Biggest CFP Lessons Learned + Notre Dame Drama & Big Ten vs SEC

The College Football Playoff final rankings have been released and first-round matchups are set. On Josh Pate’s College Football Show Ep. 696 Josh reacts to it all. Did the CFP Committee put the right teams in? What about the outrage coming from Notre Dame? We’re also looking back on bold predictions from the preseason and which ones went the most off the rails. What about the SEC vs Big Ten when it comes to CFP viability? Next, Josh discusses which teams were the most disappointing in College Football this season. Be sure to let us know what you think, SUBSCRIBE to the channel, and CLICK THE BELL for notifications as we bring you multiple live shows per week!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
It always fascinates me when I've become active in the
live chat before the show and people think it's Jesse.
I don't even give Jesse full internet access. It is
not him in the live chat before we go live.
It is me. We're jampacked. We're high top of mild
downtown Nashville, Tennessee, on this Tuesday night, December ninth, the
year of Our Lord, twenty twenty five. I've learned some things.

(00:36):
I think I've learned some things about the college football playoff,
about the overall state of college football, about where we are,
where we've been, where we're headed. Maybe nobody knows anything,
but I think I've learned some things. I will share
those with you tonight. Notre Dame in the midst of
a historic college football tantrum. A fraction of it is warranted,
a lot of it is not. I will share thoughts

(00:58):
because our inbox has been in with requests for such.
There was a question about the Big ten in the
SEC and is their superiority and are they pulling away
as one pulling away from the other. It's all part
of the mail bag. We're gonna dip into the mailbag
fairly heavily on this show, and I regret to inform
you that now that the regular season has concluded, we

(01:20):
can revisit some of your bold predictions emphasis your bold predictions,
not mine, and some of you crashed and burned in
epic fashion, and we will absolutely revel in that on
tonight's show, jam Pack Show. They're watching us in spring Hill, Tennessee.
They're watching us in New York, PA. They're watching us

(01:41):
in warm beautiful Key Biscayne, Florida, and Sunset, Texas. What
a lovely name. So to requests for you tonight. One
of them is very simple. We're well over five hundred
thousand subs, which means our next stop is a million.
We're skipping over six seven eight, nine hundred k, which
is going straight to a million. So check and see
I grab the channel. If you're not, please do so.

(02:02):
And then the other little piece of news, little business
item to check off the list here tons of you
per year ask how you get a job with us?
At the live show the other night, several people asked
how do I get a job with you? Well, the
answer is to just stay tuned into the show and
you're in luck because I have a need. So before

(02:24):
we post the job opening or before we just start
scanning the Yellow Pages or anything like that. Very old
reference there, paper poprom. I need a studio engineer. I
need one in Nashville. So there you go. If you
want to get in touch with us, write this email
down because I didn't know we had this until today.

(02:45):
Jesse's just been hoarding and siphoning all of your correspondents
off on this email address. Freights plural freightspaytstate dot com.
Studio engineer. Now here's what I didn't say. What I
didn't say is hit us up. If you're not a
studio engineer, but you just want to use the email
address to get a different kind of job, those opportunities
will come. Say that again, Jesse, what did I say,

(03:11):
freightspaytstateatgmail dot com. Yes, all right. Also I can barely
hear you, which is probably for the best. Don't adjust anything.
All right, let's dive into the show tonight. So anyway, yeah,
studio engineer, that's what we're looking for right now in Nashville.
The college football playoff rankings are done, the bracket set,
the matchups are taking place. Personally, I've got two games

(03:33):
circled and you can guess which too. I think I'm
gonna go to the Alabama Oklahoma game. I think I'm
gonna go on down to College Station the next morning
for Miami and Texas A and M. But those aren't
the lessons I've learned. Those are just plans that I've made.
What lessons have we learned? I'm sure you've learned a lot,
Sure you have a lot of takeaways. The first thing
that I have learned is we really need to tell

(03:55):
the truth about college football conference championship games. It's going
to be an uncomfortable truth, but I think it's a truth.
Most of us know. Not all conference championship games are
equal because not all conferences are equal. So there was
a big question floating around last week when Ohio State
did not drop after losing the Big Ten title game

(04:17):
and Alabama didn't drop after losing the SEC title game,
but Brigham Young did drop after losing the Big Twelve
championship game, and the question was, why is this product
and process so hypocritical? Why did one team drop when
they lost their conference title game but two didn't? Do
you want the truth? The truth is because the Big

(04:39):
Ten and the SEC are different than the Big twelve
and they will be treated as such. Now, that's a
lesson that I think most of us knew. Not all
of us want to admit it, but most of us
knew that, and it was put on display. Was it favoritism?
If you if you call rational observation of the sport favoritism. Yes,

(05:00):
I do know there are a lot of conspiracies out
there that well, since this conference is in bed with
this networker that conference is in bed with that network,
that's where the favoritism comes from. And I don't necessarily
know that it's as much that as it is just
acknowledging where most of the good teams and the good
talent is. You don't have to like it. I don't
love it, but that is the way it is. And
so that's why, like even on our show, notice in

(05:23):
the lead up to the final Saturday of the season,
I never said if any conference runner up drops, it's wrong.
I said if they drop Alabama, it's wrong because I
was already aware of this truth. This truth has been
evident to me for a while that not all conferences
are going to get treated equally. Again, I'm not asking
you to agree with it. I'm not even telling you.

(05:43):
I agree with it. I'm telling you it makes sense
and that's the way it is. Another lesson I learned
this one. I think I'll have more agreement on the
weekly rankings show for the playoff Committee is trash. It
doesn't serve a purpose. It actually serves a counter purpose.
It just confuses people more so I think we ought
to do away with it now. I was listening to

(06:03):
Ryan Rossillo on his show earlier today before Canell came on.
When Cannell came on, I just fast forwarded, but before
he brought Canel on, he was talking about the ranking
show and how a lot of people think that it
doesn't serve a purpose. And he said, hey, fair point. Okay,
then the counterpoint is let's just do away with it.
And he was kind of walking that through to a
logical conclusion, and he was asking, fairly, do you know

(06:25):
how crazy that would be? Like, Yeah, you get fed
some television product masquerading as a legitimate rankings reveal process
right now, and you get all up in arms and
you argue, and then he gets flipped on you at
the eleventh hour. But do you know how much more
crazy it would be if you just had to guess
what the committee was looking at. And he made a
good point that I hadn't thought of, but is accurate.

(06:46):
If the playoff rankings don't exist until the final week
of the season, it's not like there won't be rankings.
It would be a network or an entity that just
creates a product to fill that void. Because people are
dying for ranking in sports, especially college sports, you gotta
have your rankings. That's why the AP pole segments traditionally

(07:08):
do our highest traffic of the week. People love polls,
they love rankings. It's why it's always been foolish to
ask not to do AP rankings until Week six, or
not to do preseason rankings. You can't outlaw that. People
want it. And so with the playoff rankings, Okay, if
we're not gonna get rid of them, then let's keep them.
But let's really turn the volume up and let's expose

(07:30):
the entire process. So, in other words, if I'm college
football commissioner and you tell me that we're going to keep, well,
I tell you that we're going to keep the playoff rankings.
I'm not just telling you we're going to keep its
status quo. If we're going to keep the rankings and
the Rankings reveal show on Tuesday night. I want to
observe the deliberation. I want far more than just Hunter

(07:51):
your check giving me prepared talking points. Actually it should
have been prepared for him this year. It would have
gone a lot better for four and a half minutes.
I don't need that. I need really detailed in the
weeds explanations. And you know what, if you have to
have more than one person on air, like if I
know I'm getting five questions from Rhys Davis and I
have to I kid you not if I have to

