Michigan Fires Sherrone Moore + Mega-CFP Thoughts & Cole Cubelic Joins

Michigan has fired Sherrone Moore and the College Football world is buzzing. Where will the coaching search turn? Could Kalen DeBoer or Kenny Dillingham get the call? The College Football Playoff final rankings have been released and first-round matchups are set. On Josh Pate’s College Football Show Ep. 697 Josh reacts to it all. Did the CFP Committee put the right teams in? What about the possibility of CFP expansion? Cole Cubelic joins the show to discuss teams like Alabama, Ohio State, UGA, Texas A&M, Oregon, Indiana, and more. Which teams could legitimately win the national title? 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 (00:13):
This sport.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Man.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
I don't know how you explain it to newcomers, but
we try. This is America's college football show. At least
we try to be. We're jam packed high a top,
a very on edge, downtown National, Tennessee, on this Thursday night,
December eleventh, the year of our lower twenty twenty five.
We got some football related serious stuff. We've got some
real world related serious stuff. We are team minus eight

(00:35):
days in counting until the college football playoff kicks off.
I've got talks of expansion that, of course we will
hammer unmercifully like the pinata that it is on tonight's show.
Is everybody a contender in that thing? By the way,
certainly we don't think JMU or two Lane are going
to win the national title. But outside of that, if
the best of best, the best case scenarios happened, could

(00:57):
everyone win it. I see you shaking your head. No,
I picture you shaking your head. No. I'll give you
my take on that. Kublic's going to join us in
a little while. We had a jam pack show and
Leika that there's a bracket right there in the bottom
of my notes. So they're watching us in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Racine, Illinois, Dayton, Ohio, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
We are For those of you who are newer around here, well,

(01:19):
first off, we're appreciative that you're here. This is just
college football all year long. Happy you stumbled upon the show.
Make sure you subscribe to the channel. Recently, we reached
a milestone around here. We hit five hundred thousand subscribers.
It's a tough word to say fast, so that means
one million subscribers is our next benchmark. And I'm not
saying we won't celebrate, we won't golf clap ourselves when

(01:42):
we hit six hundred k, but we're a proper show.
So a million that's the club we want to be in.
And now it's going to get pretty heavy, so let's
dive in. Michigan fired Sharon Moore yesterday yesterday being Wednesday.
For those of you who are watching this, replace time
down the road, and I did a reaction video on
the channel, So if you're wondering, that initial video which

(02:06):
did Bonker's traffic, is on the channel already. But I'm
going to leave the show with it again. This was
a really, really wild thing that happened Wednesday, and I
want to address something. So myself and a lot of
other people had heard versions of rumors of what ended
up coming to Fruition at Michigan, and a lot of
people listen to me say that in the video that

(02:26):
I posted on the channel, and they said, well, isn't
that a little bit unethical by you? If you knew
what was happening, why didn't you report it? Let me
address that Number one, Because I didn't fully know what
was happening. I heard some stuff. You hear a lot
of stuff around here, guys. If you just ran your
mouth about everything you heard, the show wouldn't exist because

(02:48):
the courts would have sucked us dry already because we
would be taken to them regularly. So I didn't know
what was happening. I heard and had on pretty good
authority that something had happened. But it's very obvious, even
with the Michigan circles that in the last week, and
I've confirmed all this since. Then within the last week,
certain additional events transpired that made it pretty obvious what

(03:11):
had happened. And now Sharon Moore is out of a job,
and then you had the whole mess that happened last night.
I don't want to make light of it. It's just
not football related where Sharon Moore ends up in handcuffs
and we've got like a real world incident unfolding paralleling

(03:31):
a football incident unfolding. So I don't want to make
light of that. But number two, I'm not a reporter, Okay,
I'm not an investigative journalist. So that's the other reason
that I didn't really take a deep dive down that well.
To be very clear, like my stance on this show
when I hear that a guy may be on the
way to being fired is to wait for him to

(03:53):
be fired, because a lot of times you hear rumors
and they are unsubstantiated and they don't come to fruition,
and other times they do. But what would you gained
by running your mouth about him? And thirdly, if I
need a third rail here, a lot of times information's
given to you on the condition that you shut up
about it. So those were the reasons why I didn't
run with it when I originally quote unquote had it.

(04:15):
So this is really really shocking, I said on the
reaction video that I did last night, which was shot
in my kitchen. By the way, I said, the take
on Sharon from people that I know around Michigan for
a couple of years had been he was sort of
viewed as a bridge head coach. It's disrespectful, it may

(04:38):
be unfair, but I'm just telling you that's not my words.
Those are the words of people around the Michigan program,
and that you're coming out of this Harbaugh era where
there was an ongoing NCAA investigation and they needed a
head coach, and Sharon stepped in and he beat Ohio
State a couple of times, and he was there as
long as the fog had lifted. But then the fog

(05:01):
lifted and the NCAA sanctions and the NCAA investigation rather
came and went. Then you entered this season and you're
pretty free and clear right this last season, and you
go eight and four, No, you go nine and three.
If you went eight and four, it may be a
little bit different. It is my theory, and this is
just me speculating. To be clear, I have not been

(05:21):
told this. It is my speculation that had they gone
eight and four or worse, they may have just fired
him for performance related reasons. He had a small buyout.
It's not like they couldn't afford to. But they went
nine and three, so there was not going to be
any firing Sharon more for going nine to three. But
yet people still looked at him and said, that's not
our long term answer. I said in the video, I'll

(05:42):
say one more time. The way it was explained to
me was, look, think about Sharon if he was just
on the open market right now, how desirable would he be?
And I mean I look, without being disrespectful, like I
think we understand what they're saying there. So he was
not viewed as the long term solution at mission. Then
this whole scandal gets dropped in their lap, and aside

(06:04):
from performance related reasons, it gives them another out. But
it's not like this did Michigan some great favor, because
this is a mess for Michigan. And this is again
I want to reemphasize this. This is speaking about strictly
the football side of this, because there's a whole other
side that is a little bit too heavy for this show,

(06:25):
and it doesn't directly relate to Michigan football moving forward,
at least as far as I talk about it. So
I say all that to arrive at this point where
will Michigan Football go from here. Pete Nako said on
three has put out his hot board, and it looks
like most people's hot boards will probably look you're going

(06:45):
to hear the name Kaitlin de boor Brian Kelly is
on that hot board. I would be very surprised personally
if Lincoln Riley was attached to this job. But Jesse
Mentor is with the Chargers right now, Eli Drinquitz, Jedfish, Clark, Lee,
Can Dillingham. I mean I would take a swing at
some of these guys. Tommy Reese there. I don't really
ever think it got out. Penn State looked at Tommy

(07:08):
in their search, Willie Fritz at Houston. So yeah, that's
Pete's hot board right now. I think they're still getting
their affairs in order. I don't really think a hire
is imminent imminent now, this stuff changes on a dime,
but I don't think a higher is eminent. And the
reason for that is I think Michigan kind of has
to figure out what they're going to do internally first.

