £900 gorilla and just make it impossible to move.
It's one of my favorite footballteams to talk about because they
finally got a coach who was ableto unlock their potential, and
now that's just what they do, right?
This is who they are. This is who they will be, I
think, for as long as Kirby Smart is there.
(18:49):
Come back. I want to talk about the idea of
a college football red zone and why it needs to happen right
friggin now. My God I want this so bad.
(19:21):
Music back on a deck and respondwith me RJ Young if you're new
to the show, go ahead and hit that subscribe button if you're
listening on the podcast thank you so much for doing that.
Leave us a five star review on Apple or Spotify and you fill
out the link in the description of the YouTube video below.
I'll send you a sticker and I'm not making that merch available
for purchase because I want thatback and forth between you and I
(19:43):
yes, I'm sending them by stale mail.
So they're coming slowly, but they are coming.
So you should continue to, you know, listen to that and or
don't, don't lose faith that I haven't sent you your sticker.
It's coming. I'm one man and I'm doing this
by hand. Don't judge me.
I'm old, or at least I want to be old.
Old enough to remember when we didn't have an NFL red zone.
It's for damn sure. So for those of you that don't
(20:05):
know or live underneath that particular rock.
ESPN and NFL came up with a landmark deal where NFL gets 10%
equity stake, up to 10% equity stake in ESPN, right as ESPN is
getting ready to go direct to consumer.
Doesn't mean it's going to leaveyour cable station or your
YouTube TV lineup. It does mean, however, that
they're going to try to make that their primary business.
(20:27):
So one of the ways in which you try to make that work at a price
point that's probably going to be between 30 and 50 bucks a
month is you get as much NFL as you possibly can.
I tell people this often and they don't often believe me, but
you will because you watch the show.
Of the top 100 shows on television every year that rate
the top 8075 to 80 are just NFL games.
(20:51):
It's a couple of college football games.
That means the worst watched NFLgame usually outranks your
highest rated scripted television show.
So for those of y'all that are all loving Tracker, I will
remind you that Tracker debuted after the Super Bowl was over.
So it had the largest audience that it could possibly have to
launch the show. These things matter, right?
So if you're just outside of sports and you don't care about
(21:14):
football, give that to someone. Tell them, hey man, you're
missing the boat on how the United States of America moves.
And it is with this sport that, you know, has this oblong ball
that bounces kind of funny, is made out of pig intestines.
OK. So Rodger Goodell tells
everybody what they want to hearafter we get this deal where
ESPNNFL media are going to be inpartnership in a very big way.
(21:37):
And it is Redso. So Redso's coming to ESPN Plus,
which probably means or ESPN I think is what they're going to
call it. You're going to buy, pay that
same amount of money that you were to NFL Network or DIRECTV
to get red zone through ESPN, which is great as a pass through
for them. It's going to make it, you know,
really difficult for those of uswith, well, family members who
(21:57):
just don't care to learn how to use streaming services.
But we're going to have to because that's where the red
zone's going to be. Then there is, Oh my God, the
idea of college football red zone.
So this is the quote that Roger Goodell gave.
Obviously in the context of that, though, ESPN purchased the
red zone name and they will be able to utilize it for other
Sports, College football and other things.
Thinking about basketball, thinking about softball,
(22:19):
thinking about all these things they have rights to that they
could exploit. And I think that it could be an
exciting thing for our fans to also see red zone maybe in
college football or other sportsas something that they now own
and have the ability to do that.But as far as red zone, NFL red
zone, they won't be making any changes to our plans, which
means that they're still going to produce NFL red zone in house
(22:39):
at the NF LS offices. But they're going to pipe it
through ESPN, which is fine, right?
You use YouTube to watch the show.
Same difference. The show is made here.
Now, the idea of a college football red zone is really,
really, really fun, Kate. And the reason I want to tell
you that is imagine you get to watch your sport without
(23:03):
commercials, a host that understands how to throw to and
from those games, and you're only going to watch what is
essentially scoring plays. So red zone being, you know,
inside the 20 yard line when thedefense is most likely to get
scored on or the offense is the most likely it's supposed to
score. That's where the action is for
many. Now, if you're traditionalist
like me, you're watching the game all the way through and you
(23:24):
want the ebbs and flows, but it's basically baseball
highlights, right? Or NBA highlights.
