*Stewart Mandel, The Athletic (College Football)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jack Keablin here with my good friend Matt Sloan a
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Speaker 3 (00:32):
Sort Mandel from The Athletic and the Audible podcast joins
us Stuart. This is the first we believe that a
preseason number one team will be an underdog in the opener.
How do you see the Longhorns in the Buckeyes.

Speaker 4 (00:49):
Yeah, well, it's hard to really forecast because especially in
this day and age of college football, right when there's
so much turnover.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 4 (00:57):
With Texas and let's start with the Ohio State. I mean,
we all we're all used to them reloading year after
year after year. I don't worry too much at Ohio
State is going to suddenly faceplan it. But yeah, I
mean the core of that national title team last year
were guys that could have gone to the NFL a
year earlier, came back for one more run, and now
now they are gone. So they've got a lot to replace.

(01:18):
They've got a first time starting quarterback, Arch Manning is
I guess technically a first year starting quarterback that we've
certainly seen him a little bit. So I think Texas
is key. I mean Texas is loaded. I don't think
that's any secret. They're one big question mark is their
offensive line. They lost four starters from a really good
offensive line, and if they come out and struggle, I

(01:39):
mean Ohio State is going to take advantage of that.
So not to me, it's a toss up game. I
kind of side with Texas because we do have team
more of their quarterback who is a very good quarterback,
and we have Ohio State. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah, I'm looking at some of the games this weekend
and I don't remember better threesome of games involving six
top ten teams with Notre Dame going to Miami. Renewing
Catholics and Convicts, and then you've got the Battle of

(02:14):
the Tigers and death Valleys and Tiger rag fight songs
with LSU and Clemson. Do you remember three better games
for a week once too?

Speaker 4 (02:26):
No, I mean there's been I think I wrote about
a few weeks ago. One of my editors kind of
crunched the numbers. I don't think there's ever been three
top ten games the first Saturday of the season. We
you know, oftentimes in those early especially with the neutral
psyche games, you see a lot of glamorous matchups right
between intersectional opponents, but necessarily the these kind of stakes.

(02:49):
Ohio State Texas was almost a one versus two games
in the first game of the season. That would have
been not the Notre Dame. I should have I misspoke
when I said on the Saturday Not Dame. Miami's on Sunday.
You know that game has kind of been Yeah, that
has probably been overshadowed by the other two. But that's
a big game too. That's your first chance to see

(03:11):
Carson Beck, the former Georgia quarterback play for Miami. That
is Notre Dame coming up an appearance in the national
title game. They've got a first time starting quarterback and CJ. Carr.
So yeah, really looking forward to all three of those.
And by the way, we have a top twenty five
game in Iron this weekend. That's pretty unusual for weeks.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
Yeah, as sure is what will we learn about the
Big Twelve as a result of that game.

Speaker 4 (03:39):
It's gonna I don't know, we're gonna I mean, what
we're gonna learn is that one of the two teams,
one of one of the teams that is expected to
contend for the Big Twelve title, is going to start
out zero and one, and that's that's quite a hole
to dig out of. But I think it's hard to
know until we see some of the other teams. I mean,
the Big Twelve, this new Big Twelve is a league

(04:01):
where frankly, there's not much separating the team. Even Oklahoma
State was terrible last year, they finished sixteenth. They I
don't know that. Their talent level, though, is night and
day worse than Arizona States, who won the conference. So
there's not much separating these teams. There's not much separating
KSE State and Iowa State. Whoever wins obviously gets off

(04:22):
to a nice start. But I don't think we'll know
until we see Asu, we see Colorado, some of these
other Utah, some of these other teams to know where
they truly stand.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
What do you make of the news this afternoon? Maybe
it was before the first I saw it about the
SEC willing to go to the nine game conference schedule.
Seemed like this was a roadblock as far as a
restructured playoff and an impasse with the Big Ten and
the SEC. Does this mean we won't get these ridiculous

(04:57):
matchups in mid November and the SEC?

Speaker 4 (05:01):
You know, first of all, that announcement came out like
ten minutes ago. The most interesting part about it, I mean,
they've been debating eight versus nine for I think a decade.
But what's interesting to me is that that press really
says they're also required to play a Power four non
conference game. So, I mean, the SEC conference schedules are
already the hardest in the country, even the eight games.