(07:30):
And Michigan's got a situation where you got an interim president.
Michigan's got a situation right now where you know Ward
Manual has been the ad there and some people view
him one way and other people view him the other way.
But what's undeniable is there has been a lot of
extracurricular a lot of scandal, a lot of black eye
under Ward Manual's watch. There is he going to be

(07:54):
the guy moving forward? Is he the ad? There is
he the one that's making the decision? And I'm asking
this because I think that's really what it comes down to.
So I was on Get Up this Morning, Schefter's on there,
Michigan guy Greenies on there, were tossing this stuff back
and forth, and that was the talking point, Like those
were the lanes that we were talking about. We were
talking about how do you react to what happened? And

(08:15):
then we were talking about where are they going to
go from here? And most of the time in college football,
when a coach is fired, that's immediately what you pivot to.
You'll have all spring and summer to talk about the
guy who was fired, where are they going to go
from here? And I think, in this specific case, and
I'm going to have Bradley teed up in just a second,
in this specific case, that is not the first question

(08:36):
that I'm asking with Michigan. Here's the first question I'm asking.
Adam Schefter put it very very succinctly there when he said,
there are layers to this, and it's very complicated, and
there are a lot of gray areas. For example, who's
going to lead the search? Who's in charge? Do I
have a permanent president? On the horizon is Ward Manual who,
all due respect to Ward, has been athletic director over

(08:58):
an athletic department. It has had several scandals over the
past few years. Gonna be the one running point now
and moving forward. I'm asking questions not for myself. I'm
giving you the kind of feedback I got from agents
and coaches over the past twenty four hours who may
or may not be involved in this kind of search.
Because you are right, Greeney, that is one of the
premier brands in college football. In a vacuum, it's one

(09:21):
of the best jobs in college football. These guys want
certainty and these guys want alignment, and you can't promise
me you've got it right now in Michigan. So until
those questions get answered behind the scenes, it's really hard
to put a coaching hot board together. Kenny Dillingham Caitlin
de boor anybody worth their salt is gonna want those
questions answered before they even start to go down the

(09:42):
road to taking that job. So I will not shy
away from speculating about who the next coach is going
to be there when I think it's time to do that.
I don't know that it's time to do that yet.
I really think they're still moving around some things internally,
and they got to decide is ward make in this call.
Is a search committee going to make the call? Is

(10:02):
it a combination of all of the above And the
other thing I wonder, which to an extent I could
say about any coaching search, but especially this one, is
how long is the list? And then where's the line
on the list? And the line is the point you
get to on the list where you look and say, well,
if we've gotten this far down the list, we might
as well just go with an interim coach for the

(10:23):
upcoming season and then really get our affairs in order internally,
and then we'll just be ready to emerge in the
summer and early fall into a full boots on the
ground year long coaching search. That is not ideal, obviously,
that's not what you want to do, but I think
we all know the Michigan job. Hey, you'll get to

(10:43):
a certain spot on your list where this guy will
gladly take it. The question is that guy really cut
out to be the head coach of Michigan. And if
the answer is no, you went too far down your
list and you just need to regroup and conduct your
search in the fall of twenty twenty six. So that's
where that is right now. A lot of twist and
turns probably coming on that front, which just means if

(11:04):
you are twisting and you are turning, you could be
in a vehicle which could need some gasoline, which could
mean no, definitely means you need to head to quick trip.
They are the presenting partner of this show. They fueled
the whole New Saturday Tour, They fueled the Fall Don't
Lie Tour, they fueled the Once Upon a Saturday tour.
They fueled all of our tours. The faudont Lie Tour

(11:25):
just happens to be the one that we're on right now.
We are going to head to two games next weekend.
We announced it way ahead of time. We're going to
head to Norman Friday night for Alabama at Oklahoma, and
then we're just gonna right on down to College Station
Land in Billy Luci's backyard in the middle of the night,
and we are going to be at Kyle Field from

(11:45):
Miami versus Texas A and M that Saturday morning, eleven
am kickoff time.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
There.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
I think they are going to be electric environments. Those
are two places that have never hosted a playoff game
because they've only been able to for one year. So yeah,
that's going to be intense and cold brew on tap
along the way, proudly served by Quick Trip. We thank
them so much. We continue. We had a question from

(12:16):
Buckley down in Talmo, Georgia, and he said, who are
the contenders and pretenders for teams in the playoff? Now
I'm going to take this to mean who can win
the national title? Buckley? Really, I always hated in March
Madness how someone said, ooh, that team right there, that
team could go on a run. What does that mean?
Win one game, win two games? What is a run? Jesse?

(12:37):
What would you say a run is winning two games
in the NCAA tournament? That to me is a run?
Like could Florida Gulf Coast go on a run? Well?
I guess they went on a run. So like, if
let's say, oh Miss if they win two games, is
that a run. No, at least I'm not going to
define it that way. So I'm looking at my handy
dandy Brackett here, I'm saying, how many of these teams

(12:59):
can win a national championship? And I've got to tell
you this is going to seem like a really really
cop out answer, but I think most of them can.
To varying degrees of difficulty, most of them can. Here
is my thinking behind this. James Madison's not winning the
national title. Two lanes not winning the national title eliminate them.
There are ten teams on this graphic right here. Oklahoma's

(13:21):
got the worst odds of the ten teams, all the
way up to Ohio State having the best odds at
FanDuel of the ten teams. But I think there is
at least an outside outside shot that every one of
them could, if things break their way, win the national
title because of two things. Number One, we've seen Ohio

(13:41):
State bleed. That's the first part. That was the big question.
Is Ohio State really just going to continue to look invincible?
If so, it's a moot point. Well, they did not
continue to look invincible, So Ohio State's mortal. And then also,
we are in an era where the best teams are
like a touchdown worse than the best teams used to be.

(14:03):
It used to be that we got to the end
of the year, remember in the four team playoff era,
and you struggle to find a fourth team that could
really compete with whoever number one or number two was.
That is not the case anymore. The best teams like
Ohio State, let's call them the best team in the
country right now. This Ohio State team against the best
Alabama or Clemson or Ohio State teams from a decade ago,

(14:26):
or this Georgia team versus Georgia teams from even five
years ago. Those teams from yesteryear are a touchdown plus favorite,
just because the talent has dispersed itself a little bit
further around the country, which means that you have more
vulnerability relatively speaking, from the top teams. So like, if
I'm looking up and down the list here, certainly I

(14:48):
would still favor Ohio State, just like FanDuel does. But
look at Miami. Miami, could they technically win a national title,
it would not be the biggest shot to me, they
do have the toughest path because if you look at
the bracket, Miami will have had to go to A
and M and then they I'm just gonna say probably
on all this, they would definitely play Ohio State, and
if they get through those two, then you've got Georgia

(15:10):
and then you got like Oregon or Indiana. The trade
off for Miami if they can survive all that is
they do get to play Oregon or Indiana or whoever
comes out of that side of the bracket at home,
because the National Title game is in hard Rock Stadium,
So Miami would at least have that in their backyard.
Defensive line, big potential mismatch here, Carson Beck at his best,

(15:31):
He's been in a ton of big games. Probably don't
need to score forty to win with that defense. So yeah,
I could see it. I could see Oregon winning this thing.
I think Oregon has the best path of all the
playoff teams. I would love to be an Oregon's spot
in the bracket, let me put it that way, more
so than any other spot in the bracket. Wide receiver
helped this key here. Remember also, both of their coordinators

