The Class Play - College Football 25: Best Teams to Choose for Your Dynasty Mode

Parker Fleming, Quinn MacLean, and Sam Bruchhaus guide you through who the most interesting schools are to play with in Dynasty Mode of the new College Football 25 video game.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Welcome everybody to the Summer Sports Show. Super exciting show for you all.
Today we will be talking about collegefootball, and more specifically, we will
be talking about college football video games. Which dynasty should you pick to start
off when you get the game inyour hand in mid July. To answer
these questions, we brought two collegefootball experts at Summer Sports onto the show.

(00:27):
First at Stats of War, ParkerFliming, college football expert. How
do you doing, Parker, I'mdoing great, man, I'm really excited
for this episode and excited always totalk ball with you and Quinn. Yeah.
And also joining us again Quinn McLean, another great college football expert Oregon
fan. How you doing, Quinngreat? Thanks for having me on.
I'm excited to talk with you andParker. Yeah, and for all those

(00:50):
Quinn just got married and then he'scoming right back and joining us hot off
all the good feelings coming in freshready talk from college. So, guys,
what we want to bring to thepeople today is obviously, you know,
you have great storylines with a lotof cool college football teams. You
have a lot of excitement going intothe new college football game. You have

(01:12):
nil, you have recruiting, alot of cool things to do in that
game. But obviously us as analystsbring an interesting point of view because not
only are we trying to project howwell these teams succeed, we're also trying
to help the coaches and players dobetter on the field. And a great
way to proxy that out is bysimulating things. And so when you look

(01:34):
at something like a dynasty mode,it's really interesting to kind of pick out
which teams project out really well orwhich players project out really well, and
who will succeed in the year's coming. And so I think, to start
off, Parker, I'd love tohear who you would pick as the best

(01:55):
Power five school to rebuild in collegefootball twenty five. This is kind of
a fun question, Sam, becauseit really puts bones meat on the bones
of the question of like what's thebest job in college football? Like what
do you want to take? Andyou know, where would you like to
plug in? And so the waythat I'm trying to approach this is,
you know, who's kind of onthe verge of competing potentially has some of
those bones that you could build ona foundation and then try an innovative strategy.

(02:17):
And when basically we're saying where's theKansas job. Like plancepot light Bulb
comes over to Kansas and brings intalent and gets some significant results and they're
still building over there. So thinkingabout that, I think there's a couple
of interesting candidates that I'll start andI won't spam all of these initially,
but you want to look at someonewho you know, they really haven't had

(02:37):
football success, but they're in apower conference, they're in an interesting location,
and they have a clear path tosuccess. So the first two that
popped out, or the first threethat popped out of me were Arizona State,
Georgia Tech, and SMU, varyinglevels of new You know, SMU
just hopped into the Transfer well theyuse the transfer a portal ton a ton

(02:58):
They hopped into the conference Randal andthey're in the ACC now. Georgia Tech
been in the ACC for a while, kind of in Georgia's shadow. They've
got a quarterback at Haines King that'sinteresting for this year, but beyond they're
connected to a big metro of talent. The ACC is not ultra competitive like
some of these other Power five leagues, and Georgia Tech, you know,
has has resources. They've committed tospending there as well, and then Arizona

(03:19):
State would kind of be a truerebuild obviously with some of the violations that
they've had recently, but there's noreason they can't attract talent from Texas and
California. There's no reason they don'thave a path to compete in the future.
Big twelve. Not to mention theirstadium and location is very cool,
which definitely benefits my agenda as aas a program leader. Yeah, for
sure, I think those are somegreat ones. I think. Obviously news

(03:40):
coming out recently this week, SMUraised an immense amount of money to make
that move to the ACC and weknow that over the course of history they've
been able to recruit at a highlevel. Obviously, they have prest and
Stone returning at quarterback, a guywho I'm looking at as one of the
better quarterbacks probably in the country,if not in ACC. He was a

(04:01):
very highly touted recruit that they've beenable to lock down for several years.
SMU is definitely what I'm looking at, Quinn. I'm interested in some of
the programs that you are looking atas a team kind of bounce back and
thus a team that would be funto play in college football twenty five.
Yeah. So to add to Parker'scomment, the one I really like is
Arizona State, given the you know, young coach, his ability to kind

(04:24):
of relate to players, and he'sfrom the area, which I think is
helpful. He went to Chaperra HighSchool as a coordinator, went over to
Oregon as offensive coordinator, went backto Arizona State as a head coach now
and Kenny Dillingham. But the twoprograms that I kind of listed out as
ones that I think are on theon the climb here in my criteria was
like good incoming recruiting production under fivehundred, currently trending upwards with good returning

(04:47):
talent. So those were kind ofthe parameters I put in place when looking
at a few different programs. Thefirst one's Auburn, and so Auburn with
the new coaching staff and Hugh Freeze, he's if you look at some of
the twenty twenty three, twenty twentyfour, in twenty twenty five recruiting classes,
those are all three top twenty fiverecruiting classes, and some of those
are starting to be on the ridesto get significant playing time into this upcoming

(05:09):
year, and if you look atBill Connolly's like, you know, sp
plus metric and he did a kindof a review of it after the post
spring game and practices. He hasAuburn kind of in that thirty first slate
going into the twenty twenty four season, and they're bringing back seventy six percent
of the roster production from this year. So if I look at like rosters
that I can win over the nextfew years, first time to look at

(05:29):
who's bringing back the most production andwho's bringing back the kind of depth in
terms of talent, and Auburn checksboth the boxes there, and they also
had a lot they've been kind ofattacking the transfer portal. They had twenty
guys in coming, twenty one guysout going, so a huge flipover in
the roster from their six and seventhseason, and I think could be,
you know, pretty crazy in thenext few years. They're bringing Jayres Shorter

(05:51):
from North Texas who's had good productionat North Texas the past few years.
Caleb Burton, who's kind of stuckbehind the wide receiver depth chart Ohouse State,
could have a breakout at Auburn.So I'm pretty excited about what they're
kind of bringing from transfer the recruitingprocess in some returning production. I feel
like that three cogs of those wheelscould be a pretty pointan Auburn team for
the next coming season. The onesa little bit of a wild card for

