← Josh Pate's College Football Show
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Josh Pate
This is an iHeart podcast.
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Josh Pate
tremphyaradio.com do you want to find a stress free way to buy your next car? Start at CarMax and shop your way. If you want to browse with confidence, get pre qualified online with no impact on your credit score and shop cars within your budget. From luxury cars to family rides, CarMax has options for almost every price range, including more than 25,000 cars priced under $25,000. So hey, want to get started? Just head to CarMax.com for details and get pre qualified today. Want to drive Carma. Had one of those moments earlier this afternoon where someone sends me one of those things where someone on Twitter, whichever platform has said something along the lines of I can't believe there are people out there who prefer college football to the NFL and they were trying to get a rise out of me. And it almost never works. And it did not work today because my whole take on that is, go live your life, man. You don't have to understand the way I feel. I don't have to try and convince you the way I feel is right. However, someone asked us a question that I'm gonna lead tonight's show with that is somewhat along those lines that I really feel passionate about. It is Sunday night, June 28th, the year of our Lord 2026. Jam packed high atop just a saucy, steamy downtown Nashville, Tennessee. Rivalries. Notice I didn't say the playoff rivalries, in my humble opinion, are what college football is built on. It makes college football great. Rivalries predate any man made playoff infrastructure. And someone asked us a question about that. And I will lead tonight's show with that. I've got what, Jesse, five or six teams on the clock. We whittled it down from 15. So I'm going to discuss that tonight. There's some allegations flying around that you'll be happy to know are false about what I have alleged about Julian Saen at Ohio State. You may have heard about them. They've been wandering around the Internet. And so we will put some light on the truth on the show tonight. And we've got several big questions to ask about college football in the year of our Lord 2026. It's a jam packed show. I said earlier today, and I mean it, this could pass for mid October. There are no game previews or game recaps, but otherwise, you get what I'm saying. There's a lot to talk about tonight. They're watching us in Cortland, Alabama, Logan, Utah, Carmel, Indiana and Plano, Texas. Please make sure that you are subscribed to the channel. Many of you are. Thank you. Many of you think you are and it's really you that I'm trying to talk to. The ones who think they are subscribed, but they're not subscribed because clearly you want to be subscribed. So all you have to do is check. And when it shows that you haven't, just click it. It's free. Doesn't charge you anything. Nothing changes in your life. Our life just gets better. Let's get into the show tonight. Sometimes we lead with you Know a topic. Sometimes there's breaking news, but then every now and then we get hit with something like this. Daniel from Ben, beautiful Naperville, Illinois. He said a buddy of mine doesn't watch college football and he was shocked when I said I looked forward to rivalries more than the college football playoff. Can you help me out here? Well, you and I feel the same way, Daniel, so if it helps, we have strength in numbers. This occurs quite frequently to me because I have friends who are pro sports first, college sports second. I have friends that don't really watch college sports, acquaintances more so than friends. I don't know if I can call that kind of person a friend. But I digress. You apparently do have a friend here, Daniel, and he does not get you preferring rivalries over the playoff itself. Now, to some degree, any hardcore college football fan understands and picks up what you're putting down here. Rivalries are awesome. Rivalries are great. Now look, you got to be. You got to be well on the extreme end of the spectrum to be like you and I, Daniel, where we look at rivalries. I prefer the rivalry games to the playoff games themselves. Yes, that's a little bit of an extreme point of view. There are a lot of people who, like, they love rivalries, but they'll tell you and I, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. But even that group understands rivalries are awesome. But there's no need trying to explain something you have to live to understand. And I've come across this before. It's kind of why I intro'd the show tonight the way I did. I've come across the arduous task of trying to convey college football to an unwashed, college football less person. It's really hard if you've ever done this before, if you haven't, try it tomorrow at your place of business. Try it tomorrow. Maybe you're going to summer school, maybe you'll walk in a classroom tomorrow, whatever. But find someone who doesn't know anything about college football. Maybe a pro sports fan. Just, you know, try and convince them that this right here, the Iron bowl, the last week of November, Clean old fashioned hate in Atlanta or Athens, between Georgia and Georgia Tech. There's something about that that has a root system that runs deeper than the playoff. It makes no sense to them. But you can't explain it as the whole point. You've got to live it. And not everything is for everyone. In fact, that's the quote that I started to use. I wrote it down because I forget it sometimes. Not everything has to mean everything. To everyone. So let's say you live in Lansing, Michigan, not East Lansing, just regular Lansing. Or let's say you live in Dayton, Ohio, and you've just grown up in the Ohio State Michigan rivalry. You've lived it your whole life. It's not a game that gets played. True it is. That's the first face of it. But the rivalry is a year long lived experience. It's a lifelong lived experience. Now, there are some people not born into it that decide to become part of it. And you matter too. But there are families up there. There are households full of people who have just been baptized into this from birth and it's their life. And so when you think about a successful season, if you're a Michigan fan, if you're an