(15:53):
took other jobs. Will Stein took the Kentucky job, Tosh
Lupoy took the col job. Believe they're still coaching, but
you got the split attention that you're having to deal with,
And I go back to the health like, I don't
know how many guys they're getting back, at what level
they're getting them back. But just from a pure fifty
thousand foot talent roster perspective, Oregon is one of the

(16:14):
best in the game, and they experienced blowout heartbreak in
the playoff last year. How much did they retool themselves
to try and peak at the right time. Texas A
and M tough opening round game against Miami. It's a
tough path for them because they'll have to go the
same route Miami would have to go. Casius Howell is
a big potential game wrecker in this playoff. Several of

(16:38):
the biggest game wrecker types defensively in this playoff field
play in that Miami A and M game A wide receiver,
specifically the explosivity with like a Mario Craver. He didn't
quite look like himself to me down the stretch. I
think we all understand very few guys are playing at
near one hundred percent down the stretch. So how much
did the time off mean to him? How did dynamic

(17:00):
can Marcel Reid be he has the potential to be
that they have the potential. They have the most versatile
like Swiss Army Knifefish talent profile of many of these teams,
if not all of these teams. Alabama, if you're going
by what you saw as of late from them, they
are a pretender. The reason that I'm not totally willing

(17:22):
to just remove them is because I picked them to
win the national title in the preseason and it's hard
for me to let go. And then the second part
is if they had a bunch of guys that were
really really banged up, but really all they needed was
two weeks, then Alabama can still beat a lot of teams.
I don't know that that's going to be the case.
I'm saying I have no way of knowing if it's

(17:43):
not so. If Parker Brails, for instance, at center, is
back to ninety plus percent, if they get jam Miller back,
if they're able to utilize the tailback out of the
backfield in the passing game, if they're able to scratch
out one hundred, one hundred and ten rushing yards. If
Ryan Williams reemerge you as a big threat. Josh Quavis,
if they get him back for the postseason, you know

(18:06):
gonna be close games. They play solid defense, They've been
really good in that category. So yeah, Alabama, if they
go on the road and they beat Oklahoma, they're playing
Indiana in the second round. You're gonna have roster advantages
over these teams or do you have execution advantages? Do
you have matchup advantages? That's the big question with them.
Oklahoma's just all about defense. Oklahoma's got the worst odds,

(18:28):
I just think because you cannot be bought in on
their ability to score, and you're going into a playoff
setting where you're asking them to win one, two, three,
four games where unless something drastic has changed, you probably
need to hold the other guy under twenty. Now that's
a challenge that Oklahoma's defense relishes, but still one game

(18:48):
versus doing that four games, much different thing. Texas Tech
is the one I'm kind of morbidly just curious about
watching because the defensive line personnel is there, the takeover,
the game breaking potential is there. I hadn't seen him
in a bunch of close games and you know you're
not blow up, you're not blowouting your way through the playoff.

(19:11):
So what is their close game, DNA when it comes
time to approve that, I can't know that their top
twenty five offensively run and pass, so they're balanced enough,
They're complimentary enough plenty, complimentary enough defensively. It's just how
they how do they play when they're not playing Big
twelve competition? Basically because the Big twelve was them and

(19:33):
everyone else this year, and now they're playing everyone but
the Big twelve in the playoff. Oh miss another wild card,
But I technically wouldn't eliminate them. I would technically make
them a contender staff dynamics or everything there. You may
have the most draftable quarterback Trinidad Shamblis out of all
the quarterbacks in this postseason. Certainly, Mendoza's the Heisman favorite.

(19:55):
Julian Sayan's looked really good this year, but Marcel Reid,
turnover prone Tyson tailed off significantly at the end of
the year. Don't really think you'd look elsewhere. Beck's been
up and down, Dante More's been up and down, Trinidad
Chambler has been mainly up. Indiana, of course, is a contender.
Don't really need to spend a whole lot of time
on them. In fact, Indiana, Ohio State, and Georgia all

(20:17):
three I would say are contenders with Georgia because I
don't really need to talk about Indiana and Ohio State.
With Georgia. They went in to the playoff last year.
Remember Beck got hurt, so Gunner Stockton had to start
and they got beat by Notre Dame. And that's it.
I wonder, out of all the SEC teams, if they
really do have the best shot to win it all,
they'll have the best odds. Do they have the best

(20:39):
shot to win it all? So we're still a week out,
we can still ask these questions. We don't have to
predict until I think we're going to start predicting on Sunday. Meridian,
Mississippi is tuned in. Thank you, Charlotte, North Carolina tuned in,
Thank you, Saint Paul, Minnesota tuned in, Thank you, thank you,
thank you. Speaking of our close dear friend, the college
football playoff. Pardon me for a second there. We had

(21:03):
a question, unfortunately from Bill Bill and Carthage Mississippi asked,
do you really think more playoff expansion is coming. I
hope not, but it feels like there is enough big
teams missing to make it feasible. What a pathetic question.
The question that I appreciate, by the way, Bill, it
is the premise of the question and the fact that

(21:24):
it's accurate that's pathetic, cause that's really where we are
in college football right now. If someone's upset, they just
cry hard enough and they're going to get their way. Yes, Bill,
that pretty much looks like what's happening. You had some
teams left out. And instead of taking the Clark Lee
approach to life at Vanderbilt, which is, we don't blame anyone,
this is our fault. We need to do better next year,

(21:46):
you know, in other words, accountability, instead of taking that approach,
most people are taking the approach that if I didn't
get something I wanted, it's cause the systems messed up
and we just need to adjust the system to appease me. Now,
these same people would tell you you're acting like a child
if you were to exhibit that sort of behavior outside
of football, outside of athletics. But they don't exist in

(22:09):
the real world. They exist in the world they created.
So this is always my big fear you know, back
before they expanded the playoff, I was very outspoken. I
didn't want playoff expansion, and I explain my reasons why.
Some of you agree, some of you didn't agree. But
remember one of the points I always hammered home was
I don't support expansion because I don't think it'll ever stop.

(22:30):
If you expand to eight, or especially if you expand
to twelve, they're gonna look at it and they're gonna
make more money than they did before. And even if
that first move doesn't negatively impact the regular season, they'll
just keep expanding it until you kill what the regular
season has been. Bigger playoff means more teams involved. That's

(22:51):
part of the pitch, you know. That's when they sell
an expanded playoff. That's what they say, Oh, well, if
you have a bigger playoff, you can get more teams
involved and more more fan bases are interested. To an extent,
that's true. I do think there's a saturation point, and
you expanded any further, you'll probably see the saturation point.
But even if I grant you that, here's the downside.

