December 19, 2025 • 26 mins
(00:00:00) CFP Predictions, Saban vs G5s & Ohio coaching mess
(00:00:47) New Memphis OC?
(00:04:12) Ohio vs Coach Brian Smith
(00:08:43) Saban vs G5s
(00:11:25) CFP Predictions
The entire College Football Playoff bracket is broken down from start to finish, with predictions for every round and a projected national champion. The discussion includes why this year’s CFP feels wide open, how certain teams benefit from the bracket layout, and which matchups could quietly flip expectations.
The show also dives into Ohio firing head coach Brian Smith, separating rumor from fact and explaining what actually led to his dismissal. Memphis’ offensive coordinator hire is examined, along with how Group of Five programs are becoming more aggressive in competing with Power Four schools for coaching talent.
Nick Saban’s comments about removing Group of Five teams from the playoff spark a larger debate about access, money, competitive balance, and whether the CFP is drifting toward a super-league model.
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(00:00:47) New Memphis OC?
(00:04:12) Ohio vs Coach Brian Smith
(00:08:43) Saban vs G5s
(00:11:25) CFP Predictions
The entire College Football Playoff bracket is broken down from start to finish, with predictions for every round and a projected national champion. The discussion includes why this year’s CFP feels wide open, how certain teams benefit from the bracket layout, and which matchups could quietly flip expectations.
The show also dives into Ohio firing head coach Brian Smith, separating rumor from fact and explaining what actually led to his dismissal. Memphis’ offensive coordinator hire is examined, along with how Group of Five programs are becoming more aggressive in competing with Power Four schools for coaching talent.
Nick Saban’s comments about removing Group of Five teams from the playoff spark a larger debate about access, money, competitive balance, and whether the CFP is drifting toward a super-league model.
🍺 Become a member at BettingCFB.com!
----------
🌐 http://www.winningcureseverything.com | 🎙️ Subscribe to the podcast | 🕊️ @GaryWCE on X | 👕 Visit the webstore
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Who is going to advance through the CFP bracket. We're
not just talking first round, We're talking the entire bracket.
We got to discuss Ohio coach Brian Smith being fired
and the rumors that circulated him what actually happened. We're
gonna talk Nick Saban saying that G fives don't need
to be in the playoffs and Memphis is making a
(00:24):
higher for an offensive coordinator. It's football. I've been watching
it for forty years. Are you kidding me? You're listening
to Winning Cures Everything? Game Day, baby, Wake up or
get out. Here's your host, my confident young man, a
defirm appley, Gary Siegers. Welcome in Winning Cures Everything. It's
(00:50):
a college football podcast. I'm your host, Gary Siegers at
Gary WCE on all the different socials. Hopefully everybody is
having a wonderful, wonderful week thus far. It is the
week before Christmas. But the college football calendar never stops. Literally,
it never stops. There's always something going on. Ralph Russo
said on the latest episode of The Audible that he
(01:12):
has talked to a coach that said that they've already
got there their lineup in place for the transfer portal
once it actually opens. Yes, so even though the portal
doesn't open until January second, stuff is still being done
behind the scenes. We all know how this works. It's
like NBA free agency. Now, how could you get a
deal done at twelve oh one? And this was years
(01:35):
ago because now they do the free agency stuff at
like five in the afternoon or whatever it is. But uh,
but how could you get deals done that quickly? You can't,
not without going ahead and talking about stuff and whatnot.
So yeah, there's already players that have decided they're going
elsewhere and they will announce when the time is right,
all that good stuff. So some people go in and
(01:56):
put it on Twitter like I am going to be
entering the transfer portal on January second, and okay, there
you go. So that's the way that this thing rolls.
We'll start out with a little bit of news. Memphis
is making an offensive coordinator higher and you may be
wondering who cares about that? Get well, first off, Memphis
(02:17):
fans care. The second, Old Dominion fans are going to
care because it's Kevin Decker, the Old Dominion offensive coordinator
that had an absolutely stellar year. So the quarterback is transferring.
He is going to enter the portal, so he did
not play the bowl game, which was a good Old
(02:40):
Dominion win over South Florida. But yes, so the quarterback
is going to transfer somewhere. Will he follow his offensive coordinator?
Who knows? But Charles Huff saw a chance here and
they had. It's not fully done yet, but when Pete
Nokos reports it, I feel pretty good about it. But
(03:01):
the rumors circulating were that he was going to go
and replace Buster Faulkner at Georgia Tech. And that is
kind of surprising that Georgia Tech would lose out on
an OC to Memphis. So I guess either Memphis is
getting serious about football, really really serious, as in, we
are going to pay a quota. And now we'll tell
(03:22):
you that Charles Huff, the new coach, is making about
six hundred thousand dollars less than what Ryan Silverfield was making.
I think he was at like two point six or
maybe two point seven, and Huff is coming in at two.
So maybe you were taking some of that money and
giving it to a new offensive coordinator. That is that
(03:42):
is possible, But it is interesting when a G five
school beats out a P four school for a coordinator
higher just simply based on the fact that the p
fours have a lot more money. Now, Memphis does have
quite a bit of not community support, corporate support for
their football program, so I guess that would make sense.