(08:11):
take one committee member per question, one committee member per scenario.
Just educate yourself on this one lane so that when
we put you on TV for ninety three seconds, you
know what to talk about. So be it. At least
we'll get a better explanation and a better line of
thinking than what we have now. The third lesson, very
few of these arguments that we just heard over the

(08:32):
past few weeks were based in principle, which is why
I never really dove that deep on them. I had
my thoughts, You had your thoughts, but I like to
think my thoughts would be applicable independent of the brands
and that is not the case for ninety eight percent
of people yelling right now. Ninety eight percent of people
yelling right now are yelling because of something happening or

(08:53):
not happening to the team they love, which is fine.
That's called cheering, that's called fandom. That is not what
it was being in it as a lot of people
were arguing on behalf of Notre Dame, and they were
arguing to basically look past a head to head result
that I know full well they would have been using
as exhibit a had they beaten Miami, and their argument

(09:14):
was Miami's and Miami's was Notre Dames. So you're not
standing on principle. You're just rooting for your team, which
is fine as long as you admit you're rooting for
your team. But no, it wasn't that. Just like with Alabama.
Alabama folks said, well, if we lose our conference championship game,
we ought not be able to fall. But you know
good and well, if you were sitting at number eleven
or twelve and you needed someone to fall and it

(09:36):
was a conference champion runner up, then you'd have no
problem with them falling. It's happened to you before Bama
fans know that because it's happened to them, it's happened
at their benefit before. So there's very little principle in
play here. Very few people have guiding principles and value
systems that are just bedrocked and it's what they believe.
It's their college football worldview, no matter what. That doesn't

(09:59):
really exist. It's fandom that is a beautiful thing. That's
not a bad thing, that's a great thing. Speaking of bedrocks,
speaking of foundation, that's the foundation of what makes this
stuff worth watching because you care about it a whole lot.
I care about it a whole lot. We love it,
but man, it can pull the wool over your eyes
when it comes to walking arguments through to a logical conclusion,

(10:21):
independent of the brands, independent of the stickers in front
of you. The fourth thing I learned is that maybe
we ought to just fix conference tiebreakers before we burn
the entire system down and start from scratch. This is
a widely held opinion that I've heard. I happen to
agree with it if you don't know what I'm talking about.

(10:41):
The ACC was a disaster this year on the field
in that very few of their teams were good. But
then off the field administratively, they didn't have their affairs
in order and they didn't have their tiebreaker system properly calibrated,
and that's how you end up with seven and five
duke playing for a conference champimpionship. Now, what's the fix, Josh,

(11:02):
Very simple fix. Your conference tiebreakers should be number one
head to head results. So if you and I are
both ten and two and we played each other and
I beat you, I'm going and you're sitting at home, Well,
if we're I guess it would be what Jesse's six
and two in conference or seven to two. I can't
remember how many conference games they play. They play eight? Okay,
So if you and I are both six and two

(11:23):
in league play but I beat you, that's tiebreaker number one.
That's the easy when everyone does it like that. The
second tiebreaker, especially in conferences like the ACC, ought to
be college football playoff ranking. If we changed nothing other
than that, this mess would have been alleviated because if

(11:44):
we did that, Miami would have gone to Charlotte to
play for an ACC championship. They almost certainly would have won,
and they would have been in the playoff as one
of the five highest ranked conference champs. What does that
do well? It puts them in and it removes one
of these G five teams and we're looking at it

(12:07):
and all of a sudden, Wow, it makes a lot
more sense. So much of the noise, ninety five percent
of the noise was turned down, and Notre Dames still
in Jesse. I think we got room for Alabama still,
don't we? We just don't have room for James Madison.
So we got like the teams that were all vying
for that final spot, we got them all in there.
And notice I didn't have to burn the whole playoff down.

(12:30):
All I had to do was have the acc just
wake up one morning and do the right thing with
their tiebreaker system. I don't know if we're going to
see that happen. My guess is we're going to see
that happen. I have heard from many a person who
has knowledge of that that we're going to see it happen.
And lastly, and this may be the most important part,
because this is the part where we look forward to

(12:53):
the playoff. Ohio State bled on Conference championship Saturday. Ohio
State bled. Now. I'm not being a Buckeye hater when
I say that I'm reverting back to a point I
made a few weeks ago. Someone asked on the show
how many teams can win the national title. I said,
that's all up to Ohio State goes up. Until that point,

(13:15):
Ohio State had looked utterly dominant, and I said, if
they really are as good as they look, very few
teams can win a national title. But if we change
nothing about this sport other than Ohio State, it's a
little more vulnerable then they have looked. Then it's game on. Well,
they did more than look vulnerable. They lost. They gave
up thirteen points in a conference title game and still lost.

(13:36):
So they bled. So now it's game on. Ohio State
can still win it. They're still the favorite. Indiana can
win it. I know I've already seen and beat Ohio State.
But Georgia, Yes, Oregon, Yes, I'm gonna get back to Texas.
You know what I want, Texas Tech outside shot. Yes,
But now we start to think about the Texas A
and M's of the world. Bama, I still have a

(13:59):
real hard time seeing ironically, I picked them to win
the national title, and they're the team in that group.
I feel the least confident in them. But even with Alabama,
if you walk it through, if they just come out
against Oklahoma in jam Miller's back and Josh Quavis's back,
they're just a little bit healthier the past game clicks,
a little bit more offensive, line, a little bit more crisp.

(14:19):
I mean Alabama, like people are forgotten about that run
they went on because they faltered down the stretch. Well
maybe they get right, or maybe they don't. The point is,
if they do, Alabama at their best could be in
that mix. Miami, I skipped over all miss they qualify too,
Miami gott in the playoff, they could be in that mix.
Like Miami could lose in the first round, but they

(14:41):
could also win the whole thing. Just because Ohio State
bled a little bit, it changed my entire worldview on
the playoff. So those are some of the lessons I learned.
Be very interested to hear the lessons you learned. I'm
out of I'm out of bliss stacks. I'm having to
manually apply right now. Quick Trip could have stopped by

(15:03):
there earlier today and grabbed unlimited amounts the last check. Jesse,
I don't even think they limit the amount of lip
bomb that you're allowed to purchase at Quick Trips. Yes,
how they roll man, they don't try and limit you,
they don't try and interfere in your life. They remove
the restrictions and limitations. And that could apply just as
easily to coal brew, although I would argue there's a

(15:26):
certain amount of coal brew past which you probably do
need someone to step in, but it's not going to
be a Quick Trip attendant. It could be your guardian,
or your chaperone or your parent. But Quick Trip, whether
you need fuel literally or figuratively, you know, food, drink
cold brew on tap, quick Trip has you, and Quick

(15:47):
Trip fueled us all the way down to Atlanta and
back Saturdays as a few days ago. We went to
Penn State yesterday, but we needed a different kind of
fuel to get up there. I'll talk about that later.
Someone asks for some behind the scenes stuff from our
Penn State trip, and it occurred to me that we
should do that all the time on the show, just
little odds and ends behind the scenes. And I don't

(16:09):
know why I stopped. We're starting back up tonight anyway.
Thank you to Quick Trip always fueling us wherever we
need to go. Next up, notre Dame's making a lot
of noise right now. Notre Dame got left out of
the playoff. Many, many, many of you asked me over
the past twenty four ish hours, Hey, what do you

(16:32):
think about the Notre Dame athletic director? What do you
think about them opting out of a bowl game? Not
to mention, hey what do you think about them being
left out of the playoff? Well, the louder part I
talked about a lot on the Sunday show. I thought
the committee got the teams right as far as their
current protocols are set up. Of course, I don't want
two G five teams in the playoff, but their current
protocols mandated that that's who should be in the playoff.

