Mailbag: Casting A Season Of Survivor For CFB Coaches, Grading The Oklahoma-Lincoln Riley Break-Up

Summary

Cover 3 College Football Podcast

Episode: Mailbag: Casting A Season Of Survivor For CFB Coaches, Grading The Oklahoma-Lincoln Riley Break-Up
Date: February 12, 2026
Hosts: Chip Patterson, Tom Fornelli, Bud Elliott

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Episode Overview

This episode of Cover 3 College Football leans into the off-season with a spirited, mailbag-driven conversation. The hosts take on a variety of listener questions, from the fallout of the Oklahoma-Lincoln Riley split to the hypothetical casting of college football coaches on Survivor. The conversations range from insightful college football analysis to hilarious, creative speculation. Memorable audience interactions from the live chat (referred to as the "tailgate") pepper the episode, adding an engaging, communal atmosphere.

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Key Discussion Topics and Insights

1. Pac-12's 'Flex Week' Scheduling (00:48–10:30)

• Summary: The Pac-12 announced a flexible schedule format for Week 13 of the 2026 season. This week, known as “Flex Week,” will determine matchups after the regular conference slate, intending to maximize the conference’s playoff chances and national visibility.
• Analysis:
  • The hosts debate if the flex approach will work as intended or backfire.
  • The format is designed to ensure top teams play meaningful games for CFP selection but might inadvertently set up key contenders for unexpected losses or motivation issues.
  • Quote: “You pick up a loss in this game, right? So that hurts, that hurts your resume. Or…your two best teams are already in the conference championship game, they're not going to give a damn about this Week 13 game.” – Tom Fornelli (06:37)
  • Structural limitations exist due to pre-determined home/away splits, reducing true flexibility.
  • Echoes Covid-era adaptability but introduces its own challenges.
  • Memorable Note: The hosts reminisce about the last minute BYU-Coastal Carolina matchup as an inspiration for flexibility.
  • Conclusion: Innovative, but the practical impact remains to be seen. Concerns that it may create complications without the intended payoff.

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2. Most Painful In-Person Loss as a Fan (10:32–21:01)

• Summary: Each host shares their most heartbreaking sporting event witnessed in person, both football and basketball.
• Host Stories:
  • Chip Patterson: UNC football's 1997 Judgment Day loss to Florida State and the Austin Rivers buzzer-beater (basketball).
  • Tom Fornelli: 2014 Rose Bowl (FSU blown out by Oregon), 2012 FSU loss at NC State, various high school agony tales.
  • Bud Elliott: 2002 Illinois loss to San Jose State, realization that Chicago Sugar Bowl loss was an outlier for his fandom.
• Memorable Quotes:
  • “The pain in Champaign.” – Bud Elliott (16:26)
  • “That was just an absolute kick to the nuts.” – Chip Patterson describing UNC’s loss (12:00)
• Audience Participation: Fans in the chat chime in, sharing losses like the 2019 Oklahoma-LSU blowout and Michigan-App State.
• Timestamps:
  • Chip’s story: (11:37)
  • FSU pain: (13:09)
  • Illinois woes: (15:22)
  • Audience pain: (18:43)

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3. Mailbag: Survivor – Casting CFB Coaches (22:59–40:29)

• Prompt: If you could cast a season of Survivor with college football coaches (and/or players), who’d make the cut? Who would win?
• Format: The hosts brainstorm and debate a cast of 16, split into two tribes of eight, focusing on personality, entertainment value, and Survivor game strategy.
• Casting Criteria:
  • Emphasis on TV-friendly personalities, not just coaching success or toughness.
  • Big personalities and wildcards prioritized: Lane Kiffin, Ed Orgeron, Deion Sanders, Dabo Swinney, James Franklin, Brett Bielema, and more.
• Notable Picks and Reasoning:
  • Lane Kiffin: “Lane has an alliance with everybody on his tribe by the end of day one.” – Bud Elliott (37:20)
  • Ed Orgeron: “Ed Orgeron would go viral for people not understanding what he’s saying…Also, he’s used to being shirtless.” – Tom Fornelli (30:15)
  • Deion Sanders: Chosen for sure-fire “soundbite” content.
  • P.J. Fleck, Matt Rhule, Eli Drinkwitz: For energetic or quirky personalities.
  • Kalani Sitake, Marcus Freeman: For positive or “fan favorite” potential.
• Game Theory Insights:
  • The Survivor format punishes physical/obvious threats early—overly alpha coaches likely targeted.
  • Social, sneaky, or manipulative types (e.g., Lane Kiffin) have better winning chances.
  • “You can’t have threats—whoever the biggest threat is, gone!” – Bud Elliott (25:55)
• Resulting Tribes (as finalized on air):
  • Tribe Signetti: Kurt Signetti (C), Dan Lanning, PJ Fleck, Marcus Freeman, James Franklin, Matt Rhule, Brett Bielema, Deion Sanders, Kalani Sitake.
  • Tribe Dabo: Dabo Swinney (C), Lane Kiffin, Eli Drinkwitz, John Summerall, Ed Orgeron, Rhett Lashley, Fran Brown.
• Entertainment Factor: Imagines Survivor’s competitive dynamics with “all alpha personalities.” Predicts chaos, backstabbing, hilarious press-conference impersonations, and possibly "crimes".
• Quotes:
  • “Survivor Civil War: North vs. South.” – Chip Patterson (36:38)
  • “Who are the biggest beta coaches in college football? We’ll do that next Thursday!” – Bud Elliott (40:07)
• Timestamp Highlights:
  • Survivor discussion begins: (22:59)
  • Drafting and slotting tribes: (34:15–38:41)

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4. Oklahoma-Lincoln Riley Breakup: Four Years Later (40:29–46:41)

• Prompt: Has either Oklahoma or Lincoln Riley “won” the 2022 breakup, and how would their coaches now rank?
• Analysis:
  • Both sides yet to achieve a post-breakup breakthrough.
  • USC (Lincoln Riley): Has not accomplished playoff goals; recruiting success and transfer portal wins noted.
  • Oklahoma: College Football Playoff appearance but still no CFB Playoff win; Brent Venables has had struggles (two losing seasons, 6–7 most recently).
  • Recency bias: Oklahoma looks more successful now, but Lincoln’s recruiting could pay off soon.
  • “Neither side has truly won, but…Lincoln seems like the clear loser at this point.” – Listener via mailbag (40:00)
  • “Lincoln still hasn’t accomplished anything at USC outside of a really good recruiting class.” – Bud Elliott (42:48)
  • Hypotheticals debated: Would Riley have been fired (or on the hot seat) if still at Oklahoma? Consensus: Probably.
  • Quote: "If he'd stayed at Oklahoma, he'd have been fired. He might be coaching Virginia Tech right now, guys!” – Bud Elliott (44:55)
• Timestamp: Discussion begins (40:29), coaching hot seat debate (43:16–45:14)

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5. Future Non-Conference Games: Will There Be More Cancellations? (48:38–54:26)

• Summary: Playoff expansion and 9-game schedules in ACC and SEC are leading to many non-conference cancellations.
• Insights:
  • Current trend: Quiet cancellations for future seasons, especially among mid-tier P4 teams.
  • Quote: “Teams are optimizing for record, not resume.” – Tom Fornelli (53:28)
  • TV networks want marquee non-conference games for content, so some will survive.
  • Fans may miss out on cool trips or matchups (e.g., Georgia-Louisville).
  • The long-term view: In 6–7 years, the schedule landscape could change entirely (super league?).
• Timestamp: Discussion starts (48:38)

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6. Innovative Coaching Staff Models: Ohio State’s New Approach

(55:05–55:29)

• Summary: With "unlimited" coaching staffs now possible, more programs will separate coaches from recruiting duties, similar to Ohio State’s recent hiring practices.
• Quote: “Your staff is now constrained not by a numerical size rule, it’s constrained by your budget.” – Bud Elliott (55:18)

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7. Hypothetical: Worst NFL O-Line on a Mid-Tier P4 Team—Would They Win the Natty?

(55:29–61:00)

• Summary: If you put the worst NFL offensive line on a "mid-tier" Power 4 college team, could they win the national championship?
• Main points:
  • It depends on the team (QB/skill players matter), but a massive upgrade up front could take a team deep into the playoff.
  • Bud’s logic: You could lean on the run game and dominate.
  • Miami cited as a "mid-tier" team with NFL OL-level play driving them; consensus is that O-line alone isn't quite enough, but it's a huge boost.