(04:05):
But either way, good Higher for Memphis if in fact
it does come to fruition and it gets finalized and
all that good stuff. Ohio fired their head coach, Brian Smith.
He's been on leave for weeks at this point, and
you heard all the rumblings. Eighty went in, called off
(04:28):
a meeting that was going on, a coach's meeting, had
an interaction with Brian Smith. He was placed on leave,
and then you got the news yesterday I believe that
he had been fired or two days ago that he
had been fired, And of course everybody's wondering. There were
all the rumors about him and maybe a nursing student
(04:49):
or something along those lines, and there was nothing that
came out as far as he's in the middle of
a divorce as well. There's just a lot going on,
right so there were tons of rumors, nothing substantiated until
at first last night last night, which was Wednesday night,
(05:12):
we started getting rumblings that he had violated the alcohol
policy of the university that he had admitted to storing
alcohol in his desk in his office and at or
admitted to and these were stored in his personnel file.
He had admitted to having drinks with assistant coaches after games.
(05:39):
And if that was really something that you were going
to fire coaches over, there are going to be a
lot of coaches that get fired. I mean, that's not
there are high school coaches that do this, So it
seemed a little outlandish that that was actually going to
be the issue. Well, Brian Smith and his attorney disputed
(06:05):
the firing for a cause because he obviously he would
like to have his buyout, which is not huge. But still,
if you're getting fired, it may be a little while
before you can get some more work. You would probably
like the money that has owed you on your contract.
That makes sense. Well, the issue, it appears, is an
(06:28):
extramarital affair, which again there were tons of rumors that
were going around about him and a student at Ohio University,
so that is not crazy or anything whatever, but there
was and it depends on how the contract is written.
(06:52):
But the school president in the attorneys for the school
came back and basically told him, Yo, you admitted to
the extra marital affair. It is with a student, and
you were going to the hotel that is owned by
(07:13):
the university, so it was on campus. And at that point,
I don't know how you could really fight the four
cause thing because there is the chance that people saw it,
not the actual act, but you saw you potentially entering
a hotel with somebody that's not your wife, and it
(07:38):
could look bad on the university. So they decided, all right,
we're done here. I was a little shocked, but when
you really dive into it. The AD was hired in September.
The coach was hired late last year when Tim Alban
left to go take the Charlotte job. This is somebody
(08:01):
that had been on staff here for a long time.
It's it's messy, but the chances are that the AD
would have liked somebody else to have been in the
position in Ohio. I mean, they went eight and four, Like,
this was a good G five team this year. This
(08:21):
was a good MAC team. They were in contention for
the MAC. The whole thing just sucks, Like why do
we keep having these is years? Just keep it in
your pants, guys, like that's I mean, Cheryl Moore should
know this, Brent Smith should know this. What are we doing?
(08:42):
What are we doing? Nick Saban, he was quoted and
I won't give the full quotes, but basically he said
the G five's shouldn't be in the playoffs, that we
don't need James Madison against Oregon because we already know
what that's going to look like. And his solution was
(09:08):
just give them the money, because every CFP first rounder
gets four million dollars, Just give them the four million
dollars and instead give us a matchup like Notre Dame
in Oregon, which would not have been the matchup, but
still at this point, if Notre Dame had gotten the
eleventh slot, it would have been Notre Dame at Ole Miss,
(09:32):
so Tulane would have been playing at Oregon. You are
never going to get G fives out of the CFP
unless it has agreed upon that the G fives have
their own championship, and at that point, you're really just
breaking up FBS, so you're potentially just going to the
(09:53):
Super League. But if you're going to do that, they're
gonna want more money and the whole thing could get
it's our messy. It's already a disaster. He compared the
G five being in the playoff to having Triple A
teams in the Major League Baseball playoffs. We're talking apples
to oranges here. But everybody seems to be having this
(10:18):
issue and isn't one of the perks of being one
of the higher seeded teams to get to play easier competition,
Like would fans prefer to see Oregon in Notre Dame
or ole Miss and Notre Dame? Yes, would ol Miss
rather play a Notre Dame or would almost rather play
tu Lane or James Madison. So that's that's kind of
(10:42):
the way that this thing goes. It's if you're trying
to compare it to another bracket. The NCAA tournament is
a good You're wanting the higher seeds so that you
get to play easier competition so that you can advance
in the bracket. Ole Miss is probably going to get
to go to the Sugar Bowl, Oregon is probably going
to get to go to the Fiesta Bowl. And it's
not because it's bowl games. It's that they get too
(11:02):
advanced in the bracket. You get to play longer, you
get a shot at a National Championship. So if you're
going to do that, like I think those teams would
rather play G five teams. It's still a playoff game.
They're still high stakes. You still have to prepare. But
(11:23):
it is interesting to say the least. All Right, we're
gonna go through quickly. I have not given my prediction
on who is actually going to win the National Championship,
and I'm back and forth on it several different ways.