(16:54):
So like that part. Notwithstanding, when it came down to
the whole triple perrative debate, Alabama, Miami, Notre Dame, they
put the teams in that I would have put in.
So my problem was not with the product. I had
a huge problem with the process. But that's not really
what you guys were asking about. You were asking about

(17:16):
Pete Bavaqua, who I went on national television this morning
and called Pete bakuava My apologies, but Pete Bavaqua, who
is the Notre Dame Athletic Director, has had a lot
to say. Now, I'll give him credit. He fights for
his program and he fights for his brand, no different
than Jim Phillips fights for the acc which apparently the
Notre Dame Athletic Director has a big problem with. But

(17:39):
I'm going to ask you to do one thing. I
will gladly talk about this on the show. I just
want you to promise me one thing which our audience
is pretty good about. It's the drive by crowd that's
not so good at it. Please listen to what I
say and not what I don't say. Okay, I will
tell you exactly what I think about this, so you
don't have to guess or reb between the lines. Firstly,
I don't think Notre Dame got robbed sense that I

(18:00):
don't think they were. They were left without something they
were owed, they weren't owed a playoff spot, they didn't
outright convincingly earn a playoff spot. There were a lot
of shades of gray in this. So if it's your
opinion Notre Dame should have been in, that's fine. A
lot of you think that other people think they shouldn't
have been. But it's this definitive fist against the table,

(18:23):
this result and anything else is evil. Anything else means
you're bought and paid for by a network or anything
else in you're blind. No, just means you got a
different opinion on something that is very subjective, very subjective.
So it just so happened to be my viewpoint that
if Alabama was already in the top ten, I'm not

(18:44):
dropping them out for losing the SEC championship game, so
they're gonna be in. And then it came down to
Notre Dame or Miami, and I thought Miami should be
in because I think anytime you have comparative resumes or
comparable resumes, then the head to the head should rule
the day. It's very simple. You can disagree with that,
and that'd be fine. But even I'm not sitting here
telling you my opinion is definitive and anyone who disagrees

(19:04):
stupid because Miami's got a very flawed resume, Alabama had
a flawed resume, Notre Name had a flawed resume. But
the point there is, at the very least you have
to admit, no matter which of those teams would have
been left out. It wasn't some crime against college football
humanity that it happened. You were going to have to
put a flawed team in no matter what. But that

(19:26):
is not what the crux of the talking points have
been coming out of Notre Dame. So the first thing
I think is, you didn't get robbed. You may have
been misled. You were misled. I was misled, We were
all misled by the committee. But that doesn't mean you
got robbed. It just means that they completely horrifically mismanaged
the messaging leading up to the final reveal. And if

(19:49):
you want to complain about that, I'm about to join
you in a second. So Pete Bavaqua, who is again
the Notre Dame athletic director, went on a number of
shows over the past day or two and he voiced
his displeasure with the entire process. He went after the
acc he really got mad at them. He said, they've

(20:10):
done damage, They've done permanent damage to their relationship with
Notre Dame. And look, I listened to some of that
and it sounded pathetic. Some of what Pete Pavaqua said
was brilliant and I agree wholeheartedly with it, and some
of it was just pathetic. I heard Brett Yormark, who
is the Big twelve league commissioner earlier today call him

(20:32):
out for going after Jim Phillips and the ACC. I
mean they got pissed off because the ACC stood up
for Miami, which is exactly what they should do, because
of reasons like, oh, you know, Miami was the only
ACC member institution with a shot to make the playoff.
You're not a member institution, Dude, You've been extended an invitation,

(20:54):
you've turned it down. I'm going to say again, I'm
all for Notre Dame maintaining their independence. I would be
the same way if I were them. This is not
about Notre Dame joining a conference. It's about them understanding
you've got a relationship with the ACC. Miami is a
member of the ACC. So the ACC was looking at
one of two possibilities. Either we campaign hard for Mario

(21:17):
Christobau's team to get in, or we're not gonna have
a team in, because I'm pretty sure if Notre Dame
made it in, they weren't splitting any of that playoff
revenue with the ACC out of the kindness of their hearts.
Unless it works that way, and I don't know. I
can assure you they weren't voluntarily given the ACC any money.
So they got mad because the ACC was pushing Miami.
What else were they gonna do? Like, you're insane if

(21:39):
you think that way. And also, I don't care if
Jim Phillips himself went in his own pocket and bought
billboards in every major town put the Notre Dame logo
on it with devil horns above it. It's the committee
that makes the decision. The playoff committee makes the decision,
not the ACC. So even in the worst of worlds,

(22:01):
even if they outright targeted you and just resulted to
gestapo tactics to cut your knees out from under you,
it's the playoff committee that has to be the sucker
who falls for it. And they didn't fall for it.
They just judged your resume against Miami's and there was
better because they played you on a field and they won.
And that wasn't even the argument that Pete Bavakua or

(22:22):
Notre Dame should have been making, because very a minority
of the country agrees with you on that. There's the
Notre Dame bubble, and if I was in it, I'd
be saying the same thing. I get it. There's the
Notre Dame bubble, and inside the Notre Dame bubble, everyone
in there thinks everyone outside the Notre Dame bubble either
agrees with them or they're corrupted. I don't know how
many times today I got told that this show has

(22:44):
been bought and paid for by ESPN News. To me,
I thought we owned all of it, But apparently I'm
employed by ESPN now and they own this show. And
how do they know that? Well, because I didn't think
Notre Dame should make the playoff, and there's no way
a freethinking human could believe that other than they've been
bought and paid for. So like, the Notre Dame bubble's

(23:04):
been a little myopic about this, and the outside world
has largely looked at Notre Dame like a petulant child.
That's kind of how they've looked at him on that front.
I've looked at it and I've said, yeah, that argument's stupid.
But this other thing, Pete Bavaqua said, that's what he
should have spent all his time on, because he did
some really, really good explaining of As it turns out,

(23:27):
what the real problem is. The problem whether they look,
let me pause, they certainly believe they should have gotten
in the playoff. I don't necessarily agree with them, but
let's just establish that. He went on a number of
shows yesterday and he said, look, this is not us
versus any team. This is us complaining that the process

(23:49):
was horrifically bungled. Yes, Pete, keep talking on that. Keep talking,
because even if I don't think you should have gotten
in the playoffs, I completely agree with you on this. Man,
keep talking. And he did, and he said, we were
led to believe we were in the playoff. We were
led to believe we had done what we had to
do to get in the playoff. And you know what,
He's right. And I would have thought the same thing

(24:11):
if I were a Notre Dame fan player coach ad
I would have thought to myself, was surely, if we're
sitting there in the top ten or the top nine
before the last weekend, and even in the last weekend
got dropped to number ten, surely, if we don't play
this Saturday and Miami doesn't play this Saturday, that committee's
known about the head to head result for weeks. It's
not like we're going to play again, so the Hayes

(24:34):
in the barn as far as the resumes go. And
then you're telling me, you guys went behind a curtain
during Conference Championship Saturday, when neither US nor Miami played,
and you were already armed with the information that we
had played in week one, and you knew that for weeks,
so seemingly it had already been baked into the cake.
Certainly that's not going to matter. And then all of

(24:55):
a sudden it mattered, and Selection Sunday comes and Miami
jumps Notre Dame and Bama doesn't fall behind them, and
Miami is in and Notre Dame's out, and they're like,
how do we even explain this to our players? How
do they explain it to us? Oh? They didn't. Well,
they tried and failed miserably. I stood right out here

