SEC Coach Approval Ratings + Miami Harshness & Truth About G5

Josh Pate’s College Football Show Ep 633 features Josh Pate discussing job approval ratings for SEC head coaches. How do Tennessee fans feel about Josh Heupel? Where are things for Brian Kelly at LSU and Steve Sarkisian at Texas? Josh also looks at Shane Beamer at South Carolina, Kirby Smart at UGA, and Billy Napier at Florida. What is the latest intel on the College Football Playoff expanding? We also discuss the 2024 season for Miami and why in some ways it feels lost. Bold prediction season has returned with you calling your shot. Tonight we take a look at the possibility LSU has multiple losses in the first 6 weeks of the season along with multiple non-QB Heisman finalists and 3 Texas teams winning their conference. That plus rumors of College Football regular season games one day becoming major pay-per-view events.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
A close dear personal acquaintance in front of the show said,
last show is too confrontational. Now, this person is sort
of new. I've known them for a long time. They're
sort of new to watch the show. Many of you
may be new to watching the show. This is the
I would say, maybe not the least confrontational show on
the planet. It's not a confrontational show, which you have
to understand. If Colin did the three sixty view around

(00:37):
the studio with the camera, which we don't have the
capability of doing, you would see there's nobody in here.
But yet there are tons of people who were watching. Now,
if you and I were out to lunch somewhere and
we disagreed over something, we could just talk back and forth.
But that's not the dynamic we have here. But it
kind of is. I just have to sometimes vocalize the
other side. So it's not confrontational. It's just college football.

(00:58):
I promise you, in this stack of papers tonight, on
this jam packed show on Sunday, May eighteenth, the year
of Our Lord, twenty twenty five, I promise you there's
some disagreement in here. I will virtually assure you that
you're going to disagree with me. Some tonight I may
even disagree with you, but that's okay. We're high a
top of sunny downtown Nashville, Tennessee. It's the middle of May.

(01:19):
What better things do we have to do? We've got
approval ratings. Why talk about your job performance? Why talk
about my job performance? Let's talk about someone else's job performance.
Therefore we can criticize, and there's no blame for us
to pass around amongst ourselves. I have soon to come
on the show tonight, one of you who are choosing

(01:42):
to dredge up a topic that we have not touched on.
I don't think in a little while on the program,
but we will again tonight. It's the thing where I
don't know if I'm in the minority or the majority,
but I just think there's something very common sensical about
the sport and about the way it's sort of top
down structure that is flawed. And I've said it and
it made some people mad and got some people to agree.

(02:04):
It's about the G five in the playoffs, So we'll
talk about it tonight. USC had a kid decommit. So
the world is ending in Los Angeles, not really, and
not to be metaphorical or not to be hyperbolic, not really,
but some are suggesting otherwise and calling my good integrity
and good name into question on this show, so I
will respond. And there's just a really terrible idea that

(02:26):
some of you heard a former president of a major
network espous this week, and I wanted to wait until
the end of the show to talk about it because
it's not anywhere close to happening. Fingers crossed it doesn't happen,
but I did want to talk about it. I did
hear it, and I did want to talk about it.
All that plus Bold predictions were jam packed. They're watching
us in Stafford, Texas, Bogata, Columbia, is tuned in hilton Head,

(02:49):
South Carolina, Winchester, Virginia. Thank you guys so much. Quick
programming note as we dive into the show, We're going
to have a Tuesday show this week because I got
nothing else to do. I have the small matter of
getting married in my spring non Saturday wedding, and so
we put our heads together, last minute decision, but we
decided not to have a show on my actual wedding day.

(03:13):
And it was not unanimous, by the way. It was
only like sixty percent no versus yes, And I'm not
going to tell you which side I was on. So anyway,
thanks in advance for the congratulations, which I assume are
coming in the comment section, and we'll have a show Tuesday.
All right, let's dive into tonight's show. This is fun.
We did this last year, so it's fun. You know.

(03:36):
We don't get political on the show. However, I do
pay attention to the political world, and I see a
lot of times job approval ratings and they fascinate me.
They fascinate me because no one can pay attention to
every decision the president or the governor of a state
or a senator is making, or if you do, you
got no life outside of that, because that would be
a full time job. But yet everyone's got an opinion

(03:58):
on it. And so there's approval rating. It's fifty and
forty seven percent, and it's always fun to watch that
little meter. So in college football terms, and Colin, you
don't need to include that in college football world. I
think approval ratings job approval ratings are a little bit
different than the political world because in the political world,
like if you're gauging the approval rating of a President,

(04:18):
everybody in the country has got to say. But if
I'm gauging the opinion of a college football coaches job
approval rating, I only care about that fan base, and
so they're much more in tune and you're getting a
much more accurate read on what a fan base feels
than if I'm trying to find out what three hundred
and thirty five million people think about one person. So
we start going around these conferences this time of year,

(04:41):
and tonight I wanted to start with some of the
coaches in the SEC. Josh Heipel's job approval rating at Tennessee,
I would put it north of eighty percent right now.
Now here's the irony. They just went to the college
football playoff, so you would think, oh, yeah, man, he's
coming off a playoff appearance. Now they got shellacked once
they got there. Never warm up with your shirt off

(05:02):
if you're from the South in sub freezing conditions. Lesson
learned by all of us at the hands or expense
rather of Tennessee. But I don't even think his job
approval ratings is this high just because they went to
the playoff, Because I would bet you I can't prove this,
but I would bet you that if you pulled Tennessee
fans just prior to kickoff of that playoff game, they

(05:24):
don't know they're gonna get blown out. They just know
they're in the playoff. I bet Josh Heipel's job approval
rating is higher now than it was at kickoff of
that game. And I'm gonna tell you why. Because they
stood up to Niko Iamaliava in his camp and told
him goodbye. And you had an opinion about that if
you live in Spokane, Washington, but I promised you the

(05:44):
opinion in and around Knoxville, Tennessee was much different. They
loved it, and they acknowledge, some of them do that
it may even set them back this year. They're hopeful
it doesn't, but if it cost them a win or
two this year for the greater good of the stability
and integrity of the program, they were proud. And I
think they approve of him because of that. Also, he's
won a whole lot and there's that as well. So

(06:07):
if Hypel was fifty to fifty, that Nico thing would
have sounded and felt a lot much or much different.
But he's not. He's already you know, secured job security wise.
But Also, he's resurrected Tennessee football, which is where we
always have fascination about the age of your because if
you're sixteen years old versus if you're forty six years old,

(06:27):
that means a much different thing to you. If you're
sixteen years old, you rewind four years. About the time
you probably developed the mental wherewithal to understand what's going on,
is about the time Hypel takes the job. So you
didn't know the Derek Dooley era. You only have read
about the Lane Kiffen era, which was one year. By
the way, you're not familiar with Butch Jones, you're not

(06:52):
necessarily familiar with what the wilderness has been for Tennessee.
And you're not familiar that Tennessee used to be a
national powerhouse. Well, they all always could have been. They
weren't for a while. They are again thanks to Josh Hypel.
He brought Tennessee football back. And for that, I've got
him polling it north of eighty percent approval rating amongst
Tennessee fans. You might ask, well, why not ninety plus? Well,