I feel like anybody could win it this year. So
I am gonna try and toss out some surprises. I
am gonna I may be a little biased on some
(11:44):
of this, but let's go ahead and see what we got.
Oregon and James Madison. I am going to take Oregon
to win the game. Surprise surprise, right. I don't think
anybody's got anything different other than maybe James Madison. Fans
like this is just a mismatch, especially when it comes
to a playoff game. Number nine seed Alabama against number
(12:06):
eight seed Oklahoma. I am going to take Alabama. I
think they are healed up as much as they can be.
But I mean the game against Georgia, they had eight
starters out for that game. For most of that game.
If not more starters. You had a lot of depth
pieces that were missing in that game, and it appears
(12:29):
that ninety percent of those are going to be back
for this game against Oklahoma. I understand it's on the road.
I understand it's tonight. I understand that Kaln de Worr
has not fared well. But I saw these two teams
play and without turnovers. I don't know that Oklahoma is
going to be able to move the ball a lot
(12:49):
on this Alabama defense. So with that said, I'm going
to take Alabama to win the game. I think they
will be the first road team to win a conference
or a college football playoff game. So Alabama goes on
to face Indiana. By the way, Oregon with their win,
would go on to face Texas Tech. Staying in the
first round, I'm taking ole Miss over two Lane. Yes,
(13:13):
Lane Kiffin is gone, the offensive staff is there, so
you're missing your play caller. But two Lane is really
bad against the pass and Ole Miss is really good
at throwing the football. So I'm going to take ole
Miss here. There's not a lot that needs to be
explained there. So they will go on two face Georgia again.
(13:35):
Miami at Texas A and M. That's the ten seed
against the seven seed. This one is at Kyle Field,
it's in College Station, it's eleven AM. I do think
that the eleven am kick is going to hurt the
home field advantage a little bit. And we've talked about
this with Big Noon Kick and some of those. Obviously,
(13:57):
it is a playoff game. Texas A and M fans
are going to be fired up for this. However, I'm
gonna go with the upset again. I will take Miami
to win this game. Carson Beck has been in spots
like this before. Yes, on the road, he is not
as good as he has been at home. But you
(14:19):
are talking about senior leadership. You're talking about somebody that's
been there before. And with Texas A and M, nobody
owned that roster has been in a situation like this.
They get to play at home. They do have the
better running game, but when it comes to athlete for athlete,
(14:42):
it's a pretty even matchup. And I've never seen Mike
Oko in a situation like this other than they had
to win the Texas game in order to make the
playoff or not make the playoffs, but to make the
SEC Championship game and they didn't look Notre Dame. They
(15:03):
caught at the exact right time. And even that game
it was on the road, but even that game came
down to a missed point after touchdown, and yeah, they
threw the ball down the field. But Notre Dame's defense
was a mess early in the season. So do I
think that they're going to be able to do some
(15:24):
things here? Yes? Do I think that Miami is a
better team than they have played for most of the season, also, yes,
So I think that Miami and also Miami has not
exactly played stellar competition either. But you know, I like
I like the dogs every now and then. So I'm
(15:45):
going to take Miami to win the game in Kyle Field,
and you will have Miami against Ohio State. All right,
So let's go back up to the top of the bracket,
Ore Agon in Texas Tech. Two really stingy defenses, one
offense that had some trouble throughout the season, and that
would be Texas Tech. Baron Morton, I believe the quarterback
(16:10):
battle is going to go to Dante More it's in Miami.
I don't think you're gonna have to worry a whole
lot about whether I do think the two defenses are
going to be awesome. But I also think that I
trust Oregon to be able to score and I don't
know that I trust Texas Tech too, So I will
take Oregon to win that game. Alabama in Indiana interesting matchup.
(16:32):
FanDuel already has the line out for that game. Indiana
would be favored by nine and a half over Oklahoma.
They would be favored by six and a half over Alabama.
I find that interesting considering the line in the Alabama
Oklahoma game. Regardless, I want to take Alabama here because
(16:54):
I think sometimes in the playoffs, this is the one
team that could have a an Ohio State kind of
thing if you would after the Michigan game last year,
you didn't exactly have a lot of people picking Ohio
State until you got to a point where you saw
them come out in just boat Race Tennessee early, and
at that point it was, Oh, they're geared in, They're
(17:16):
ready to go. I don't know if Alabama can do that,
but if there was a team in the playoff this
year that could do it, it would be this Alabama team.
They have weapons, they have a good defense, they have
everything that you need to make a run. Like that.
So with Indiana losing one of their key pieces on
(17:40):
the defensive line and the fact that Indiana has skated
by some competition. The Ohio State game, numerous chances for
Ohio State to win that game, Iowa, numerous chances for
Iowa to win that game. Oregon, Indiana played really really
well there. Penn State pence to any one play goes
(18:03):
the opposite direction, and Penn State wins that game over Indiana.
If Indiana had lost to Penn State but still won
the Big Ten, are we still talking about them the
same way? And I don't know if we are, But
the talent differential certainly goes towards Alabama. It has for
(18:23):
multiple teams this year that Indiana has beaten. But that's
a big stage. And in that situation, I mean, you
want to talk about a fun coaching matchup Kaylen to
Boord and Kurt Signetti. Yeah, but I will take Alabama.