Would you be more willing to watch college football on a,
let's say, a longer day? It's like, say, 11 AM to
midnight. Would you just leave that on or
would you just want to tune in to see, you know, your team
play? I, I, I have split minds about
(23:50):
it. I think that they're some very
wishy washy sort of phrase, but I there's something about what
you're saying that's kind of bringing to mind like, oh, so
they just want little snip things that they can just throw
on like Tiktok or YouTube basic like, you know, like 'cause
(24:13):
that's kind of what it's feelinglike this is almost watering
down a whole game. Like, you know what I mean?
I feel like we've got the whole game.
Then we're going down to this format like you're saying, which
honestly sounds great. And but I feel like then that is
going to be cut even more to just, you know, like the YouTube
shorts sort of or like you were saying Tiktok or that sort of
(24:36):
thing. So on one hand, that's good.
And I feel like that that's a lot more palatable for some
people, but then also like kind of, I don't know it it.
I think, I think you're on to something here because a Tiktok,
YouTube Shorts, Instagram reels.Yeah, Instagram.
(24:57):
That was the other one I was forgetting, Yeah.
These are all powerful ways to consume content, and the
scrolling is addictive, right? One of the reasons TikTok is
TikTok is the most dominant social media platform on the
planet. It just doesn't compete with
YouTube. And as far as its reach and its
base, like Mr. Beast has more YouTube subscribers than the
(25:18):
entire global subscriber networkof Netflix, which is wild, but
it's making the point here that YouTube is a much bigger place
than say Tiktok. And more importantly, there is a
ready made revenue stream for everybody that qualifies at
YouTube rather than at Tiktok. It's a little bit higher for
barrier entry because they can'tafford to pay out like YouTube
(25:39):
can afford to pay out. That aside, I think the part of
this that is more fun is if you are that kind of person that
doesn't want to have to scroll or wants to see it in real time
because it's going to get clipped to TikTok, it's going to
get clipped to YouTube, then you're going to get this.
But one of my favorite TV shows is actually the way in which
(26:01):
people watch. I'm going to do this here.
OK way, which white people watchfriends.
I watch another white people show called sports night.
OK, Sports night is one of my comfort foods.
Really love it. It's it's fun.
I also love seeing Isaac work and I like the relationship that
you got between your host. But there is a there's a super
(26:25):
sports nerd named Jeremy and that dude was tasked with
cutting up a baseball highlight and highlights are usually like
30 seconds tops. You get in, you get out, he cut
a 8 minute highlight and they said you got to make the shorter
and he goes, I can't. What do you mean you can't?
I mean, I can't like, dude, you got like a seven pitch sequence
(26:46):
to 1 batter that ends in a ground to shortstop.
Cut that out. No, the battle, that's what
you're missing. I mean, he fouled off like 6
pitches. It's like, OK, we get it, you're
a nerd about it, but we've stillgot to make a 32nd highlight.
And that's what we're going to miss as football fans is if you
don't see the sequence of plays that come up to the red zone,
(27:08):
you're missing the cadence of the game.
But for many people, that's not what it's about.
Like produce Kate. And I've gone to baseball games
and I'm geeking out about littleshit all the time.
Whoops, broke my own rule. That's how that's how
comfortable Kate makes me. But that's not what other people
are doing. They see a dinger and that's
what they're there for. I think red zone is a great
(27:28):
bridge, right? And it brings in many people
from the sport that otherwise wouldn't be there.
And I, I'm thinking about this in terms of like girl dads, but
also boyfriends and husbands andhow this show really got
started, right? This show got started with, I
mean, it was a few women that were asking questions about
football because they want to beable to relate.
(27:50):
It's easier to relate when you got something exciting going on
like scoring as opposed to a three and out.
Or why are they punting the ball, which is one of the one of
the dumbest and stupidest thingswe still do in college football,
in college football is punt. Just give the ball away.
Just just stop, stop punting. But because it's such a big part
of the game, we're loaded to take it out.
(28:11):
Like we've had controversies about kickoffs, but then again,
we had controversies about how we hit people.