(07:14):
because he hadn't won anything of substance for the crowd
that thinks the only way to validate yourself as a
major head coach is to win a championship. I don't know.
I don't share that, but there are people who feel
that way. I'm not going to tell him how to think.
I'm just here to report the facts, and this is
science on this show. Eighty percent. Josh Hypel, good job.
Congratulations to the folks over there in Knoxville. All right,

(07:36):
Next up, this is a tricky one. This is tricky.
Brian Kelly at LSU, what do you think his job
approval rating would be amongst LSU fans. I think he
is at about sixty five percent. That seems strange. Ten wins,
ten wins, nine wins, So that added up. We had
stats and then for run those numbers, and it turns

(07:59):
out that's twenty nine wins over a three year period,
including a trip to the SEC championship game in his
first year, a win over Bama in his first year.
It's the beneath the surface stuff that I think would
drag Kelly's approval rating down. Still sixty five percent, Still
really good. This is the SEC, after all. I think

(08:19):
there are a few factors in play here. Okay, First,
is a lot of LSU fans would look at the
Jaden Daniels year and rightly say they wasted having a
Heisman Trophy winner because they were terrible defensively. He put
that staff together, So that's on him. Still a pretty
good year, but you got the best quarterback in the country,
you got a future first round draft pick, and you

(08:41):
got the Heisman Trophy winner. You got to do more
at LSU than just above average, like really good. You
should be a national championship winner. You should at the
very least be in the game with that. And they
weren't anywhere closed because they, as me Mal would say,
couldn't stop molasses in December. Well that was on Brian
Kelly and so he had to course correct, and I

(09:03):
intentionally phrase it like this. LSU had to course correct
in their hiring and that's both on the staff and
in the front office. LSU had to course correct. You'll
notice they just really went crazy in the portal this
last cycle. They've set themselves up potentially to compete for
a national title this year. That's because LSU had to

(09:23):
make that decision. Now, the closer you get to the program,
I think, the closer you get to die hard fans
and diehard fans would also tell you Brian Kelly didn't
build up a whole lot of equity with the Louisiana's
the way he came into LSU, because he didn't necessarily
wrap his arms around Louisiana publicly. He did, he said
all the right things. Behind the scenes, there was sort
of a flush of a lot of Louisiana flavor out

(09:45):
of that building. Now, if you win, that doesn't matter.
I got why Brian Kelly did what he did, but
it didn't work right out of the gate, and so
they had to course correct and bring a lot of
folks back in to the building there and back into
LSU who know ls you and who know Louisiana. And
you know what, if they win at the end of
the day, if they're playing in Atlanta in December, if

(10:06):
they're a seven seed in the playoff or better or whatever,
then all this is a moot point. The reason I
think he doesn't poll as high as maybe a guy
averaging nine and a half wins per year over his
first three years would poll is because I think maybe
behind the scenes there's just a little friction here and
there sometimes that can drag that down. The next one's

(10:28):
not difficult at all. The next one will probably take
about thirty seconds. Kirby Smart at Georgia number one head
coach in the country, I agree, a number one program
in the country, I would say Georgia still I agree.
So if you've got the number one head coach leading
the number one program, that's ninety plus percent. That's as
high as we go here. We don't go higher than

(10:48):
ninety percent on the job approval rating. So amongst Georgia fans, clearly,
if you got to one hundred, Kirby would be as
close to one hundred as you can get. And there
are few holdouts who just want to see the world
burn to the ground who would disapprove of Kirby Smart's
job approval, would disapprove of it and say something like
blah blah blah blah blah, Mike Bobo. That would be

(11:09):
the reason, Mike Bobo. It's the butt Bobo syndrome, and
that is what a beautiful day, what a great afternoon
with the family, But Bobo. There are people in my
home state who would end any joyful sentence with butt
bobo because you've got to bring it back down to earth.

(11:30):
You've got to got a sandbag the balloon every now
and then. But yeah, Kirby, smart man. He's made Georgia
what a lot of folks, myself included, always thought Georgia
could be but never had been. There was like a
couple of rungs on the ladder that some people didn't
think existed. But I've always thought that was crazy. There

(11:52):
were the two or three higher rungs on the ladder
that Georgia football could always climb. He's just the one
who did it. And I mean one hundred years from
now they'll talk about that. So, yeah, Kirby sky high
job approval rating? What about the next guy? What about
the guy he faced off with in Atlanta last year
in the SEC Championship game. His name Steve Sarkisian. His

(12:15):
job approval rating amongst Texas fans, I've got at a
solid eighty five percent, Not ninety ninety is the highest
we go. It's not quite there yet. I do think
it's sky high. They're an obvious superpower program. Anyone who
argues otherwise, we obviously define superpower different I guess. So

(12:37):
there are some knits that you can pick with Steve Sarkisian,
but they get drowned by a flood of positivity. So
the positivity is talent acquisition. Maybe the best program in
the country right now, just an army of high level
people in all walks of a football program that are
in the building there in Austin. This is not ninety percent,

(13:02):
because there is a group out there that requires you
to have national championship rings or at least one on
your finger before they're going to validate you as being
a successful head coach. At the University of Texas, You've
got about five programs out there that think to themselves,
until a coach has won a national championship here, he

(13:23):
hasn't won me over. I have told you before, I'll
tell you again. I think that's a fairly psychotic way
to live your life, or to view this world through
the prism of But you're free to do that. It
is in the Constitution. It's thirteen fourteenth Amendment somewhere around there.
You're free to do that. But although that is irrational,
it is real. And so that gets us around to

(13:45):
the other side of the coin, the less visited side
of the coin, you know, the fifteen percent thumbs down
on Steve Sarkisian side of the coin, and those people
would say, well, big deal, he's taken the head job
at Texas and we've recruited a lot of talent. Texas
was always talented. That's lie number one. I don't have
time to go down that road tonight because we got

(14:06):
a loaded show. At no point during the past decade
and a half did Texas's roster look remotely comparable to
what it looks like right now, not even remotely comparable.
So miss me save that, Just miss me with all that.
And the second thing they'll say is, well, I mean,
if they're so good, why did they lose to Georgia
twice last year? Because Georgia was pretty good too. That's said,

(14:30):
Are we gonna denigrate the guy's status as a pretty
high level head coach because he didn't beat, by near
universal standards, the number one coach in the game right now?
That's sort of the same crowd that says James Franklin's
the most overrated head coach in America? Why because they
can't beat Ohio State. Well, no one said he's better
than Ryan Day. Well, I don't see people placing Steve's

(14:51):
accusing above Kirby Smart right now, I could see it
happen one day, but no one's saying it right now,
So you know, absent placing them as the literal number
one program in the country, him as the number one
head coach in the country. I'm happy saying I think
Texas fans approve of Steve Sarkusian at an overwhelming rate
right now. Next up South Carolina Shane Biemer at South

(15:14):
Carolina job approval rating as of today seventy five percent
amongst game Cock fans. He's coming off a nine and
four season, and that really helps because I think this
number would have been much lower had we done this
segment this time last year. I know it was because
we did, and it was lower. Shane Beemer is of
what we call a PPF, not a PFF, a PPF,

(15:36):
a puzzle piece fit. You got this every now and then,
Kenny Dillingham in Arizona State is this. Shane Beemer feels
like he was born to be the head coach at
South Carolina. South Carolina football existed to attract a guy
like Shane Beemer to be the head coach. It helps
a lot when the fan base wanted him to be
the head coach. That's a few years back now, but