I'll be the one that goes out on the limb.
And of course, this whole bracket goes coput if Alabama
loses to Oklahoma. But we'll see, we'll see what happens,
(18:48):
all right. So in the next round, we've got Oregon
and Alabama. All right, now we will stay in the
semi or the quarterfinals. Ole Miss against Georgia. This is
where I think not having Lane Kiffin comes into play
because Lane Kevin against Kirby Smart and Glenn Schuman was
a fun matchup. You want to talk about play calling
like out the Wazoo. That was a that was a game.
(19:13):
And I think at that point, Georgia is going to
be fired up. They're going to be ready. I'm sure
some of you have seen the clip that has gone
around of you know, early practices for the ECFP where
Kirby Smart is just absolutely dog cussing his offense, absolutely
eating them alive. And you can hear it all across
(19:37):
campus because he's miked up and he doesn't care. He
is dog cussing them. That's what Kirby Smart does. That's Georgia.
They will be fired up for this. I know they've
already played almost once, but I will take Georgia. I'll
take the team that is keeping or that has their coach.
How's that good Year Cotton Bowl and everybody has been
(20:02):
talking about, I have Texas A and M beat Miami.
Then you know Texas A and M basically with the
home game against Ohio State. First, Ohio State fans travel
regardless of where the game is, but Ohio State fans
already know that they're in the game, so they will
already have at least half of the tickets bought. That
(20:23):
won't be a problem Texas A and m I don't
think it's going to be there, because when we get
too early on stuff like this, it doesn't always come
to fruition. So Miami and Ohio State playing in Dallas
or Arlington, excuse me in Jerry world, That's what I'm
curious about. And that's at this point. I think Ohio
(20:47):
State is the play. I think they're going to be
fired up because of the Big Ten Championship game loss
and Miami. You know, playing Texas A and m is
one thing, but playing Ohio State is something entirely different.
I think Matt Patricia will be in his bag for
this one and he will be confusing. And don't get
me wrong, it's not like Mikelcho can't do this, but
(21:10):
I think he can confuse Carson Beck easier than Mike
Elko and his defense can. So I will take Ohio
State over Miami. So our semi final matchups Oregon and
Alabama playing in the Peach Bowl and Georgia and Ohio
State playing in the Verbo Fiesta Bowl feels like that
(21:34):
should be backwards. But at least Georgia won't be playing
Ohio State in Atlanta like they did a few years ago,
so that's certainly something. So Oregon and Alabama, I am
going to go with Oregon much better team. I think
Dan Lanning and company are healthier. Alabama will be healthier
(21:54):
as well, But I do feel like Oregon is just
a better overall team. If it were not for the
loss to Indiana, we could be talking about Oregon as
the number one seed, and in that case, I think
things would be a whole lot different. So Oregon's going
at it a different route than they did last year
when they were to the number one seed overall and
they got beat by Ohio State. But I will take
(22:18):
Oregon to make the National championship game. Georgia and Ohio State.
Everybody's been talking about Ohio State and how great this
defense has been all season and all this they've averaged
or nobody has scored more than seventeen points on them,
and et cetera, etc. And we'll talk about the fact
that Ohio State is beaten what three or four straight
(22:41):
SEC teams. I think Georgia is peaking at the right time.
I don't think it's necessarily the offense that's going to
do it. I think the defense is lights out. And
when you are going with a quarterback that, yeah, this
was his first year starting, but he's a little bit older.
(23:02):
He's not Stetson by any stretch of the imagination. But
Gunner Stockton is a pretty good quarterback, and Julian saying
when he has faced tougher defenses, it has not been great.
He's not overwhelming by any stretch of the imagination. And
if you have trouble with Indiana, I certainly think you're
going to have trouble with Georgia. So I will take
(23:23):
Georgia to beat Ohio State. So we will have a
rematch of Dan Lanning's first game as head coach with
Georgia and Oregon facing off in hard Rock Stadium in
Miami for the National Championship, which is interesting to say
(23:47):
the least. And it's right here that I really get
to like, I can't figure out who I would think
is going to be the better team. I think I'm
gonna be a bit contrarian, but I'm gonna take Oregon
to win their first national championship. I trust that Oregon team,
(24:15):
and you've got coaches that are leaving. Obviously, both coordinators
are gonna be gone, and I don't know that that's
going to be as big of a distraction as you
might think with tosh Lapoi and will Stein right, both
of them leaving for the cow and Kentucky jobs. But
(24:38):
I do think Oregon has a real chance to go
on a run here do some really big things. And
they've done kind of the same thing that Georgia did,
where yeah, you brought in some transfer pieces, but for
the most part of this roster was built through high
school recruiting and Dan Lanning and Kirby Smart. Of course,
(24:59):
Landing used to be Herby Smart, Stephen's coordinator. They're both ferocious.
So if I think it's going to be a coin
flip game, I'll go with the team that I think
has the better quarterback, and I think that's Dante Moore.