(06:14):
me is Michigan State. They werefour and eight last year, but they're
bringing in Jonathan Smith, who hasability to kind of develop talent with scarcity
in terms of recruiting resources. He'shad a really good offensive line at Oregon
State. The one I'm very excitedabout is Aiden Chiles, who me living
in the Oregon area. He's highlytouted quarterback, kind of that quarterback and

(06:35):
waiting. I'm not going to relatehim to Marcus Mariotta, but we get
similar vibes in terms of like himin terms of the depth chart kind of
breaking out this year, so I'mexcited to see him and Jack Felling,
who I think is probably one ofthose tight ends that gets underlooked at coming
into this season, given that hewas second team All Pack twelve this last
year. I think he could beused highly in that Michigan State offense and

(06:56):
be pretty easy for a first timequarterback to bounce out. They are the
one thing that gives me kind ofan underrating is like they are very young
offense. Bill Connolly has them onehundred and twenty five in the offensive sp
plus into this, but they're thirtiethin defense. So if you think about
that Michigan State returning most of theirdefense and stuff, and you add in
Brian Lingram, who's like a reallygood offensive coordinator. He's been a you

(07:17):
know, twice Bros. Winner,I think they could do some damage.
And I think why I chose themtoo is given that Michigan has a lot
of turnover in terms of their rosterand coaching staff. If Michigan State gets
an early win against Michigan, Ithink that could have them on the rise
in terms of recruiting for future years. So those are my two teams that
I think are kind of on theup and up that I would target to

(07:40):
build a dynasty around. I lovethat Quinn I kind of had a couple
of parallels there where, you know, I feel like Auburn is kind of
ascendant. Arkansas has been, youknow, maybe on a downward slide a
little bit, and so the questionof can I take over and build something
here. Same with Mississippi State,for instance, I think really hard path.
And I don't know about you guys, but I'm never one to set
the difficulty to you know, freshmenand and just go twelve and oh every

(08:01):
year, Like I want to playhard. I want a difficult I want
to lose games, like I wantto lose recruits. I want to build
the system up. And so anSEC team absolutely gives you that very very
difficult path, kind of similar toMichigan State, where you know your rivals
had success and there's an opportunity tobuild though with some turnover. You look
at you know, UCLA, they'rethey're in access to more talent than basically

(08:22):
anybody outside of Texas and Florida,right, haven't really built a culture of
football, So there's gonna be buyin that you have to do really there
to get work with the boosters andthe fans to build up. But your
rival across town USC just you know, lost a generational first round to quarterback
and have some questions on the defensiveside coming in a new conference. I
think that's also one where you're gonnahave a harder path at UCLA, But

(08:43):
they're really interesting to kind of buildup as well. If you're into that
tier of teams that have never youknow, in the modern era, I
haven't really gotten to that successful playoffrun. Could you build them up?
I think that's an interesting one aswell. Yeah, and Parker UCLA obviously
historically coming from the tradition of JohnWood, and you had to throw a
modern era, had to throw inthere before I said anything crazy. Yeah,

(09:05):
yeah, And historically they're a greatbasketball program, you know, and
have been through the ages, evento the days of like Hamie Hakes and
some of the recent moves that theymade. And that's always been something that
I'd been excited to do in NCAAfootball games, which has been like build
up these programs that have great basketballteams and build their football program up in
tandem. And so that's why Iwas looking at Syracuse and so similar to

(09:28):
Quinn, I had a pretty similarcriteria. You know, a legacy conference
member, someone who's been in aPower five conference for a while had to
have lower than a five hundred recordlast year. Another one that I also
added on top of twins was thatthey can't have a crazy good player that
was already on the team. Sothat's kind of what xd out Georgia Tech
for me is like I thought HainesKing was a very very good player,

(09:50):
and thus I could you could kindof the logic is you can you can
jump Syracuse is very interesting. They'resitting right at about seven and a half
on their preseason win total according tothe Vegas Odds. When I looked at
some things, like you know,they have not the highest strength of schedule
in the ACC. What I reallyhoned in on though, and why I

(10:11):
think they'll be really fun to playin, you know, the year season
twenty twenty four game twenty five year. I've always been confused about that of
why it's like not you know,college Football twenty four and Madden twenty four
but not gonna not gonna test ittoo far? Is is their transfer class?
Obviously fran Brown coming in as thenew head coach. He was the

(10:33):
number one recruiter in the nation whenwhile he was at Georgia. He comes
from kind of a Matt Rule Treeas well, was the assistant head coach
at Baylor during his time there whenthey had the big years under Rule.
And they're bringing in Kyle McCord,who is an interesting character you know in
Ohio State and pinned big ten Lorenow given he kind of transferred away from

(10:56):
a program that was going to bein title contention every single year. He's
throwing Marvin Harrison Junior. He waseighth in ESPN's QBR. ESPN's QBR is
adjusted for you know, quality ofdefense and strength of schedule. So he's
obviously a pretty good quarterback at thecollege level. Obviously yet to be seen
if that if he's like an NFLtype talent, but we'll see if that

(11:18):
can transfer over. And there's alsoa lot of other transfer talent coming in
Bedel Diggs certified starter at A andM at the D line position. I
think he's going to be a bigimpact player in the ACC. Looking at
some younger transferred z Haynes coming fromGeorgia, certified four star, a guy
who's moving closer to home. It'sgonna be interesting to see how kind of

(11:41):
that full transfer portal stuff comes together. And also fran Brown obviously being able
to recruit well. There's rumors thatthere will be like coach badges around recruiting.
I would expect fran Brown to haveone of those, you know,
certified recruiter badges. It'll be interestingto see how those kind of play in
the game. Just more generally,looking at Syracuse, I think they're a

(12:03):
really good team to go with.And then the other one, talking about
Matt Rule. I couldn't keep itoff my board. You know, you
go into a program that you knowis good. There's Nebraska fans all over
the country. If you're even remotelya Nebraska fan and thinking about old times,
I think this is probably the yearto play out the dynasty in college

(12:24):
football. I think this is probablytheir threshold year into becoming a power in
that you know, Big ten WestView, and name of the game is
their certified five star quarterback Dylan Reyola. His dad won the Remington Award at
Nebraska. He's a Nebraska legacy.And now all indications, at least latest
step charts that I've looked at,have shown that he's looking to come in