(23:12):
Here's the ever so slippery slope. The bigger the playoff
bubble is It is true. The more teams get in,
it is true, the more teams have a shot. But
the bigger the bubble gets, the more teams it touches,
which means mathematically, the more teams and more fan bases,
you will have angry at the end of the year.
The only way you minimize the amount of angry fan

(23:33):
bases is to contract the bubble. But we don't contract
in this sport. We only expand. So as we expand,
more more teams get in, more teams have a shot,
more fan bases are engaged, but more fan bases will
be angry, just like is the case at Texas, and
is the case at Vanderbilt and Brigham Young this year,
Notre Dame this year. Last year was South Carolina, Alabama,

(23:53):
ol Miss. This will be an age old concept tail
as old as time. You're the first few teams left out,
you're the ones that are most up that and they
yell a whole lot, And they have all the incentive
in the world to yell for expansion, not because they
think it's for the greater good of the game. It
would be for the greater good of themselves. Now, if
we had a college football commissioner, he could step in

(24:14):
right now and say, suck it up, win one more
game next year. Do your job. It's not my job
to expand to the point where even though you don't
do your job well enough, you still get in. But
we don't have that kind of presence because I haven't
been elected yet. Anger is not a terrible thing. That's
always been my working theory, whether it was four teams
or twelve teams. Anger at the end of the year

(24:36):
is not evidence that the model is broken. Now, having
two G five teams in the playoff each seventeen plus
point underdogs, that may be a little evidence that the
model is broken, but we can tweak that without having
to expand the thing past twelve. Anger is not evidence
that twelve teams is not enough. Anger may be evidence
that twelve teams is just right, because the size of

(24:57):
the playoff, when it's proper, is always going have anger.
If you've expanded the playoff to the point where no
one's upset, you expanded the thing way too far. But
that's not in the best interest of an athletic director
or a conference commissioner. And Ross Dellinger did a really,
really good deep dive on this over on Yahoo sports
dot Com yesterday. It kind of got caught up in

(25:18):
the whole Sharon More hurricane of news. But Ross was
talking to college football commissioners at the league level. He
was talking to ads, and they were pretty is going
to shock everyone. They were pretty much in unison. Yep,
we probably need to expand it again. And of course
you got the Big Ten out there with their asen

(25:39):
nine twenty fourteen playoff model, and no one is anything
less than sixteen. Apparently, it appears like I didn't see
a single person saying let's just keep it at twelve.
The best I could find, I think was the MAC
commissioner saying twelve's okay. But that was right after he
said fourteen or sixteen. But here's the problem. Broll that

(26:00):
quote from the Ross Dellinger piece. Now, this is not
a quote from any one. This is Ross Dellinger himself
speaking any years.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
What he said.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
A move to sixteen teams is seen by some as
the next step in the evolution of the playoff that
perhaps one day will grow to more than twenty teams,
a compromise of sorts for Big ten leaders. It's just
the next step, guys. This has always been a process
and it's always been a series, it's always been a

(26:32):
set of ladder rungs. That was what we cautioned about
when we first got a whiff of playoff expansion, and
I was very, very very against it, and I was told, no,
you just don't want more teams participating, you don't want
to share the wealth. And it was never any of that.
It was that I think the most precious commodity in

(26:52):
the sport's the regular season, and every time you expand
the playoff, it's done at the expense of the value
of regular season games. And really admit, the twelve team
model has not killed the regular season. But as you
can clearly see, the plan was never to stop at twelve.
The plan was to take the next step in the
quote unquote evolution to eventually get to a twenty plus

(27:14):
team behemoth, because that's the only way these people know
how to generate revenue because they're not creative, they're not
particularly inventive, and so they see this one thing that
is a surefire money maker, and that's the playoff, and
they just make it as big as they want at
the expense of, well, they really don't care what the
expense of to all the issues that the sport faces
right now. Calendar's a total mess. You can't even figure

(27:39):
out whether or not you're going to collectively bargain with
your players, or whether you can get Congress to bail
you out. All of the real problems facing this sport.
We just had National Signing Day in the middle of
conference championship week, and we had a bunch of coaching searches.
Happened because ads felt the need to get ahead of
that calendar. Oh, by the way, the portal opens during
the playoff. All that and the size of the playoff

(28:02):
is what you're focused on, yes, because that is the
big pressing matter at hand right now. I want a joke.
We try not to be a joke. Over in the store,
the PAYT State Store, paytstatematerial dot Com. Jesse has informed
me though that Christmas is around the corner. I check
the calendar. He is right about that. We can confirm that.
So you may be thinking to yourself, that's still a

(28:25):
couple of weeks away. That's true. If you are looking
to order from the pet State store and get that
stuff guaranteed by Christmas, you need to get a move
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(28:48):
you can get yourself a nice little coffee mug over there,
anything and everything you could imagine, with maybe a few exceptions,
and even those may be coming soon. Paystatematerial dot com.
All right, let's move on what has become a great
tradition around here, apart from Christmas itself in December. Bradley,

(29:10):
here's a good endpoint for you. One of the great
December traditions on this show is to dive into our
spring slash Summer box of bold predictions that you guys submitted,
because our policy around here is if I've got to
make predictions, you've got to make predictions. If I get
drug after the season, you get drug after the season,
and that's only fair. So all of you have signed

(29:30):
that social contract, and boy do I have some disasters
on this piece of paper tonight. Bold prediction number one
that crashed into the ocean courtesy of Nick and Macomb Michigan.
Penn State has two one thousand yard receivers in the
regular season. Well, Penn State did not even have a

(29:52):
five hundred yard receiver this season. Trevor Penna led the
team with four hundred and fifty two receiving yards. In fact,
the the entire team only had a little over twenty
one hundred receiving yards. Nick thought, that have two one
thousand yard receivers, and I know where your head was at, Nick,
there was a lot of excitement. Went to the portal,

(30:12):
got a couple of big time receiver names. Also, we
got Drew aler Back and Andy Koleal Nick, he has
just been cooking all spring and all summer, and yeah,
they forgot to turn the stove on. I don't know
what to tell you, man. Only one game this year
did Penn State have a one hundred yard receiver and
that was the Northwestern game, which they lost. So abject
failure on your part, Nick, But I love you. This

(30:34):
is what it feels like. Welcome to my life. This
is every day in my shoes. Next up, Sam tried
to get creative here and I do appreciate that. I
respect that. That is where the respect ends. Because his
prediction was this year there will be more than four
schools where a tiger is their mascot that make the
college football playoff, which I guess means five schools with

(30:56):
a tiger mascot make the playoff. I labeled this ten
out of ten on the boldness scale. We were looking
at the likes of Auburn, Missouri, Memphis, Clemson, LSU. To
spoil the ending for you here, zero tiger mascots made
the playoff. Memphis and Missouri went eight and four, Auburn
went five and seven, Clemson and LSU went seven and five.

(31:20):
There were more Green Waves and Dukes in the playoff,
then there were Tigers. There were more Red Raiders and
Hoosiers in the playoff, then there were Tigers. So that
was a ten, and it was labeled a ten for
a reason. And then lastly, this one I never thought
had a shot to get off the ground. This is

(31:41):
why I labeled this one at ten on the boldeness
scale as well. Danny from Dawsonville, Georgia, home of Bill Elliott.
Fran Brown leads Sarahcuse to the playoffs this season. Well,
I'll tell you what fran Brown led Syracuse to. He
led them to losing their final eight games of the
year in route to a three and record. They did

(32:01):
not score twenty in any of their final eight games. Now,
they lost to Tennessee to start the year, but then
they won two straight and then they went into Clemson
in one and that was a great day for Syracuse football.
It's also the day they lost Steve Angelly for the
season to injury, and then the season went off the
rails after that. And look at those scores thirty eight, three,

(32:23):
thirty one, eighteen thirty to thirteen. They, like I said,
they did not hit twenty points in any moment the
rest of the way. So Syracuse making the playoffs. Syracuse
made it halfway to a bowl game. That's what Syracuse
ended up doing. Five schools with tiger mascots make the playoff. Zero.
Penn State has a couple of one thousand yard receivers.