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8. Charlie Woods, NIL, and FSU Golf

(61:00–63:43)

• Prompt: Will Charlie Woods’ NIL deals for golf at FSU affect FSU’s ability to pay Mike Norvell’s football buyout?
• Analysis:
  • Not a real threat; the interest in FSU for Charlie includes location, privacy, and a world-class private course.
  • Quote: “You can go play golf at Florida State, and the entire time…no randos are coming up to you.” – Bud Elliott (62:24)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Chip (on UNC’s heartbreak): “That was just an absolute kick to the nuts.” (12:00)
• Bud (on Illinois fandom): “The pain in Champaign.” (16:26)
• Tom (explaining Flex Week risks): “If you pick up a loss in this game, that hurts your resume.” (06:37)
• Survivor casting: “Survivor Civil War: North vs. South.” – Chip Patterson (36:38)
• On Lincoln Riley’s fate: “If he’d stayed at Oklahoma, he’d have been fired. He might be coaching Virginia Tech right now.” – Bud Elliott (44:55)
• On scheduling: “Teams are optimizing for record, not resume.” – Tom Fornelli (53:28)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Pac-12 Flex Week: 00:48–10:30
• Most Painful Losses: 10:32–21:01
• Survivor CFB Coach Casting: 22:59–40:29
• Oklahoma-Lincoln Riley Breakup: 40:29–46:41
• Non-Conference Game Cancellations: 48:38–54:26
• Coaching Staff Models: 55:05–55:29
• NFL O-Line on CFB Team: 55:29–61:00
• Charlie Woods NIL/FSU: 61:00–63:43

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Tone & Atmosphere

Light-hearted, creative, and fast-paced, especially during the offbeat Survivor segment. The hosts trade both deeply analytical views (on scheduling and the coaching carousel) and playful banter (casting Survivor, sharing sports heartbreaks). Audience participation is frequent and valued, deepening the collegial fan-driven vibe.

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Closing Notes

This episode is a quintessential off-season romp, balancing thoughtful college football analysis with imaginative, comedic detours. Even without deep game previews or recaps, it captures the passion and quirks of college football culture—making it an entertaining, highly listenable entry for casual and die-hard fans alike.

Transcript

[Chip Patterson]

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[Bud Elliott]

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[Chip Patterson]

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[Tom Frenelli]

Welcome Back to the COVID 3 podcast.

[Bud Elliott]

With your host, Chip Patterson, Tom Fernell, Danny Cannell and Bud Elliott. It's your call for the best college.

[Tom Frenelli]

Football coverage from national signing day to the national championship and everything in between.

[Bud Elliott]

CBS Sports presents the COVID 3 podcast.

[Chip Patterson]

And welcome back to the COVID 3 podcast here on CBS Sports. That's Tom Frenelli, that's Bud Elliott. I'm Chip Patterson coming to you [e-mail] cover3 and everywhere. Get your podcast on demand. Thanks for hanging out. Smash that, subscribe, smash that like and come and join us in the chat. Aka the COVID 3 tailgate, which is rocking and rolling. Yeah, Joey, this will undoubtedly be the greatest episode in the history of COVID 3 or the absolute worst. There simply is no in between. On interactive Thursdays, where we're taking questions from the tailgate, where we're jumping in the big old bag of mail, where as you saw from our masterful, just absolute masterful thumbnail on YouTube.com Cover three, we are going to be getting a little, a little synergy here at America's most watched network, the network of stars. Because Survivor season 50 will be debuting later this month. We got a mailbag question about college football coaches in Survivor. So excited about that. I was also excited. Oh, also tailgate, you are always plugged in on this. The Trinidad Chambliss hearing is going on right now. So keep us informed. I don't have that live streamed.

[Tom Frenelli]

I'm trying to, unlike Court TV or like what, how do we, how do we get this.

[Chip Patterson]

But I need your eyes here. I we need focus. We got a lot of very serious and important stuff to break down. We'll let the tailgate, I mean this is either a thumbs up or thumbs down situation. So it started I think about 10:30 or so. Looks like some of some fan sites are live streaming it. But I was excited because something that I wanted to discuss here also came up in the tailgate in the discussions before we go 10:17am College football tradition jumped in and said mailbag, what do you think of the Pac 12's Flex game? And here's that. I think that's the discussion point. So the news is that the Pac 12 released its 2026 flag football schedule on Wednesday. That includes the matchups for almost all of the weeks of conference play, but not week 13. They are calling it a flex week. They have already determined who the home teams and who the road teams will be for that final flex week. Let's see, we've got that. So the home teams are in the white. That means Colorado State gets a home game. That means Fresno State gets a home game. Utah State gets a home game. Washington State gets a home game. Boise State will be on the road. Oregon State will be on the road. San Diego State will be on the road. Texas State will be on the road. But we do not know what the matchups will be. As I understand it, this is meant to enhance the visibility and the chances for the mountain, excuse me, for the PAC 12 to have a team that is the highest ranked team from the group of six this flex week in week 13 on the final week of the regular season, meant to give the conference an opportunity to be able to have a team in the College Football Playoff. Bud, you're. What do we think here? I'm seeing a little bit of a reaction. Do you think this works? Does this backfire?

[Tom Frenelli]

The wheels are turning. Yeah, I mean this certainly could backfire, but it could work, right? It, I think the, the determining factor is going to be like how much weight is the committee going to give to you beating another, let's say decent to good G5 team? If we learn anything from JMU, it's that as long as you win your games, it doesn't matter if you beat anybody worth a damn at all. They're going to put you in. Right. So like it's also could be harmful because it sets you up for another potential loss. I mean if they are truly matching up like the top two teams, like would they match the top two teams week before the championship game? Well, would they play like a 1v4, 2v3 type thing?

[Chip Patterson]

So I think that because they've got already the home and away designations, there are some limits to being able to match it up.

[Tom Frenelli]

Right? Yeah. Did they, did they reverse engineer this? Let's, let's take a look. So Boise is so gray on this. Just for those listening home. So Boise has an away and who do we think is going to be the number two team in the Pac12 this year?

[Chip Patterson]

So Boise at Utah State, Broncos Big bad boys would be one potential. If you're looking at this GJ Kenny in Texas State, maybe at Colorado State where Jim Morris taken over our guy Sean Lewis, San Diego State, maybe they match up with Florida, Fresno and then have an Oregon State and Washington State kind of, you know, they could. They played two times in a season before.

[Tom Frenelli]

Is the championship game not locked after week 12? I mean, that TBD because Chuck Rainey in the chat, Chuck Rainey, 8036, he said the championship game is supposedly decided after week 12. So for those listening at home, this flex week is week 13. I would kind of a little bit, I a little bit question the motivations on the team playing in week 13 if they're already in the championship game. But if they're in the championship game with a legitimate shot to go to the College Football Playoff, I think it's a very easy motivational sell to tell them, hey, we're in this league, right? We're probably not going to get as much respect as the American. We are going to really need to put like to go out there, take this week 13 game seriously and then win the championship game. If you guys want a shot to go to the playoffs, you're going to.

[Chip Patterson]

Be staring down not just everybody else in your conference. You got Charles Huff at Memphis, you know, you've got Tulane, you've got these other schools. They're also going to be in the mix there.

[Tom Frenelli]

And here's where it backfires. If, like, it backfires in two ways. One, you pick up a loss in this game, right? So that hurts, that hurts your resume. Or two, if you don't, if your league doesn't actually have a real contender to make the college fall playoff and like your two best teams are already in the conference championship game, they're not going to give a damn about this Week 13 game. They're going to be eyes on winning the conference title.

[Bud Elliott]

Mikey, can you throw that graphic back up there real quick? Because Chuck Blunt is in the chat saying that the week 13 is a non conference game, so.

[Chip Patterson]

Oh yeah, it is the conference play right there. So conference is just weeks 12, but.

[Tom Frenelli]

Oh, it's non conference for standings purposes within the conference. But it's still going to count on your resume. Like the committee's not going to ignore it if you take a loss, right?

[Chip Patterson]

And being the conference champion doesn't matter for making the college football playoffs.

[Bud Elliott]

Okay? So I, I really like the idea behind this in that you're putting a flex game in the final week of the season to kind of, you know, make for a better final week of the season far as maybe you know, putting games together, hell, you could put two, five and six teams up against each other to ensure one of them is going to a bowl game if you want.

[Tom Frenelli]

Sure, yeah, yeah.

[Bud Elliott]

But I don't like it because you're locked into the home road thing. And since it's not a conference game, you're playing seven conference games. So you have the uneven balance between, between home and road in the games that do count in league play. And then in your flex play, you're limiting what you can do by making sure that everybody gets their fourth home game. So like we talked about it, Boise State, we know is on the road for week 13. We don't know who they're playing yet, but we do know it will be Colorado State, Fresno State, Utah State or Washington State. So like, you're kind of locking your, you're not really as flexible here as you think you're supposed to be, or at least you're trying to be. So I don't, I, I appreciate the idea behind it. I think it's certainly more innovative than an led court shout out to the Big 12.

[Chip Patterson]

But like, dude, they had that acid trip court for the conference tournament last year that like made my eyes like go.