So you're national champion for the twenty twenty five College
Football Playoff, I believe will be the Oregon Ducks. So
(25:21):
I've got some fun knockouts here. If the number one
seed gets knocked out in the Rose Bowl for the
second short year, I have a feeling that teams are
not going to want to be that number one seed
in the Rose Bowl. So we'll see. But we've already
seen it once. We might as well, so I'm trying
(25:43):
to be a little different, trying to go with some fun,
not pick favorites, all that good stuff. I do think
it is. It is going to be a lot of fun.
Who knows what to expect because we have got a crazy,
crazy college football playoff coming up. All right. With that said,
let's go on to get out of here. You guys
are fantastic. Don't forget to check out buy me a
(26:04):
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(26:25):
care of each other. God bless college football and Hopefully
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store
Who is going to advance through the CFP bracket. We're
not just talking first round, We're talking the entire bracket.
We got to discuss Ohio coach Brian Smith being fired
and the rumors that circulated him what actually happened. We're
gonna talk Nick Saban saying that G fives don't need
to be in the playoffs and Memphis is making a
(00:24):
higher for an offensive coordinator. It's football. I've been watching
it for forty years. Are you kidding me? You're listening
to Winning Cures Everything? Game Day, baby, Wake up or
get out. Here's your host, my confident young man, a
defirm appley, Gary Siegers. Welcome in Winning Cures Everything. It's
(00:50):
a college football podcast. I'm your host, Gary Siegers at
Gary WCE on all the different socials. Hopefully everybody is
having a wonderful, wonderful week thus far. It is the
week before Christmas. But the college football calendar never stops. Literally,
it never stops. There's always something going on. Ralph Russo
said on the latest episode of The Audible that he
(01:12):
has talked to a coach that said that they've already
got there their lineup in place for the transfer portal
once it actually opens. Yes, so even though the portal
doesn't open until January second, stuff is still being done
behind the scenes. We all know how this works. It's
like NBA free agency. Now, how could you get a
deal done at twelve oh one? And this was years
(01:35):
ago because now they do the free agency stuff at
like five in the afternoon or whatever it is. But uh,
but how could you get deals done that quickly? You can't,
not without going ahead and talking about stuff and whatnot.
So yeah, there's already players that have decided they're going
elsewhere and they will announce when the time is right,
all that good stuff. So some people go in and
(01:56):
put it on Twitter like I am going to be
entering the transfer portal on January second, and okay, there
you go. So that's the way that this thing rolls.
We'll start out with a little bit of news. Memphis
is making an offensive coordinator higher and you may be
wondering who cares about that? Get well, first off, Memphis
(02:17):
fans care. The second, Old Dominion fans are going to
care because it's Kevin Decker, the Old Dominion offensive coordinator
that had an absolutely stellar year. So the quarterback is transferring.
He is going to enter the portal, so he did
not play the bowl game, which was a good Old
(02:40):
Dominion win over South Florida. But yes, so the quarterback
is going to transfer somewhere. Will he follow his offensive coordinator?
Who knows? But Charles Huff saw a chance here and
they had. It's not fully done yet, but when Pete
Nokos reports it, I feel pretty good about it. But
(03:01):
the rumors circulating were that he was going to go
and replace Buster Faulkner at Georgia Tech. And that is
kind of surprising that Georgia Tech would lose out on
an OC to Memphis. So I guess either Memphis is
getting serious about football, really really serious, as in, we
are going to pay a quota. And now we'll tell
(03:22):
you that Charles Huff, the new coach, is making about
six hundred thousand dollars less than what Ryan Silverfield was making.
I think he was at like two point six or
maybe two point seven, and Huff is coming in at two.
So maybe you were taking some of that money and
giving it to a new offensive coordinator. That is that
(03:42):
is possible, But it is interesting when a G five
school beats out a P four school for a coordinator
higher just simply based on the fact that the p
fours have a lot more money. Now, Memphis does have
quite a bit of not community support, corporate support for
their football program, so I guess that would make sense.
(04:05):
But either way, good Higher for Memphis if in fact
it does come to fruition and it gets finalized and
all that good stuff. Ohio fired their head coach, Brian Smith.
He's been on leave for weeks at this point, and
you heard all the rumblings. Eighty went in, called off
(04:28):
a meeting that was going on, a coach's meeting, had
an interaction with Brian Smith. He was placed on leave,
and then you got the news yesterday I believe that
he had been fired or two days ago that he
had been fired, And of course everybody's wondering. There were
all the rumors about him and maybe a nursing student
(04:49):
or something along those lines, and there was nothing that
came out as far as he's in the middle of
a divorce as well. There's just a lot going on,
right so there were tons of rumors, nothing substantiated until
at first last night last night, which was Wednesday night,
(05:12):
we started getting rumblings that he had violated the alcohol
policy of the university that he had admitted to storing
alcohol in his desk in his office and at or
admitted to and these were stored in his personnel file.
He had admitted to having drinks with assistant coaches after games.