Wasn't that long ago we helmet to helmet contact was just what
it was. What's targeting, you know, now
that's a personal foul and you get tossed for it.
When I was 10 years old, you might watch John Lynch go murder
a person or seem to and that's just part of the game.
(28:31):
Now we come a little bit wiser and a little more into, Hey, we,
we would really like it if this person was able to have the use
of their body at a high end at 56 years old as opposed to
needing hip replacements or kneereplacement.
So for so on. But in the interim, while
they're playing, let's get the most exciting parts of what
they're doing and in front of asmany people as we possibly can.
(28:52):
I think that is the sauce for red zone.
Like I originally they thought this was going to suck.
And I and I and I like and I like the concept for it.
Like everything you just said. I I'm sorry, I like finish what
you're saying. I just no.
Please, please no. Please, Oh no, it I just it kind
of reminds me of, you know, it takes almost it's one.
(29:14):
It's one of those things that like takes the hard work out of
or sorry, the visual hard work out of sport, just like, you
know, what we were talking about.
And I wonder what that does longterm like for people who are
fans of the sport or, you know, like for future fans, I guess is
what you, you know, it's like, Oh yeah, you see like these
(29:35):
amazing things happening, you know, in these these shorter
clips and stuff like that. And then, you know, like a kid
goes out and he's like, oh, I want to play football.
And then suddenly he discovers that football is not, you know,
all excitement, all, you know, there's all of these extra
things you have to do actually. And I, I, I just kind of wonder
(29:56):
what that does long term. Like it's, it's, it's not like
I'm saying that red red zone is going to, you know, erode, you
know, people appreciating the sports.
Like, you know, I'm not, I'm notsaying that.
I just kind of, you know, I don't know, just like from a fan
perspective, like new fans coming in with these kind of
things, it's like getting not quite the right idea about what
(30:21):
the sport actually is. I don't know it's.
Just and I don't, I don't think that's the thing about that.
It's a, it's a great observation, right?
Because you're right. Like I think about me and racing
cars, right until you start racing a car and you figure out
what a racing line is or that braking later makes you faster.
All you think is you put the gaspedal down, you turn the
(30:41):
steering wheel in that fun. Same thing is true of
basketball. You might think it's just
getting to the rack, but I thinkgetting into the sport is how
you get into the sport, right? Then as you are decided that
you're going to commit to learning it, there's a higher,
steeper learning curve where youmight be the kind of person that
goes, OK, red zone's no longer helping me.
(31:02):
But I also don't think that's necessarily a bad thing because
we got, you know, 2 decades of Red zone being active to show
all football has done is grown since it's a good thing.
And football junkies like myselfand newbies like it like it just
the same, which makes it a more or less perfect product because
it scales for everybody. And I think for kiddos, you're
(31:24):
you're going to go outside and play.
And as you go out inside and play, you get to learn, Oh,
there's much more nuance to this.
There's how do I take a snap? There's how do I spin to the
laces? There's how do I come out of
breaks? There's how many steps go into a
post route versus how many stepsgo into a go route and numbers
unlimited for the go route. And depending on what kind of a
post route you're running, it could be 7 and 9, it could be
(31:45):
14. Just depends on the depth of the
safeties. These are all things that are,
you know, technical that you're not going to pick up even from a
long football game. But that's just it, right?
Like you're how you get in is how you get in.
I tend to think, I tend to thinkthat we're going to find more
people receptive to this idea than not.
(32:08):
But the one thing that I would really be interested to see is
who gets to make it. Because the NFL has done a
really good job of making red zone.
And I don't know that you want to take that same team and make
them make college football red zone, but you would like to make
something like it if you were smart.
Because, Kate, ESPN spent $7.6 billion on the rights to the
(32:30):
College Football Playoff for sixyears.
It is in their interest to try to squeeze every single dime
they can out of that deal that they're paying out.
Because then Texas Tech gets to pay people even more money.
Question mark, take a short break, but I wanted to talk
about the money that Texas Tech has invested not just into its
(32:52):
football program but into its athletic program and what it
really does mean to say we want to win championships and we will
pay whatever we got to pay to doit.
(33:24):
Back on Adapt and respond with me, RJ Young.