(05:23):
Now you're going to go to nine and they're all
going to play a tenth Power four game. Those are
going to be some tough schedules and frankly, some Big
ten teams are going to have to adjust. I think
Penn State has gone into this mode where they play
no power four teams. When Michigan won, they Michigan got
Oklahoma this year. When they won the national title. A
couple of years ago, they played no power So if

(05:45):
we keep the model we have with the selection committee,
and I know Tony Petiti is trying to end it,
but and you're you're fighting for a twelve team playoff
berth with a team from the SEC, you better beef
up that schedule because the SEC teams will probably get
the benefit the doubt.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
Do you think we'll ever see something that we do
and say acc Big Ten Basketball Challenge where they could
pick a week of the season, week two, week three,
whatever you want and match them up with the sixteen
of the eighteen Big Ten schools and all the SEC
schools and let them go at it.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (06:23):
I mean they've talked about it the two conferences. You know,
it's been an interesting year. In February, the SEC and
Big Ten got together in New Orleans. This hadn't really
happened before two conferences, you know, meeting to strategize together,
and a big part of that was there the future
of the playoffs. And we've seen them split apart on
that over the rest of the year. So I think
that kind of round other stuff to a halt with

(06:46):
this announcement today that the SEC is going to nine,
that's something the Big ten really wanted to see, and
I think maybe that becomes you know, it's a good chance,
not a good chance, the chance that becomes that that
extra are four games for the SEC teams.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
You just went through exhaustive exercise of trying to pick
the order of finish by conference.

Speaker 4 (07:11):
Right, Yeah, I don't claim it to be all that scientific, but.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
Sure, what was the hardest conference to pick?

Speaker 4 (07:25):
Hardest conference to pick? Probably the Big Twelve for the
reasons we just talked about a lot of parody in
that conference. I ended up picking Arizona State to repeat,
but I didn't necessarily go into it considering that. In
terms of the Big Tens, it's not so much the
top I think Penn State and Ohio State or the
last of that conference. It's kind of that next rundown.

(07:47):
There's a lot of teams that could go either way,
right Iowa. You think of Iowa, Nebraska, USC, Michigan, Minnesota,
right on down the line. The teams that, yeah, I
could have picked to go nine to three. I could
have picked to go seven and five. I don't really
see much difference. Yeah, you know, probably a lot will
depend on how their schedules shakeout, but also injuries, injury luck,

(08:12):
and a big ten openers.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
Stewart is Illinois at Indiana. Illinois thinks it's going to
have its best team in forever and Indiana right and
high now thinking that, hey, this is easy after what
happened last year, So that game is going to tell
us an awful lot. Yeah, that is.

Speaker 4 (08:34):
You know, Illinois is the classic case of what we
call the bull bump. I don't know that they would
have been ranked this high until they beat South Carolina
in the ball game and got to ten wins and
suddenly they are the hot kind of bandwagon team going
into this season. Whereas I feel like, because Indiana ended
the season on a down note, some people assume that

(08:56):
was a great story last year, they're going to go
back to being a Yeah, I don't think that's the case.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
Cursing.

Speaker 4 (09:01):
Netty is a great coach, they got a really good
quarterback from count Fernando Mendoza. I'm looking forward to that one.
I think I'm kind of swing game for both of
those teams.

Speaker 3 (09:12):
Yeah, when you think of Illinois. You know, they did
win ten and they have Luke Altmeyer back at quarterback,
and I think they have the most production returning and
we know that they have a boatload of veterans back
or returning starters. But I want to ask you about
where Penn State is and you mentioned players coming back.

(09:33):
It happened at Michigan. They win the national title. All
the Ohio State players decided they were going to come back,
and it looked like they'd be jumping off a bridge,
but they win the national title. And now Penn State
seems to have a senior laden team. What would it
say if the Nanny Lyons won it all and you

(09:54):
had three straight Big Ten champions or championship teams. Aile
State actually was fourth in the league last year, but
you had three straight national champions from the Big Ten
and three straight years without an SEC team in the
championship game.

Speaker 4 (10:12):
Well, first of all, it shows the importance of retention.
You know, I think because the transfer portal get so
much attention because some teams dramatically flip their roster from
one year of the next. Like in terms of how
schools spend their NIL money, we tend to focus on that,
but I think it's arguably more important if you have

(10:33):
a really good team to retain it, to bring back
those guys and to convince you know, those two running
backs at Penn State or Drew Aller not to turn grow.
You know, they're getting a pretty significant paycheck.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
Right If the.

Speaker 4 (10:46):
Big Ten last year won back to back national titles
for the first time since World War Two, so that
was significant to do it three times, that a row
would really be something. I think Paul Feinbaum would jump
off a bridge if that happens, right, it's the SEC
is sick of hearing about how that they can have
caught up to them.