(05:39):
And if that was really something that you were going
to fire coaches over, there are going to be a
lot of coaches that get fired. I mean, that's not
there are high school coaches that do this, So it
seemed a little outlandish that that was actually going to
be the issue. Well, Brian Smith and his attorney disputed
(06:05):
the firing for a cause because he obviously he would
like to have his buyout, which is not huge. But still,
if you're getting fired, it may be a little while
before you can get some more work. You would probably
like the money that has owed you on your contract.
That makes sense. Well, the issue, it appears, is an
(06:28):
extramarital affair, which again there were tons of rumors that
were going around about him and a student at Ohio University,
so that is not crazy or anything whatever, but there
was and it depends on how the contract is written.
(06:52):
But the school president in the attorneys for the school
came back and basically told him, Yo, you admitted to
the extra marital affair. It is with a student, and
you were going to the hotel that is owned by
(07:13):
the university, so it was on campus. And at that point,
I don't know how you could really fight the four
cause thing because there is the chance that people saw it,
not the actual act, but you saw you potentially entering
a hotel with somebody that's not your wife, and it
(07:38):
could look bad on the university. So they decided, all right,
we're done here. I was a little shocked, but when
you really dive into it. The AD was hired in September.
The coach was hired late last year when Tim Alban
left to go take the Charlotte job. This is somebody
(08:01):
that had been on staff here for a long time.
It's it's messy, but the chances are that the AD
would have liked somebody else to have been in the
position in Ohio. I mean, they went eight and four, Like,
this was a good G five team this year. This
(08:21):
was a good MAC team. They were in contention for
the MAC. The whole thing just sucks, Like why do
we keep having these is years? Just keep it in
your pants, guys, like that's I mean, Cheryl Moore should
know this, Brent Smith should know this. What are we doing?
(08:42):
What are we doing? Nick Saban, he was quoted and
I won't give the full quotes, but basically he said
the G five's shouldn't be in the playoffs, that we
don't need James Madison against Oregon because we already know
what that's going to look like. And his solution was
(09:08):
just give them the money, because every CFP first rounder
gets four million dollars, Just give them the four million
dollars and instead give us a matchup like Notre Dame
in Oregon, which would not have been the matchup, but
still at this point, if Notre Dame had gotten the
eleventh slot, it would have been Notre Dame at Ole Miss,
(09:32):
so Tulane would have been playing at Oregon. You are
never going to get G fives out of the CFP
unless it has agreed upon that the G fives have
their own championship, and at that point, you're really just
breaking up FBS, so you're potentially just going to the
(09:53):
Super League. But if you're going to do that, they're
gonna want more money and the whole thing could get
it's our messy. It's already a disaster. He compared the
G five being in the playoff to having Triple A
teams in the Major League Baseball playoffs. We're talking apples
to oranges here. But everybody seems to be having this
(10:18):
issue and isn't one of the perks of being one
of the higher seeded teams to get to play easier competition,
Like would fans prefer to see Oregon in Notre Dame
or ole Miss and Notre Dame? Yes, would ol Miss
rather play a Notre Dame or would almost rather play
tu Lane or James Madison. So that's that's kind of
(10:42):
the way that this thing goes. It's if you're trying
to compare it to another bracket. The NCAA tournament is
a good You're wanting the higher seeds so that you
get to play easier competition so that you can advance
in the bracket. Ole Miss is probably going to get
to go to the Sugar Bowl, Oregon is probably going
to get to go to the Fiesta Bowl. And it's
not because it's bowl games. It's that they get too
(11:02):
advanced in the bracket. You get to play longer, you
get a shot at a National Championship. So if you're
going to do that, like I think those teams would
rather play G five teams. It's still a playoff game.
They're still high stakes. You still have to prepare. But
(11:23):
it is interesting to say the least. All Right, we're
gonna go through quickly. I have not given my prediction
on who is actually going to win the National Championship,
and I'm back and forth on it several different ways.
I feel like anybody could win it this year. So
I am gonna try and toss out some surprises. I
am gonna I may be a little biased on some
(11:44):
of this, but let's go ahead and see what we got.
Oregon and James Madison. I am going to take Oregon
to win the game. Surprise surprise, right. I don't think
anybody's got anything different other than maybe James Madison. Fans
like this is just a mismatch, especially when it comes
to a playoff game. Number nine seed Alabama against number
(12:06):
eight seed Oklahoma. I am going to take Alabama. I
think they are healed up as much as they can be.
But I mean the game against Georgia, they had eight
starters out for that game. For most of that game.
If not more starters. You had a lot of depth
pieces that were missing in that game, and it appears
(12:29):
that ninety percent of those are going to be back
for this game against Oklahoma. I understand it's on the road.
I understand it's tonight. I understand that Kaln de Worr
has not fared well. But I saw these two teams
play and without turnovers. I don't know that Oklahoma is
going to be able to move the ball a lot
(12:49):
on this Alabama defense. So with that said, I'm going
to take Alabama to win the game. I think they
will be the first road team to win a conference
or a college football playoff game. So Alabama goes on
to face Indiana. By the way, Oregon with their win,
would go on to face Texas Tech. Staying in the
first round, I'm taking ole Miss over two Lane. Yes,
(13:13):
Lane Kiffin is gone, the offensive staff is there, so
you're missing your play caller. But two Lane is really
bad against the pass and Ole Miss is really good
at throwing the football. So I'm going to take ole
Miss here. There's not a lot that needs to be
explained there. So they will go on two face Georgia again.