(25:17):
and watched it on a monitor, and I watched Hunter
Yurichek look America in the eyes, and after what five
or six weeks of these reveal shows, he said, well,
you know, when it really came down to it, we
had to compare Notre Dame and Miami, and there was
a head to head result. We had to acknowledge, like

(25:38):
the game had just been played twenty four hours prior
and not two and a half months prior, and it's
just mind numbing ignorance. It's indefensible. And Pete Bavaka was
looking at that saying, that's the problem, buddy. If your
opinion is that you've got like ninety percent of America
behind you and the only ten that's not either hates

(26:01):
Notre Dame and wouldn't agree with you on principle, or
they're the kind of people who argue that the sky
is not really blue because everyone else agrees. The playoff
rankings process sucks, The Committee's process sucks. Their messaging's terrible.
They serve every purpose other than the one they're supposed
to serve. They have a lower approval rating than Congress,

(26:22):
and I don't even know that we've taken their approval rating.
Maybe that's something that we should internalize. But if you
just stuck to that, you would have made a lot
more headway. Instead, it's like so hard to isolate arguments
and to hone in. Like when you're on the debate
stage and you've got your opponent pen down. One of

(26:43):
the tactics in classical debate they'll use I call it
the ping pong style, which is where they'll just bounce
and they'll genuflect, and you don't allow them to do it.
You keep your mouth shut. You let them make a
point that's irrelevant, and then you drill right back down
on the same point you know, you had them pin
down on, and you don't relent, you don't let up.
That's what Pete Bovaqwall should have done. That's what a

(27:04):
lot of Notre Dame folks should have done. Instead, they're
ping pong and all around with these disingenuous side arguments
that don't even matter because the main argument's the main argument.
So that's that. And for the record, very very much
a side note here, the eyeball test thing, the eyeball test.
Notre Dame folks that have made that argument to me,

(27:25):
not all of them have, but a lot of Notre
Dame folks have made the eyeball test argument. We think
we should be in because we're the best team. Now
you don't know that, well, Josh, I know would be favored.
I do too. I got the numbers right here. On
a neutral field, according to FanDuel, on a neutral field,
Notre Dame would be a two and a half point
favorite against Oregon, two and a half point favorite against

(27:46):
Texas Tech, four point favorite against Bama. You'd be a
five and a half point favorite against Miami. There you go, Matt,
my own sportsbook partner is definitively telling you you'd be
favored on a neutral field against Miami. I don't care.
I don't care because I don't think you earned your spot.
I think you're better than Miami. I'd pick you to
beat Miami. I don't care because I've been wrong picking

(28:09):
games before. So my eyeball test is irrelevant. And like
I said the other night, and I'll continue to maintain
this if I don't even value my eyeball test, you
really think I value the eyeball test of people who
are probably hitting the sack by eight thirty tonight on
that committee. Absolutely not. And then lastly, as for the
Bowl opt out, No, I hated it. I hated the

(28:32):
Bowl opt out because I feel like I'm ninety years
old when it comes to the spirit of competition in sports.
I think a football game's worth playing because it's a
football game, because you only get to play so many
of them, and especially if I'm a senior on Notre
Dame's team. I ended my season sure that I was
going to have at least one more game, if not several,

(28:53):
and then the playoff rug got yanked out from under me.
But still I'm going to play a Bowl game, right, Nope.
On my career's over, I'll never play football game again.
That doesn't sit well with me at all. And also
from a competitive standpoint, I've got a lot of young
guys who I'd love to get through bull practices. I'd
love to get in some live reps in a game.
I'd love to give my fans that want to go

(29:16):
the experience. But I just it's a football game, man.
So on the surface, I feel that way about that,
But they're not the only one who opted out of
a game. I'd be lying if I said I didn't
understand the sentiment, because if I was in their shoes
and I felt like I got jilted by the playoff committee,
the last thing I'd want to go do is participate

(29:36):
in Sadly, what many think is just some exhibition. Now
Bowl games used to be great. They're not viewed that
way anymore. So it wasn't the biggest you know, it
wasn't the biggest crisis of the week to me that
Notre Dame opted out of their bowl game. I understand it.
I don't have to like it, but I understand it.
On the level of one to ten, it was like

(29:57):
a four and a half for me. They're watching us
in Durango, Colorado, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Roanoke, Virginia. Thank
you guys so much. Two cities in Virginia. I've never
been to Roanoak in Norfolk. I've known them my whole
life because I was a child of the Weather Channel.
My first grade teacher reached out to me the other day.

(30:18):
She saw us doing the outcast and she posted, I
think on Facebook, which I checked about once a month,
and she was talking about how she remembered that I
knew all fifty of my state shapes in first grade
because of the Weather Channel. And then I had to
remind her I knew my capitals in kindergarten and the
shapes by first grade because I watched the Weather Channel religiously.

(30:43):
And not only did I know my state capitals, I
knew a minimum of three cities in every state and
Roanoak and Norfolk, and ironically, Newport News was the third
city that I always remember memorizing in Virginia, Ashbourn, nice
little rail town too. So it's a completely irrelevant to
my next point. I just we got a lighter show tonight,

(31:03):
so I thought I could fit that kind of stuff
in there. Bradley, go to the inbox, Go to the
Pate State mail bag. There, give me this question from Davenport, Iowa.
Chris p And Davenport, Iowa said, is it safe to
say if the Big Ten wins a national title, the
Big ten has surpassed the sec? Chris, Chris, Chris? Is

(31:25):
it really that simple? Is it really that basic? Maybe
it is. I've got thoughts on this that I've shared before.
I don't think i've shared him in the last few weeks, though.
So it's a really good time for the Big Ten,
but not all the Big ten, but it's a really
good time for the logo of the Big Ten. If
you define success and best and superiority by which league

(31:49):
wins the national title, then it's a great time to
be the Big Ten. It's never a bad time to
be the Big Ten. Because they've been either number one
or number two in the Power Conference pecking order for
a long time. Now, they could be number one right
now or number two, depending on your criteria. So let's
walk it through. Let's say Ohio State or Indiana wins
the national title this year. Well, my answer then wouldn't

(32:12):
be any different than it is now. It all depends
on how you define superiority number one, number two, and
I think that I value both a little bit, so
I think there's a lot to be said about both.
I tend to judge the overall conference by the competitive
depth of the conference, so like, I still think the

(32:34):
SEC has the edge there. But if you're the kind
of guy who thinks, well, hey, man, if I got
the best two teams in the country, I don't care
if you have number three and five and six and
seven and eight. Cool to each his and her own.
The reason I think it's a great time for the
Big ten's cause the overall landscape of the sport has
changed to the benefit of the Big Ten, which means
a couple of things. The first one's obvious. The first

(32:56):
one is with what's happened with Nil, many more Big
ten programs have leaned into paying players because everyone's doing
it now legally, and so that is also that's also
redistributed some of the talent, but I think that's happened
more in the SEC than the Big Ten. What I

(33:18):
mean by that is in the Big Ten, Ohio State
and Michigan, Penn State, Oregon USC, now those will always
be places that recruited a fairly high level. Ohio State
is a juggernaut recruiting program. USC just landed the number
one class, which is great, but Organ's done it. But
the point is, if you think about it in terms

(33:41):
of talent concentration, the talent is far more concentrated in
the Big Ten than it is in the SEC, which
means two things. That means Georgia may lose a few
elite players, Bama may lose a few elite players that
go to like randomly Ole miss or South Carolina or Arkansas,

(34:03):
because that does happen occasionally, but that still means the
talent's in the league. It's just more distributed, whereas in
the Big Ten, no one ever turns down Ohio State
to go to Wisconsin. In the SEC, it just makes
sense to people that Dylan Stewart is playing at South
Carolina over Georgia because that stuff just happens. In the SEC.
Freak athletes go to places where it's very unlikely they're

(34:27):
gonna win a national title. But still those places get
legit talent in the Big Ten. Who in the world
is voluntarily just going to Michigan State over Oregon. Unless
it's a big time geographical proximity sort of thing, it
doesn't happen. And as a result, the top of the
Big Ten, the tallest trees in the Big Ten right

(34:49):
now look to be taller than the tallest trees in
the SEC. I think the SEC forest is way thicker
than the Big Ten's very vivid right there. And what
I'm I mean by that. You can pull up the
latest recruiting rankings, but you could really do this for
the last several classes, because this could be explained away
as anecdotal. I'm telling you I wouldn't give this example.