[Bud Elliott]

There's no, there is no more forward thinking, innovative conference in the Big 12 boys. But just like, I don't know, I, I think I'm gonna let it play out and see what I think. But I do feel like this could cause more problems than they maybe realize.

[Chip Patterson]

Well, I mean, or maybe, maybe it won't cause problems. Maybe it just will be a juice beneficial. Right, Right.

[Bud Elliott]

Right.

[Chip Patterson]

It might be like, wow, we created an extra level of complication and didn't necessarily get the payoff for it that we were hoping.

[Bud Elliott]

Yeah, like it should be a conference game. I don't know why, I mean it doesn't. I don't know why they decided not to make it a conference game. I don't know what the thought process behind was. Was that just coaches bitching that they don't want their conference like standings to be relying on a game where they don't have as much time to prepare for.

[Chip Patterson]

I, I think these are all interesting parts of the discussion. That's why, I mean, I wasn't going to stand up here. We are very excited to bring you many Pac12 games on the CBS Sports family of networks all throughout the Pac12 season. But the interesting thing for me wasn't to try to break down and predict win totals of the PAC12 based on the PAC12 schedule. The interesting thing for me was, wow, this is unique. This is something that a lot of people after the COVID season, for those who remember when wasn't it, BYU and Coastal scheduled a game on a Monday and played it on a Saturday. It was kind of like, whoa, wait a second. So I, I didn't know you could do that. You know, just, it's an interesting, innovative, interesting, innovative wrinkle to a Pac12 season as they prepare to really get back in as a full fledged FBS conference. We'll see how it works out again. Week 13, not a conference game, but games between conference members, and we'll see if it does end up helping. I see you, Chuck.

[Tom Frenelli]

Chuck's not a heater, man.

[Chip Patterson]

Yeah, he was. He was here. He was in it today, that's for sure. All right, do. All right, I'll go ahead and before we jump into the big old bag of mail, I wanted to go ahead and I've said there's lots of different ways that you can get mailbag questions to us. You can reach out to us individually. You can jump into the big old bag of mail, give us a five star review. You can get into Spotify Comments. This one actually came in this morning from Matthew on Twitter. He said mailbag Question what is the most painful loss each of you have experienced in person? For me, it's the 2013 Tennessee Georgia game where Pig Howard fumbled through the end zone. I was a senior at UT and never thought I'd see a big win in person.

[Bud Elliott]

Man.

[Chip Patterson]

Oh, I got it. I got it easy.

[Tom Frenelli]

Yeah, I got two. Go ahead, Chip.

[Chip Patterson]

Oh, crap. Does it need to be football? How about this one? All right here too. Yeah, I'll go one football, one basketball. Judgment Day 1997. Mac Brown's got North Carolina up like, right? Knocking on the door. The top five Florida State comes to town. College game day is there. It's a late game, you know, there with my family. Place is going absolutely bananas. And very early in the game, it is so clear North Carolina is not going to score a single touchdown against this Florida State defense. Final score is like 20 to 3. You know, just low scoring game where as soon as they scored a touch like 10 points, you're like, well, that's, that's the end of the game. Given the hype, given how excited everybody in that stadium was during that Mac 1.0 era, that was just an absolute kick to the nuts. Number two basketball would be. And I was in the building, obviously, because this is in person. I was in the building for the Austin River Shot Against North Carolina. And that one was kind of the reverse of what happened on Saturday in Chapel Hill where North Carolina led the. Had the better team, led the entire game. Duke just hung around, hung around, hung around, hung around. And then Austin Rivers hits a true buzzer beater over Tyler Seller's outstretched arm. And it was just absolute pain leaving that place. So those would be my two, I.

[Tom Frenelli]

Would say, 2014 Rose Bowl. The Florida State ends up getting their doors blown off by Oregon. And yet, like when you're watching it, you're like, hey, this team is like finally playing to their capability, like what the sum of their parts might be. And their two best players, like Jalen Ramsey just totally slips down after you'd already kind of won first and second down against Mariota. And they allowed touchdown, like third and 12. He just slips on the turf. And then they're moving the ball and they're like pushing Oregon around some. And Dalvin fumbles four times.

[Bud Elliott]

The game.

[Tom Frenelli]

And then it just snowballs. Yeah.

[Chip Patterson]

Jameis Winston slip. That gets taken the other way. Yeah, yeah.

[Tom Frenelli]

And that team had messed around like all year and it was like, shoot like a down, down basis. They're like, they're playing well. Like they're kind of playing up to what you think. The draft went on to show what they had. That was annoying. 2012 loss at NC State where. And I love EJ, like, great dude. But like just. They had it dialed in from a play calling standpoint and he probably misses three wide open guys in the final 10 minutes. Just especially the screen to Chris Thompson. Like they saved it all game. Catch a state in a blitz. I mean, it's.

[Bud Elliott]

He could.

[Tom Frenelli]

He could probably run backwards 60 yards.

[Chip Patterson]

And on the other side of the ball is that Mike Glennon throwing super long neck, dude.

[Tom Frenelli]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Chip Patterson]

It was just. Just crossing route Mike Glennon crossing route Mike. I was. I was in the press box for that game. That was bananas.

[Tom Frenelli]

Yeah. I was like, this is. They're gonna lose this, you know, and they would not have won the national title because that was. They would have replaced the Notre Dame team that got smoked by Alabama. Right. Or would they have gone. Trying to think it might have gone over that Bama team to play Notre Dame? I'm trying to remember. Like, obviously you wouldn't have beaten the Bama team, but like you would have hung with that Notre Dame team, I think. And then the Jared Payton game that they lost in the rain at home when Rick's like, they. They just tried to throw deep in like a crazy rainstorm like, and rick's through like four or five picks to Sean Taylor.

[Bud Elliott]

Shout out. J.P. mine is. I. Let's see, my first year, I show up in Champaign. We didn't lose a home game the entire season. Then we go to the Sugar bowl and I was there and we lost to lsu and that sucked. But it wasn't exactly. I wouldn't call it painful. Like, I was just excited to be there and have, you know, like, you know, I thought this is what Illinois football was. This is just what we do, boys. We go to Sugar Bowls and we lose, but whatever. But Anyway, so then 2002 rolls around and we start the year like, you know, with, with. With a loss to Missouri, which neutral site wasn't there. We start, then we follow that up with a loss on the road to Southern Mississippi, which is like, oh, okay, okay, this is, this isn't great. First game of the year, we lose. We. Or we beat Arkansas State, but we crushed him. Like, I remember it was my first. The first game I was like, all right, we're back. We're going to be just fine. Bounce back, rough start. Then the next week we're playing San Jose State at home and we lost. And that was when I was really introduced to being an Illinois football fan.

[Chip Patterson]

The pain and champagne.

[Bud Elliott]

And I understood, I understood that maybe 2001 was more the exception. And then we finished that year. What was our record? 5 and 7. Yeah, we did win a couple games. Like we won. We. Let's see, how many wins did I see that year at home? Let's find out. Arkansas State, Purdue and Indiana were the only wins I saw that year. I was pretty much watching us get our ass kicked most weeks.

[Chip Patterson]

Day. Let's share the pain. You know, that's the best way to heal from it. Dave said 1989, Michigan, Notre Dame was my most painful loss I've seen in person. Effing Rocket Classic end in that rivalry. Raymond says getting my ass kicked by Tequila Spikes in a state championship felt that mentally and physically. Yeah. You know, a loss that you see in person. The one where they're putting you in the ground.

[Tom Frenelli]

Oh, yeah, in person. So we were pretty good in high school for Fort Myers. I think we lost like one regular season game in, in three years and we did not play well at home against Lakewood Ranch. And you kind of knew like you'd play in the Final Four against Aquinas. Right. And so then two years prior, our best guy blew his ACL at MCL on the opening kickoff. And so they house us at our place. We went back there, took them and like to the wire. Went for two to win it. Dropped it, right? And then so we're like, all right, cool. Like third year, gonna get revenge on Aquinas. Pretty good team. Like a number of guys who went, you know, D1. And this team, Lakewood Ranch, came and we did not play very well. It was a really sloppy rain game, and they lined up to kick a field goal. And I was like, this is like a 55 yarder. Like, they're not going to kick this thing, right? And it's really rainy and just not good conditions. And this dude drills it. I was like, this is a high school football game in 2002. And I'm like, who the is this guy, right? And it turns out it was Gary Sis Macia who went on to set the Ford State, like, the FSU record for how many field goals at a game. And he also kicked a 57 yarder later. I was like, like 52 in the rain in high school is not something you see. I was like, all right, cool. Like we played like crap. We got it one. And they're like lining up and, you.