(15:59):
if you'll remember when he was hired. Sometimes a guy
gets hired and the collective you know, attitude on the
message boards and whatnot, is oh okay whatever, or what
has this guy done to get the job? That was
the opposite. You want to talk about an approval rating.
The approval rating of the hire of Shane Biemer at

(16:20):
South Carolina several years ago was like ninety plus percent.
So they loved it. They should have loved it. He's
had one losing season there, and I want to remind
you he wasn't a veteran head coach. This is his shot.
So while Kirby gets Georgia as his first shot, Ryan
Day gets you know, Ohio State, Lincoln Riley got Oklahoma, Well,

(16:41):
Shane Biemer got South Carolina. Historically, it's a lot harder
to win at South Carolina than it is those previous
three I mentioned there. And yet he's only had one
losing season and he's a fifth year head coach. Logic
would suggest he's still very much evolving. We always go
back to the Nick sabe an extreme example, but Saban

(17:02):
was fifty three and several years in to being a
head coach before he ever won his first national title,
and it's funny how he reshaped the world because everyone
gets measured against him, which is insane. But Shane Biemer
only fifth season as a head coach, I really, really
really think that that bears repeating. You'll notice I've already

(17:24):
said it twice. Fifth year as a head coach. So
what still hasn't fully developed about him? By the way,
we had him on the show like a month and
a half ago and I asked him a version of
that question. You'll remember Eve a pretty lengthy response about
just the ways he's already changed, the ways he still

(17:45):
could change. I I just think he understands, and that
program understands because of his vision, they can't just try
and out Georgia Georgia or out Alabama Alabama by doing
it exactly the way that those guys do it. History
says that's a losing approach for a second tier program

(18:06):
in the conference like South Carolina. Now, he would listen
to that off the record, he would admit that's accurate
on the record, actually off and on the record, he'd say, well,
who says we always have to be a second tier program?
And I respect that. I'm saying historically they have been
if that in this conference, But my point remains. My
point is they're very innovative. You know, there's some avenues

(18:31):
that they go down. There's some approaches that they take
that you don't necessarily see a lot of the other
programs take. Now, it doesn't always mean that it's gonna
yield fruit immediately, but I think he at least gets that.
And the last thing they needed was someone to come
in and look down the road n Athens. All Right,
Kirby Smart has built a megapower down there. We're gonna

(18:51):
copy and paste his approach and beat him. You may
try and copy and paste his approach. You'll probably fail
at that, but even if you succeed, you're South Carolina
and there Georgia so stands to reason. The way you
try and pull it off against the Georgias of the
world is you do it your way after you define
what your way is. And lastly, a guy we just

(19:14):
had to sit down with the other day, Billy Napier's
job approval rating at Florida amongst Florida fans right now,
this is a fluid number, fifty three point five percent.
Again scientific, of course, eight months ago, I think this
would have been under ten percent because eight months ago

(19:36):
we were in the middle of the season. Eight months
ago they were three and three and eight months ago,
not only had Billy Napier already lost his job if
you listen to pretty much everyone, they were already searching
for his replacement. The most popular topic amongst Florida fans
was not how do you think we're gonna do against Kentucky?
It was are we gonna hire a guy before for

(20:00):
the Bowl game? If we make it? What's the buyout
we have to pay? Napier? Can we afford? It was
already an afterthought, and so certainly if you would have
suggested we're going to keep him, that would have been
torch and pitchfork time. His job approval was under ten percent. Well, then,
as I've put it many times, they had the audacity

(20:21):
to continue to compete. Then they won some games. Lagway
was the turning point. His fate is hitched to DJ
Lagway as it stands right now. But I will tell
you with the way they ended the season last year
and knowing Lagway's coming back this year, and just the
other day I flat out asked him is he healthy?
He say, yeah, He's ready to go. He'll be ready

(20:42):
to go for the season, knowing that you've got that,
knowing you got the returning production that they do, knowing
you got the offensive line coming back, knowing you got
the wide receiver room, knowing you got the high end
potential defensively that they do. It makes sense why he's
one hundred and ten percent convicted in his approach. I
said that last year when we were talking to him

(21:03):
in spring, I said, now, you know, for all the
people clown in this guy and thinking he's down there
searching for a way, you'd feel differently. Then you may
still doubt him if you met him and talked to him,
but you would feel differently. There's no searching, there's no
feeling it out. They've got a very meticulous and clearly
defined process. They don't bend on it. I think they've
been extremely smart about the way they go about acquiring

(21:28):
talent and putting the roster together. And what I mean
by that is we're coming up on some pretty uncertain
times and there are some programs out there that have
leaned out over their skis a little bit, and you
don't know what the future holds. You're doing that in
some very thick fog right now, and you could have
a clean slope ahead of you, or you could have

(21:48):
a giant tree ahead of you. They've chosen not to
do it. Now they're still recruiting at a a top
ten level, maybe not a top three level, but they've
also not overexposed themselves financially. And so I mean, I
really feel, and I think Florida fans as well, look
at the roster and say, there's some stability here, there's
some talent here as well, and we got a you know,

(22:09):
murderer's row of a schedule again. But that's life as
a Florida Gator fan. Twenty twenty five is the pivot year,
twenty twenty five. This number could fluctuate that literally forty
points either way, because that's the fickle nature of job
approval as an SEC head coach. So I put in

(22:31):
Napier fifty five percent. We're not done with those, in fact,
not by a long shot. We didn't even do half
the SEC. I just I can't do a whole conference
in one night because these conferences are like thirty coaches
deep now and expanding with every every headline. So we'll
we'll just continue that because it's May so we got
a little while. I don't think we have any game

(22:51):
schedule between now and like Media Days or August. One
of you made a trip to Academy Sports and Outdoors today,
I think it was, and you went and you bought
over fifty dollars of Jordan gear, and you tagged me
and Academy with the hashtag Academy ex Jordan and guess
what you want? A gift card? Because it's that simple

(23:12):
and that could be you. Academy is the presenting partner
of this show. We are proudly brought to you by
Academy Sports and Outdoors. Always have been, some say always
will be. You know, yeah, I don't want to say
that NEARMI because it's an ad Rey. Technically I had
a usual go to phrase that probably approve of it,
but I can't be one hundred percent sure. Plus legal

(23:33):
maybe watching, so we'll just move along. But Academy Sports
and Outdoors your home for Jordan gear, and and then
just fill in the blank big lea chew, a basketball goal,
a bike. I don't know what you're doing in your
personal time out there, but whatever you're doing, if it's
outdoors in nature, chances are Academy can help you out.
We appreciate them, all right. It's going to get contentious

(23:55):
here for a second. But that I truly don't know
where the public falls on this. I haven't done any
polling on this. We don't have an approval disapproval on this,
this topic that we're going to talk about here, but
I feel strongly about it. Normally, if our audience is
fifty to fifty on something, I'm no more than sixty

(24:15):
forty myself. Normally it's pretty controversial several layers to it.
I am ninety five to five on this topic. So
let me take a little swigg of water right quick.
I promise, as I said at the entro, I promise
I'm not trying to be mean on this. I'm not
trying to be hot takey. We're not clickbaiting. What do

(24:36):
I want you to click on? You're already here, So
I'm just I'm sharing what I think would be a
positive step forward for the sport. But the pushback that
I get, and I'm telling you before I even read
this tweet to you, is from the very people i'm
trying to help. That's how big my heart is. Okay,
here's the swigg of water. And I hope my G