(35:09):
If extrapolated out over the last several years, it didn't
pretty much look the same. So USC these signing Day
was last Wednesday. By the way, for those who weren't
paying attention, the on three sports recruiting rankings are in
my hand right now. In the Big Ten, some of
these teams had really good signing classes. USC number one overall,

(35:31):
Oregon three, Ohio State six, and then it's Michigan at twelve,
Washington at sixteen. So you had a few of them,
You had three of them in the top six, and
then you got one at twelve, and then the rest
of them outside of the top fifteen. In the SEC,
Bama was four, Georgia was five, Tennessee seven, A and
M eight, Texas ten, LSU eleven, Florida thirteen, South Carolina fifteen,

(35:55):
Oklahoma seventeen. And if you want to start, you know,
doing the comparison cross conferences one, two, three, fourth, Washington
was fifth in the Big Ten at number sixteen. That's
about where Oklahoma was in the SEC. But the fifth
highest recruiting class in the Big Ten would have been two, four,
six eight ninth in the SEC. So just the overall

(36:19):
talent pool is deeper there, that's all. But you'll notice
what the example I just gave about the on field
product carries very similarly to the recruiting classes. Yeah, Bama's
fourth and fifth, USC's first, Oregon's third, Ohio State sixth.
Then you know they're going to develop the you know
what out of anybody that they signed. So I don't know,

(36:39):
I guess it all comes down to how you judge conferences.
I will also say this, when you see how top
heavy the Big ten still is. It may not always
be that way, but it still is now, it makes
perfect sense why they're pushing for the AQ model. This,
this playoff field right now is an example. SEC got
five teams in, the Big Ten got three teams in. Well,

(37:02):
if the Big ten got their way where it would
have been four four, two, two one one, you know,
the whole AQ model, the Big ten would have gotten
one more in, the SEC would have gotten one fewer in.
And again that's very anecdotal. It's a one year sample size,
but it just goes to show you the SEC is
sort of banking on the fact that, hey, we're deeper

(37:22):
than you. Now. We may not have the best top
end teams, but we could litter the top twelve in
a manner that your conference really can't. It's a roll
of the dice, and any given year could produce an
anomaly of a result. But that's the way it stands
right now, at least in my mind. It does. Academy
sports and outdoors it's been a partner of ours for

(37:44):
a long time. Now it's getting serious out there, it's
getting cold or it just straight up already is depending
on where you live, and you could need anything from
winter clothing to winter sporting gear, to a new grill
to maybe a new canop for outdoors. You know, I
don't want to necessarily box you in, because there's a

(38:05):
lot that Academy Sports and Outdoors has, even in the
winter months, that you may not know you need until
you go in there, and then you look to your
left and right, and as far as the eye can see,
it's stuff you need. I speak from firsthand experience. So
Academy Sports and Outdoors is available in person, which I
highly suggest, But if you can't get there in person,
Academy dot Com has your hookup, and they are a

(38:27):
close personal friend of the program. Again, they've been with
us for a long time, and we appreciate Academy for
all ways. Kind of being like the mortar between the
bricks of our shows. That's actually how the stack of
papers looks, Jesse. Did someone ask about most disappointing teams?

(38:49):
Or did we just yeah, someone asked Dorian from Yazoo City, Mississippi,
a tornado hotbed Yazoo City, Mississippi. There is an age
old adage in the storm chasing community in Dixie. Alley
went in doubt head towards Yazoo City, Mississippi, and you
would not say that in any other walk of life.

(39:10):
All due respect to Yazoo City, but I'm just telling you,
when it's spring, the storm chasing season, catch me in
Yazoo City. Anyway, Dorian said, you said on the show
a while back that a bunch of preseason top twenty
five teams finished unranked. Out of those teams, who were
your most disappointing teams this season? It's a depressing question.
I'd be happy to answer it. Clemson was terrible. Clemson

(39:32):
was the number four team in the country in the preseason.
They finished seven and five. You remember, or if you don't,
let me, let me jog your memory. Let me refreshify
your memory. Go back in time, go back in time
to the summer. What are we saying. We're saying, Hey,
Clemson's got the best shot they've had in a long time. Remember,

(39:52):
they've replenished the wide receiver room. I'm guilty of this
in many ways. I'm just repeating myself. They've replenished the
wide receiver room. I got as good an athletic profile
in that receiver room as they've had in a long time.
What else did they have? Cade Klubnik, third year returning starter,
Garrett Riley, third year returning play caller. They've got NFL
capability on all three levels of the defense. Run game

(40:17):
probably won't be electric, but it'll be good enough. It'll
be serviceable enough. Offensive line looks better than it's been
in a few years. And not everyone agreed with this,
but I had the opinion that this was sort of
a maybe a last dance situation because I viewed twenty
twenty six and beyond as the edge of a cliff
from a roster certainty standpoint, I didn't have a lot

(40:38):
of confidence. So I looked at this year, this twenty
twenty five year, as the year they had to get
it done. And not only did they not get it done,
they imploded. They lost to LSU, and they squeaked by Troy,
then lost to Georgia Tech, then lost to Syracuse. When
they lost to Syracuse, that one was done. I mean
that was Steve Angeli Syracuse. That was before the quarterback

(40:59):
got injured and ended the season. Syracuse housed them at home,
and so they started the season one in three and
it was just a bad, bad time. So that had
to be my most disappointing team, but not my only
disappointing team, because the Florida Gators do exist after all. Now,
credit the AP, they only had them number fifteen. I

(41:22):
regret to inform you I had them a little bit
higher than that, to my credit. Well, no, there's no
credit to be had here. I'm not gonna do that
to my defense. No, there's no defending. I don't know,
in my honor, in my very very feeble attempt to

(41:44):
explain this away, there we go. Whatever the acronyms, I
think that if they were just being judged on their team,
independent of their schedule, I think the AP would have
voted him higher. I had him higher because I don't
think you should predict with your preseason ranking, because that
just means the teams with the easier schedules are gonna

(42:04):
be ranked higher than teams with the toughest schedules are
gonna be ranked lower. Anyway, it didn't matter because they
finished four and eight. This one hurts. This one hurts
me bad. The worst part is if you look at
the schedule on your screen right now, notice there's the
loss to USF and that started the downfall. Then they
went to LSU and they were I think five interceptions
that night minus four turnovers. Then they got smashed by Miami,

(42:27):
and then what happened everyone, They just randomly mixed in
a win against Texas, which reminded you, or reminded me,
everything I thought Florida was capable of in the preseason.
They were always capable of it, just so happens they
were only gonna give it to you in small sample sizes.
It was like my mom taking me to Sam's Club

(42:48):
on a Saturday morning. They're not gonna feed you breakfast,
but they will give you the little sample platters. Now
I used to think that that was breakfast. Unbeknownst to me,
they were trying to convince you to buy stuff. Florida
convinced me to buy them. I got a little taste
of Florida at the end of last year, and they
convinced me to buy them. And the I didn't check

(43:09):
the expiration date. I don't know what else to say.
Very very poor shopping on my part, and they end
up four and eight. And the worst part is DJ
Lagway just never even remotely came close to what I
thought he was one of the things that will live
in infamy was me doing my sec quarterback preseason power ratings,
which we may never do again because I had Lagway
number one and he finished. I can't believe that's real.