[Chip Patterson]

Know, Max in the tailgate said, 65 to 7. I forgot I paid good money. And he also brought up a story that I've mentioned before. I was also there, Max, when the rain came into the stadium, because so far is open air and it may manage to only rain on the TCU section. Robbie talks about G man losing to the Vols in 92. G being Garrison, a man whose calves were literally the size of my thigh. Let's see the Miami rain game. Lots of good ones all throughout. Oh, God. Oklahoma, lsu. I guess that's got to be coming from an Oklahoma fan. 2019 College Football Playoff.

[Tom Frenelli]

2019.

[Chip Patterson]

Yeah, that would be Joe Burrow with approximately 17 touchdowns.

[Tom Frenelli]

I was thinking 02.

[Chip Patterson]

Yeah, he said 2019.

[Tom Frenelli]

Okay.

[Chip Patterson]

Nothing good to say.

[Tom Frenelli]

2019 was a spanking. Yeah, like O2 was like, just. That had to be frustrating because Oklahoma team was scoring everybody. And then was it Justin Vincent for lsu who ran all over them for lsu? Some. I think it's Justin Vincent. And there was another back they had. I mean, this is 23 years ago, but somebody in the chat will remember this.

[Chip Patterson]

Oh, God. Michigan App State. You were there.

[Bud Elliott]

Oh, my gosh.

[Chip Patterson]

That's. That's. That's heritage, baby. That's couch.

[Bud Elliott]

I was watching that game on tv. Had a much different reaction to it than pain.

[Chip Patterson]

I know. That's interesting.

[Bud Elliott]

I thought it was the funniest damn thing I'd ever seen the.

[Chip Patterson]

So because you had Big Ten Network, that's the big. Like everyone and we've talked about this before, but they. Everyone's looking at the score and they're saying, what channel is this on? Big Ten Network. Apparently a flood of calls from across the country asking their cable provider for the Big Ten network in places that did not have a Big Ten team.

[Bud Elliott]

That was just. It's just Michigan taking one for the team. They knew that if they got that game and they lost it, it would lead to the Big Ten network in cable boxes all around the country, which would lead to a ton of money.

[Chip Patterson]

Coming in, which now leads to them having three straight national championships and many of the best players and best coaches in the sport.

[Bud Elliott]

Michigan's not afraid to get their hands dirty. We all know this.

[Chip Patterson]

We all know this. Coming up on the other side, we dive into the big old bag of mail with a fun one. That's right, Survivor season 50 is coming up. But what if we got to cast it with college football coaches? We'll get into all that and more.

[Bud Elliott]

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[Tom Frenelli]

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[Bud Elliott]

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[Chip Patterson]

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[Bud Elliott]

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[Chip Patterson]

And that means so many new reasons to rack.

[Tom Frenelli]

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[Bud Elliott]

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[Tom Frenelli]

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[Bud Elliott]

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[Tom Frenelli]

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[Bud Elliott]

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[Tom Frenelli]

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[Bud Elliott]

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[Tom Frenelli]

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[Bud Elliott]

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[Chip Patterson]

Back here on the COVID 3 podcast Thursdays is a great time to listen to you and it normally leads to some really fun conversations. We got a lot lined up from the big old bag of mail. So, Mikey, let's go down to the mailroom. All right, Opening up the big old bag of mail. Here we go. Peak off season question. I'm a huge fan of college football and Survivor. In honor of the 50th season coming up, and this being a CBS podcast, if you had to cast a season based on former or current college football coaches and players, who would you choose? Let's say two tribes of eight. Lane Kiffin would be Elite reality television. And who's your winner? Pick. So we got. We got a lot to chew on. I. I think that for the purposes of reigning this in, do we want to go just coaches? Well, he said coaches and players. Oh, it's kind of a huge wide.

[Bud Elliott]

There have been players on Survivor, though. Like, there's been a lot of former college football players on Survivor.

[Tom Frenelli]

All right, let me write this down exactly again because, like, for the. For the. For the. For the audio audience, which for us is still huge. One more time.

[Chip Patterson]

Okay. We are. If we are casting two tribes of eight for Survivor and our pool are college football coaches.

[Tom Frenelli]

See, in Survivor, one team wins or one. One person wins. One person wins. Right.

[Bud Elliott]

You start off on tribes, but then it eventually, eventually, at a certain point you all go solo. Like, you become one tribe, but then everybody's competing. So individually at least.

[Chip Patterson]

By the way, Survivor Season 50 debuting February 26th on CBS, America's Most Watched network, the network of stars. You stream it on Paramount. Plus that is two weeks from today here, February 26th.

[Bud Elliott]

See, do we want to do a draft or do we want to just spitball here?

[Chip Patterson]

What's the. No. What are the no brainers? Does. Does Lane get in because of his. Yes. Okay.

[Bud Elliott]

Yeah, Lane would probably win.

[Chip Patterson]

I'm gonna say Kyle Whittingham. Like, if there are physical challenges here and you need mental toughness.

[Bud Elliott]

No, he wouldn't win. Terrible. Horrible pick.

[Chip Patterson]

But does he make it? Does he make one of our loss. Does he make one of our two tribes of eight?

[Bud Elliott]

He could, yeah. But he would be gone before they got to the individual portion.

[Chip Patterson]

Okay.

[Bud Elliott]

He'd be a threat. Can't have threats. You gotta get. That's what they do, man. Every single week. Whoever the biggest threat is gone. So they would, like, I don't know what I haven't watched in a few years, so I couldn't say for sure right now what the newer look form looks like. But in the older form, Kyle Whittingham would be stronger than he was based on the way the game was changing in Recent years.

[Tom Frenelli]

Okay, so now the game's more mental?

[Bud Elliott]

No, I think the game's more random. Oh. Oh. They. They are so many. Like, I don't know. We used to watch all the time. I have. We stopped watching because, like, you know, they, like, they would have the immunity idols and all that kind of stuff. Now there are so many powers out there and there's like, twists and turns that it's. Instead of it being strategic and kind of narrative where you would have teams and you would, like, you know, go week to week every single week, it feels like a completely brand new situation because everything is changing every single week. So to me, it feels far more random.

[Chip Patterson]

I thought that it was more like social with alliances and promises and backstabbed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's where Lane Kiffin honestly win.

[Bud Elliott]

Yeah.

[Chip Patterson]

Urban Meyer. I like that. All right.

[Bud Elliott]

See, I think, like, if you think, like, the big, strong coaches, like the. The winning hams, the Marios, those guys, I don't think they would have a chance to win. I feel like everybody else would get those guys out as soon as they possibly could.

[Chip Patterson]

But we are also the producers and we are casting this, so I don't want to eliminate that. If we think it's going to still be entertaining.

[Bud Elliott]

Yeah, that's fine.

[Chip Patterson]

So, yeah, Pat Fitzgerald.

[Tom Frenelli]

Just for the, like, the kind of, I'm gonna say grumpy factor, but, like, yeah.

[Bud Elliott]

Eli would be good.

[Tom Frenelli]

Eli's good.

[Chip Patterson]

Ah, yes.

[Bud Elliott]

If we're just thinking personalities, because I think that's really what we're trying to sell here.

[Tom Frenelli]

Summer all's not. Not afraid to say some funny stuff. He's got enough of that, like, Whittingham build to him.

[Chip Patterson]

He's intense.

[Tom Frenelli]

He's intense. I think he's kind of sharp, you know, that could be a good one there.

[Chip Patterson]

I like that a lot.

[Tom Frenelli]

Do we think Kirby.

[Bud Elliott]

Dabo would be funny as hell sometimes?

[Tom Frenelli]

Kirby looks like he's been on Survivor.

[Bud Elliott]

Yeah.

[Tom Frenelli]

Here.

[Chip Patterson]

A survivor is hard. Okay.

[Tom Frenelli]

Strange. All right.

[Chip Patterson]

No, Belichick. Absolutely not.

[Bud Elliott]

No. I think Franklin would be good.

[Chip Patterson]

Yeah.

[Tom Frenelli]

Dabo is a good pick just for the personality.

[Bud Elliott]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tom Frenelli]

James Franklin.

[Bud Elliott]

Yep.

[Tom Frenelli]

Jerome.

[Bud Elliott]

Well, I mean, we're not picking any women, so it would be all right, I guess.

[Chip Patterson]

Matt Rule.

[Tom Frenelli]

Yeah. He'd be entertaining.

[Bud Elliott]

He would be.

[Tom Frenelli]

P.J. fleck.

[Bud Elliott]

Oh, God. That would be a. Yeah. C.J.

[Tom Frenelli]

For the entertainment value alone, I think is really good.

[Chip Patterson]

What about Marcus Freeman, too?

[Bud Elliott]

Just too good of a person. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no.

[Chip Patterson]

I. Listen, we are casting this, and I'll tell you what the Survivor fan blogs will be loving Marcus Freeman.

[Tom Frenelli]

Yeah, yeah. It's about ratings.