(25:02):
five boys heard every word. Okay, Josh from Portland, Oregon said,
did I hear you correctly the other day when you
said you want the G five to have their own playoff? Yes,
you did hear me correctly. He continues, Why are people
like you so opposed to having smaller teams have a
chance to win a title. I'm not opposed to it
at all, Quite the opposite. I'm a supporter of the

(25:25):
only kind of model that would give smaller teams an
actual shot to win a title. Josh. Right now, you're
in a no win situation. You're in a situation where
no small team Josh. Most of the Power four can't
win a national title. Right now. Kentucky's in the SEC.
They've got zero shot of winning a national title. Okay,

(25:46):
purduees in the Big Ten, they got zero shot at
winning a national title, and yet they still have a
much bigger edge than you do at the G five
level of winning a national championship. Now, what I've all
want believed is I love G five football. I've watched
it my whole life, in some form or fashion, no

(26:07):
matter what the label was. Okay, so I look at
it and I say, dude, watching the MAC on a
Tuesday night, watching a lot of these Sun Belt teams
or Conference USA any given year or whatnot, this is
really fun. I remember watching like Bill Clark at UAB
thinking this guy may be one of the best head
coaches in the country. I wish he competed at a

(26:30):
level of the sport where a national championship was a
realistic possibility. And to me, that's logical. To me, that
makes sense. And yet the most resistance you'll get on
this topic is not from Power for fans. It's from
fans of G five teams, and they'll say exactly what
our guy from Portland just said. There, why do you

(26:53):
have such a problem with us competing for a title?
Why do you have such a problem seeing you're not
competing for a title? You're not You think Boise State
last year, maybe with one of the best players in
the country on their team, had a shot at winning
a national title. The difference is you define shot as
being in the postseason. You're thinking mathematically, you know, like

(27:16):
we've got a shot of three asteroids landing on the
studio before the show's over. There's a shot of that happening,
Whereas if we didn't have the show, we're not even
given the asteroids a shot. Yeah, Boise had a shot
of winning a national title, but they didn't have a
shot at winning a national championship. I think most sane
people understand that, and it's just semantics when you use

(27:38):
that word shot or opportunity. They deserve an opportunity. We
agree on that. The difference is I want them to
have a real opportunity to win a real title. Here's
the sad part to me of all this. So right now,
the best chance you have in making the playoff is
just doing that, making the playoff, having access to a playoff,

(27:58):
and then getting your skull crushed in. That's what happens.
That's what's going to happen. The chance to get your
head caved in is of more value to many G
five fans than the creation of a model that would
give you a chance to actually win a title. A
lot of them don't want that. It's always boggled my mind.

(28:19):
But see, here's the thing. When I debate it on
the merits of the argument, Slowly but surely they start
to give way on their initial straw man stance. The
straw man stance to me is, well, you never know
unless you put him in. Yes you do, Yes, you do.
You circle whichever UNLV boys or whoever you think the
best G five team will be this year. You know,

(28:42):
I know the calculator knows. The head coaches of both
of those programs know they got no shot of winning
that twelve team playoff field. I do not care how
quickly and how thoroughly the stars align. Not happening. You
and I both know that, and slowly orly the bravado

(29:02):
and the false confidence wanes from the top layer of
the argument. So you you effectively debate someone strong enough
on the merits of that initial point, they'll see that
ground to you. And then what they'll say is, but
if we're not in that playoff, we don't get the paycheck.
And if we don't get the paycheck, how can we

(29:24):
ever build our program. That's a good point. That's a
good point. But see, you're not arguing the same thing anymore,
because I agree with you there. If you don't have money,
you're broke, and if you're broke, you can't run a
program effectively that can compete with the Texases of the
world or the Michigans of the world. But you're never
going to anyway. You're in the best of worlds, in

(29:47):
the best of the you know, the the pulling of
that playoff money, those dollars down to your level, and
the best of worlds there, what you're never pulling anywhere
remotely close to even or even into the same zip
code where you can see the tail lights of the
major programs. What I look at is I look at

(30:08):
that and I acknowledge it for what it is. And
I've got I don't know how big the crowd is,
but I've got a lot of G five folks who
look at it and say, no, you just feel that
way because you hate G five footballer, You hate those programs.
You don't want them to have a shot. Just lunacy,
just total lunacy. Here's the truth. The truth is there's
an obvious gap in levels of college football, but we

(30:30):
haven't acknowledged it on paper. We've acknowledged it, at least
most of us with our eyes, but we haven't acknowledged
it in structure. And so we've got you know, programs
like Texas spending ten times what the University of Texas
San Antonio is, but we're still pretending they play the
same sport at the same level, and we're pretending that

(30:53):
they're competing for the same title. Now, if we had
someone who is sports savvy but ignorant to college football
walk in the door today, they look at that and say, well,
that makes no sense. Well, you're right, it makes no sense.
But but there's more to it now, No, there's really
not more to it. Here's the other problem. The gap
that I just talked about is not shrinking. The gap

(31:15):
between the haves and the have nots in college football
is only getting wider. It's at this point someone walks
in the other door on the other side of the
room and says, uh uh no, no, because you haven't
heard what the portal's doing. You haven't heard what NIL
is doing. Yes, I've heard. Have you heard? Have you
heard what portal and NIL are doing to the competitive

(31:36):
balance of college football? Yet John's even in the sport out. No, No,
it's not at all. It's actually never been more disproportionately
tilted one way, and it never will stop continuing that way.
But you've been fooled. You've been fooled because George is
not quite as deep or Alabama's not quite as deep.

(31:59):
That's true. That's true. So the very very tops of
the tallest trees got shaved off. Guess where the shrubbery landed.
It landed in the lap of programs three through fifteen.
That's the flattening of the sport. You went from having
four or five programs that ran the sport to now

(32:19):
any given year you got like twelve to fifteen of
them that can compete. Guess which conferences they reside in.
Guess which level of the sport they reside in. Here's
the really, really dirty part B of that. The Portal
and NIL have made glaringly obvious what was already the case.

(32:40):
It's just expedited it. In nature, you're a feeder system.
The G five is a feeder system. It's not being mean,
it's just reality. I was sitting in the office of
a current general manager at a college football program in
the last month who hated this fact, but said, I
hate it, but it is what it is. I mean,

(33:02):
we look at it right now, and this is a
guy also talking about it from the NFL a vantage point.
He said, I talked to NFL folks, and they look
at it like it's He used Major League Baseball as
a comparison. These are not my words, although I completely
agree with it. The portal is actually illustrating what the

(33:24):
reality of this situation is. The reality of this situation
is you've got major league college football and you've got
minor league college football. Now, baseball acknowledged that long ago.
Like no one runs around saying, how come the round
Rock Express or the Nashville Sounds just down the road
here don't get a shot to play for the World Series.