If you are new to the channel, go ahead and hit that subscribe
button like this video and answer the question in the
comments below. Do you think Texas Tech is going
to get its money worth? Money's worth on the roughly $25
million it spent on its footballroster.
You can hear Kate laughing because it's just a.
It's a ridiculous number. It's also a great story by Sam
(33:45):
Khan, junior in the Athletic. You should go read it.
But before we start unpacking this bet online, who has
partnered with the show for the start of the college football
season. We're very excited about that.
They give high payouts. They pass, they, they, they pay
quickly and they're into a record-breaking wager.
So go visit them. If you are into placing a
(34:08):
friendly wager like 1 you might on Texas Tech.
They got over unders there. So the, the over under is -165
for Texas Tech winning more than8 1/2 games and plus 135 for
them to win fewer than 8 1/2 games.
So do you think they're going towin 9 or fewer than 9 or fewer
(34:29):
than eight? Yeah, fewer than 9.
You're 9/8 and 1/2. So what is it, 8 in the hook?
This fascinating me for a numberof reasons.
Number one. Number one is Texas Tech hasn't
won nine games in a single season since 2009.
So history says they're just an 8 win team when they're good,
and they were eight win team last year.
But because they have spent as much money as they have on
(34:51):
players to bring in the talent they need to go win, you might
feel this is the time to bet on them winning at a high level,
which I think is why you get the, you know, you got to place
165 to win 100 if they're going for 9 games.
But I'm going to go through thisreal quick.
And then I want to throw it to producer Kate because she she's
been looking at these numbers and has opinions.
(35:14):
So we got $55 million that the Red Raider Athletic department
NIL Collective has paid out in player compensation 20/25/2026
through 17 Sports $55 million. Thirty 5 million of that was
paid out before the House versusNCAA settlement that officially
took effect with revenue sharingwhere the conferences have to
(35:37):
not the conferences, schools have to take the money they make
from the conferences and pay outa sizable chunk of that.
At Texas Tech where you got to pay out about 20 and a half
million dollars, 15 of that is going to go to the football
team, so about 74%. And then 3 1/2 of that is going
to go toward we think your basketball team, your men's
(35:58):
basketball team, 2% to your women's basketball team, 1.9% to
your baseball team and the rest of Texas Tech's remaining
sports. But even that's kind of wonky
because Najeri Kennedy, who was pitcher last year for Texas Tech
softball team, made the college women's College World Series.
Well, I should say the softball College World Series for the
first time. They pay her $1,000,000.
(36:19):
So it's if you're a star, you'regetting paid.
We we really don't care about gender as long as we're winning.
And that's always going to be true.
Cody Campbell enters this conversation then Kate.
Now this is the part that I think is going to speak to the
college football of it all. Cody Campbell played offensive
line at Texas Tech, became a land man and then built an oil
(36:39):
company. He since sold that oil company
with his partner for more than $4 billion, and one of the first
things he said was Texas Tech football's about to get a lot
better. That is how powerful it is for
some of us to have a winner on the field.
And because people don't look atspending money on player
(37:01):
compensation and football as an investment, they they think of
it as this is my amusement, thisis my entertainment.
There's there's no bottom to this pit.
Like SMU got really good. Imagine being able to forgo
making $30 million for about 3 years because you just want to
take the step up. A lot of people can't do that,
(37:22):
but Southern Methodist could because they got billionaires as
boosters who are going to make them whole because they would
much rather see Southern Methodist play in the ACC than
the American because they know what it can mean for their
profile. And it worked.
They were very good last year. They made the College Football
Playoff before teams like Wisconsin, USC, other blue
bloods. That's the gamble here.
(37:42):
It is. If I got the money, why not
spend it? So Cody Campbell goes to the
athletic department, goes to JoeMcGuire, the head coach, says,
what do you need? And they went out and bought it.
So now that they're giving this context like, what are you
thinking? Well, I'm thinking they better
win or they, you know. Yeah, somebody's like.
(38:05):
Give me my $25 million back. Sorry, no receipt, no, no
refunds. It's just gone now.
No, it's, it's interesting like these big public like, Oh yeah,
I'm going to spend, you know, they're going to get a lot
better now. It's like, but if you don't,
there's that they, they should, they should get better.