(12:46):
as a powerhouse freshman, make thedifference for Matt Rule, and turn that
program back into the black Shirt Nebraska'sthat we that we know and love.
What are y'all's thoughts about that?Guys? My only knock on Syracuse is
that Sam it's very cold and thereare no mountains, and that just doesn't
really doesn't appeal to me. Ijust can't buy into a job where it's
you know, that's that's the realitythere. But yeah, I think Syracuse

(13:09):
is interesting in that same tier.I mean, it's basically whatever you know,
acc team that you feel like isconnected and and hasn't really ascended to
that next plane. Maryland, forinstance, is one. Mike Loxley's done
a fine job there kind of youknow, rehabing, building some talent.
But the DMV has just an immenseamount of talent up there, and you
could really, you know, getget hardcore into recruiting and say hey,

(13:31):
we're going to keep these kids hereand really build up a powerhouse. That's
an interesting team building problem. Sothat's one that I think would be really
interesting as well for me. IsMaryland in the same day of Syracuse says
a little bit odd, kind ofoff the beaten path, but access to
talent and a lot of energy.That's that's a really fun place, I
think. Right, So, Quinn, you're a big Oregon fan. Oregon
moving into the Big ten, isNebraska becoming your rival? Now? I

(13:54):
was just looking at them. Iwas like, in terms of an updet
upset special and given to the nextyear. They're that team because if you
look at their twenty twenty three schedule, they lost a good amount of games
by one score or less, youknow, right, And if they have
you would think a prime quarterback inthat position they could turn those losses into
wins. So who knows, youknow, I don't. They could be

(14:16):
and I've definitely been to an OregonNebraska game in the past and it would
be cool to have them back onthe schedule. Awesome, guys, thanks
for the great insights there. Soa couple great names just summarize for the
folks listening at home. We haveteams like Arizona State, Georgia Tech,
SMU, Nebraska, Syracuse, Auburnobviously a very interesting one, the SEC,

(14:37):
Michigan State. Look out for thosenames when you first jump into the
game, especially if you don't havea college football team as some really interesting
problems, some really interesting projects,but are in a place to succeed very
quickly if that's your mo in thisgame. So moving on to one of
my favorite things, obviously coming havingplayed at the G five level, is

(15:00):
what the best G five schools areto try to make a title push.
Obviously, the new playoff infrastructure isthere, You're gonna get a buy and
bid. You're probably gonna go intosomebody else's house and have to play then
move to the bigger bowl game andso forth and so on to win that
national title. Quinn, what areyour thoughts on a G five team that
can make some noise? Yeah,So establishing my criteria for a team here

(15:24):
is like they've got to be ina primer recruiting location and have shown an
ability to get talent. So thefirst one I looked at here with San
Diego State, and the reason whyis they've been kind of as a target
for a few years to join thePac twelve, rip the Pac twelve,
but they chose to stay in theMountain West, and I think, you
know, if they weren't able toget a couple of wins, and they
actually this offseason got a j Duffyto transfer Florida State, where they could

(15:48):
be putting together a potent season.They're in a prime recruiting area that has
shown an ability for other outside schoolsto come in and recruit properly in that
area. You know, for along time, you and UCLA had a
kind of a strong hold on thesouthern California football area, and if San
Diego State is kind of this potentnumber three school, if you will,
I think they could split talent andstart to get some good recruiting classes together.

(16:11):
Add to that that they just builda brand new stadium that has shown
the ability to get recruiting talent andpeople to kind of pay for a new
stadium for people to play at.That's kind of my first school I think
would I would start with if Iwas in the video game with San Diego
State given the area. The secondone might be a surprise is Texas State.
They came off an eight and fiveseason this last year. One thing

(16:33):
that's surprising when you look at TexasState, they're actually one of the top
schools or top five, top tenschools in terms of using the transfer portal.
So they have shown an ability toget people to come down from that
P four level to play competitively attheir school. And since they're in the
Texas area, I think they could, with a few different schools, convince
the guys to stay home and playfor them. So those kind of fit

(16:56):
into my two prede career, andI was actually looking at our lads earlier
with Texas State. One thing.If you look at their entire one deep
roster of all the starters, everysingle one of them is a transfer,
so they can convince guys to comehome and play for them, and you
basically have the come play Texas footballand not get stuck in the depth chart.
So those will be the two onesthat I would start out with.
Yeah, I think North Texas isalong those lines with Texas State again,

(17:18):
access to the center, Like Ialmost think of that of this one as
like teams that should be better thanthey are necessarily, and I know that's
simplifying the problem of team building.But Texas staatea. You know, they
got a nice stadium, they gota decent campus. Denton is actually really
cool, and you know, Ithink they could make a push to keep
some of that DFW talent up therein the third city of the Metroplex,
if you will. It's being alittle generous there to Denton. But I

(17:41):
think there's a lot of opportunity thereas well. And yeah, I think
for me, this is kind oflike a bicameral question, Like there's two
ways to think about it here.One is, all right, let's get
Boise Memphis to laying over the humpand in a Power conference? Is that
the route I want to go?And then you pick one of those.
I think Memphis could be really funbecause it feels like they've kind of been

(18:02):
lost in the shuffle. They've hadsome basketball success, they've had some football
success, made the Cotton Bowl acouple of years ago, and kind of
getting them to a place. Youknow, they're already building their recruitings getting
better year of a year. Couldyou get Memphis over the hump and into
a power conference and then become aplayoff contender. That's a really interesting path
to me. The other one islet's start at the very bottom. Kennesaw
State installed the pistol last year,building up the playbook. Recruiting is wide

(18:25):
open. They have to build onthe trenches. That is, starting from
zero. And could I either buildthem up for a couple of years and
then hop to a better job andtry to, you know, get a
P five job, or could Itake Kent State from zero to hero Kennesaw
State? Excuse me, Kent Statewould also be hard, but Kinnesaw State
there being in you know, beingin Georgia again, having access to some
of that talent, having a freshlead to start up. Nothing in college

(18:45):
football was more fun than James Madisoncoming out and in their first year when
they couldn't compete for a bowl,just absolutely terrorizing people. And I think
there's a lot of opportunity there withsome of the newness to really compete.
They've been a consistent program the lastcouple of years, so that would be
a lot of fun for me aswell. Yeah, one of my favorite
things about Kinnessau State, and obviouslyif you get to I'm pretty sure they're