(43:32):
He finished with a sixteen to fourteen touchdown to it ratio.
I don't want to talk about it anymore. Let's move
on Penn State. Shame on you, Jesse. Penn State was
a preseason number two. This one was well documented, but
let's revisit it once more, shall we. They went six
and six. Now it was a It was a tale

(43:54):
of like three seasons for Penn State because you had
the start, which was like miss leading. So they entered
the season number two. They played Nevada, FIU, and Villanova
to begin the year. Didn't look particularly great in any
of those games, but everyone sort of had in the
back of their mind we didn't have to show anything.
We were really vanilla. You know Andy Kolniki man, he's

(44:17):
been cooking up with Drew Aller and these transfer portal
receivers all spring and all summer. You think we're gonna
show our offensive hand against FIU? More like who ah
here comes Oregon. Ah Man, We're down seventeen to three. Ah, man,
we're having a fight back. Oh snap, we're taking him
to overtime. And we lost and we're dead. That was

(44:40):
season number one, and then season number two was let's
go and let's bounce back on the West Coast against UCLA.
Wait a second, we just lost this again. Oh it's
crisis time. We're going home boy. If Northwestern gets out
to a lead against US, it's gonna be really toxic.
Northwestern has the lead, Northwestern just won. James Franklin is fired.

(45:01):
That was season two, and then Terry Smith is named
the interim head coach and they fought Iowa valiantly on
the road and they lost. They hung with Ohio State
for a little while when they lost, and then they
come home and give Indiana the biggest fight Indiana's had
all a year. Including I would argue the game they
just played against Ohio State and they were in the
process of becoming one of the hottest teams in the country,

(45:23):
and we knew because we were dumping money on him.
The Model never dropped him out of the top twenty.
I had to manually override the Model and then the
Model won, And so that was season three. And it
was long. I don't know how many games it felt
like to you. Those were twelve games that felt like
three seasons worth of games. But yeah, that was disappointing

(45:45):
because Penn State was one of the safest commodities. Look
at the schedule, keep the schedule at Bradley. So remember,
in preseason terms, there was so little question about the team.
Think about what they were last year. They were in
the semi final, they were one play or so away
going the other way of being in the National championship game.
And most of those pieces returned and you got a

(46:07):
two headed thousand yard per tailback caliber backfield caliber quarterbacks
back again, we've got really good transfer portal talent infusion
at wide receiver, which was one of the last remaining
hurdles for this team. And then defense, we just casually

(46:27):
went outed Jim Knowles. All the signs were there, to
the point where everyone said, I don't know how Penn
State doesn't make the playoff. Remember, once upon a time,
the worst case for Penn State was they lose the
Oregon game and the Ohio State game. They're ten and two.
That was worst case finished just a few games short
of worst case. So gimme Clemson and Florida and Penn State.

(46:51):
This is my most disappointing teams. And then let's turn
our rounds upside down, because I have to remind you
over at peytstatematerial dot com as we speak, there are
all sorts of different odds and ends that you can
purchase for what some call the holiday season. We just

(47:12):
call it Christmas around here. But it is my duty
to inform you that it's December ninth. People are ordering
a lot of stuff from us right now, and I
have close personal sources in the FedEx and UPS communities
that are informing me that shipping is pretty hectic this
time of year. It turns out people are taking Christmas

(47:34):
seriously this time of year. I say all that to
say this. I know a lot of moms and dads
listen to the show who have little ones who hopefully
one day we'll grow up to listen to the show
as well. But in the meantime, you want to buy
some Pet State Little Freights gear, you better do it
now if you want to get it in time. You
want to buy that chuggy Christmas sweater, Merry Christmas, you
filthy casual Christmas sweater, both of which I saw in

(47:55):
abundance at our live show in Atlanta last week. Peytstatematerial
dot com. Or you know, it's not totally selfish if
you just go get a T shirt for yourself. It is.
It is the season of giving and that includes the
man or woman in the mirror. Next up, this was
an important question. I'm glad someone asked this earlier today,

(48:16):
Wesley from Harrisburg, PA. He said, you know you used
to get fun behind the scenes stories from your trips.
Can you do that again for the Penn State trip.
I'm glad you asked. I never would have thought to
include this in the show. Yes, I can. So. Yesterday
it was a very busy day and it is It
occurs to me sometimes that you guys are really fascinated

(48:38):
with the logistics of how we go on the road
as often as we do. So yesterday we well, I
had a lot of commitments in Nashville in the morning,
got done with those, swung over to Jesse's apartment and
picked him up, went over to BNA, which is the
airport in Nashville. Flew straight up to State College because
Matt Campbell was being introduced and he's our boy, so

(48:59):
we want to go up there and see that. And
he was introduced at a press conference there at noon Eastern,
and then a couple of hours later we were set
up in his office. I was in his office before
he was in his office, and that'll always be a
fact that lives in Penn State program lore. And we
did a really good extended sit down with him, probably
spend another thirty minutes or so with him off camera,

(49:21):
just talking through the last month. Man. Matt is a
kind of guy who really really foxholes himself during the season,
and very few people are talking to him now. I
don't try, but even if you tried, you're probably not
talking to him during the season. And so when he
comes up for air after the season, there's a lot
to catch up on, especially because he had just taken

(49:41):
a new job. So I got to tell you, Man,
I've been in that Penn State press conference room many
times in post game situations, and I've never seen it
that full, which is understandable. The Penn State president, who
I had never been around before, is one of the
most impressive women that you will ever be around, and
I think she took a very, very key role in

(50:03):
this coaching search, and I think because of that, it
yielded the best result possible. Now, the coaching search took
fifty four days, but they ended up getting the best
candidate for the job, which is very, very weird because
most of the time, if you take fifty four days,
it means you're taking option number nineteen. I don't care

(50:24):
what the list looked like because I didn't respect much
of the process. The process ended with the guy that
I would have put number one on the list. So,
as far as I'm concerned, Penn State landed their number
one candidate. They just pissed away a recruiting class in
the process, but that's in the past. Future is now
spoke to them a great deal about the recruiting class

(50:47):
evaporating about what they'll do. You know, you're in a
situation now where like you come from a program, do
some of those players follow you because they're free to
do you want that? Do they match what you need
on your rush? Like all that stuff's going on staffing situations.

(51:09):
But it was a really, really good time. It was
a really eye opening time. There's still just a lot
of sensitivity up there about the nature of the search.
I mean, this is if you're like a Texas tech fan,
I know you just watched this from a distance. These
people lived it. This is a better part of two months.
Your job was one of the first to come open

(51:29):
and one of the last to get filled. And it
is a shot to the pride because you feel a
certain way about the status of your job, and when
that's not reflected in the marketplace, it hurts. And you
don't know, is it just because our program secretly sucks
or it's not desirable? Is it because there's been a
little dereliction of duty in the way the job's been
presented in shopped You don't know. You have no recourse,

(51:52):
You have no way to know other than going and
checking what Sean Fitz is saying over on the Penn
State on three message boards. And we all know how
hit and missed that can be. That's a joke, friend
of the program, Sean Fitz, and Hey, the other bit
of good news was Gelby came with us. You know.
I called Gelby, who lives in Los Angeles, on Saturday.
I said, Gelby, can you be in State College by tomorrow?