(33:44):
Why are they denied a shot? Well, I'll tell you why,
because they're TRIPAA baseball teams, and we acknowledge that they're
playing a different caliber baseball than their Major league peers,
not counterparts peers. Here's what's fun about this. Sad but fun. Inevitably,
when I just said that someone yelled at their phone

(34:06):
or their computer or their TV. Oh, that's a disingenuous comparison. Why, Well,
because that's a developmental league. It sure is. It sure is.
The only difference in Major League Baseball Triple A versus
major leagues and college football is Major League Baseball has
acknowledged that it has layers, has levels to itself, and

(34:29):
the triple A, Double A, Single A layers are developmental
feeder systems to the major league level. College football present
day is operating the exact same way. It just doesn't
look like that on paper. It's not written that way. So,
like to take the Major League Baseball equivalent. Over in

(34:50):
college football, we do have the Nashville Sounds developing players
to when they get good enough, they eventually just go
to Milwaukee and play for the Brewers. However, over in
college football they're also telling the Sounds. But yeah, but
you guys also you deserve the chance to compete against
the Yankees and the Red Sox and the Braves. No,
they don't because it makes no sense. Instead, they aught

(35:12):
to compete against Triple A teams where they've got a
shot to win an actual title. And it's also fair
and logical, and it's somewhat even footing in college football
because of the jacked up way that revenue works. From
the media rights perspective, in this world, we just kind
of whistle and pretend like everyone's playing the same sport.

(35:33):
And if you dare to say otherwise, you're trying to
strip the chance to win a title from the little guy. Yeah,
that's what we're doing. That's the role we've always played
on this show. We hate the little guy. Oh despise
the little guy, can't stand him. It used to be
that every now and then Boise, Oklahoma seven is an example.

(35:57):
It used to be that every now and then, and
you had a really good coach at the G five level,
and he went, he got out recruited. He certainly never
measured up on National signing Day to the big boys.
But that's okay because they could evaluate talent, and they
could develop talent, and every so often you'd have a
Boise state have a lot of homegrown products, third, fourth,

(36:20):
in some cases fifth year, get an opportunity on the
big stage with the big boys that pull off a
legendary upset. Present day, let me tell you what happens.
Present day Oklahoma doesn't offer any of those kids on
National signing Day, they don't sign with Oklahoma. But present day,
after two or three years of those kids developing on

(36:41):
Boise's dime, they're not there anymore. Don't throw ashtingenty at me.
That's one. I can give you ninety nine counterpoints to that.
That is the overwhelming exception to the rule. The rule is,
even if those G five programs do go and evaluate
some diamonds in the rough. They know what's happening. By
the way, all the coaches talk about this behind the scenes.

(37:02):
All they're gonna do is invest two years into the kid.
Invest their money and time and energy into the kid.
He's gonna develop two years, and he's gonna transfer to
Michigan State. That's what's about to happen. So even the
diamond and the rough kids, even the exception to the
rule types that you used to have sprinkled across the
G five level, they're not even there anymore. The moment

(37:24):
they get good enough to attract an offer, they filter up.
It's the same way minor league sports work to the
major league level. It's the same way college football works now.
So you got some people who look at it and
still want to recall some game that happened in seven Well,
how can we ever know if this would happen if
we don't give teams a shot? And then you got
other folks who realize, like everything else with this sport,

(37:45):
those days are gone. So wouldn't it make more sense
to have a model that makes sense? Apparently not? Apparently not.
I can't wait. I can't wait to get the feedback
on that one. We're just a mean, means show. That's
all we are. Next up, we've been trashing Miami too, apparently,
so let's take a look at this one while we're

(38:07):
at it. John down in Miami, he said, I know
you've been tough on Miami for blowing it down the
stretch last season, But don't you think it's too harsh
to call ten wins a wasted season? Yes, John, I
do think it would be harsh if I called last
year a wasted season. I didn't say it was a
wasted season. I said they wasted cam Ward. They wasted

(38:27):
the opportunity to do something much bigger and better. So
my stance on this is cam Wards don't come around
very often anywhere, Miami included. That is a generational talent,
number one overall pick in the draft, and when you
get him dropped in your lap, you ought to do
more than just win ten games. You ought to be

(38:49):
playing for the conference title and you ought to be
in the playoff. And there was no excuse for Miami
not to be in one or the other last year.
But they dropped the ball because their defense was terrible.
The thing about it is it wasn't terrible out of
the gate. It got terrible. Now, John said, I've been
too harsh on that take. Okay, well, here's what I

(39:09):
would ask you. If the head coach at Miami looks
at you and says the same thing, are you gonna
accuse him of being too harsh? In fairness, John, I
sat on this question from you until we went and
talked to Mario, which we did last Thursday. I'm gonna
have Colin in just a second play a clip from
our conversation with him that will air on the channel

(39:32):
tomorrow morning, because I said the exact same thing to him.
So here's what the head coach at Miami had to say.
He just reminds me how conflicted I felt watching you
guys last year. I'm watching Cam Moore do his thing.
I'm watching you guys score thirty five, forty forty five
points every week, but I'm also saying they better score
thirty five or forty or forty five because it's needed

(39:52):
because you're having trouble stopping the other team. We lost
our way.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
That's what happened, and it came in the form of communication,
a line in assignment, which the simplicity of that makes
you play fast. So we went from playing fast and
physical to being uncertain and losing a step and playing
slow and looking confused. And it was painful because that's
a generational offense. I mean, that was made for TV
type of stuff right there. And at the very end,

(40:18):
you know, again, we're there. Okay, that might as well
be this. You're not there, you're not there, and we
recognize that.

Speaker 1 (40:28):
It's not harsh. Their goal is not to win ten
games down there, now, John, you can say that, and
you can also acknowledge there's a lot of progress that's
been made down there. So I'm not ignorant enough to
have already forgotten where Miami was when Mario got there.
When he got there, they were laughing stock. And so
there's five wins. The first year, there's seven wins, the
second year, there's ten wins the third year. If you

(40:51):
just believe in linear progress, Miami's your program because they're
heading straight line right up. You're one year, two, year three,
and it's a big deal that they're back in double
digit win territory. It's a big deal that you can't
have the conversation about the college football playoff preseason odds
without having Miami in it. That's a wonderful thing. Those
are conversations they were not in. I'm down there a

(41:13):
fair amount. I know how it felt when he first
got there. I know how it feels now it's night
and day. A lot of the guys who started on
that first Miami team wouldn't be on his too deep
right now. So they've replenished their roster, they've attacked in recruiting,
they've attacked via the portal. But let me tell you something.
You can do all that, but when cam Ward comes along,

(41:35):
that's a different type of athlete. And you had him.
You had him just like Lsu had Jaden Daniels two
years ago. And you accomplished some good things, but you
should have accomplished great things, and things that had nothing
to do with your offense kept you from that. So
whose fault is that, Well, it's everybody's fault. It's on Mario,

(41:57):
It's on Lance Guidry, who's not there anymore. It's on
players who don't execute. It's on players not being put
in a position to execute by the coaching staff. So
they addressed all of it like they made moves. So
you went and got Carson Beck out of the portal
and you hope that you'll be able to saddle him
up and ride him this year. And the difference is
your defense doesn't let you down. But it's got to

(42:17):
be a lesson learned because you can't go back in
time and change it. But I don't think it's too
harsh to call that out. John. I would ask you this.
I assume you're a Miami fan. Did you watch the
Syracuse game or the Georgia Tech game last year? Did
you watch the cow game for that matter, last year
and sit there and say, this is okay, this is fine.
Of course you didn't. There's no way. You don't have

(42:39):
a pulse like you don't have a heart beating inside
of you that really cares about Miami football if you
sat there and just said, yeah, this is okay. Cause
I can promise you that coaching staff didn't feel that way.
Nobody in that building felt that way. So no, if
they felt that way, it's not too harsh for someone
on the outside of the building to feel the same way.
For the record preseason, no ods Miami plus four to