(19:08):
gonna have the feature where you getto create recruits. One of my favorite
w w wrestlers, bron Breaker,played full back at Kinnesau State, so
he's definitely getting thrown in the recruitingportal. Definitely. You know one star
guy that you immediately pick up atKennesau State and boost him to a ninety
nine and he's spearing through the uhHe's spearing through the defensive line. So

(19:30):
that's what I'm looking out for atKinnessall State. I'm gonna take this time
to just lay out the red carpetfor my two lane Green Wave now that
I can, because that is certainlywho I'll be playing with, just because
I'm a fan of them, andI played for them, and it's my
alma mater, and me and probablyall of my friends will be playing as

(19:52):
TU lane and comparing notes. Butin my opinion, alongside Memphis and probably
say in Diego State, which bothof you mentioned, they're probably the best
candidate to make a P five jumpafter this year, after the next two
or three years. Primarily i'd expectthem to probably jump to the either ACC

(20:12):
or Big twelve. There's kind ofa history of kind of these like private
institutions in cities jumping to those.Obviously, the ACC has made like quite
an investment in that. Now byadding you know, Stanford SMU and also
to a certain degree, Cow whichis public institution but like very good academic
institution, I could also see themmoving to the Big twelve just because of

(20:34):
the you know, general of vicinityand kind of rivalries against Houston, and
also I think they'd be good rivalriesagainst TCU and Baylor, who they kind
of recruit against, not only inkind of like the three and four star
caliber players who are just under youknow, like the certified Texas LSU level

(20:55):
players, but also just for likestudents in general in that kind of private
school market. So I think theyhave a great shot if they are successful
across sports, but obviously in footballto make that jump. And so how
do we get there? And Ithink the carpet has been laid out by
new coach John Summerll making big movesin the transfer portal. Obviously, Ty

(21:18):
Thompson coming from Oregon Quinn you cankind of speak to where he fits.
They're still, to my knowledge,a quarterback controversy or quarterback competition there between
him and Ky Horten, who isanother highly tottered recruit out of Texas and
has played several key games, includinga game against Houston two years ago that
kept us in contention for a BigBowl which we ended up going to,

(21:38):
and last year showing up pretty wellin a grudge match against Ole Miss that
didn't fall our way, but playedas good as one could expect backup quarterback
to play against an SEC team.The thing that I highlighted, Parker,
you actually highlighted this recently on Twitter, is that they will have a dominating
into your defensive line tandem. It'scrazy. Patrick Jenkins, who was there

(22:03):
last year, was probably one ofthe best players in the conference, if
not in the G five on defenseperiod, absolutely dominated against Ole Miss,
dominated all throughout conference play. Andhe will now be joined Parker. I'll
give you the stage here to kindof run him third run through his bona
fides, but joined by Aiden Huntingtonnow coming from ULM. Parker run us
through Aiden Huntington. Yeah, thething that stands about out about hunting and

(22:26):
there Sam is that he basically leadsthe nation in returning pressure from the interior
defensive line. And so you knowthat sounds like a little bit of qualifiers
and all that, but just sayinga guy who's super disruptive. Thirteen point
two percent of his pass rush snapslast season from the interior defensive line resulted
in a pressure, and so he'sup there. I think Patrick Jenkins was

(22:48):
at nine point eight, a littlemore versatile, can play inside outside sort
of stuff. And then don't sleepon Cam Hamilton as well, eleven point
two percent defensive inside pressure. Soagain you get a guy like Summer All
who has really, really good.The defensive structure at Troy plays a very
the brand of football I believe that, you know, like Iowa, Iowa
kind of specializes in of let's dothe defensive side of the ball. Well,
let's get the special teams in themargins with some offensive upside with with

(23:11):
some of the guys that Tulane hasthere on offense. So I think that's
a lot of fun. You've gotgood bones. You're angling maybe for a
package deal with Memphis into the Bigtwelve or the acc there long term and
then trying to compete in and out. That's that's a job that's really interesting
because of the access to talent.I don't know if this is super well
known, but you know, TCUand Baylor for a long time kind of

(23:33):
made hay on Louisiana recruits. GaryPatterson has his hands, you know,
deep and deep into the Louisiana recruitingwell and built up some of those players.
So again that's an issue of buildingsome credibility, getting some guys to
stay home, and kind of greasingthe pipeline. And they've done a great
job. I mean they you know, do camps with l LSU and and
Louisiana, Monroe and and and Lafayette, like those guys have all been good

(23:53):
about, Hey, we're gonna youknow, let's keep Louisiana recruits in Louisiana
and so in so far as that'sworked, that's that's been a good idea.
But I think that's an interesting job, you know, not just for
the angle of getting into the Pfive program, but saying, hey,
you're a little bit off the beatenpath again with the academics and being a
private institution, but you have justyou know, some of the best talent
in the country. They are inLouisiana. How can you create an identity

(24:15):
that entices recruits to stay and thenovercomes the obstacle of you know, the
relatively limited resources being outside the Pfour and having you know, such a
slim margin to get in the playoffconsistently right, and an interesting portion obviously
as negotiated by now Nebraska former Washingtonthan two lane ad of two lane schedules.
You'll be as you're hopping into thisgame mode, you'll quickly notice they're

(24:38):
playing Oklahoma and Kansas State back toback. Kansas State will be in New
Orleans, the Oklahoma game will bein in Oklahoma. And so that's kind
of the hump. I think,like realistically, maybe not necessarily in the
game because if I remember from twentyfourteen, like basically, if you were
not a power five school you basicallyhad to in every single game to even

(25:00):
get remotely in the top five.Don't know if the algorithm or the way
that it figures out now will endup doing that. In its proxy of
the ever predictable sarcasm included the everpredictable College Football Playoff Committee. Obviously it
was a little bit more black andwhite in the BCS days, But I
think realistically, if they pick oneof those games up and roll through American

(25:25):
Conference play, and obviously the LouisanaLafayette who they're also playing, who has
been a pretty good program in thatarea recently and has a good quarterback,
I think they can make some noisein that in trying to grab that twelve
seed or fitting into like a sevenseed and having some interesting things go on
and maybe playing their hand like theyplayed against USC getting a win moving on