(52:15):
And he loaded up his five hundred pounds a year
and he headed up there. And he was set up
there by the time we got there twenty three degrees.
I think when we landed felt a little colder. Savannah
State came along. Savannah State had a good amount of
FaceTime with Matt Campbell, maybe even more than we had Jesse,
so I was a little curious. I still don't know
what they talked about, but it was really good to
see him. It was really good to see his family

(52:36):
up there. And I think they will kill it, point blank.
Think they'll kill it. Oh, by the way, the one
on one we did with him has received huge traffic
on the channel, But if you're unaware, we did a
full thirty minute sitting down with him. Getting thirty minutes
on press conference day on the first day you're in
the building is a pretty big deal. So that's all

(52:57):
on the channel right now. You can go find it.
I didn't have Bradley make a thumbnail. It's just a
screenshot of me and him sitting there. So, yeah, that
was really fun. And then so let's see, woke up,
did Sports Center at six forty five, did get up
at seven fifteen and seven thirty, went and picked up Jesse,
took off at eight o'clock, got up there at ten,

(53:19):
which is eleven Eastern time, went over to the facility,
went over to the stadium where the press conference was
Press conferences at twelve. It last till after one. We
go back over to the LASH building, which is where
all the offices are. We set up, We do the
one on one. We get out of there about three
point thirty. We uploaded, We get it edited and processed
and fonted and graphiccked and put on the channel. By

(53:40):
four fifteen. We go back to the airport, get on
the plane. Someone had put crumble cookies on the plane,
and that's I think all I want to say about that.
But they were good, but still unnecessary. And then we
fly home and we eat on the plane, not cookies
but real food, and then we eat. Time it up

(54:01):
to where when you land you can take your pre
workout and you can go straight to the gym and
you can get there by seven fifteen because it closes
at nine, and then you get done at the gym
at nine and then you go home and that's a workday.
So there's the logistics part that someone asked about. I'm
not even phased by not like I used to get
so worn out for some reason flying and now it's

(54:25):
like a car ride. I couldn't care less, could not
care less. We can just we don't really sleep during
the season, don't really sleep because we actually have fun
doing what we're doing while we're awake. We move on.
Let's see, do we think that's Stephan Jesse? I would
guess Stephan. Yeah, it's got to be okay. Stephan from Goodyear, Arizona,

(54:49):
SMU Tennessee and Indiana got smoked in round one last year.
Why are we hating on the G five when there's
honestly only four teams that could truly win at all?
I love the questions so much it is asked perfectly.
All right, this is so stupid the way people make
this argument. There are some people out there. There are

(55:09):
many people out there who don't believe the G five
should be included in the playoff. I happen to be
one of them. But that's the complete wrong way to
make the argument. There are many people. Let me pause
this second time I've had to do this in the show.
When I say I don't believe the G five should

(55:30):
be in the playoff, I mean I don't believe they
should automatically be in the playoff. I got no problem
with a great G five team being in the playoff
like Boise last year. No problem with it. I don't
think they should automatically be in. So a lot of
people do agree with what I just said, but then
they'll follow it up with the dumbest logic and they'll say, Oh,

(55:53):
James Madison's gonna get blown out by Oregon. They don't
deserve to be in. It doesn't matter what the score
is going to be. Oh Man, two lanes got no
shot against ol Miss. They're gonna get blown out. You're
just backing yourself voluntarily into a corner. If you were
on a debate stage making this point. I've mentioned this
two times tonight. You're on a debate stage, you take

(56:14):
a point of view, and then it's like you voluntarily
back yourself into a corner by using the following logic, Oh,
these games are gonna be blowouts. That proves those teams
shouldn't be in the playoff. Well, bud By that logic.
Tennessee shouldn't have been in the playoff last year because
they got blown out. Sim you got blown out in

(56:35):
the first round. Should they have been in the playoff? Yes,
The answer is yes they should. So this sounds a
little hypocritical, right because I just sat there and told
you I don't think James Madison should be in the
playoff this year if the structure was proper. Let me
put it that way. Well, Josh, how can you say that? Well,
because my ammunition for my argument has nothing to do

(56:56):
with what the margin of defeat's gonna be if Slash
Win go lose to Oregon. My fundamental belief is I've
never cared what you're capable or incapable of. In a
one game scenario, James Madison could go beat organ for
all I care, and I wouldn't think they deserve to
be in. So they could go win forty nine to

(57:17):
forty six or lose forty nine nothing. And I have
the same point of view because the reasoning, the logic
behind my viewpoint is I don't care about what you're
capable of. I care about what you earned. And to
even warrant consideration for a playoff spot requires a minimum
struggle requirement that a G five schedule does not give
you the ability to clear. From a hurdle standpoint, like,

(57:39):
there is a minimum baseline pushback that I think you
have to have gotten from your strength of schedule that
the James Madisons of the world are incapable of getting.
What I'm telling you, in other words, is there's no
way that James Madison could earn a playoff spot in
my mind, because there is no minimum baseline pushback that
this schedule could give them. And you could apply this

(58:01):
to anyone. It's not just G five, and you could
randomly have wake Forest one year that just so happens
to play a cookie dough soft schedule. Virginia was very
close to this this year, and I could have largely
made the same points. But I just want to illustrate
this because people think you hate the G five when
you say this, or you're like anti Cinderella when you

(58:23):
say this. It's none of that, just pro common sense.
Jmu's twenty twenty five schedule. We just looked at our
power ratings. You can look at whatever you want to.
They're loosely going to be the same. I just happen
to have my own internal set of power ratings. They're
pretty good, so let's go buy those. JMU played no
Top thirty opposition this year. They played only one Top

(58:47):
fifty team, and that was Louisville and they lost by
fourteen points. Okay, they have no wins versus top fifty teams.
Their best win is against Old Dominion, who we have
power rated number fifty two in the country. No top
fifty wins. Oklahoma faced eight teams tougher than James Madison's

(59:09):
toughest opponent. Eight of the twelve teams Oklahoma played this
year were infinitely tougher than the toughest opponent that JMU played.
And if you want to talk about the toughest opponent
JM you beat, it would be worse than that. They're
not playing the same sport. They're not playing the same
caliber of football. So I saw this argument being made

(59:32):
earlier today and someone said, oh, man, you hate the
G five if you make that argument, because the bottom
line is they are all playing the same sport. Because
the NCAA says that one hundred and thirty six teams
playing the FBS, that's because it's it's structured incorrectly. That's
why that is. That's like when Michael Scott. You remember
when when he went over to Prince Family Paper and

(59:54):
the little girl was over there doing her homework and
he just completely bastardized some math equation, and the mom
came in behind us it, Oh, don't write that. It
wasn't right just because he wrote it. It's not right.
It doesn't make sense just because we say there's one
hundred and thirty six teams competing for the same championship,
even though there's this bubble at the top that have

(01:00:18):
vast disparities in resource and therefore vast disparities and talent
relative to these other guys over here. And any sane
society would look and say, why don't we have those
guys compete against each other and chase their own championship,
and then these guys over here can chase the championship
that already exists. But the minute you talk about that,

(01:00:38):
people just fly into hysterics and nonsensical counterpoints that have
nothing to do with really like the spirit of pure competition.
It has to do with money, which I understand, and
I'm not being critical of the fact that James Madison
and Tulane and any of the G five programs need money.
That's why I wish two things. I wish number one,

(01:01:01):
we had a G five playoff, and number two, it
was fully subsidized and if it has to be subsidized
by the big boys, then so be it, because I
would then get the best version of that playoff, and
I would get an entire new, separate playoff where Tulane
has a shot to win a national title. I do

(01:01:24):
know what one of the replies here is going to be,
because I've already gotten it several times. There are fans
of G five programs who look you dead in the
eye and they say, I'd rather lose by fifty against
Ole Miss in an opening round playoff game than chase
some secondary championship. And if you think that way, that's fine.
I don't understand it, but we can differ an opinion.