(13:35):
Miami at Texas A and M. That's the ten seed
against the seven seed. This one is at Kyle Field,
it's in College Station, it's eleven AM. I do think
that the eleven am kick is going to hurt the
home field advantage a little bit. And we've talked about
this with Big Noon Kick and some of those. Obviously,
(13:57):
it is a playoff game. Texas A and M fans
are going to be fired up for this. However, I'm
gonna go with the upset again. I will take Miami
to win this game. Carson Beck has been in spots
like this before. Yes, on the road, he is not
as good as he has been at home. But you
(14:19):
are talking about senior leadership. You're talking about somebody that's
been there before. And with Texas A and M, nobody
owned that roster has been in a situation like this.
They get to play at home. They do have the
better running game, but when it comes to athlete for athlete,
(14:42):
it's a pretty even matchup. And I've never seen Mike
Oko in a situation like this other than they had
to win the Texas game in order to make the
playoff or not make the playoffs, but to make the
SEC Championship game and they didn't look Notre Dame. They
(15:03):
caught at the exact right time. And even that game
it was on the road, but even that game came
down to a missed point after touchdown, and yeah, they
threw the ball down the field. But Notre Dame's defense
was a mess early in the season. So do I
think that they're going to be able to do some
(15:24):
things here? Yes? Do I think that Miami is a
better team than they have played for most of the season, also, yes,
So I think that Miami and also Miami has not
exactly played stellar competition either. But you know, I like
I like the dogs every now and then. So I'm
(15:45):
going to take Miami to win the game in Kyle Field,
and you will have Miami against Ohio State. All right,
So let's go back up to the top of the bracket,
Ore Agon in Texas Tech. Two really stingy defenses, one
offense that had some trouble throughout the season, and that
would be Texas Tech. Baron Morton, I believe the quarterback
(16:10):
battle is going to go to Dante More it's in Miami.
I don't think you're gonna have to worry a whole
lot about whether I do think the two defenses are
going to be awesome. But I also think that I
trust Oregon to be able to score and I don't
know that I trust Texas Tech too, So I will
take Oregon to win that game. Alabama in Indiana interesting matchup.
(16:32):
FanDuel already has the line out for that game. Indiana
would be favored by nine and a half over Oklahoma.
They would be favored by six and a half over Alabama.
I find that interesting considering the line in the Alabama
Oklahoma game. Regardless, I want to take Alabama here because
(16:54):
I think sometimes in the playoffs, this is the one
team that could have a an Ohio State kind of
thing if you would after the Michigan game last year,
you didn't exactly have a lot of people picking Ohio
State until you got to a point where you saw
them come out in just boat Race Tennessee early, and
at that point it was, Oh, they're geared in, They're
(17:16):
ready to go. I don't know if Alabama can do that,
but if there was a team in the playoff this
year that could do it, it would be this Alabama team.
They have weapons, they have a good defense, they have
everything that you need to make a run. Like that.
So with Indiana losing one of their key pieces on
(17:40):
the defensive line and the fact that Indiana has skated
by some competition. The Ohio State game, numerous chances for
Ohio State to win that game, Iowa, numerous chances for
Iowa to win that game. Oregon, Indiana played really really
well there. Penn State pence to any one play goes
(18:03):
the opposite direction, and Penn State wins that game over Indiana.
If Indiana had lost to Penn State but still won
the Big Ten, are we still talking about them the
same way? And I don't know if we are, But
the talent differential certainly goes towards Alabama. It has for
(18:23):
multiple teams this year that Indiana has beaten. But that's
a big stage. And in that situation, I mean, you
want to talk about a fun coaching matchup Kaylen to
Boord and Kurt Signetti. Yeah, but I will take Alabama.
I'll be the one that goes out on the limb.
And of course, this whole bracket goes coput if Alabama
loses to Oklahoma. But we'll see, we'll see what happens,
(18:48):
all right. So in the next round, we've got Oregon
and Alabama. All right, now we will stay in the
semi or the quarterfinals. Ole Miss against Georgia. This is
where I think not having Lane Kiffin comes into play
because Lane Kevin against Kirby Smart and Glenn Schuman was
a fun matchup. You want to talk about play calling
like out the Wazoo. That was a that was a game.
(19:13):
And I think at that point, Georgia is going to
be fired up. They're going to be ready. I'm sure
some of you have seen the clip that has gone
around of you know, early practices for the ECFP where
Kirby Smart is just absolutely dog cussing his offense, absolutely
eating them alive. And you can hear it all across
(19:37):
campus because he's miked up and he doesn't care. He
is dog cussing them. That's what Kirby Smart does. That's Georgia.
They will be fired up for this. I know they've
already played almost once, but I will take Georgia. I'll
take the team that is keeping or that has their coach.
How's that good Year Cotton Bowl and everybody has been
(20:02):
talking about, I have Texas A and M beat Miami.