(32:43):
Penn State did not even have a five hundred yard receiver.
These are busted bold predictions. Stand in the paint with me.
I'm taking charge after charge. You guys need to stand
here with me. If I'm going to have a miserable December,
I think it's only right that some of you joined me,
and together we can share our misery. That's what the
holiday season is all about. Afterwards, that plus thirty percent

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(34:39):
and why in New York.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
Hey not coming to you. Live from Birmingham, Alabama, but
somewhere in the northeast. No context clues could give it away.
There are close personal acquaintance, possibly sometimes a friend. Cole Kublick, Sir,
what do you think you're doing? What gives you the right?
Where are you? Why are you dressed like you're applying
for a loan?

Speaker 5 (35:01):
I might need one that there may be things in
my future that are going to require extra funds and
I might need assistance with that. But I'm not in
Charlotte for the SEC schedule release show tonight myself, Roman Harper,
Gene Chizik, Darynoka. We'll let you know who is playing,
who win on the schedule, where they're going to be playing,
and how things are gonna line up.

Speaker 3 (35:20):
So it should be a good show tonight.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
Remind me, is this a year where there are going
to be two by weeks or just one by week?

Speaker 3 (35:27):
No?

Speaker 5 (35:28):
No, that's one of those things when you look at
these schedules, Josh. It was one of the first things
I noticed. I was kind of going through them, and
I was sitting there, you know, sticking to myself, like,
all right, where's hold on. They're gonna go about me
in a row like that's oh wow, that's really difficult.
You're gonna see some six, seven, eight straight SEC game
runs that some Southeastern Conference teams are going to go

(35:49):
on next year, daunting tasks that some.

Speaker 3 (35:52):
Of these teams are gonna fa.

Speaker 5 (35:53):
I'll say this from what I've seen the Missouri Old
miss schedules that we've kind of pointed at the last
couple of years.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
Yeah, gone, yeah, I get any of those anymore.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
All right, let me start with this real more stuff.
We already talked about it earlier in the show, but
just I know you had to have hit this this morning.
You know, Sharon wore a lot better than me. I
don't really even know him all that much, So how
did this story strike you when it first started to
break yesterday?

Speaker 3 (36:22):
Shocking?

Speaker 5 (36:23):
We taken him to Joe more Ward two consecutive years
here of the last few seasons, had a chance to
visit with him, talk to him about his style of coaching,
got to know him as a person. We did speak
a little bit more when he was just the offensive
line coach and the head coach. Obviously guys get busy,
you don't talk to him as much. But developed a
relationship with him over the years, and never saw this coming.

Speaker 3 (36:41):
Never thought this was real.

Speaker 5 (36:43):
There had been some hints to this, some individuals that
I know may have alluded to.

Speaker 3 (36:47):
This months ago.

Speaker 5 (36:48):
Still didn't think it was real, And then when some
of the rumors started finding around, thinking no, that's just
not going to take place. I think we're always shocked
when people that are in these positions, with these type
of opportunities presented to them, Josh, something like this is
just not going to take place. But from what I
knew and what I had gotten to know, and I
think the man that a lot of the general college
football public had seen the forward facing portion of Strowmore,

(37:11):
we didn't really think that this was possible either, and
unfortunate ending to his tenure there as the Michigan head coach.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
Do you look at this job the way I do?
Like I look at the Michigan job, I think it's
one of the premier jobs in the country in a vacuum. Obviously,
this is not in a vacuum. This is with a
lot of other circumstances thrown in. Not to mention the
calendar being where it is. Maybe some of the desirable
candidates are in the playoffs, maybe some of them are
in the NFL and their own regular season, So yeah,
the timing is not ideal. I also look at the

(37:40):
alignment or lack thereof, maybe some uncertainty about the administrative
state up there. But I just think about the totality
of the job Michigan, how it compares. You and I
are from the South, so someone in Detroit or all
Beny New York listening to us, like we have a
little different slant on things than if we grew up
in Big Ten country. All ways thought of the Michigan

(38:01):
job as like this beacon just shining on me. From
up north. Ohio State was that way as well, And
like I always knew, even growing up in the South,
man that job like all things equal, no scandal, no
NCAA sanctions. I think I would leave Harris County, Georgia
to go up there and coach it. So then it
gets into the real world application of you got like

(38:22):
Kaylin de Bor's name that gets mentioned, and you got
people who were listening to you in Birmingham who of
course would not consider that cause they may be from
the South or their Alabama fans. You got a little
bit better worldview on this though. Had How do you
view that job compared to some of the big jobs
down in the SEC.

Speaker 5 (38:43):
I grew up the majority of my life in Birmingham, Alabama,
kind of like you referencing growing up in the South.
We moved from Jackson, Mississippi, when I was two years old.
I was in love with SEC football at an early age.
If you would have asked me at fourteen fifteen, sixteen
years old.

Speaker 3 (38:58):
All I want to do is play in the SEC.

Speaker 5 (38:59):
My Barons attended South Carolina, had an ant that played
basketball at Clemson. I was most more familiar with that
rivalry from a family perspective. But there's no way I
could not have known the importance of Michigan football and
whether it was Desen Howard striking the post or Tim
Biakabatuca or then going on in my college career, you know,
playing against Steve Hutchinson and Jeff Beckuss and Anthony Thomas

(39:21):
and those guys, Drew Henson playing quarterback Washington, Tom Brady,
what he did defeeding Alabama the year before in the
Citrus Bowl.

Speaker 3 (39:27):
Like, that brand is iconic and it is known or in.

Speaker 5 (39:32):
College football circles as being iconic and one of the
bigger brands that there is. That uniform, you could argue,
most recognizable uniform in sports. Possibly the historic players that
have been through the Big House itself, the stadium alone,
the atmosphere alone. This is one of those jobs, Josh,
that we might look at the condition that it's in.

(39:53):
We may look at some of the fallout of the
shrapnel that's going to come with what just happened there.
But make no mistake, and you've referenced this with other jobs,
and I believe that you would reference this one the
same way. There will be candidates that we don't hear
about that are highly interested in taking this job. Now
whether that plays out will be determined on their current situation,
maybe how their teams season ends, other opportunities that are

(40:15):
presented to them, how Michigan approaches them, whether they want
to talk to them or not. But there will be
candidates that people would be wowed by that are interested
in this job. And that could just be Hey, age,
see where they are financially, what's the nil situation looking
like there. Let's take a little deeper look at this
thing to see if we actually want to attack it

(40:35):
or if it's just one that we're slightly interested in.
At the end of the day, the drama that has
been around it, the way that this thing ended, and
the way that people might look at it, and.

Speaker 3 (40:45):
The slight tartars that might be on it.

Speaker 5 (40:46):
Right now, Josh, it's the Michigan job and that will
hold clout and that will bring eyeballs in coaching circles
no matter when.

Speaker 3 (40:55):
No matter where it is or no matter how it happened.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
All right, I got the playoff bracket in front of me.
We can talk about the G five stuff some other time.
Like I'm gonna I'm gonna assume you solidly lean Ole
Miss and Oregon. So outside of those two games, you
could either pick a matchup that is set Miami A
and m Bama Oklahoma. I'm told you're gonna be at
both of those games, by the way, is that true.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
There's a good possibility.