[Bud Elliott]

True, true. But I mean, the problem is like, let's say Marcus is in charge of one of the tribes early in the. In the season. Do they just opt out of competing in the competition? Like that would be like as a producer of the show, I don't know. Is that a storyline that I want or is that going to hurt my show long run? I don't know. So.

[Tom Frenelli]

Let me see here. Dion.

[Bud Elliott]

Yeah. Want personality on there. Dion will give you plenty to talk about, I guarantee you. Dion, like when they go to the interviews with coaches where with contestants for like the solo diary room kind of things, although it's usually on a beach. I guarantee you Dion would be in more of those than any other coach on the show.

[Tom Frenelli]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bud Elliott]

Just for the stuff he would be saying.

[Tom Frenelli]

Ed Orgeron would go viral for people. Like not understanding what he's saying.

[Chip Patterson]

Just, just for. All right.

[Tom Frenelli]

Also, he's used to being shirtless.

[Bud Elliott]

Like, you know, it's not even on the show. He just shows up.

[Tom Frenelli]

He's one of the. The Survivor have like surprise entrance.

[Chip Patterson]

Oh, like bringing them in.

[Bud Elliott]

Yeah.

[Chip Patterson]

What about Bilma?

[Bud Elliott]

I think Brett would be a very good personality.

[Chip Patterson]

Shirtless. Not afraid of being shirtless.

[Bud Elliott]

No, he's not.

[Tom Frenelli]

Nope.

[Bud Elliott]

Been there before. Do it again.

[Tom Frenelli]

Yeah. Beamer would be entertaining.

[Chip Patterson]

We're getting close, by the way. And then we can slot them into the tribes. Okay. I'm keeping tabs on this. Let's. We'll keep spitballing and then we can slot them into the tribes.

[Tom Frenelli]

Are we not at 16 yet?

[Chip Patterson]

Well, I'm, I agree with your. Like, we can't just throw crystal ball. Whittingham, Pat Fitzgerald in there. If there's one of those three that you want me to throw in, we can add them. But I thought that we got a better focus on what we're going for after getting past the idea of because we've done WWE Wrestlers Royal Rumble. We've done who would win a coach fight. Bar fight. This is a very different conversation.

[Tom Frenelli]

Dillingham.

[Bud Elliott]

Dillingham would be good. I think Brett Lashley would be good too.

[Chip Patterson]

Yeah.

[Bud Elliott]

Yeah.

[Tom Frenelli]

That'd be entertaining.

[Chip Patterson]

Also good looking.

[Tom Frenelli]

Yeah. Yep.

[Bud Elliott]

Chips. Just chips. Worried about the female viewership here. He's just trying to find the hot coaches. Lanning, My wife would watch. If you got Whittingham and Lanning on there. My wife's gonna be watching. Ference wouldn't be very good. I like Kirk. I just don't think he'd be good tv.

[Tom Frenelli]

Yeah.

[Chip Patterson]

I know that we're normally trying to target the median viewer in Des Moines, Iowa, but that doesn't mean we actually go for Kirk Ference on the show.

[Bud Elliott]

Yeah.

[Tom Frenelli]

I'm trying to think, what about the.

[Chip Patterson]

Pride of Tonga, Kalani Sataki Clondy Would.

[Bud Elliott]

Be very good on the show. I mean, that's the thing. I think most of these coaches would be good as far as personalities on the show. Like, I. I think typically college football coaches, you know, they could be salty, which is good for tv, But I also think a lot of them are funnier than most people realize, which would be good for tv. Like, I don't. They're like, Belichick. I'm trying to think of coaches I wouldn't want on there. More than anything. Belichick I would not want on there. I don't think he would be that fun.

[Tom Frenelli]

Belichick during the challenges would be kind of hilarious. Like, he's shown a little personality at times. Remember the roller skating thing with. With Randy Mo and, you know, like, would Jordan come?

[Bud Elliott]

Jordan would insist on hosting the show. She would kick probes to the curb and say, I'm running this now.

[Tom Frenelli]

Probes is still hosting.

[Bud Elliott]

Yeah. Oh, bro.

[Chip Patterson]

What else would you. I mean, not like what else, but, I mean, if you had that, why not?

[Tom Frenelli]

Yeah. And I wouldn't give it up, but yeah, absolutely.

[Chip Patterson]

Let's see. What about Sig?

[Bud Elliott]

Yeah, no, like, again, there's very few coaches I don't think wouldn't be good on the show. It's just, I. I'm trying to think now. I'm trying to think who wins.

[Tom Frenelli]

Fran Brown would say a lot of stuff.

[Bud Elliott]

Oh, God.

[Tom Frenelli]

And we do.

[Chip Patterson]

Well, Fran Brown might be our 16. All right, you ready to hear my 16?

[Bud Elliott]

He's used to not washing, so he'd be fine on the island.

[Chip Patterson]

Yes. Winners get washed. All right, here's our 16, and then we'll put them on two teams of eight. Lane Kiffin. Urban Meyer. Eli Drinkwitz. John Summerall. Dabo Sweeney. James Franklin. Matt Rule. P.J. fleck. Marcus Freeman. Deion Sanders. Ed Orgeron. Brett Bielema. Rhett Lashley. Dan Lanning. Kalani Sataki. Fran Brown. Great group watch.

[Bud Elliott]

Yeah.

[Chip Patterson]

How would we split them up? Who's the captains of each team?

[Tom Frenelli]

We almost need this on the screen so we can, like.

[Chip Patterson]

Well, no, what we'll do is we'll make graphics afterwards. We're figuring this out on the fly. It's a Thursday.

[Bud Elliott]

The oldest coaches on the. On the island. I would make them the captains oldest.

[Chip Patterson]

Coaches would be.

[Bud Elliott]

What, Whittingham, I'm guessing.

[Chip Patterson]

No, we don't have Whittingham.

[Bud Elliott]

Oh, we don't have Winningham. Did we pick Sig?

[Chip Patterson]

Nope.

[Bud Elliott]

Well, then who's.

[Tom Frenelli]

I kind of think we need Sig.

[Chip Patterson]

Okay.

[Tom Frenelli]

Stick's good with the one liners. Like, he's really sarcastic.

[Chip Patterson]

I think we take off Urban Meyer.

[Bud Elliott]

Yeah. Because Urban's not coaching right now.

[Tom Frenelli]

Okay.

[Chip Patterson]

And, well, neither is.

[Bud Elliott]

Oh, Coach Ed's there for tv. All right, listen, this is a producer decision.

[Chip Patterson]

All right? Do you want to do Kurt Signetti as Kurt Signetti on one team and Lane Kiffin as the captain of the other?

[Tom Frenelli]

Oh, my God.

[Bud Elliott]

I do not want. No, no, no. We can't have Lane as a captain. We can't teach this.

[Chip Patterson]

Are you Dabo as a captain?

[Bud Elliott]

Yeah, we can go dabo.

[Tom Frenelli]

Yeah, you got to put Beamer. Do we. Do we take Beamer?

[Chip Patterson]

No, we don't take.

[Tom Frenelli]

Okay, well, I'm saying if you. If you have Beamer, you have to put Beamer on Davos team. Just. Just to like drive nuts.

[Chip Patterson]

Okay. I think I might have a pitch.

[Bud Elliott]

For you guys buds drafting like, Lane.

[Chip Patterson]

All right, so this will be. And this will actually be really good. We have kind of worked our way backwards into pretty perfect little breakdown. Let me see if I can sell you on it. All right, we. So I've got so far one team captain, Kurt Signetti, on his. In his tribe, he has Dan Lanning, PJ Fleck, Marcus Freeman, James Franklin, Matt Rule. Another team captain, Dabo Sweeney, has Lane Kiffin, Eli Drinkwitz, John Summerall, and Ed Orgeron.

[Bud Elliott]

Do you think Dabo would draft Blaine?

[Chip Patterson]

I don't think that he gets to choose.

[Bud Elliott]

Oh, so this is a random draw. Okay.

[Chip Patterson]

Oh, yeah. But Bielema with the rest of his big ten brethren, we should.

[Bud Elliott]

Oh, that's what we could have done. We could have gone.

[Chip Patterson]

I'm going kind of big 10 sec.

[Bud Elliott]

Like.

[Chip Patterson]

Like Clemson spiritually sec.

[Bud Elliott]

It's. It's Survivor Civil War north versus South.

[Chip Patterson]

D. Let's go. Dion. If we go Dion and Kalani. On Signetti's team put Rhett Lashley and Fran Brown. Okay, here we go. Ready? Team Signetti. Kurt, captain or tribe? Signet. The Signetti tribe captain Kurt signetti, Dan Lanning, P.J. fleck, Marcus Freeman, James Franklin, Matt Rule, Brett Bielema, Dion Sanders and Kalani Sataki. Then captain Dabo Sweeney with Lane Kiffin, Eli Drinkwitz, John Summerall, Ed Orgeron, Rhett Lashley, and Fran Brown.