(43:01):
forty at FanDuel right now to win the ACC This year,
we'll see, We'll see Carson Beck and DJ Lagway, two
guys that I had at least questions about in spring.
Lagway is not throwing much at Florida in spring. Beck
can't go through spring because he's hurt. And now both
of those guys are throwing, and both of those guys
look like they'll be good to go week one. So

(43:23):
there's that if you're headed to the game week one,
week five, week ten, I don't care quick trip at
your stop. You know a lot of gas stations in
convenience stores in the country, a lot of quick trips,
and now every time anything happens at a quick trip,
I get tagged in it, which is okay. Generally. The
kind of action we like to see at a quick

(43:44):
trip is, you know, you perusing the copious amounts of
food and beverage selections inside a quick trip, or either
you're choosing different flavors of gasoline for your car, not
for you for legal purpis plural purpose. But quick trip's
got you fueled up. They've had us fueled up. We've
been all over the country this spring, we'll be all

(44:05):
over the country this fall, and it'll be because of them.
And it was about this time last year that we
committed a quick Trip. I think I probably need to
repost that we got a lot of viewers who are
new to the show that we're not around this time
last year. When I tell you we did a full
recruitment where different gas stations recruited us, and we did
a full commitment ceremony where I committed a quick trip,

(44:28):
I literally mean that we did all of those things,
and some say it's the best content we've ever produced.
I am some. Let's continue Bold Prediction Season. I have
not forgotten. Bold Prediction Season is upon us. What are
the things that you believe that you're bold enough to

(44:51):
allow me to put on air. Well, we'll start with LSU.
So I thought this one was fairly bold. LSU's coming
into a pivotal year, and Adorra from Roswell George just
said LSU will let's just say LSU will have three
losses in the first six weeks of the season. Okay. Now,
obviously the next thing you want to know is what's

(45:12):
their schedule in the first six weeks. Adora says they're
gonna lose three games. I've got them playing four games
that I would rate eight plus on the difficulty scale.
So they play at Clemson, Week one, there'll be an
underdog there. They play Florida at home week three, I
would say they're a short favorite. They go to Old

(45:32):
Miss a couple of weeks later, pick them maybe slightly
a dog against Old Miss. Will see, and then they
play South Carolina at home. I would guesstimate they'll be
between a three and a seven point favorite in that game.
Those are all tough out of conference. They shouldn't have issues,
but those are tough. So there's a lot of pressure here.

(45:54):
I'm gonna put an eight and a half on this
because it's not crazy like technically LSU could lose all
those games. Of course, they could win all those games.
What I'm saying is they got four losable games. If
they go one in three, there odds are against that,
but it's far from impossible. And remember, this is a
team that's going to rely heavily on an infusion of

(46:16):
portal talent. Now I believe in the portal talent, but
if you're going heavy portal for your especially frontline starters,
what you love is you love a schedule that's backloaded,
where you get time to get all your affairs in order,
and then you hit that back half hard immunity. But
that's not what we have here. What we have here

(46:36):
is multiple losable games right out of the gate, So
that means they got to be clicking right out of
the gate. Fortunately, your quarterback is not a new addition.
He's not a new arrival. Garrett nus Meyer's been there.
But I'm gonna put an eight and a half on
that one. I don't think it's gonna happen, but it
wouldn't be the craziest thing in the world if it did.
And look ls, you could lose three games and be
a pretty good team by the way. You lose to Clemson,

(46:57):
Florida and Ole Miss two of those on the road,
or South Carolina, Like, there's some good teams out there
that would lose to three of those four. Next up,
this is something that just happened. Connor from Morrison, Tennessee, said,
the Heisman Trophy ceremony will feature two non quarterbacks. So
these are finalists in New York. Sometimes you got three,

(47:17):
sometimes four, sometimes five. Connor's saying two of those will
not be quarterbacks. This just happened. Genty from Boise and
Travis Hunter from Colorado not quarterbacks. However, I'm putting a
nine and a half on this because right now at FanDuel,
thirty nine of the top forty two in the odds
to win the Heisman are quarterbacks. We've got. Let's see,

(47:42):
Jeremiah Smith is fourth, so that's a wide receiver. Ryan
Williams is eighteenth, Jeremiah Love is twenty second. Outside of
that top forty two, everybody's quarterbacks. So two of those
guys or someone from nowhere has to, you know, come
in like from the rafters, and I think it's very unlikely.

(48:03):
I'm gonna put a nine and a half on that one.
Next up, I had to take some liberties with this
one game day Chug Good good legal name there. He
hit us up. He said three Texas teams will win
their conference. Now he specified which teams, so he said,
Houston's gonna win the Big twelve, SMU is gonna win

(48:26):
the ACC, Texas A and M's gonna win the SEC.
I think that's astronomical in terms of odds. In fact,
if you went to FanDuel and parlayed that five dollars
would win twenty four K may do it just for fun. Anyway,
I'm gonna do you a favor. That's a ten. So
if that wins, clearly you win a chalice of supremacy.

(48:49):
I took out the specifics, okay, so let's just say
your prediction was three Texas teams win their conference, period,
but it could be any Texas teams any offers. That's
still a nine and a half, so you still qualify
to win a chalice of supremacy. In the Big Twelve.
That's your best and may be your best shot. Statistically,

(49:10):
Texas Tech's got the second. Texas Tech actually is tied
for the best odds in the conference right now. Baylor
is fourth, I think, or kind of yeah, fourth, TCU seventh,
Houston twelfth, So could happen. It's the Big Twelve. Anything
could happen. SEC Texas currently has the best odds to
win the SEC, so they're the favorite. Technically, Texas A

(49:33):
and M is sixth, so you got two shots there.
There's only one Texas team in the ACC. SMU's fourth
and still long odds. Georgia could could screw this up
for you, LSU could screw this up for you. Alabama
could screw this up, or you know, Arizona State could
screw this up. Clemson, Miami. So I'm gonna still put

(49:55):
a nine and a half on it. I do appreciate
the boldness though. And lastly, did Compton send this to us? No? No,
John from Fort Worth, probably Will's cousin. Nebraska goes eleven
and one makes the playoff. Now I just assume if
they go eleven and one, they're gonna make the playoffs.
So these are one and the same nine and a quarter.

(50:16):
This would be bolder if not for the rule rule,
which is the Matt Rule, Year three, I'm gonna win
double digit games rule. He did it at Temple, he
did it at Baylor. You know, just natural progression of things. Here. Again,
we believe in science around here. The science. The science
says Matt Rule's gonna win ten games. At least. Don't

(50:38):
argue with me, argue with the wall. It's science. The
question is not whether Matt rule will win ten games.
That's a given. That's a given at this point. The
question is will he win eleven? Will he make the playoff?
And I'm gonna say that's tough, that's tough. You gotta
really believe in Dylan Royola and Dana Holgerson, the old

(50:59):
quarterback marriage there, and you gotta believe that you can
lose a high caliber defensive coordinator like they did, but
things don't really drop off all that much. It's a
lot to believe in. But but yet, we are a
very faith based show. Typically that faith is not founded
in Matt rule in Nebraska football. But why not above

(51:20):
and beyond our normal faith based concepts, why not add
Matt rule in Nebraska? It's just eleven games. People do
it all the time. It's a it's a fact someone's
gonna win eleven games this year. Why not Nebraska?