(25:48):
to a bigger bowl. It's justinteresting. Realistically, you never see G
five schools play unless they're like twocertified by games of like a San Houston
State who's having to spin extra moneyto get in to, you know,
the FBS ranks. You typically don'tsee two G five P five like highlighter
circle that on the on the scheduleearly season games, and it's pretty cool

(26:11):
that that two lane has done that, obviously much to the detriment probably of
the record and of the fans likeme who just want them to win every
single game. So I can behappy on Saturdays, but just more generally,
and in the fact that those areprobably going to be two ESPN or
ESPN two or ABC games national televised. I think they're both scheduled for the

(26:32):
afternoon. It'll be interesting and moregenerally, guys, I just like on
the general now that we're talking aboutit, do you expect, given where
we are now, to see moregames like that, given you know,
the transfer portal is something new,given that there is a spot at risk
that you can probably lose a gameand still sneak in to the to the

(26:52):
playoff, or if you're a ifyou're a Power five team, it probably
if you get upset, you stillhave kind of thatdro of having twelve teams.
Quinn, do you think that theyare actually maybe more games like this
schedule in the future or no,Yeah, I think so. I think
you know, A, you've gota consolidation of conferences, so we have
you know, obviously more at theP four level that we're looking at,

(27:14):
and I think that adds to alot of different levels of competition that we'll
be watching. And b it's nowthat we have that expanded College Football Playoff
with twelve teams, like we're goingto have to see a G five team
into the College Football Playoff a relativelycompetitive one. So circling those top maybe
five to six teams at the Gfive level that have the which we kind
of do inherently every single year oflike I think we all started when watching

(27:37):
Boise State against the Oklahoma game.I think that kind of kicked off the
era of like who's next, Who'sthe next Boise State game? That's we're
going to watch a year and yearout for a couple of years now now
it's been two Lane, you know, it's been Memphis in past years.
But I think more of that toplevel uh G five talent in terms of
playing a competitive or at least semicompetitive P four level, I think is

(27:59):
going to be prime television one we'llsee more scheduling about. You know,
in Tulane, I think is interms of the P five level, has
kind of proven that they can recruitamongst the P four level, you know,
and the ability to get what's ironicis looking at Mario Williams after Tulane
had beat USC in that Bowl gamethe January sixth or the January Bowl games,
right and then coming over to theUS Tulane after doing so. I

(28:23):
think that's pretty cool that you cango and beat a team in the high
level and then kind of get themto transfer over. I was going to
touch on Tyd Thompson because I knowhe's transferred from Oregon to TCU or sorry
to Tulane. I think for him, you know, obviously he's been in
the depth chart for a little bitand he's been kind of one of the
highest proliferated quarterbacks to come to Oregon, but you know, he hasn't had

(28:45):
a lot of meaningful snaps, andso I think in terms of Tulane,
you're kind of hoping he kind offits into the career arc of a typical
elite leven quarterback. And I'm kindof coupling them around at JT. Daniels
right now, where they maybe startoff a little slow in their career and
you know, peaked later on interms of played down a level. Hopefully
you're kind of seeing him touch intothat certain level when they come to play

(29:07):
in Tulane this year. Yeah,there's we're tracing a lot of threads here,
but I wanted to come back tolike scheduling. I'm you know,
I think this is kind of interesting. I don't know if both of you
remember. I don't know if he'sstill doing it, but a couple of
times Ken Palm was advertising basically,here's who the worst most likely conference championships

(29:29):
are going to be conference champions tolike hack the RPI system for college basketball
or the NET system now. AndI don't know if that's obsolete with the
Net or not. I don't wantto talk out out of both sides of
my mouth there, but I thinkthat'd be really interesting to say, Okay,
let's start looking at the bottom halfof the ACC, the Big twelve,
even the SEC, and say,like, what's the worst rated six
and six projected team that I canget on my resume? So I could

(29:52):
say, hey, we beat allthese bowl teams right while we still you
know, maximize health. We don'ttake any risks on losing. I think
there's that's a little Mochy Valley inthere, you know, a little uh
a little potentially gaming the system.But as I know that this is the
process is arbitrary, there is aselection committee, perception matters. I like
would love to tout to SEC winson my schedule, and you know,
if it's Vanderbilt, it feels likeit's going to be very obvious what you're

(30:15):
doing. But if you could say, hey, Mississippi State's in a down
year. Uh, you know,so and so was eight and four last
year. We think they're going tobe six and six or worse this year.
Let's let's grab them and then youcan kind of uh, you know,
gamify a little bit the system ofstrength of schedule. I wonder if
we don't see some of that happeningwith some of these matchups. You know,
USC just canceled uh matchup I thinkwith Ole miss uh non con so.

(30:37):
I I wonder how coaches will takethis strategy differently to kind of maximize
their chance to stay healthy and makethe playoffs. Yeah, And it's and
it's interesting, especially with all theconference realignment, how teams can quickly shake
out to either be you know,like in your instance, Quinn, Oregon
now is going to go from youknow, all ways expected to be the

(31:00):
best team in the Pac Twelve tohaving to compete obviously going deeper into the
season with you know, the OhioStates and States, the Michigans of the
world. I was so forth andso on, and Parker, obviously,
TCU, your alma mater, isnow in a Big twelve without Texas or

(31:21):
without Oklahoma. And so starting withyou, Parker, like, let's say
you're the coach TCU, or you'reyou're, you know, a video game
user jumping into the game as aTCU fan, what would be the way
that you would approach TCU, youknow, for the next five years,
considering they would remain into the BigTwelve. Aside from some sweeping personnel changes

(31:42):
which you don't have to get into. I think that there's you know,
a couple foundations as well, lookingat what tc has done historically, knowing
that talent in Texas is is gettingincreasingly poached. I think that one one
thing that you really got to focuson is what is your offensive identity and
how can I build on that?So I think what you're looking for first

(32:02):
is honestly like, I want aleft tackle that's gonna be reliable for four
years and kind of take my mindoff of that, and then I want
a couple of pulling guards interior offensivelinemen so I can run a diverse run
scheme to face a bunch of youknow, big twelve defenses are going to
show me some three down They're goingto show me some tight front looks.
Then I'm going to have to playagainst the traditional four down or the beefier