[Bud Elliott]

Lane has an alliance with everybody on his tribe by the end of day one.

[Tom Frenelli]

Yeah.

[Bud Elliott]

He's got like a final two with the entire cast.

[Chip Patterson]

Lane. Lane votes Dabo off the island. That's how this goes. Lane backstabs, Dabo takes control of the tribe and wins it.

[Tom Frenelli]

Like, Davos seems to be cutting up like crazy.

[Chip Patterson]

Yes.

[Tom Frenelli]

And Signetti's team is going to have like eight different guys holding press conferences with what they, like, they think head coaches are supposed to sound like. Like, you're not gonna. You're not gonna have enough green room time for. I mean, tj, Fran, Matt Rule, Lanning, Sig, who else?

[Chip Patterson]

Like, like, that probably leads to their job.

[Tom Frenelli]

Franklin.

[Chip Patterson]

Yeah. That probably leads to their downfall. That tribe falls apart because too many of them all, like, they're trying to pass around the talking stick and they just. It combusts at that point.

[Bud Elliott]

I would. I would watch.

[Tom Frenelli]

In fact, Jeff, I would watch this.

[Bud Elliott]

Yeah, probsty boy. If you're watching, and I know you are, you're a huge fan of the show. Let's do this for season 51. Let's just have. Let's get all these coaches out there during a dead period, fly them out to Fiji for a few weeks. Let's speedrun this thing. Let's see what happens.

[Chip Patterson]

I think we've got incredible opportunities here. This is. This is exactly, exactly what they wanted.

[Bud Elliott]

What Ryan does bring up, like, an interesting aspect of this because if you think of, like, the personality of coaches, there are a lot of alpha kind of personalities. And when you watch a typical season of Survivor, it's like anything. There are alphas, there are betas. It would be very interesting to see a competition like this where it's just a bunch of, like, type A personalities going after each other. Like there might be crimes committed.

[Chip Patterson]

I. They do deal with it a little at, like, spring meetings and things of that nature where they mean. Some coaches obviously are a fallback, but sometimes, especially now with the expanded, you know, super conferences that we have, I imagine some of those coach meetings are kind of fascinating for who Too many Alphas in the room, to your point.

[Bud Elliott]

But now this would be in competition format. It would be very, very interesting. You might find somebody start sealing signs. You don't know anything's possible here.

[Chip Patterson]

Also, in the interest of self preservation, let's not do a segment on the. This great platform just calling coaches betas. Yeah.

[Tom Frenelli]

We don't.

[Chip Patterson]

We don't really have a reputation for being overly like, buddy, buddy or apologetic, but I just don't want to create those headaches for myself E there.

[Bud Elliott]

We'll do that for next Thursday. Like, who are the biggest beta coaches in college football?

[Tom Frenelli]

I mean, like the guys who you would have to classify as betas on here, especially on the SIG team, are just guys who don't like give hour long press conferences. Like Sataki is going to win this thing because everybody else on his team is going to hate everybody else. And I'm like, all right. Clown is like pretty cool. You know, he's like a down to.

[Chip Patterson]

Earth dude, just doing his job, you know, trying to like bring good vibes. Yeah, yeah, great stuff there. We. I appreciate the question from the big old bag of mail. Let's hang right there with this next one because we put it in the headline so I want to make sure that we address it before we get out of here. Also in the tailgate got a ton of great questions that we're going to get to this one From Apple username booma24mailbag as an Oklahoma fan, I am legally required to ask for your view on the Lincoln Riley departure four years later. Where do you all think. Where do you all think you will put Riley and Venables in your coach rankings ballot in May? My view is neither Oklahoma nor Riley has, quote, won the breakup, but Lincoln seems his words. Lincoln seems like the clear loser at this point. And I'm curious if given a truth serum, he would think he made. He would admit he made a mistake about leaving or not.

[Tom Frenelli]

Oh, interesting.

[Bud Elliott]

I agree with the idea that neither side has truly won, but then you follow that up by saying that Lincoln lost. That kind of makes it seem like you think somebody won.

[Tom Frenelli]

Yeah, I mean, look, you can say it's because his contract is just so unfirable. That is the reason he's potentially still there at usc. But I bet you Lincoln is happier than Oklahoma is. He just landed the number one recruiting class in the country. And they also killed it in the portal. Right. Like it took a little time to get them to where they should probably be. But I think you leave Oklahoma for USC because you know that USC is a higher ceiling program. In your opinion. Not know, but you believe, which I'm sure Lincoln did, that USC is a higher ceiling program and they're finally starting to acquire talent like that. So yeah, I would think Lincoln is happier than than the Sooners are overall.

[Bud Elliott]

But also like the recency bias will be like, well, clearly Oklahoma won. They were just in the College Football Playoff.

[Chip Patterson]

Right?

[Tom Frenelli]

Right.

[Bud Elliott]

They lost while they were there, which is what Lincoln was doing every year like, he was getting to the playoff and losing, but that was even four teams. Yeah.

[Chip Patterson]

Yeah.

[Bud Elliott]

So I. I don't think either side's truly won anything at this point. Like, Lincoln still hasn't accomplished anything at USC outside of a really good recruiting class. Like, he. He got close last year. He had a good season, but they haven't really competed for a Big Ten title. They haven't been to the playoff yet. Like, he might do that next year, which could really kind of alter the way we're viewing it. But right now, I would say nobody's won. Nobody's really better off. I think everybody's kind of in the same position they were in when the decision was made.

[Chip Patterson]

The tailgate suggested. If Lincoln Riley had stuck around, would he be on the hot seat at Oklahoma right now?

[Bud Elliott]

Yes. He'd probably be fired.

[Tom Frenelli]

It's so dependent on, like, would he keep bringing in quarterbacks at that level? I think, yeah. Like what. Like, what would he have done with. With Caleb if Caleb had stayed at Oklahoma? Right.

[Chip Patterson]

Right.

[Tom Frenelli]

I bet you they would have still been, you know. Yeah, but, like, you can also make some fair points about, hey, like, there were people in Oklahoma who said you need to turn over the strength conditioning staff and. And change the way you're operating on some things and, you know, be more physical in practice and change some of your recruiting practice. And I think those are all very fair things that followed him at usc. Kind of plagued him at usc, to be honest, for a little bit, too, and now seems to have turned it around. Like, I don't think Oklahoma was wrong to have those complaints. I also don't think that Riley is wrong to think USC is a better job than the centers.

[Bud Elliott]

See, I think Leaky would have been fired because, like, if you just play it out, like, say, they were having the same exact seasons they'd always been having when he was there, and they were still in the Big 12, winning 10 games a year, but not winning national titles, not winning playoff games. He would have now been there for nine seasons.

[Tom Frenelli]

Right.

[Bud Elliott]

Not won a playoff game. And now it would have been two years in the sec where maybe you've done well, but you still haven't won a playoff game. So now the conversation becomes, well, it's pretty clear Lincoln's not good enough to get it done in the sec. We need to replace him. That's just how the cycle works with fan bases and administrators. So I don't. I think if he'd stayed at Oklahoma, he'd have been fired. He'd probably be. He Might be coaching Virginia Tech right now, guys. He might have taken that job this off season, do you think?

[Chip Patterson]

Venables has also had two losing seasons. They were 6 and 7. But he's like, he lost a Navy in a bowl game. Yeah.

[Bud Elliott]

But that was. Brent takes over in the situation to where he's, you know, he's the hero who didn't leave them. He's coming home and we're all still mad at Lincoln. I'm saying if Lincoln had still had the same 10 seasons there, right.

[Chip Patterson]

He would have worn.

[Tom Frenelli]

Yeah.

[Bud Elliott]

He'd still be fired by now.

[Tom Frenelli]

Sorry, I'm just trying to look something here. Like, I, I think it was probably a smart move for both teams at, at the time. Right? Like for. I'm just, I'm looking up here, like, how many seasons was Mike Stoops the DC for Lake at Oklahoma? Right? So like the first two years, right.

[Chip Patterson]

That was his first big boy move. Was.

[Bud Elliott]

Yeah.

[Chip Patterson]

After.

[Tom Frenelli]

But I'm sure he wanted to do that day one. And he couldn't do it because Bob is literally the one who got him the job.

[Chip Patterson]

Right.

[Tom Frenelli]

Because like, he, he's like, all right, this is the guy I'm not going to retire until. It's like way after the coaching cycle. I mean, there was what, a May retirement, dude.

[Chip Patterson]

Like May June.