(01:01:46):
That's fine. I will get group of five guys over here.
They will explain it to me. I will disagree with them.
We will exchange very very hurtful, witty banter back and forth,
and then we'll all go church and get a nice
cream cone afterwards, like we always do. FanDuel is the
exclusive it's the exclusive odds provider of our show. But

(01:02:08):
they also have right now on any playoff wagers, thirty
percent profit boost. That's a really big headline, So I
need to say it again. College Football playoff odds are
over on FanDuel right now, thirty percent profit boost token.
You need to go take advantage of that now. If
you are not a customer, you can go sign up

(01:02:30):
FanDuel dot com slash Josh Pate. We always recommend it.
But if you're not the betting type, that's totally cool.
You just go over there and look at the odds.
And if you have any doubt about whether you should
or shouldn't be betting, my advice is you probably shouldn't
be betting right now. And if you have any doubt
about whether you can or can't afford to be betting,

(01:02:51):
the answer is you can't. So no one's trying to
encourage that. If you have the means and you can
afford to have fun and do it, go do it.
But if you're not doing it, I just want to
let you know. If you're just curious about these odds
and what they look like, what does the Heisman board
look like between now and Saturday night? You can see
it at FanDuel right now.

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
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com slash RG call one eight eight eight seven eight
nine seventy seven seventy seven, or visit CCPG dot org
slash chat in Connecticut, or visit nd Gamblinghelp dot org
in Maryland. Hope is here? Visit Gambling Helplinema dot org.
Or call eight hundred three two seven fifty fifty for
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(01:03:54):
Why in New York.

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
All right, last, but certainly not least. On the show tonight.
I'm so excited about this. I've waited for months. Okay,
throughout the spring and summer, we do a segment on
the show called Bold Predictions. It's very basic concept, but
it's not my predictions. I take hundreds of your predictions

(01:04:19):
about the season, and the only rule we have to
work on the honor system is you have to legitimately
believe what you're saying is going to come true. You
submit them, and I put a one to ten rating
on the prediction. It's just like a boldness scale. The
higher the number of the boulder I think the prediction is.
And the rule around here is anyone who submits a

(01:04:40):
prediction that rates nine and a half or higher on
the Boldness scale and hits wins a chalice of supremacy.
The fun part is in December we get to just
dump the garbage can out and look through this wasteland
of bold predictions. And buddy, all are gonna make fun

(01:05:00):
of me about rating DJ Lagway number one overall quarterback.
If you're gonna make fun of me for having my
playoff predictions go off the rails, then you better believe
I'm waving this in your face ten times out of ten.
First up, Mike thought Jackson Arnold would lead the SEC

(01:05:20):
in touchdown passes. Half of you have deleted your accounts,
that's how ashamed you are of these predictions. Well, I
have some news to break to you, Mike. Michael. I'm
gonna call you, Michael. Jackson Arnold did not lead the
SEC in touchdown passes Diego Pavia dim He had twenty seven.
Jackson Arnold had four and a half times less than that.

(01:05:42):
Jackson Arnold finished sixteenth in the SEC in touchdown passes,
behind the likes of Cutter, Bowley, Blake Shapin. Auburn for
the record, finished number one hundred and twenty in overall
passing touchdowns. That was the lowest in the SEC. That
is a terrible Bold prediction. Next up, we go to

(01:06:05):
Austin in Salt Lake City. Austin thought that Deon Sanders
and Colorado would have another nine plus win season, establishing
Dion's credibility as a college football head coach, and Caden
Salter has a bounce back season and is a Heisman finalist.
I put a nine point seventy five on this one.

(01:06:27):
If it had come true, a Chalicis supremacy would be
shipped out. Colorado finished three and nine. Their wins were
against Delaware, Wyoming, and Iowa State, and that Iowa State
team was without like every starter. Still pretty inexplicable. Though
Colorado did not win nine games, they finished with the
second worst record in the Big Twelve. Caden Salter did

(01:06:51):
not become a Heisman finalist. He instead rotated with two
other guys. He did not finish top one hundred in
passing yards. He was fifteen total touchdowns, seven interceptions. So
this one crashed and burned into the mountainside. No, no
Chalice's supremacy. And lastly, had a little concern about this one.

(01:07:15):
After week one. R. Wilmer from Clifton Forge, Virginia. He said,
FSU goes ten and two, they make the ACC Championship game,
and they also make the final four of the College
Football Playoff and then what happened, Well, I put a
nine point seventy five on this, so I'm on the
hook for a Chalice's supremacy. And then they opened the

(01:07:38):
season and they beat Alabama, and I'm like, uh oh,
I mean, this is the ACC they got to. If
they can beat Alabama this soundly, they got a really
good shot to make it. So they started hot, Yes
they did. Then they lost to Virginia and they lost
to Miami, and they lost to pitt and they lost

(01:07:58):
to Stanford and clem in NNC State and Florida and
it was a five and seven season. So they started
three to zero, then they went zero to four. They
lost seven of their final nine. The season that began
with an upset win over Alabama ends with the athletic
director having to make a statement that were not firing
Mike Norvel. And what wasn't included in that statement but

(01:08:20):
ended up being true is they tried to go hire
Lane Kiffin and if he said yes, they were going
to fire Norvel, but they couldn't get Kiffin. In other words,
and otherwise they didn't want to pay the kind of
money that it was going to take to buy Mike out.
So he's still there, but no one really believes that
it's going to work, even though the statement said they
fully stand behind him, but they really don't because they

(01:08:42):
tried to get rid of him. They just couldn't get
the guy they wanted to replace him. So it turns
out this did not come true. Florida State not going
to be in the playoff final four. That was fun
and very cathartic for me, even if it wasn't for you.
But I need that this time of year because if
I'm going down, the one thing you need to know
is I'm not going down. Thank you guys so much

(01:09:04):
for tuning into the show. Make sure you are subscribed
and ten of your friends are as well. We'll be
back Thursday night. I don't know what time yet, maybe
the normal time. We'll see Cublick I'm told is gonna
join us, maybe from a special location. We'll just see
for director Bradley, Producer Jesse, I'm Josh Fate take here,
have a great rest of your evening, and God bless.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
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plus and present in DC. First online real money wager
only five dollars first deposit required. Bonus issued us non
withdrawable bonus bets which expires seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply.
See terms at sportsbook dot FanDuel dot com. Gambling problem
call one eight hundred gambler, or visit FanDuel dot dot com.

(01:10:00):
Slash RG call one eight eight eight seven eight nine
seventy seven seventy seven, or visit CCPG dot org slash
chat in Connecticut, or visit nd Gamblinghelp dot org in Maryland.
Hope is here, visit gambling Heelplinema dot org or call
eight hundred three two seven fifty fifty for twenty four
seven support in Massachusetts or call one eight seven seven
eight hope n Y. Or text hope n Y in

(01:10:21):
New York