I mean, they've invested and they're, they've recruited
(38:27):
players that can, you know, helpthem and they they should.
But it's just like, Oh my gosh, guys.
It's so much money and it's it'sso much money for a school like
Texas. Tech.
You know, Texas Tech is on Mars.I knew this because I drove
there and I was scared of my mind because I'm going, why is
(38:49):
everything just desert red? What happens if I catch a flat
out here? That sort of stuff, it's way
over there, right? You got to want it to get to
Lubbock. But once you get there, it's
cool. And you know what?
They've also spent a lot of money around the program, like
they got a $242 million footballfacility they just opened.
They just opened it. They want to win.
And one of the ways you win is you have better facilities and
(39:12):
better living places and pay people.
More people will come to you to play is the idea here.
But are they Ohio State, who spent, you know, $20 million on
their roster last year, won the national championship?
No, because Ohio State was already moving in this
direction. I talked to Cardell Jones for a
piece as he runs one of the NIL collectives at Ohio State, won a
(39:36):
national championships quarterback at Ohio State.
And he said he talked to an economics professor at Ohio
State to ask what the economic impact of an Ohio State home
football game was in Columbus and across the state.
And they said they did across the state first because they
thought it would be more beneficial, you know, Grant
University. And he said it, each Ohio State
(39:57):
home game is worth a billion dollars in economic impact
across the state and you get at least 6 every year.
And if you are good, we're talking about that billion
dollars being the base level. That's how important football is
at that level. So you can understand the
investment that they might want to put into it because it
expands out. Another example of this would be
the ACT score that went up with Nick Saban being head coach to
(40:19):
Alabama when your football team went at a high level.
Better students and more importantly, students that can
afford to pay will come to you, right?
So do you need to win? Absolutely, positively.
But I don't know if they won eight games this year.
I don't know that they're going to fire Joe and McGuire, their
(40:41):
head coach. He's beloved.
He's a great coach. I really love him.
But it would be clear that they did not get the return on
investment that they wanted because we've been very clear
about we want to win the championship.
Like Kate last year, the team that was picked to finish dead
damn last in the Big 12 won the Big 12 Championship.
Yeah. And it was so embarrassing.
(41:01):
And so setting back they think for the league that they blamed
us, the media, because it was a media poll.
And they're going, we don't think that helped us for wait,
you guys set out a poll asset tofill it out.
And they said, yeah, we need to do that this year.
So it's our fault that Arizona State turned out to be good at a
time when everybody can quite literally change their roster
year to year. No, we're not saying it's your
(41:22):
fault. We're saying that why would we
give ourselves this opportunity to have this bad publicity?
Like, well, man, look, news is reporting what other people
don't want to hear about, right?Like, that's part of it.
But I think you're on to you better win.
I also think with the revenue sharing, we're going to see more
money paid out. But this is getting to the
(41:42):
quagmire that is college sports right now.
The creation of the College Sports Commission, a real thing
that just came online that's probably going to supersede the
NCAA because shocker, Kate, people are cheating.
Oh, what people would do that? They would.
They would cheat. They would lie.
(42:04):
My favorite is coaches. Can't they?
They hate tampering and poachingso.
I thought that they had put in some sort of like the the
players can't like I thought that there was something that
players can't switch though veryfrequently and they can't.
So there was this, so 2018, we put in a thing called the
(42:27):
transfer portal, which allowed for players to enter their name
into what is a glorified spreadsheet and say, hey, I'm
leaving this school and I'm leaving in good standing.
If you would like me to come play for your school, reach out.
And then that, that was fine, right?
That's work. That's OK, But you still had to
sit out a year if you want to transfer within the division.
(42:48):
So all the 136 is in the FBS. If you want to transfer to
another team in the FBS, you hadto sit out.
And then we did away with this rule and it's immediate
eligibility, which means that you can transfer every single
year if you want to, which has led to a unprecedented turnover
at that level. And people hate it.
(43:11):
A, they need me to tell them who's on their football team,
but, B, they don't think that loyalty means anything.
I'm going, hey, man, coaches leave all the time.
Coaches get fired all the time. They take better jobs all the
time. They're also getting paid.