Speaker 3 (51:33):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (51:34):
Actually, there are many reasons why, but it's rhetorical. I
don't need I don't need a response to that. They're
watching us in Saint Cloud, Minnesota, Homa, Louisiana, and Saint Louis, Missouri.
We appreciate you guys, very very much. Okay, more dissension
in the ranks. I see this. Next kind of segment's
my favorite kind of segment. This is the this is

(51:56):
like a Papa Top on a Zva kind of segment.
You know, there's a country song back in the day
by an artist I assume all of you know named
jim Ed Brown, called pop a Top and it wasn't
about Zvia that I know of Alan Jackson redid that song,
and it's one of the glaring examples of a remake

(52:18):
that was better than the original. Carol King suffered from
this her whole career. Everybody who remade a Carol King
song did it better than Carol King. But yeah, you
got a credit Carol King because she wrote the song. Right, So,
James Taylor, you do whatever. Rod Stewart, you do whatever.
Carol King wrote the song. What was I doing? Oh?
I was gonna take a sip of Zvia cream soda

(52:39):
for the win tonight. But yeah, so brief musical history there.
At any point we just pivot this thing into a
music podcast and would be okay, But that's not what
we're doing tonight. What we're doing tonight is we are
going to defend ourselves fervently. Smokes Jackson from Seattle decided

(53:03):
to be a jerk and he said, are you going
to put on another clown nose? Now that USC has
lost yet another five star. It's the same thing every
year USC starts out hot and recruiting, you tout them
and then the class whimpers to the end and you
never take the stand for your take. Now this sounds great.

(53:23):
Of course, none of it's true. So this let's just
break this down point for point. The clown's in the room.
There is a clown in the room. It's just not
the person you think it is. They always count on
the fortune cookie approach. You'll notice when you break open
a fortune cookie and you pull out the message, there's
no deep analytical dive you take on that. You don't

(53:45):
break it down psychologically. It says you're gonna be getting
some new clothes soon. All right, toss the fortune, eat
the cookie. We move on with our day. When you
see a cool looking bumper sticker, you don't really break
it down point for point and walk it through to
a logic based conclusion. It's just a bumper sticker. You're
driving through Murphy's Burrow. You just want to get home.

(54:05):
That's what they count on when they tweet us. Truthfully,
I think many of you tweet us hoping we don't
see it, but unfortunately we saw it. So we're gonna
walk through this point by point. It won't take long.
This will be a pretty thorough takedown. Firstly, you said us,
he's always here, us he's never here. One in the
world's last time USC had twenty seven verbal commits and

(54:26):
the number one overall ranked class in May check. Never
hasn't happened in a long time. So no, it's not true.
They're always in this position. That's the first thing. The
second thing is you never stand behind your take. I do,
I do. I guarantee you you couldn't tell me what
my take is on us. He's twenty twenty five class

(54:47):
if your life depended on it. I assume someone who
doesn't watch the show along with you told you what
my take is, and it's a pretty good idea. Was incorrect.
I'll give you my take in a second again. But
here's what happened. There was a five star rated kid
who recently decommitted from USC's class, and so a lot

(55:08):
of people took it upon themselves to do this and say,
I told you, you told me what this happened last year.
Last year. You know, the track record, according to the tweet,
is that I always prop USC up and they fall flat,
and I don't stand behind my take. Here's the bad
thing about this show. We don't delete anything, so everything
I've said is public record. And so last year I

(55:31):
had Jesse go look, and sure enough, USC had some
five star rated kids committed last year, and what was
I busy doing. I was busy telling you they're not
gonna stick. You don't have to take my word for it.
Roll it, Colin. All that's well and good. No one
is betting the farm that they stay committed to USC
out there right now. It's the million dollar question. It's

(55:55):
can we hang on to them? Because I can confidently
tell you these are defense if players in the state
of Georgia that Kirby Smart and Georgia want, they win
those far more often than not. Yeah, So last year
USC had some kids committed. I knew they weren't going
to stay committed. I warned people repeatedly, don't get too

(56:17):
worked up. They're going to decommit. They did. They did.
Every kid I told you would decommit last year decommitted.
And by the way, I don't even cover recruiting, and
I knew it was going to happen. So this year
is different. You want to know what my take on
twenty twenty five USC recruiting is. You don't have to guess,

(56:38):
you don't have to reference a message board. I'm right here,
I'll tell you. Here are my thoughts on it. Number
one there's a noticeable change in the energy of the program,
which I think matters number two. Their recruiting momentum right
now does mean something. What it doesn't mean is all
those kids are going to sign with USC. I'll take
it a step further. All of those kids aren't signing

(57:00):
with USC. They just lost one. Chances are they'll lose
a couple of more, but they're not going to lose
all of them. And so my theory is that it
does mean most of them will sign with USC. Now,
if you know that I'm wrong and the class will implode, uh,

(57:24):
make some money off of it, you know, because my
offer is still on the table, Jesse and Colin that
you will be unsurprised to find that no one's taken
me up on my offer yet. My offer for everyone
who says verbal commits mean nothing and this class will
fall apart just like they all do, quote unquote, well,
I'm challenging you make some money off of it. My

(57:46):
offer is on the table. There's the table right there.
Here sits my offer. And my offer is that for
every kid who decommits from this class right now verbally committed,
any kid who decommits, I will pay you one thousand
dollars as long as for every kid who's verbally committed

(58:07):
that eventually signs with USC, you pay me one thousand dollars.
If the class is gonna fall apart. If these verbal
commits me nothing, take advantage of me immunity, take advantage
financially of me. Make some money. Times are tight right now.
Imagine a generous offer like this in this economy. Take

(58:28):
advantage of it. You won't. You won't. You know you
don't really believe it's gonna fall apart. None of you do.
If you're ignorant enough to believe more than fifty percent
of this class is gonna decommit. I'd love to make
some money off you. It's not, you know, my main
source of revenue on the show, but i'd love to
make some money off of you. Now, here's what's funny

(58:49):
about all this. You actually agree with me, and you
don't even know it. Here's how I know you agree.

Speaker 3 (58:55):
No.

Speaker 1 (58:55):
Sooner have I put that offer out than not only
will no one take me up on it, but someone's
gonna say, there you go, there you go, moving the
goal posts again. Of course, you know more than half
of them are gonna stay committed. Therefore you're guaranteed to
win financially. Well. Of course, more than half of them

(59:15):
are gonna remain committed. Yes, that's my point. My point
is they've loaded up on verbal commits. Not all of
them are gonna stick, but most of them will. Therefore
it means something. We're in agreement. You agreed with me
the whole time. You just didn't know it because you
probably hate USC. That's okay, that's ok It's okay for
you to hate them. Hey, doesn't mean they're gonna win

(59:36):
with them once they sign. But make no mistake, most
of those kids are signing with USC UH by the way.
By the way, they will have some taken from them
because there's some big programs out there that have yet
to even make their move. For a lot of the
kids that USC has signed or excuse me, committed, not signed,
so they'll lose some. They won't lose all of them.

Speaker 3 (59:57):
Though.