Speaker 5 (41:19):
It depends on the transportation situation, and that's just something
you can It's never reliable, so you just you don't
know what to expect.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
You play it by ear possible. I'd say, okay, fair enough.
I wish you the best of luck. By the way,
completely out of my hands, but I wish you the
best of luck. So take some of those games that
are slated, or maybe some games that you think could happen,
Like it's a pretty good chance Ole Miss in Georgia
is gonna happen in round two. Pretty good. I Actually
I have no clue who you're going to pick in
Miami and A and M but either one of them

(41:48):
is about to play Ohio State. Where does your finger
your little index finger. When you circle this bracket, where
does it start to get drawn to?

Speaker 5 (41:57):
There are some cool matchups we could talk about second
third round championship game. I can't get past Texas A
and M in Miami, though, there's too much intrigue in
that game for me. You have two offensive lines, maybe
the best right tackle in college football in Francis Monaga
at Miami that's going to be able to go up
against Casius Howell and some of those edge defenders for
Texas A and M. Mark Fletcher up back for that

(42:18):
group that has been able to play ground and pound
at times this season. Going up against a really good
Texas A and M defensive line, it's not just the
edge defenders. Albert Regis and company inside can be just
as destructive. A Texas A and M offensive line that
has good football under their belt this year. It's been
a little inconsistent part of that because they've played a
lot of bodies, They've rotated guys. Not a lot of

(42:39):
teams do that this day and age. But they'll be
going up against Ruben Bain, a massadoran company that can
get after the quarterback to be disruptive against the run,
and I think The most intriguing part of this game
is not just the two quarterbacks and how we've seen
great football from them.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
We've seen some mistake laid in football from those two.

Speaker 5 (42:56):
I think it's that the Miami secondary, if we're just
talking about out speed and athleticism, may have the best
chance possibly if.

Speaker 3 (43:05):
Anybody that A and M has played this year.

Speaker 5 (43:07):
Notre Dame's got some great corners, and that would be
one that I would put into that mix, but they
might have the best chance to be able to run
with some of these A and M receivers that anybody
they've played this year, and that's not a group that
shies away from trying to hit you. They're not afraid
to trade paint, will come down in the box and
play the run. I just think when you go back
and forth and look at the different aspects of this matchup,

(43:27):
the different directions it could go, and it's gonna come
down to one two guys that just have great games.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
Does Ruben Bain take this game over?

Speaker 5 (43:34):
Does Cashus Howell take this game over? Does the Texas
A and M ground game that includes Marcel Red and
his legs take this game over? I just think just
Casey conception on take this game over. There are so
many I guess takeover players that are gonna see legitimate
matchup issues in this game. I don't know where to

(43:54):
point the way it's going to go. I don't know
which unit to look at and say that is going
to decide whether or not they win this football game
or not, because others could show up and be just
as are more important. So I'd love to talk about
some of the ones that we might get, but I
can't get away from that one because I know we're
getting it.

Speaker 1 (44:10):
Yeah, you know what I look at too, is Oregon,
I think is as good a position as any team
in this thing, including the teams that have the first
round by because if they really are heeled up to
the point where they can make a run here, I
don't know. I watched these teams last year play first
round games and it really was not detrimental to their
overall chances of making a run. And I think about

(44:32):
them playing JMU at home. I just think about that
the same way. This is gonna sound disrespectful. It is
what it did, Like this is gonna be such an
athletic mismatch. I think about that the same way I
would think about your final fall camp scrimmage before you
get ready to go into the regular season. I think
about the equivalent of that. It's different. It's a playoff game,
it's a foreign opponent. They're keeping score. But I think

(44:54):
about what you could do to work out any kinks,
Like you're healthy, you're reintroducing guys into your lineup. But
the thing about Oregon and their side of the bracket
versus maybe like A, Texas, A and M's side of
the bracket is Ohio State and Georgia and A and
M and Miami. They're all in the same side. And

(45:17):
what I'm talking about there forget about matchup for a second,
zoom it way out. Just the talent rosters, just the
athletic profiles that would concern you the most. All four
of those are on one side, and Oregon's over there
on the other side. And the ones they're on the
side of are Indiana, which is not out talenting you
to death. They're just out executing you to death. Alabama

(45:38):
and Oklahoma are both fairly to moderately flawed teams independent
of the health situation with Alabama, and so like I
think about the draw they got, I love the draw. Now,
the trade off there is if they are going to
make it to the National Championship Game, after they play
at home in Eugene, they will fly all the way
to Miami, come home, fly to Atlanta, come home, then

(46:00):
they'll fly back to Miami for the championship game. So
I'm not saying frequent flyer miles won't be racked up,
but you do get a little bit of extended period
of time here. It's not every six days you're playing.
I think the thing secretly sets up really well for Oregon,
but that doesn't matter if they don't have that minimum
baseline of health that everyone's been crossing their fingers up

(46:20):
there and hoping they get come playoff time.

Speaker 5 (46:24):
And I don't expect Dan Lanning to allow his team
to do this. But there can't be a look ahead
factor because I do think one thing JMU has been
for years is one of, if not the most physical
G five team out there.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
So they will they'll do their best to.

Speaker 5 (46:36):
Be able to match up with that aspect of Oregon's team,
which they won't. They can't directly, and that's where you'll
get some gap scheme runs, you'll get misdirection, you'll get
quarterback boots, things of that nature. They'll try to offset it.
You'll get movement on defense. But you said all those
things about the bottom of.

Speaker 3 (46:52):
The bracket, and I agree with all of them.

Speaker 5 (46:53):
And go back to our conversation a month or two ago,
and we talked about those things that teams have, Josh
that you can't do anything about A and M pass rush,
than nobody can really do anything about the Ohio State
receiver slash quarterback passing game, Like you're not covering those guys,
not man to man. You may find ways to just
keep them in front of you and neutralize the explosive plays.
But then maybe you have the best football team that

(47:16):
Oregon may have to run into. So you ask yourself,
like McElroy and I are different size of this. On
our show, he got into an argument with friend of
ours that covers Notre Dame earlier this week and they
were talking about Auburn and Navy, and Greg's saying, you
can't tell me that you think Navy is a better
team than Auburn. Look at the players that Auburn has.
The guys are gonna be in the NFL. I actually
lean on the other.

Speaker 3 (47:36):
Side of that.

Speaker 5 (47:36):
I'll take the better football team, then I will the
better collection of talent, and I know what talent is
capable of doing.

Speaker 3 (47:42):
I get it.

Speaker 5 (47:42):
And that's where it goes back to what we talked
about position groups or players that seemingly you can't do
anything about. I haven't seen a group play collectively as
good as football more times this year than I have Indiana.
And because of that, that might be the team that
I would at least like to play in this tournament.
Aspects of Georgia's team that I wouldn't want to have
to face, and I think that they're inching closer to

(48:05):
where Indiana is collectively. I mean that offense is running
on all cylinders right now. And I say that now
because they're putting up five hundred yards a game. I'm
saying it because they can be successful doing so many
different things.

Speaker 3 (48:16):
Well, Indy has been doing that.

Speaker 5 (48:17):
They've been running the ball, they've been had a screen game,
they've been throwing our pos, they've been taking their shots
down the field. They've had it, and they've been accomplishing
that with a physical offensive line, a physical group of
bonus bigs. They can also add to be more beneficial there.
Defense sets attacks, that can be disruptive up front. I
think Ohio State has better players. I think Miami has
better players. I think Alabama has a more talented roster.