So why are you mad about this? But now that the players are
getting paid, they're going, OK,we need to have some sort of
collective bargaining agreement that bakes it blanket, you know,
(43:33):
this is the punishment for transferring within this time
frame. And I go to have a collective
bargaining agreement, you need alabor union I.
Was going to say you need a union.
Guess what we ain't got? And good luck having a union
with any teeth with a labor force that changes literally
every four years. Yeah, yeah, I know.
So I I'm not in favor of ACBA atall because I don't think, you
(43:55):
know, it's basically going to beeverybody telling the kids what
to do again. Yeah, Yeah.
Even as they're getting paid this money.
And what's loyalty now? The loyalty part of this is, I
think more interesting than anything else because unlike say
the NFL, like I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan because I like to
make bad decisions. You go to school at the
(44:15):
University of Tulsa, You go to school at the University of
Oklahoma, You go to school at Oklahoma State.
You wear that for the rest of your life.
It's it becomes a part of you. It is family, it is blood.
So when things like I'm going topick on University of Tulsa,
Tulsa loses its friggin accreditation trying to devalue
(44:36):
my diploma, I catch an attitude,right?
Imagine that being your footballteam.
And I do because Tulsa sucks. God, dog, do we suck.
And you know what? Producer Kate pointed this out.
Football chops, man. Beat Notre Dame and.
I was like, I was like. RJ, 2010.
Yeah, when we were going over the the coaches thing, I was
(44:59):
like, oh, Notre Dame. Hey RJ, you remember when TU
beat Notre Dame? And it was the he like graduated
and. And he was, he was talking like
this was ancient history from the, you know, like the before
times or whatever. I'm like RJ, listen.
Well, hey, look, what are you talking about?
A lot has happened to your man in the last 15 years.
(45:20):
However, GJ Kinney, who said I thought to Texas State was
quarterback at TU also ran the ball 20 times in that game time
to Reese's quarterback at Notre Dame, who is the Cleveland
Browns off It's a coordinator. Just wild that TU beat Notre
Dame 2827. Now Notre Dame team was sorry
and a couple years ago we're playing.
A couple years later we're playing a national championship.
(45:41):
But I totally wiped that out. And.
I'm I really got to do some investigation here because
apparently I have just been absolutely destroyed by
basically the last eight years of TU football because.
I mean, it's not been great, so.You know, I, I guess, I guess we
could be some other school, but I don't know what other school
(46:03):
that might be. I just know the TU's got 4 Pro
Football Hall of Farmers, which is like four more than Clemson,
you know, have two first round draft picks in the last five
years. And we're getting our behind
handed to us by service academies, which is like, it's
like Bixby High School getting beat by a six by an 8 man team.
(46:25):
Just it's not supposed to happen.
It's not it's not supposed to happen.
And I, I, you know what? I was doing so good until that
moment. And I think before I absolutely
blow the gasket talking about TUfootball because I'm here,
everybody wants to hear about that.
We're going to wrap up the show.Producer Kate, thank you so much
for joining us. How?
(46:46):
Are you? Thanks for having me, for having
me you. Want to come back?
Sure. I mean, I'd love to come back.
Maybe, you know, I can actually have a what is the right word?
Another way of saying maybe college football coaches or
caddy and they wanna, you know, get together and like.
(47:09):
No, I like that would. Do no, I I know we're trying to
wrap up the show, but that was Iwas trying to figure out how do
I say that? Maybe like the college football
coaches get together, like, you know, you know, caddy teen girls
or something, They're like, we're going to vote for this
person's team and blah, blah, blah.
It's like I was trying to figureout we're going to.
Squeeze out those people over there, yeah.
(47:30):
Yeah, we're, you know what? I.
Mean girl em. 'Cause like, like I said, I'm
not saying that they're all likegoing to be biased, but it just
kind of, you know, it just feelslike that.
It's like we're going to get together and we're going to vote
on whose team is the prettiest or something.
I don't know. I I think they're a little too
self-serving to do that just yet, but give them give them
(47:50):
time. All right, that's going to do it
for this episode of adapt and respond.
If you like the longer show format you like the longer
shows. Let me know that in the comments
below. Otherwise we will see y'all on
the flip side have. A good one.
(48:22):
Music.
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