Speaker 1 (59:57):
And if you can't sense the difference around US football vibes,
wise right now, you're blind. I know vibes don't win games.
Me and mo I used to tell me that all
the time. Vibes don't win games. Stay away from the
yellow snow vibes don't win games, just a few of
the many age old axioms that Memoi used to hammer
home to me. I know that they know that everybody

(01:00:19):
knows that. Stop stating the obvious. Roll the dice here.
Take me up on my offer. I'm waiting all proceeds
to charity. My charity is the Josh Foundation, which pays
for such things as my food and gas and your charity.
I don't know. You could be whatever you want to.
FanDuel's got some odds for you, guys. If you want
to go bet against USC, if you're just in the
mood to hate on Lincoln Riley, you can go bet

(01:00:40):
against them right now. They're win totals up right, Yes,
other odds to win the Big Ten are up right now.
You know, as we get closer to the season, FanDuel
is sadistic as they could possibly be. They even put
up odds that are yes or no. So you know,
it used to be for a long time you could
bet one thing. You could go, USC, will they win

(01:01:04):
the Big Ten? Yes? Plus four to sixty return. Okay,
but you couldn't bet. No, you couldn't bet against them.
Now you can. Now you can FanDuel looked at it
and said, you want to really be ruthless, put the
no option out there. Oh it's great. It's really toxic,
but it's great. I love them. They're the official odds
provider of the show, and there's already a ton to

(01:01:25):
bet on over there. But as the season gets closer,
it doesn't matter if you don't bet. By the way,
if you're just interested, a lot of you don't bet,
which is completely fine with me. And if you can't
do it responsibly, don't be putting a sent on this stuff.
But you may just be curious. Go over there. Look,
it's free to look. It's absolutely free to look. There's
a fourth immunity on the show tonight. Sign up for
FanDuel at FanDuel dot com backslash CFB promotion. Must be

(01:01:50):
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Helplinema dot org. Or call eight hundred three two seven

(01:02:34):
fifty fifty for twenty four seven support in Massachusetts. Or
call one eight seven seven eight Hope, n Y. Or
text h O P E n Y in New York.
All right, lastly, and I saved this to last for
a reason. I don't think too much of it, but
enough of you saw this this week and asked me

(01:02:54):
about it that I did want to talk about it.
Mark from Charlotte, North Carolina said, did you see Skipper
say he can see college football games becoming pay per views?
Could be interesting? Feels like he's someone who could help
with the college football TV issues. Well, this wouldn't help
at all with the TV issues in college football. So
he is referring to John Skipper, who's the former president

(01:03:14):
of ESPN, And he was on Pablo Torre's show this
week and he was talking speculatively about the media industry,
and he was talking about college football and he was
just tossing some ideas around. He's talking about ESPN's new
over the top or streaming platform, whatever you want to
call it, how you drive revenue to that, and there's

(01:03:35):
a lot of in the weeds business stuff, but he
was tossing out some of his theories. One of his
long held theories has been one day the NFL will
make the Super Bowl a pay per view event. And
I disagree with that as well, but who knows, maybe
he's right. He did formerly run ESPN, emphasis on formerly,
so now he gets to the college football part and

(01:03:59):
he was talk this is the context he's talking about ESPN. Okay,
they are about to launch a streaming platform. It's called
ESPN by the way, and they have properties like the
sec TV contract and the Playoff TV contract, and he
was saying, you know, it could be in the future

(01:04:19):
that for the biggest college football games during the season,
you don't just turn on the channel and get him.
You got to pay four ninety nine five dollars, six
dollars seven dollars to watch Georgia versus Alabama. And it's
imperative to have the right people in the room because
the right people in the room would shoot that down
in two seconds. But I can't guarantee you that what

(01:04:43):
he said will never happen because college football doesn't always
have the right people in the room. And you'll notice
John Skipper's not the right person to be in the room.
A TV executive is not the right person to be
in the room because left to their own devices, they'll
just head down that road. That's why you've got to
have strong leadership on the college football side of the
table that says, oh, you're serious.

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
Leave.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
That's what good leadership does when they're told we want
to charge an extra little pay per view rate for
five big games this year, which turns into seven next year,
which turns into fifteen, which turns into you know, you're
playing for two games every Saturday, or you're not so Josh.
You know this works for boxing back in the day,

(01:05:27):
It works for UFC. It does. They also hit each
other in the throat in UFC. We don't do that
in college football. Do you want to make any other
irrelevant comparisons to UFC and college football, let me also
explain to you a key difference to their friend why
that model does work for UFC and doesn't work. Slash

(01:05:47):
has no business in college football. UFC fights are standalone events,
meaning if I fight Jesse in the octagon on Sunday night,
that's just we just fought, and there's a winner and
a loser. And if he's a big star and he's
a celebrity and I'm a celebrity, and our popularity has
transcended just our sport. A lot of people care and

(01:06:11):
they'll pay nineteen dollars ninety five cents to watch it,
but then that's it. In college football, Georgia plays Alabama
in a regular season game in hopes of trying to
get to an SEC championship game that everyone will be
able to watch for free, in hopes of advancing to
a college football playoff. So the emphasis in the sport

(01:06:32):
as people like that have blown the playoff up to
be as big as possible. Side effect is the regular
season games, relatively speaking, are less meaningful now than they
were ten years ago. And yet you're floating out the
theory that maybe we can charge people. It's just it's
such a gross misreading of the room. But you know,

(01:06:53):
people like that, although they're in the business where they
should care to to a ten out of ten degree,
what the public feels and what they think. They don't
have their finger on the pulse of college football fans.
They don't They know what data on a spreadsheet says,
but they don't know you. I used to think otherwise.

(01:07:14):
Let me tell you. I was talking to someone today
about the big sledgehammer to my face when I got
into our business and realized a lot of those people
are clueless. They're smart people. They're very very smart people.
Smart people can be ignorant on a topic. Unfortunately, a
lot of executive types in the media world are smart

(01:07:37):
people that are ignorant about college football because they don't
have a background in it. They got a background in
pro sports. They know the NFL, they know the NBA.
You ever wonder why the NBA is less popular in
this country than college football, but gets covered way more
than college football. It's because more people who make decisions
at network levels know the NBA, care about the NBA,

(01:08:00):
know how to sell the NBA. They don't know how
to sell college football because they don't know the consumer
base of college football. Therefore, they don't know the right
brands to pitch to who are relying on that demographic.
It's mind bodily anyway. Don't overestimate these people. You overestimate

(01:08:21):
or underestimate it. Yeah, overestimate them to your own peril.
But I can guarantee you this won't happen, or I
can't guarantee you this won't happen. That're written down on
a piece of paper. That's why I misspoke. I can
guarantee you it shouldn't happen, I can't guarantee it'll never
happen because I can't guarantee that the right decisions will
always be made in college football. I can guarantee it
won't happen anytime soon, but I can't guarantee you for

(01:08:43):
certain it won't happen. What will happen is we'll have
a show Tuesday night, so we'll be right back here.
No road trips this week. We've got other matters to
attend to here on the home front, and gonna be
fun times. Nothing matter. It's just a wedding, you know,
just my wedding, So fun times this week. With a
busy week, we'll be here Tuesday. So for director column

(01:09:03):
producer Jesse, I'm Josh Bate. Take care. We'll see you
back here Tuesday night. Until then, have a good start.

Speaker 3 (01:09:09):
To your week and God bless.

Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
Sign up for FanDuel at FanDuel dot com backslash CFB
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