[Tom Frenelli]

Like if, if. If you're DC's brother who's like the best. One of the best coach in Oklahoma history is the one who like just absolutely sets it up for you. You can't make. Make your first move. Hey, this guy is nowhere near D.C. the level like to match what my offense is. I need to make a change. Right? So I'm sure if you're Lincoln, you're like, hey, this kind of hamstrung me for two years. Right? Like, you gave me a defensive hole I had to dig out of. This guy was way not our level of DC here.

[Bud Elliott]

You know what? The fact that Lincoln didn't fire Mike Stoops right away is why he's not on Survivor.

[Chip Patterson]

Yeah. We didn't even bring him up.

[Tom Frenelli]

Yeah, there you go.

[Chip Patterson]

Yeah. So an interest. Definitely an interesting perspective four years later from a. From a messy, messy breakup between Lincoln Riley and Oklahoma. Lincoln Riley still yet to fulfill the promise of what he thinks he can do with usc. Oklahoma, obviously with the College Football Playoff appearance, but still the. Still lacking the College Football Playoff win that they've been searching for since the formation of the new postseason format. Coming up on the other side, more of your questions and our answers, including, should we be on the lookout for more cancellation of big time non conference games and more next New Year. New Me Cute, but how about New Year New money? With Experian you can actually take control of your finances. Check your FICO score, find ways to save and get matched with credit card offers giving you time to power through those New Year's goals. You know you're going to crush Start the year off right. Download the Experian app based on FICO's Core 8 model. Offers an approval not guaranteed. Eligibility requirements and terms apply. Subject subject to credit check which may impact your credit scores. Offers not available in all states. See experian.com for details. Experian. Back here on the COVID three Podcast Fun, fun show here. We appreciate everybody who's jumped in live. Everybody who submitted a question. Always love these shows during this time of year. Mail bag Question with the eventual playoff expansion and additional conference games coming. That's right, the ACC and SEC moving to nine conference games here this season. Do you see more teams avoiding big non conference games or just threats to cancel big games? My answer is yes.

[Tom Frenelli]

I think you'll see more cancellations until the committee actually shows that like you know playing and winning these games get you bonus points but but like losing them unless you get completely destroyed doesn't really hurt your resume. Like I think the JMU lesson is kind of applicable, right? They still really just look at the loss column overwhelmingly, even if you beat nobody worth a damn all year. I'm not trying to bag on jmu. Like there's been other examples of this, just the most recent one.

[Chip Patterson]

You know, it is quiet. It feels like every three days I get a new press release about a series that has been canceled and sometimes it's like a 2030 and 2032 was the home and home and it is not always losing these massive games like a Texas and LSU or Texas Ohio State. Sometimes it's quiet, sometimes it's mid tier power conference teams that are just very quietly and a lot of it is from the ACC and the sec. But they are just sort of very quietly scratching off a couple of these power conference non conference home and homes. And I do think it's a direct result of playoff expansion and the expansion of the conference schedule.

[Bud Elliott]

I would counter what you were saying by the fact that Alabama got absolutely dog walked in the SEC championship and it was still in the College Football Playoff. I I think losses don't hurt you depending on who you lose to. Like the only reason Notre Dame was still really in the conversation at the end is because Their two losses were to two very good teams they didn't beat. You know, outside of usc, it's not like they had the most impressive wins in the country. I, I think it's. You'll see some for sure, but I think it's still going to end up being a situation where. And again, I mean, we're answering this. Like Chip, you mentioned a lot of these games that are being canceled are six, seven years from now.

[Chip Patterson]

Right.

[Bud Elliott]

We'll probably have a super league. Like, I have no idea what the schedules are even going to look like by that point. But I do think that every decision that these schools have made has been to optimize television revenue. Canceling these big non conference games does not optimize your television revenue. The networks want them. They are still in control of your league. They still want you playing these games. I think the committee is going to be. The way that the committee puts the field together is clearly changing and that now we've got, you know, we've already changed the rules to try to every. Get everything kind of. I don't know what's the right word? Maximized, optimized. What we want for television to make sure Notre Dame's in no matter what. As long as they're in the top 12, to make sure it's just the top champions, doesn't matter. Top teams, you don't have to win your conference anymore if you're a G5. You just have to be the highest ranked one. I mean, they change it every single year. And I think you hear coaches bitching about it like, well, like Sark at the end of the year. But your team lost too many games. That's really all it was. Had, had another. Had Notre Dame or Miami lost the third game, you'd probably still be in because of your strength of schedule. That to me was just, you know, bitter beer face. So I, I don't think things are going to change too much. I think you're just noticing these games being canceled because of the talk around it. But there have been plenty of future home and homes canceled every single offseason. Teams change their schedules all the time. So I don't think it's that big of a deal, though.

[Chip Patterson]

I, I don't think it's that big of a deal. I do think it makes sense if you are not one of the very best teams in the country and you are being that you were replacing a power conference opponent with the power conference opponent. I think I understand why it's happening.

[Bud Elliott]

Yeah. But they've also put rules in place in the Big 12, ACC and SEC that are forcing you to schedule these games. And why are they doing that? Because of television. They'll say it's for your resume, but it's for television.

[Tom Frenelli]

I'm curious to see like for these one, like some of these lower level P5 teams that don't have playoff aspirations, how much are they going to get to play a one off game? Like not a home and home type thing, but like is somebody going to get like 5 or 6 million to be the auto win as the P5 rep on, on somebody's schedule if you don't demand the home game in return?

[Chip Patterson]

All right, well how about this, Tom? Louisville, Georgia got canceled recently. I think that's direct relation to expansion of the conference schedule. North Carolina, South Carolina. Not North Carolina, North Carolina State. South Carolina got canceled recently. I think that direct result of the expansion of the nine game schedule.

[Bud Elliott]

Are these the big non conference games that you're thinking of? North, North Carolina State, South Carolina?

[Chip Patterson]

I don't think the question was asking.

[Tom Frenelli]

About a losable game for South Carolina though.

[Chip Patterson]

Like I don't, I don't think, I don't think the questions are necessarily aimed at big. I think the idea is if the, if these conference schedules are expanding and we're seeing a slew of non conference games getting canceled, I do think that we're going to continue to see that.

[Tom Frenelli]

Yeah, teams are optimizing for record, not resume.

[Bud Elliott]

Yeah, those games being canceled because there are already other Power 49 conference schedules on their team that season. So again, it's because they've added it, but it's not, they're not scheduling it for anything to do with the playoff. It's just, well, we don't want to play 11 P4 opponents.

[Chip Patterson]

Right. That's what I said.

[Bud Elliott]

That's normal.

[Chip Patterson]

Yeah.

[Bud Elliott]

But that. My point is, I don't think those games being canceled is a result of college football playoff selection committee decisions.

[Chip Patterson]

Oh, I agree. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. But to a, to a fan that might have thought, hey, I want to go to do a Bird, like if I'm a Georgia fan and I'm excited about going to do the Bourbon Trail, you know, for this, like I'm sorry, you're not going to get that trip anymore, you know, like it's, that's just sort of the give and take that you're going to get in terms of what we've seen with the expansion of the schedules. It's sensible, but definitely a piece of this. All right.

[Bud Elliott]

Again, it won't matter in seven years.

[Chip Patterson]

You know, Tom, I we're not going to unpack that now because I think that's going to be a whole episode. We got a mailbag question sitting in the big old bag of mail that basically asked for the pitch. What would a super league actually look like? And I think that that deserves us to really do our homework and preparation and sort of have our pitch. But yeah, we'll, we'll be tackling that here in, in the coming weeks. Let's see. 9:57am With Ohio State hiring three new coaches after only losing one, do you think more teams might follow this model in the future and not have coordinators being recruiters?

[Bud Elliott]

Yeah, I think most, a lot of teams already are doing that.

[Chip Patterson]

You agree?

[Tom Frenelli]

Yeah, yeah I do. Yeah.

[Chip Patterson]

Because your general manager is basically handling in your personnel office.

[Tom Frenelli]

You have unlimited staff now. Your staff is now constrained not by a numerical size rule, is constrained by your budget.

[Chip Patterson]

This one is a wrinkle on an age old question that we answer many times, maybe a year. But it is a wrinkle that I thought was at least worth addressing. If you put the worst NFL offensive line, okay, everyone says like oh, what would happen if the worst NFL team played the best college team. No, no, no, this is a little bit more creative. Take the worst NFL offensive line but then put it on a mid tier power four team. Could you win a national title?

[Tom Frenelli]

Doesn't it depend on the team? Yeah, like if, if you took who's the worst NFL offensive line. I don't watch enough NFL to be.

[Chip Patterson]

Able to question was the Raiders?

[Tom Frenelli]

Okay, sure. All right, so if you put the Raiders offensive line on Iowa, does Iowa win the national title?

[Bud Elliott]

No, I don't think so.

[Tom Frenelli]

But there are some teams where you could be like oh yeah, because they're.