(48:40):
Oklahoma has a more talented roster. Oregon has a more
talented roster. I think he Anddian has a better football team.
And I'll be interested to see how those parts of
this tournament play out as we move on.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
As you watched Alabama Iron Bowl SEC championship game, you're
missing key contributors. They were what they were on the field.
You know what you have like two weeks, I guess
between SEC championship and the time they will have gone
to Oklahoma next Friday night to play against the Sooners.
Two questions. Number one, what kind of team do you

(49:11):
think they're going to put on the field physically and mentally?
Number two, like if I were to tell you, hey,
I saw the future. Fast forward a month, they're in
the national title game. What will have to have happened
for that run to occur?

Speaker 3 (49:26):
Parker Brailsford has to be healthy. Number one.

Speaker 5 (49:29):
A couple of guys, because you can tell, I mean
you watch him on film. His left ankle is three
inches thicker than his right ankle. I mean it's in
the way he's playing right now, the way he's able
to anchor.

Speaker 3 (49:38):
It's not his normal self.

Speaker 5 (49:40):
And you heard me say early in the season, I
thought he was their best football player for the first
quarter of the season. So that's going to have to
take place because he's that important. That unit is going
to have to play clean football. Michael Carroll cannot continue
to let edge rushers go inside when nobody else is home.
You can't have Pollers on counter not climb to the
lock I'm backer and allow him to stand there by

(50:01):
himself and make a tackle behind the line scritage. The
offensive line's got to get healthy. It's got to clean
itself up. I would say a couple of guys on
defense have to be healthy, like Justin Jefferson's critical of
them making that run because he brings elite speed to
a defense that against different personnel. Grouping allows them to
stay the same makes life a lot easier on Kane Womack.

(50:23):
You're gonna have to quick giving up free beast to teams,
which they did a lot versus Georgia not being able
to pass off twists, busting assignments on four defenders slant
to the right one slants to the left and a
run hits right where he left that gap depleted for
eight or nine yards. And I think the biggest thing
that they have to have, Josh, if we're talking about
Bama making a run in the national title game, you

(50:45):
better have first half of the SEC Championship game Ryan Williams,
because let's be real, that makes them very different. Out
of all the things that they've done, been not been complaints.

Speaker 3 (50:58):
That they've had this season, Guys that have played great.

Speaker 5 (51:01):
Guys that have fallen off, Guys that have been injured
in and out of a lineup.

Speaker 3 (51:05):
If they have that Ryan Williams, because.

Speaker 5 (51:08):
Keep in mind, who has their utility player been this year.
It's been Jeremy Bernard in the backfield lineup as a why,
as a tied end, sometimes a move guy. He's throwing passes,
he's doing He's what they use for their gadget plays
a lot of the times. Imagine letting Jeremy Bernard just
be Jeremy Bernard and Ryan Williams can be short of
your move utility player type guy, your Swiss Army knife

(51:29):
with that kind of explosive speed and the capability that
he brings but the consistency's got to be there because
Ryan Grubb can't keep dialing those things up if he
doesn't know he's gonna get it. And if they're gonna
be wasting plays, you're gonna have drops or you're gonna
be not be on the same page as your quarterback.
These games are too big to offer up those opportunities
to come and be misses multiple times in a game.

(51:50):
So O line healthy, O line on same page. Defense,
stay healthy, get healthy, and Ryan Williams from the first
half of the SEC Championship game is going to have
to be there almost every series for the rest of
the way through.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
I want to ask you something really quick in just
a second about just the general complaints about a lot
of aspects of the sport that people tend to traffic in.
You and I may have even trafficked in them a
couple of times, but sort of the overarching for lack
of a better term, narrative, because there are better terms,
I want to hit you about that in a second.
First off, a lot of playoff games out there. If
you guys want to get to those, well, you have

(52:24):
to have a ticket unless you're really really stealthy. And
we don't endorse that kind of behavior on the show.
You need tickets. I know you do, and that's why
seat Geek came to us and said, hey, looks like
most people who watch your show are big sports fans,
and I said, yeah, guys, they tend to be. Absolutely
They said, well, do you mind telling them if they
enter paid ten at checkout, they get ten percent off

(52:45):
their ticket order. And I said sure, So I'm here
to tell you if you buy your tickets at seat
Geek and enter paate ten pat E one zero at
check out, you get ten percent off your order. And
hold on, I'm getting breaking news from Jesse. It doesn't
even just have to be tickets to football games. I
prefer it that way. But you could go get concert tickets.
You could go watch the ballet. Kublic loves a good ballet,

(53:07):
the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Great great group of individuals this
time of year. Again allegedly, so Payton tannet checkout Seat Geek.
All right, bring it back in last symphony you went
to was fill in the blank.

Speaker 5 (53:20):
Go if you want to count Mannheim Steamroller live at
the BJC.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
Who does see a.

Speaker 5 (53:26):
Couple of years ago. That's kind of a sympathy. I think, yeah,
that's the Legacy group on that. My dad's a huge fan.
Took him to see that with my wife. They're awesome,
by the way. So if you get a chance and
see Keiks offering up some manhim Steamroller, take advantage of
that and go, especially during the Christmas holidays.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
I do I do respect that you still call it
the BJCC. Do you want to guess what I saw
the last time I was in the BJCC, which is
the Birmingham Jefferson Civic Center henceforth changed to Legacy Arena
for those of you unfamiliar, Do you want to guess
what I saw?

Speaker 3 (53:58):
Well, it's not.

Speaker 5 (53:59):
You can't beat me because I saw God play at
the BJCC. So anytime you can go watch God, even
though he did lose to Arizona, still you saw God
play basketball in that building.

Speaker 3 (54:11):
I don't know how you're going to beat that, but sure,
go for it. Give it a shot.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
Okay, let me try six man Hell in the Cell
match for the WWF Championship Armageddon two.

Speaker 3 (54:21):
That's nice.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
Yeah, the six participants you ask Stone Cold, Steve Auston,
Triple h, The Rock Undertaker, Kurd Angle, Rakishi six Hall
of Famers, I think, check me.

Speaker 5 (54:31):
Out, and still not as good as the ECW show
we saw across the street at Botwell.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
Well, yeah, and I didn't say it was. I did
not say it was. But so both of us have
seen memorable events in that building.

Speaker 5 (54:43):
And for those that are questioning, it's God, sham God.
He played basketball at Providence, folks. No, I'm not trying
to say that I've witnessed God play at basketball.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
Thank you, thank you. It saves me a lot of
responses in the comments later. So you do three hours
of radio every morning, you take a lot of calls,
you all, so do your own YouTube channel. You do
games on Saturday, So you say a lot about college football.
You observe a lot about college football. You and I
I would say like ninety percent of the time share
opinions on the bigger picture issues, the big news ticket items.