Then you know Texas A and M basically with the
home game against Ohio State. First, Ohio State fans travel
regardless of where the game is, but Ohio State fans
already know that they're in the game, so they will
already have at least half of the tickets bought. That
(20:23):
won't be a problem Texas A and m I don't
think it's going to be there, because when we get
too early on stuff like this, it doesn't always come
to fruition. So Miami and Ohio State playing in Dallas
or Arlington, excuse me in Jerry world, That's what I'm
curious about. And that's at this point. I think Ohio
(20:47):
State is the play. I think they're going to be
fired up because of the Big Ten Championship game loss
and Miami. You know, playing Texas A and m is
one thing, but playing Ohio State is something entirely different.
I think Matt Patricia will be in his bag for
this one and he will be confusing. And don't get
me wrong, it's not like Mikelcho can't do this, but
(21:10):
I think he can confuse Carson Beck easier than Mike
Elko and his defense can. So I will take Ohio
State over Miami. So our semi final matchups Oregon and
Alabama playing in the Peach Bowl and Georgia and Ohio
State playing in the Verbo Fiesta Bowl feels like that
(21:34):
should be backwards. But at least Georgia won't be playing
Ohio State in Atlanta like they did a few years ago,
so that's certainly something. So Oregon and Alabama, I am
going to go with Oregon much better team. I think
Dan Lanning and company are healthier. Alabama will be healthier
(21:54):
as well, But I do feel like Oregon is just
a better overall team. If it were not for the
loss to Indiana, we could be talking about Oregon as
the number one seed, and in that case, I think
things would be a whole lot different. So Oregon's going
at it a different route than they did last year
when they were to the number one seed overall and
they got beat by Ohio State. But I will take
(22:18):
Oregon to make the National championship game. Georgia and Ohio State.
Everybody's been talking about Ohio State and how great this
defense has been all season and all this they've averaged
or nobody has scored more than seventeen points on them,
and et cetera, etc. And we'll talk about the fact
that Ohio State is beaten what three or four straight
(22:41):
SEC teams. I think Georgia is peaking at the right time.
I don't think it's necessarily the offense that's going to
do it. I think the defense is lights out. And
when you are going with a quarterback that, yeah, this
was his first year starting, but he's a little bit older.
(23:02):
He's not Stetson by any stretch of the imagination. But
Gunner Stockton is a pretty good quarterback, and Julian saying
when he has faced tougher defenses, it has not been great.
He's not overwhelming by any stretch of the imagination. And
if you have trouble with Indiana, I certainly think you're
going to have trouble with Georgia. So I will take
(23:23):
Georgia to beat Ohio State. So we will have a
rematch of Dan Lanning's first game as head coach with
Georgia and Oregon facing off in hard Rock Stadium in
Miami for the National Championship, which is interesting to say
(23:47):
the least. And it's right here that I really get
to like, I can't figure out who I would think
is going to be the better team. I think I'm
gonna be a bit contrarian, but I'm gonna take Oregon
to win their first national championship. I trust that Oregon team,
(24:15):
and you've got coaches that are leaving. Obviously, both coordinators
are gonna be gone, and I don't know that that's
going to be as big of a distraction as you
might think with tosh Lapoi and will Stein right, both
of them leaving for the cow and Kentucky jobs. But
(24:38):
I do think Oregon has a real chance to go
on a run here do some really big things. And
they've done kind of the same thing that Georgia did,
where yeah, you brought in some transfer pieces, but for
the most part of this roster was built through high
school recruiting and Dan Lanning and Kirby Smart. Of course,
(24:59):
Landing used to be Herby Smart, Stephen's coordinator. They're both ferocious.
So if I think it's going to be a coin
flip game, I'll go with the team that I think
has the better quarterback, and I think that's Dante Moore.
So you're national champion for the twenty twenty five College
Football Playoff, I believe will be the Oregon Ducks. So
(25:21):
I've got some fun knockouts here. If the number one
seed gets knocked out in the Rose Bowl for the
second short year, I have a feeling that teams are
not going to want to be that number one seed
in the Rose Bowl. So we'll see. But we've already
seen it once. We might as well, so I'm trying
(25:43):
to be a little different, trying to go with some fun,
not pick favorites, all that good stuff. I do think
it is. It is going to be a lot of fun.
Who knows what to expect because we have got a crazy,
crazy college football playoff coming up. All right. With that said,
let's go on to get out of here. You guys
are fantastic. Don't forget to check out buy me a
(26:04):
coffee dot com slash Winning Cures. Don't forget to subscribe
to the YouTube page as well, YouTube dot com slash
at Winning Cures, and follow me on social media at GARYWCEE.
With that said, oh, leave a nice five star review
if you're listening on the pot as well. I would
certainly appreciate that. But with that said, we're gonna go
in and get out here. Take care of yourself, take
(26:25):
care of each other. God bless college football and Hopefully
all of your tickets cash this week. Thanks for listening
to Winning Cures Everything, Subscribe, leave a review or comment,
Follow at GARYWCEE on x, and check out the web
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