(32:22):
Kansas State and Utah defenses as well. So versatility in the run game I
think is super important as you kindof build up that pipeline. Remember Nick
Saban, I think Alabama before NickSaban got there, had taken four blue
chip linemen in the prior four years. This is fuzzily remembering a tweet from
like two years ago, so don'tcheck my math exactly, but I believe
he took like nine in the firstyear and then six more in the second

(32:45):
year of blue chip linemen. So, you know, insofar as you can
get some of those French four starguys on the line and start to populate
it too deep of really really strongtrench play, you have all the skill
talent. I'd much rather have aroster full of four star linemen and find
those three star pieces at the skillpositions to complement them. Then the other
way around, which I feel likeis what you know, TC's kind of

(33:07):
operating here. And then of coursewe're taking quarterbacks every year. We're looking
to build up our room, butwe're always taking swings on transfer quarterbacks.
Somebody want to come home, somebodywant to build us up. I feel
like with that foundation and the wealthof three star talent in the DFW metroplex,
you can really tow a line betweenhigh school recruiting and managing the transfer
portal in a way that helps youhave an identity and build towards consistent success.

(33:30):
Yeah, and talking about that Linemankind of talent. Obviously, Quinn
Oregon last year had a powerhouse lineand probably one of the most impressive lines,
if not in Pact half history,at least in recent packed golf history,
and really had the ability to pusha lot of people around. So
you're jumping in, you're losing,you know, a bo Nix, you

(33:52):
have a Dylan Gabriel, and youhave a Dante Moore coming in. Obviously,
Dante Moore kind of more of thequarterback of the future. Dylan Gabriel
has proven himself across multiple kind ofspectrums now, both in the Big Twelve
and in the American Conference. What'syour kind of outlook for how you would
approach Oregon jumping into college football twentyfive? Yeah, I mean, I
think we're starting to see a trendin terms of college football to kind of

(34:14):
build a more proliferate too deep atthe quarterback position. You're seeing some of
these big schools do it, suchas like you know, Georgia building with
the Carson Beck and Rashadas, theQBN waiting. I think more of these
schools are starting to recruit a fewdifferent into the future. And I think
it used to be where, youknow, with the transfer portal and college
recruiting, you could see how goodis my recruiting class for years to come

(34:37):
and start to fill in the gasfor that. Now it's what can I
do to win today knowing I havea powerhouse and recruiting, And I think
that's where the Organs, the Georgia's, the you know, the the top
schools, is like they know theycan get talent in terms of it,
Let's see how they can shine interms of the depth chart and get early
playing time. But if these guysare not shining after early spring practice,
let's see how it could fill itpretty quickly within the spring portal, and

(34:59):
I think that's where they showed todo. So an example being is you
know this spring, Oregon had alittle bit of a they had a few
guys transfer out at the defensive line, and they went and immediately attack that
in terms of like recruiting talent inthe spring portal to fill in a gap
at run defense, which you knowhad some guys go to the draft.
So I think that's where you canbuild from a roster building philosophy. One

(35:22):
thing I was going to kind ofpoint out there as a question is like
with the G five and the Pfour is like I think it gets into
this interesting scheduling optimization problem, right, like how do you schedule to best
if you're not like slated as ateam that's going to win your conference and
it's maybe a weaker conference, Like, how do you schedule to optimize your
challenge or your your ability to getinto that seven remaining at large bid role

(35:45):
in the twelve teams if you're aP four school, Like do you start
to get more defensive in your scheduleand knowing that conferences are getting bigger,
you don't schedule as many non conferencegames or are you a P four school
and you start to get more AndI think we can kind of look into
college basketball and how some of thesebig or smaller schools had looked in terms
of scheduling. I kind of pointout Whichita State University Oakland, if you

(36:08):
look at their schedule at the beginningof the years, they started to beef
up their schedule with a lot ofthese bigger schools in terms of who they're
playing, so that they know they'regoing to run the table in terms of
their conference, that it helps thema little bit better in terms of seeding
when you get into the NCAA tournament. Do you guys think that you'll see
some of that in terms of likethe G five schedule. I'm interested to

(36:30):
see what you guys think on that. I think that's really interesting. And
my prior on that, Quinn,is that, like, because college football
has so few games, and becausethe physical nature of the game is dramatically
different than basketball, for instance,the injury probability gets so high, and
so there's also kind of that implicitassumption of like making the playoff is not

(36:50):
enough. You want to make theplayoff healthy. When you're at the top
of your development cycle, you lookat teams that are non traditional blue buds.
You know, look at TCU intwenty twenty two, for instance,
they got some fumble luck, theyhad a talented team, and they stayed
healthy the entire year. And soyou know you're going to see that,
I think, because you're gonna haveto win two or three more games to
even compete for the national championship.Now, if you make your conference championship

(37:12):
even I was on a podcast yesterdaytalking about you know, do if you're
ole miss are you okay missing theSEC championship? That's basically an extra buy,
right If if Alabama and Georgia haveto play another game against each other,
you're still going to make the playoff, Like, wouldn't you rather not
compete for that and then have achance to be fresh for the playoff.
I think those kind of considerations arewhat we're going to see. Yeah,

(37:32):
And it's interesting coming from the Gfive level because they're obviously as I always
go. Parker has a great quotehere where like the goal in a college
football season is to beat your rivaland win your conference, Like that should
be the goal, and you bringup an interesting point there, Parker,
like, do you we now havea situation in the power comps where it's

(37:53):
like, would you rather win yourconference or get a shot to win the
title? And you know, allall good things kind of fade from time
to time, and maybe that's justa sign of the times, or maybe
it's more interesting, but at leastfor the Group of five, I think
you basically have to win your conference. Like there's no real way that you

(38:13):
can kind of skate by not winningyour conference. Not that there ever was
previous to this, but what Ithink is really interesting and I'd really like
to highlight that, like this hasbecome a question of humanity because of the
way that we operate the college footballplayoff, and so it'll be interesting to
see that. Like last year,you know, Liberty got in because everyone

(38:38):
looked at Liberty and was like,oh, they're undefeated, and there's not
really any other G five team whohas the resume and is undefeated and has
Kiden Salter on their team, etcetera, et cetera. But I'd almost
be interested now that it's twelve teamsand you'd have to win three games in
order to win, if it evenmakes a difference in the college football Playoff.
People's mind to be like, oh, well S and U actually have