(55:15):
So it could be the way the portal works, it
could be the way NIL works. It could be a
roster movement, it could be Bowl opt out, it could
be any of a number of things that people tend
to complain about. I've noticed more and more lately, like
we earlier in the show, tonight we were talking about
playoff expansion, which I think is stupid, but it looks
like it will probably happen. So I tend to look

(55:37):
at that and I say, man, that's something that's wrong
with college football. Everybody has their list of things that
are wrong with college football. Now, what I have avoided
doing that some people take the added step of doing
is talking about how all the sports done. This is
the beginning of the Like Utah took the private equity
infusion the other day. Oh, that's the beginning of the
end of college football. Look for obvious self reasons. My business,

(56:01):
my business models pretty predicated on college football thriving. So
I want college football to thrive. But even if I didn't,
and I was just a volleyball fan who is observing
college football from a distance, you see the key indicators
just like I do. The numbers are only going up now.
I've talked at length in the past about how current ratings, traffic,
interest is sometimes well downstream of decision making. So if

(56:24):
there is horrifically bad decision making happening now, you may
not see the collateral damage and ratings and interest for
several years. But I don't know, like you know me,
I didn't want the playoff to expand, But the Playoff expanded,
and so far, so good to me. I don't think
it completely eroded the interest in the regular season. Now

(56:44):
lo and behold the same people who expanded it once
want who expanded again. We can't just stick at twelve,
which was one of my key concerns. But I don't know.
When you look around and you hear the complaints, can
you not look like I do and see the landscape
and eh, there's some blemishes. Don't love everything I see.
But holistically we seem to still be doing okay? Do
we not?

Speaker 3 (57:05):
We're doing more than okay.

Speaker 5 (57:06):
I mean, the TV ratings are better than they've been
in decades, and obviously shows like yours other people who
cover college football on different platforms are having a ton
of success. If the sport didn't have the popularity that
it did, I don't think those individuals will be able
to survive or even thrive at times like they do.

(57:26):
The good news is some of the same complaints are
still here. We had people calling in our show this
week morning to bench Ty Simpson. So the Alabama fans
are always going to complain about the starting quarterback. That's
not going to change, so that tradition will continue. We
can keep that when going jim NANTZ can cut us
a commercial like that, when a tradition like no other.
The biggest complaint that I would have and a lot
of this Josh, is I don't think people know what's

(57:47):
to complain about right now because we haven't retrained our brains.

Speaker 3 (57:52):
To where we really are.

Speaker 5 (57:54):
Like we'll talk about that tonight on the Schedule show.
When you look at some of these sec schedules, like
guys in two is miles ahead of where it used
to be, nine and three hundreds of yards ahead of
where you used to think it was, there's no way
not to think that when you see what these teams
are going to be up against in the near future. So, yeah,
who's the starter certain play calls? Officiating? You know, we

(58:16):
still have penalty vultures. Those things have been around forever.
They are at their peak right now. I think penalty
vultures are kind of like the hog population in Texas
right now, it's getting a little out of control. We
might we need to look at into some helicopter action.

Speaker 1 (58:29):
All right, all right, you can see that those are
real people. One those are real people, so we cannot
go down.

Speaker 3 (58:33):
There say it is illegal. We're not saying it is illegal.

Speaker 1 (58:36):
Even in Texas it's illegal, so you know it's bad.

Speaker 5 (58:39):
Did not know that that not familiar with the hunting
laws in Texas.

Speaker 3 (58:42):
So forgive me for that one. You two people.

Speaker 5 (58:45):
But I'll say my biggest complaint is what you brought
up earlier is the decision making and the lack of
thought that seemingly goes into massive decisions within this sport,
and multiple massive decisions the last three to five years.
So Transfer Portal, we thought it was gonna be awesome.
We were gonna take kids that had graduated, we were
going to allow them to go play somewhere else.

Speaker 3 (59:07):
Let the fun begin.

Speaker 5 (59:08):
These guys that were oh, it was so unfair how
they're being treated, and just give him another chance. Johnny
deserves one more shot at it. And then the floodgates
open and teams can't keep rosters together.

Speaker 3 (59:21):
The red shirt rule. We're gonna let guys play in
four games.

Speaker 5 (59:24):
That way, if Billy twist his ankle in week three,
we're not gonna ding him and give him a full
season for that. And then here we go. We get
to week four and head coaches for tellaments of our
TV meetings, Well, you might not see that guy, that guy,
that guy, that guy because they told me they don't
want to play football anymore.

Speaker 3 (59:39):
What Yeah, you heard me.

Speaker 5 (59:41):
They said they don't want to play football anymore because
they're trying to save their retcher. They volunteered to practice though,
and hang around the facility and eat our food and
still get their scholarship check, but they don't want to
go in a game. So some of these massive decisions,
whether it's in IL, I think, Josh, we could look
at conference expansion right now. Yes, with where sir leagues
are that maybe didn't get what they wanted when it

(01:00:04):
came to the college football playoff. Is it fair to
look at it and say was that the best thing
for some of these leagues? I'm maybe maybe not playoff
expansion that you mentioned. I don't think it's been bad
at all, but certain people would say, let's go back
to four and that'll probably be better. The decision making
by the committee and how they're putting teams in.

Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
I've told you this face to face.

Speaker 5 (01:00:28):
If that committee would sit down instead of trying to
invent data points and statistics and come up with their
own PFF metrics for why teams are good. And you're
playing team A against Team B, and you'd sit there
in front of a camera and.

Speaker 3 (01:00:42):
Say, you know why we.

Speaker 5 (01:00:43):
Put Alabama in front of Notre Dame because we believe
they play better football and if they played each other,
we think they'd win. Next question. But they can't do that,
and for whatever reason, they won't do that. So even
the decision making on how people try to talk about
things in college football and sometimes be exhausting.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
Cube Show got past twenty thousand subs, So on your
way out the door, are you even needing subs on
your channel anymore? I mean twenty k after that's pretty
much gravy.

Speaker 5 (01:01:12):
I'm told the push to fifty thousand begins today.

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
So much much as is the case around here with
the push to a million, the push to fifty thousand.

Speaker 5 (01:01:22):
Well, you know what my YouTube channel is, Josh, it's
the college football Playoff and we're at four.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
You're expanding six.

Speaker 5 (01:01:30):
Forget eight, forget ten, we're going straight to twelve, fifty
k or bust it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
You've had a lot of ideas.

Speaker 3 (01:01:37):
Even though you've had a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
Of ideas, and I just want to tell you humbly,
it's not the worst one you've ever had. Cole Kublick.
We appreciate it, sir, thank you, yep. And that'll do
it for us here as well. We are headed into
a weekend where we got Army Navy. But we're not
on the road this weekend because we will very much
be on the road next weekend. We're going to Alabama,
Oklahoma and Miami, Texas, A and M and it's gonna

(01:02:00):
be a long couple of days, but a fun couple
of days because it's playoff season. Jim Naggy, the Oklahoma
general manager, tweeted out a picture of a snowy stadium
there in Oklahoma a couple of weeks ago. As soon
as I got that extended forecast and it showed highs
in the low sixties, I shot it right back at him.
Delete your account, buddy, No snow for this guy, No, no, no.

(01:02:21):
We have a nice mild evening in Norman, Oklahoma. Now,
you guys may win by thirty, but it's not gonna
be because I'm trapped in a snow globe. Now I've
done that. I don't need that in my life, all right.
For director Bradley, producer Jesse. I'm Josh Fate, take care,
have a great weekend, and we will see you back
here Sunday night.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
Until then, God Bless.

Speaker 4 (01:02:50):
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Speaker 3 (01:03:34):
In New York