Speaker 3 (11:04):
If Paul Feinebaumb does jump off the bridge, can we
get video. I think of a lot of people who
would certainly be tuning in for that.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
I mean he I don't want to ask you about
the pile.

Speaker 4 (11:18):
On him too much, but he's obviously become the when
people think of the like SEC h cockiness, Right, he's
the He's the face of it.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
Yeah. Yeah. Our guest is Stuart Mandel from The Athletic
does a great job and covering college football and also
the podcast Audible, right yes, yeah, so of all the
things that you do. You're a multi talented guy. There's
one thing I don't think you can do, Stuart. I

(11:50):
don't think you can be elected mayor van Arboro.

Speaker 4 (11:55):
Yeah, I think that ship is sales.

Speaker 5 (11:59):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (11:59):
Do you want to summarize for our listeners? I thought
it was a terrific piece, a great assessment of the
lunacy involved here. But can you give us the cliff
notes and one hundred words or less?

Speaker 4 (12:15):
Well over the last two years is that we waited
on this decision on Connor Stallion. I think the main
thing people would ask me is should the national title
have an asterisk next to it? And I said no.
They got rid of him before they played all their
biggest games that season in the playoffs. So I don't
know how you could say what we saw with our
own eyes didn't happen when this report came out. It's

(12:38):
not that I think there should be an asterisk. I
just think that Jim harbaugh tenure is really tarnish now
because you read forget the actual theme that was at
the heart of this right which people can reasonably debate
how important or not important that was the behavior of
the people there once they got exposed throwing throwing phones

(12:59):
into the bottom of the pond, destroying evidence. Jerome Morganes
asked why he deleted those texts. He says from Connor stallions.
He says, the clearing up storage space to the lying
and deceiving, and it's like, were these guys running, Like
this is stuff you'd read about somebody running at criminal enterprise,
not a sign stealing scheme. And now Jim Harbaugh's banned

(13:23):
basically from college coaching for fourteen years, which is just
unheard of. So they'll never be able to take away
the title. They'll never be able to take away the winds.
They happen. Michigan fans should definitely celebrate them, But this
has been a total scene on the integrity and the
way that school has kind of always held themselves as being,
you know, at a higher standard.

Speaker 3 (13:45):
Yeah, and I mentioned this. I was reminded of us
the other day that the image has not necessarily matched
the reality that Michigan is the only program that has
been on sea probation more than once for football. In
basketball with the largest dollar amount scandal committee Unterfractions has

(14:10):
ever dealt with with the Fab five, and then also
in baseball, and also in hockey. So if you want
to talk about leaders in best, it doesn't really match
the facts and the brand of Michigan that block m
that you see everywhere around the world. And maybe the

(14:31):
shady yellow is a little different.

Speaker 4 (14:36):
I didn't I didn't even know about some of the
ones you mentioned. Obviously, I remember the Fab five. I mean,
I think this is the third football case going back
to the rich Rod practice one. That's right. I don't
you know. What I've always said is like everybody cheap,
there's no there's nobody playing on a higher plane than
anybody else in college football. They're extremely competitive programs. They're

(14:59):
looking for any edge they can get, and frankly, the
NCAA only catches a small fraction of the offenders. But
you know, Michigan. I found that Jim Harbaugh clip from
the press conference the morning after the national title game
where somebody asked him, you know what it means to
win the national title as a Michigan man, and he
kind of starts to pontificate about what that means, and

(15:20):
he says, and I quote that, that a big part
of it is you don't lie, you don't cheat, you
don't steal like geez, they went, oh for three you know,
it's it's it's it's fine. Like I'm not here to say,
you know that these are the worst offenders in the
history of football. They're not. But like, let's just accept it.

(15:41):
The Michigan mana. There's nothing evinguishing them at this point
from the schools they think they're above.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. I want to ask
you about another investigation, and we got news today that
Pat Fitzgerald and Northwest have a settlement. And you don't
need to hold a benefit for Pat Fitzgerald, but looking
at what he did and seventeen years there, and he

(16:11):
does have a four bowl winning streak going and three
double digit win seasons there, five with nine wins or more,
which I didn't think I would so ever see at Northwestern.
If he has been exonerated or as much as you
could be by the investigation of this do you think
we'll see him as a college head coach again?

Speaker 4 (16:34):
First of all, you really was exonerating. You don't really
see this very often when the two parties reach a
battlement for the school to basically admit like, yeah, you're right,
we never found any evidence that he knew any of
this stuff, and they didn't say like we apologized. It
came off very like we screwed up.

Speaker 5 (16:54):
You know.