(39:00):
a more competitive game, and solet's like let's throw SMU in there.
Let's throw like a two loss toolane obviously two lane loss in the conference
championship, but it'll be interesting tosee if that's like a cognitive the cognitive
bias of the college football playoff oreven you know, the media partners if
they have any say, which youknow, up up in the air,

(39:20):
if they do, are now like, well, this is actually a game.
And to your point, Quinn,like, I don't think the folks
thought they were going to get anyUniversity of Oakland content today, but like
realistically, like looking at someone likea Gonzaga or even a Saint Mary's in
college basketball, like dull, youput Saint Mary's in over you know,

(39:42):
the name America East Conference or somethinglike that into the tournament, I wonder
if there actually is a change incognitive bias there. And the other thing
to think about with the scheduling aswell is, for instance, let's say
Georgia wins all of their games andthey're playing Georgia Tech on Friday afternoon after
Thanksgiving or with that's Saturday Friday,I don't remember, and George Tech's for

(40:04):
four and seven, right, like, let's go, let's go. They're
five and six, right, they'replaying for ball eligibility. Georgia doesn't need
to lift a finger. They probablydon't need a lift a finger to beat
them, and there's some pride therethat they definitely want to do. But
if they know they've got to playAlabama or ole Miss next week and then
win four more games to win thenational championship, the incentive structure there is
extremely skewed. Now, I don'tthink that George is going to lay down

(40:25):
and let their in today's rival beatthem per se. But I think there's
marginal considerations about health and strategy thatare going to be a non zero factor
for these coaches and these programs asthey look and say, hey man,
it'd be really nice to tweet outthe score and get a bunch of likes,
but like, this game doesn't matterfor our aspirations of winning a national
championship, and we need to stayhealthy and we need to make the right
decisions. I don't think again,they're going to lay down and kneel the

(40:49):
ball. Every every player not competeor anything. But I do think that's
entering into the calculus of how schedulingis formed, is hey, we know
we've done what we need to Thisgame is almost superfluous to that goal of
winning a national championship. And again, i'd say that's where fans are really
important in college football. If thefans stop caring about those games, they'll
they'll go away, right because there'sreally not a lot of reason for them

(41:09):
to be played. But insofar aswe can kind of retain the prerogative that
rivalries matter and that's what the bestof college football was and that's that's what
distinguishes it from the NFL, Ithink those games could be fruitful and interesting
and scheduling will be ambitious. Ifwe let it all get sucked up into
the conversation about national championship, Ithink there's a lot of arguments for those

(41:30):
by games to become bland scrimmages andthose rivalry games to go away. Yeah.
And I think especially as we're talkingabout like the changes we might see
and kind of taking it back tolike an old school feature of the college
football games, like those pipeline recruitingstates always played a factor in like the
way the game, the mechanism ofthe game worked and obviously like make a

(41:52):
huge difference in the mechanism of reallife. And so I'm also interested now
that we have these nationwide conferences iflike the pipelines do change, Like does
Oregon now have you know, athrough put to the Midwestern market given that
most of their games are going tobe played there in the conference play?

(42:12):
And does that even make their offensivedefensive lines even better plugging into that talent
or do they just you know,conglomerate take over the West coast like them
in usc take over the grand majorityof the West Coast and Washington obviously too,
And are they able to like kindof not fight as much there?
And another example of this is Utahobviously, like Utah has has recruited at

(42:37):
a very good level and has developedplayers an even better level, Like does
that is that now increase given thatthey can access that Texas market through through
the Big Twelve? And so it'llreally be interesting to see how that kind
of lays out. And so movinginto kind of our final topic. And
as we're getting we're going down thefunnel here, We're going from you know,

(42:59):
we're going from big schools like Nebraska, and then and then we're coming
down into the Texas states of theworld, and finally we're getting more and
more local and we're jumping into theFCS. So my understanding right now is
that there will be a team builderfeature which will allow people, if not
to build out the entire FCS,if you're sickos like me and Parker and

(43:21):
Quinn are and just to want toplay, you know, the entire the
entire FCS schedule plus playoffs, butat least to build in your local team.
And so there's a bunch of coolstuff that could happen here. There's
great storylines, there's just great teamsthat can compete at the FBS level.
We know because we've seen it already. So Parker, I want to give

(43:43):
you the go ahead first if thereis an FCS team that you want to
build into n CUAA twenty five,what would that be? I mean,
it has to be one of myown matters. The Montea Grizzlies. Of
course, the stadium right there atthe mountains. You've got the snow,
you've got a history of winning,you've got an ad you know, and
really interesting problem because they don't haveaccess to great talent, and the ways

(44:05):
they have to win are certainly innovative. Obviously, with travel budgets and everything,
that's kind of hard. This ismy second answer, is very similar
to the Kansas state problem. Delawareis moving up next year, not this
fall, but next ball, andso getting a jump and saying, like,
I think that's a very interesting problem. What do I do as a
coach, as an athletic director,as a recruiter this year, knowing that
the switch is flipping next year?Buddy, It's going to be way,

(44:28):
way different, and we've got tofigure out how to build. So that
kind of multi year horizon is fascinatingto me. So Delaware would be the
other one to say, hey,let's let's build a program up into the
horizon as well. Yeah, veryinteresting, Quinn, what are your thoughts?
Yeah? So I went with EasternWashington here, and the reason being
that they produce a lot of goodNFL talent the last few years, and
I think would be fun to playon the red field, as esthetically pleasing

(44:52):
as it is, and I thinkit would be fearful for opposing fans to
come out to Eastern Washington and playyou know, they produce Cooper Cup,
Kendrick Bourne, Great, Vernon AdamsJunior in the CFL Great and you know,
and they've actually been competitive against alot of G five schools in the
past. So they've beaten Fresno orthey've beaten Fresno State or at least took

(45:12):
them the double overtime. They beatUNLV in the past few years, they've
beaten Oregon State. They've they've beencompetitive with a lot of schools in the
PAC twelve in the Mountain West.So if there was ever an expansion for
a Mountain West school, I thinkEastern Washington would be given that they recruit
well in the Eastern Washington, Idahoarea to get people out there. They
produce a good amount of NFL talent, at least at the wide receiver position.