[Bud Elliott]

Really good everywhere else.

[Chip Patterson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Tom Frenelli]

Right? Yeah. It kind of depends on like Texas.

[Bud Elliott]

Would have won the national title with the Raiders offensive line, but they're not.

[Tom Frenelli]

A mid tier P14.

[Bud Elliott]

I know. Yeah.

[Tom Frenelli]

And I agree with you that they.

[Bud Elliott]

Certainly would have because I mean here, here is the Raiders offensive line according to our lads depth chart for this year. Left tackle Colton Miller, left guard Dylan Parham, center Jordan Meredith, right guard my boy Jackson Powers Johnson and right tackle DJ Glaze, which is a hell of a DJ name on its own.

[Chip Patterson]

That sounds like a bunch of first team all conference players that right there.

[Tom Frenelli]

So like, so mid tier. Let's define mid tier as what, like a team? Probably like 28 to like 52.

[Chip Patterson]

Yeah.

[Bud Elliott]

The entire ACC outside of Miami.

[Tom Frenelli]

All right, so just, I'll, I'll just read this. I'll speed read this list and you guys tell me if any of these, like, flash in your mind. Zona, Illinois, Clemson, tcu, fsu, South Carolina, Iowa State, uva, Florida, Kansas State, Pitt, Georgia Tech, Arkansas, Duke, Arizona State, Nebraska, North Carolina State, Kentucky, East Carolina, Houston, Kansas, Cincinnati, Northwestern, Mississippi State, Baylor, Wisconsin.

[Chip Patterson]

I also think the interesting piece here is offensive line, and I definitely could be wrong about this. Would it flip if you said defensive line? Could. Would you have a better chance at winning a national title if the pitch was the worst defensive NFL offensive line? Like, is the offensive line going to be enough? And I think that maybe gets back to what you're saying. Where are we talking about a team that has a decent quarterback, you know, has decent skill position players?

[Tom Frenelli]

Yeah. Like if you put, if you put a mid tier offensive line on Washington, a team that is. They were what, 21st in FPI.

[Chip Patterson]

Oh, and then they had Jonah Coleman, Denzel, Boston and Demand. Yeah.

[Tom Frenelli]

Then I think it's, it's. Then I think it's like more doable. Right. Well, I mean, if you gave that Oklahoma team. Yeah. The worst offensive line in the NFL and like they're. They're not mid, tier, but they finished 15th in FPI. Right. Like, they, you know, they were, they were a good team that it was also lucky.

[Chip Patterson]

What about Louisville?

[Bud Elliott]

Yes.

[Chip Patterson]

Yeah. You still have to deal with Miller Moss.

[Tom Frenelli]

I think probably the worst one that I would accept. LSU from this past year is probably a yes for me, actually.

[Chip Patterson]

Easy.

[Tom Frenelli]

No, they were 27th in FBI.

[Bud Elliott]

If I have an NFL offensive line, can I not just lean on my run game?

[Tom Frenelli]

Yeah.

[Bud Elliott]

You know what I mean? Like, do I really need a great quarterback? What if I just had decent running backs and I kind of just leaned on the run game and we threw when we had to, but I feel like I would be able to do enough damage. I don't know if I would win a national title, but I bet I would make the playoffs.

[Tom Frenelli]

Yeah.

[Chip Patterson]

Yeah.

[Tom Frenelli]

LSU is probably the worst 2025 team that you could do this with, I.

[Chip Patterson]

Think, because then Garrett. Then Garrett's not also getting crushed.

[Tom Frenelli]

And they had a really good defense for much of the year.

[Chip Patterson]

Right. But the Washington is a good. Washington is a good example because they.

[Tom Frenelli]

Had a lot of spine injuries. They also lost a lot of guys off the 24 roster.

[Chip Patterson]

And while they are maybe not mid tier among every power conference. They were mid tier in the Big Ten.

[Tom Frenelli]

Yeah. Oh, for sure.

[Chip Patterson]

And where were they? And it Was the Ohio State game where it was just like, oh, God, they're just getting destroyed up front. That changes in that, in that position.

[Bud Elliott]

Let's reverse the question. What happens if you take Miami's offensive line away from it?

[Chip Patterson]

If you take the Miami Hurricanes offensive.

[Bud Elliott]

Line away from, give them a mid tier P4 offensive line, where does Miami go?

[Chip Patterson]

The Cheez It Bowl?

[Bud Elliott]

I mean, maybe my, maybe Miami is the answer to our question here.

[Tom Frenelli]

If you take an NFL offensive line.

[Chip Patterson]

Yeah, we watched an NFL offensive line get all the way to get all the way to Miami. A mid tier, mid tier power conference team. I don't know, man. That defense was not mid. Tier.

[Bud Elliott]

No, I know, but I'm just saying offensively, you look at like the quarterback was a bit limited. He was, he was throwing a lot of Drake May super bowl style passes all season long. I'll just leave it at that.

[Chip Patterson]

Yeah, absolutely. All right, this has been a lot of fun. Let me see if we got any. Yeah, we'll, we'll send you off on this one, Bud. Are you concerned that this was actually good for the, the algorithm? Charlie woods, nil Florida State. Charlie woods, nil Florida State. Mailbag question from Robert. Are Bud and Danny worried that all the nil money is going to Charlie woods will further hinder Florida State's ability to pay Mike Norvell's buyout?

[Tom Frenelli]

Oh, my God. No. But I, I did ask people ask, like, why would Charlie woods go to Florida State? Right. I think there's a couple reasons. One, obviously, he lives in Florida right now. Right. So it's, it's in State. It is not an easy place for like a bunch of golf media to fly into, because it's hard to fly into Tallahassee unless you're flying private, obviously, which Tiger would do. Two, the course is absolutely beautiful. Like, it's a, it's a world class facility. They've had some really high level pros go through there. Three, the course is actually private, whereas some schools play at a course that's actually like semi private. So it's actually open to the public. So if you're Charlie woods, you can go play golf at Florida State. And the entire time you're at the course and the golf facility, like, no, like, no randos are coming up to you. You can actually just focus on the golf. And there are some really good golf programs out there where that's not the case. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So it kind of allows you to be. Because I, I asked, like, all right, what were our Selling points, you know, and they're like, I mean first of all, like developing the really high level kids. And like there's a hot, like when they sign one, high level kids, a very high hit rate. Like the guy goes to pga, you know, like a lot of that's on him obviously, but, but the Gulf Coast Trey Jones actually has been really good with that specific area. It's a good golf team. But also I think the privacy is, is good there, you know, which is solid.

[Chip Patterson]

Good question.

[Bud Elliott]

So you know, you got, you got Brooks Burger. You got, you got, what's his name though? Who's the, who's the, the current, like younger, the younger kid they just had Luke Clanton.

[Tom Frenelli]

Luke Clanton.

[Bud Elliott]

Yeah. Like it's not like, you know, there hasn't been good golf at Florida State.

[Chip Patterson]

Yeah, no, I like that. I did not know about the course being totally private. I personally appreciate, I think university courses are awesome. So when they are open to the public, I do like taking advantage of those when I can. But that's cool. Yeah. Charlie woods committed to play golf at Florida State University. Will that hinder the school's ability to pay Mike Norvell's buyout tbd? But at least now we know, now we know what got them there. The selling points and the like.

[Bud Elliott]

Our listeners don't even know that Chip's a member at Pinehurst.

[Chip Patterson]

We will be back on Monday.

[Bud Elliott]

Where.

[Chip Patterson]

Among other things we will. Let's see.

[Tom Frenelli]

Oh gosh. Have we confirmed that like Tom, have you got an invite to come play Pinehurst so we can actually confirm this in person.

[Bud Elliott]

I have been to Pinehurst with Chip. I have stood on the first T and the 18th green.

[Tom Frenelli]

Yeah, there you go.

[Chip Patterson]

I got married at Pinehurst Country Club. We will be back on Monday. Fired up because among other things, the discussion will be trying to identify the next coach in the next program, which you know, obviously can be the same thing to win their first national championship.

[Bud Elliott]

Indiana.

[Chip Patterson]

It just. We just checked both those boxes tomorrow. A fun discussion that we have every single off season. The next coach and the next program to win their first national championship. Because right off the top, Indiana, first, first time title winning school since when.

[Tom Frenelli]

Florida in 1996.

[Chip Patterson]

Bing, bing, bing, bing. Yeah, we had been since 1996 without having a first time winner as a school. So we're going to try to identify who will be the next one to break through. Next coach, next program to win their first national championship. Among other news that'll be coming up on Monday. Join us live YouTube.com cover3 and you can follow him on Twitter at Tom Frinelli. You can follow him@bud elliot3. Follow me at chip Underscore Patterson. Gentlemen, thank you very much.

[Bud Elliott]

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