Speaker 4 (16:54):
I think if you look at the entirety of his
career and full disclosure, I went to college with him
in Northwestern, so I always have a bit of the
soft spot for him. But yeah, I mean, he turned
that program into an annual bowl team or almost annual
bowl team, ten win seasons, you name it. They went
to the Big Ten title game twice. The problem for
him at the ended on a bad note. I mean
they went three and nine and then in the very

(17:16):
last season one and all eleven. So you're not getting
if you hire Patis Trail now, you're not getting kind
of peak career there.

Speaker 3 (17:25):
Right.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
So even if you can overlook the hazing scandal, I
just it would be a hard sell to meet for
a major program to hire me as a head coach. Now,
if you're a group of five program, if you're an
STS program, sure, why not. You know a situation where
you're not, you know, dealing with multi billionaire or boosters
who want to see a big name and whatnot. But

(17:48):
the guy knows what he's doing. He had a rough
ending there. Obviously at Northwestern, I think he made some
poor staff hires at the time. And then you know,
once nil in the portal Behamon thing. You know, Northwestern Stanford,
these schools are very disadvantaged in that right. So that was,
I mean, it was kind of the beginning of that era,

(18:10):
but that was starting a play a factor as well.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
The fact that his last team went one and eleven.
I can remember when that was the standard at Northwestern
and you know, they didn't bet your house that they
wouldn't win ten games three times in a decade. But
I go back to a Northwestern era, Stuart, long before
you were there. And in nineteen eighty nine, Northwestern came

(18:38):
in to play Michigan State and a snowy day here
in East Lansing, and the Spartans were doing everything they
could not to score because George Peurlis didn't want to
get Francis pay fired. And the Spartans won seventy six
to fourteen on a twenty eight yards quarterback sneak at
the end of the game. It was supposed to be

(19:00):
a kneel down and it was. It was bizarre because
there was so much snow in the stands that the
students decided that they were going to try to hit
all the Northwestern players in the helmets with these ice balls.
And finally Francis Pay motions perlous out to the center

(19:20):
of the field and he says, George, I'm telling you,
if one more of my guys gets hitting the head
with the ice balls, we're out of here. You'll be
out here playing the game by yourself. Of course, George
didn't want to be out there anyway, right, he wants
to be somewhere warm, and he's got about a forty
five point lead. So when Francis Pay turns around to

(19:41):
walk back to the sideline, George is encouraging the students,
like throw more ice balls, right, he wants to get
this stand. And finally Michigan State gets the sixty nine
to fourteen, and you know, they managed not to have
an extra point, they don't get seventy, and George says, okay,
we're good. A minute to go, and of course Northwestern

(20:06):
fumbles a kickoff, so you know, you've got the four
string quarterback in there, and the idea is okay, is
you know, and of course the guy quarterback sneaks for
a touchdown, so it was one of those deals. But
that was kind of what Northwestern was for a lot
of that time. And then starting with Gary Barnett and

(20:27):
then going on. I mean, so I remember when he
came out with the take the Purple to Pasadena. You
were there, and yeah, I was. You know, they're laughing
at this, right, they're laughing at the coach saying this,
And then that's exactly what he did.

Speaker 4 (20:47):
And ever since then, the whole I mean, frankly, to
be perfectly honest, the reason I became a Collar, the
main reason I became a college football writer was that season,
seeing how it, I mean, when I got there that
people were so apathetic about football, and they brought the
whole campus together and it was you know, from that
point forward.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
They were much more of a football school.

Speaker 4 (21:08):
Certainly not Ohio State, right, but you know, have held
their own for the most part in that conference in
terms of just getting the bowl games and obviously getting
into the big tentitle game. You know, I think as
much as we see a small group of schools dominate
at the top of the sport, the beauty of college
football is that almost anybody else has a chance to

(21:31):
be relevant. You Know, we saw I mean, the Indiana
story last year was the Northwestern ninety five story all
over again, where they just came out of complete nowhere
and made the playoffs. You know you mentioned nineteen eighty nine.
That was just in my head. I'm thinking that's also
the year Bill Snyder took over at Kansas State, and
you know, they were the dregs of what was then
one A football and became a powerhouse. There's hope with

(21:54):
the right coach and the right support school, there's hope
for anybody out there.

Speaker 3 (22:01):
Our guest the Stuart Mandel sl Mandel m A N
D E. L on X Stewart at Theathletic dot Com.
Follow him. He's a great follow, a great read. Stuart,
thanks so much for joining us.

Speaker 4 (22:15):
I appreciate it all right, thanks for having me.

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