(45:35):
And I think that and they've alwayshad a proliferate offense that I think
is kind of scored some points onMountain West opponents. I think that would
be one I would probably go with, similar to my points that I took
off for Sam choosing Syracuse because it'scold and there are no mountains, the
Eastern Washington field is an affront totaste in decency. Quinn, I just
I can't buy that's the first thingyou've got to do, at least change

(45:55):
that gone awful field. I thinkI think we've covered all of the interesting
stadiums throughout this because obviously Syracuse isthe Carrier Dome, or it may not
be called the Carrier Dome, it'salways the Carrier Dome. Don't give in,
don't give it to the suits,it's always We've hit the Carrier Dome.
We've hit the beautiful mountains in Montana, We've hit a red field.

(46:17):
I mean this, we're really collecting, you know, and and and showing
the people the beautiful things that collegefootball can provide to them. And obviously
it'll be provided through this game.Uh and all the all the fun and
weirdness. I took this a differentdirection, obviously. I grew up in
the Southern Conference, which had whichthen broke up and apparently is now getting

(46:40):
back together like an old divorced couple. I don't really know what's gonna happen.
I'm pretty sure Stephen F. Austinis gonna move back to the South
of Conference, and I think thatwill probably have dominoes that most of those
other Texas teams will also move backto the South and Conference. Not sure,
but glad that that will be happeningbecause I have a lot of deep
roots there through my playing career,through family, et cetera. So I'm

(47:02):
going with currently a whack member,but someone who I think they moved back
to South of Conference in a coupleof years, just based on how things
have shaken out, and that's TarlingtonState. They have an upset alert versus
Baylor. Last year they played TexasTech. Did not go super well,
but it was their only game thatwas even remotely like that was remotely out

(47:22):
of the question that they were goingto win. Both of their losses were
extremely tight. Right now, they'renumber nineteen, and they're also just a
good story. I mean, thisis a team that moved up to SCS
what three years ago, guys,and immediately started winning. And so why
not let them just keep the partygoing, move them up to the FBS,
send them into the American Conference,or send them into Conference USA and

(47:43):
see what will happen. And maybethey're competitive, And obviously if I'm controlling
them, they'll be competitive because I'llprobably be running the triple option or something
crazy like that, but just agreat story. And also they're facing off
against the Magnees State Cowboys. MyLake Charles own magne State Cowboys in the
first game, so we'll be watchingthat game. The second one that I
also thought was interesting was Villanova becausekind of quietly, Villanova has built a

(48:08):
college football powerhouse in the FCS ofrecent has dominated their conference, lots of
winning seasons, and no one really, you know, thinks about it and
knows about it. Obviously, probablynot as good as you know, the
big Midwestern or Missouri Valley or BigSky teams, but they've won a lot
of games in recent years, andI think it'd be a great journey,

(48:31):
kind of in my head to takethem from an FCS team, move them
into the American Conference where they canthen battle with their crosstown rival, Temple,
great rivalry, the air that kindof in Philly, they can they
can ballot out go for that AACchampionship, and then you know, two
three years into the dynasty, movethem into the ACC and they're back.

(48:52):
I'll bringing it all the way circleback into the carried home, going into
their rival where so many great VillanovaSyracuse basketball games have been played. Now
we have you know Syracuse, whichwe built up, playing Villanova that we
built up, and it's going tobe a fantastic game in that dynasty.
And moreover, it's just a veryinteresting area of the country that typically doesn't

(49:14):
have football powerhouses in the Northeast.And it would be interesting to see,
you know, how you work withrecruiting against Penn State, how you work
with recruiting against Maryland, as hesaid, Parker, you know how you
recruit New Jersey and New York.I just think it's an interesting problem all
around. Yeah, I'm sensitting atheme with some of the schools we've selected
in terms of one, so wewant to get into the football promised Land.

(49:37):
They're all like primarily you could thinkof as like blue blood basketball schools,
right that we know the funding isthere, that we want to have
the football program to be equal interms of the basketball program. You know,
I think it's, you know,something that we all strive to have
like a powerhouse and all aspects ofsports and be a well round in school.
So I think it's interesting to seethat play out. Sorry, I

(50:00):
was we around rabbit hole there becauseI'm pretty sure Villanova on one of their
teams that went to the championship hada back who was awesome who ended up
playing mob baseball for a while.Vaguely remember that a running back who was
kind of all purpose. They're runninglike the Wildcat with him, and I'm
pretty sure he played for the Cubsfor a little bit. Yeah, that
was also an interesting thing. Idon't think they're going to have the piece

(50:22):
where you can like throw people inthe man anymore, but if you could
build an FCS team, it wouldbe awesome to like see if you could
get a guy to become the firstpick. Obviously, Parker, you mentioned
Delaware. I think the closest we'veever been to that other than maybe like
Carson Wentz and Trey Lance, whoobviously came from a powerhouse in North Dakota
State. Like the closest we've everseen was Joe Flacco in recent years,

(50:45):
that is, or in modern years, So that'd be another thing. It's
like, can you get an FCSplayer, Like with all FCS ratings,
obviously you have to keep them likeunder seventy or under sixty five or whatever
based on the consensus Big Board.You got to put them in a spreadsheet
inert it tag at suomer Sports.Uh, Quinn, what is it?
Quinn's thoughts? Quinn what what what? What is your Twitter tandle at Quinn's

(51:07):
Wisdom. Yeah, at Quinn's Wisdomat Stats. We're in at Brookhouse Sports
and we will we will diligently reviewyour your ratings, for your for your
players and your team builder. Butoverall, guys, this has been a
really fun podcast. I think we'vegone, you know, like I said,
all the way from the tops ofthe P five. We've talked about

(51:29):
scheduling, We've talked about some ofthe new challenges, all the way down
to you know, the Montanas,the Villanova's, Tarlington States, et cetera
of the world. And and Ilove when we can cover everything. And
I think there are no two betterpeople to cover all of the weirdness,
wackiness is aniness, analytical problems andand organizational problems than Quinn MacLean and Parker

(51:51):
Flemings and from Summer Sports at Statsof War at Quinn's Wisdom at brook House
Sports. Thank you so much,and we're excited to jump into this season
full of NFL football at and collegefootball. Follow us at at Summer Sports
and from all of us have agood one. Thank you so much.