Ohio State fan, you get one thing in your mind before anything else. You think about the last Saturday in November. You think about the game. That's kind of how success for a million years, up until semi recently was defined in Ann Arbor and Columbus. And winning that game is paramount. And there's a different feeling you get when you're talking about that game respectfully than you get when you're talking about the Big Ten championship game. Because that's a very, very recent construct. Conference championship games only very recently have come along. The playoff only very recently has come along. That right there, that's like ordained. That was in existence, you know, like on the fifth or sixth or seventh. I can't, I haven't read Genesis lately, but like I can't remember which day. But rivalries have just always been here. The playoff has not. And so you'll have to excuse people like me and Daniel when we look at this and we say the playoffs all well and good, we're four crown and a national champ. But that thing that man made end of the season tournament does not make me feel the same as this tunnel shot right here, filmed by yours truly, by the way, three or four years ago. It's something that is hard to explain to people who are not of it is my point. But also you don't have to go like Ohio State Michigan when I say not everything has to mean everything to everyone. You could go down to Hattiesburg and talk to them about playing South Alabama or go down to Mobile and talk to South Alabama folks about playing Troy. That game means nothing to 99.9% of the US population. It means nothing to 99% of the college football population. And that's totally fine because it does mean something to the people. It's supposed to mean something to. And I've always had respect, you know, as growing up in the South, I've always had respect for the rivalries. I watched from a distance. Ohio State, Michigan is it for me because I grew up down south and I just watched it from a distance. And now I get to go to that game. I've been to several of those games in the past five or six years, but I understand I'm walking into something sort of as a guest, because I can't really understand that because I haven't lived it. The consequences of that game. I will never, ever forget this. The last time that they played in Columbus, it would have been 2024, right? Jesse? They played in Ann Arbor last year, the 2024 game, the one where they were favored by like three touchdowns. And just inexplicably, Ohio State loses the game. Me and Cannell were there for CBS and we were doing post game coverage. Stadiums totally empty. And it's like Gelby, our camera guy at the time, he's set up with his back to the end zone. Me and Canel are standing in the end zone because no one's there. So we're filming on the field and Canel and I are facing the end zone so that the backdrop is like the stadium for the shot and stuff like that. Off in our peripheral, there are Ohio State kids coming back out of the locker room after everything's emptied out. And they're just coming out there and sitting on the field bawling their eyes out. No one's there. No one sees it. We didn't film it. I have no evidence of it, But I remember looking at that and saying, I've been around a lot of championship settings, and I've watched teams win, I've watched teams lose. And it's emotional, but I've never seen that right there guy go in locker rooms, because they have an open locker room policy for playoff games. So you can go in the locker rooms after playoff games, after national championship games. I've never seen a playoff game, a man made manufactured postseason college football game elicit the emotional response that losing the Ohio State Michigan game lost. So I know especially the younger you are, you tend to skew more towards respecting the rivalries. But like, the playoff is the end all be all. But man, there's a portion of us that view the rivalries as the absolute bedrock of the sport because it predates the importance, the value of rivalries. It predates anything that has come after it, including the playoff. I know that doesn't make sense. To anyone outside college football, that's okay. College football is one of one. So it shouldn't look like anything else. It shouldn't feel like anything else. These are dirty words I'm saying. I understand when it comes to certain people who have their hands on the proverbial wheel here, but it is the way it is. We welcome you in. We appreciate you guys so much. I had the wrong screen pulled up over here. There we go. I am looking at a clock. It says we have a few months left to go before the season starts, but that doesn't mean that teams aren't on it. Perez, here's a good endpoint for you as Bradley is still somehow out of town. Somehow some way still out of town. If I asked you which teams are on the clock this year, first off, how would you define on the clock? Secondly, how would you fill in that blank? Which teams would you put on the clock? Because I, I got five of them, but I could go double that, but I circled five of them because I have really specific thoughts about him. Clemson is pretty straightforward and that's the first team that I put on the clock right now because there's, there are these competing like worldviews right now. Actually it's not so much worldview versus worldview. There's the view the world has and then there's the view pretty much. Dabo Swinney has a majority of the college football public, thus the worldview looks at Clemson and they talk about the greatness in the past tense, at least in terms of accomplishments. And they think that the new era of college football has somewhat passed Clemson by. Not so much that Clemson's incapable of riding on the front of that wave, it's just that they've kind of resisted it. And hey, that's okay because Dabo's legacy is already long since been established. But you've, you've probably seen the peak of Clemson under Dabo and they'll be relegated to making silver records instead of platinum records moving forward. That's how most people to some degree feel. Dabo does not feel that way. We had him on the show last month, we sat down with him for well over an hour and he articulated that he thinks last year was a bump in the road. They've made the necessary changes. They're just getting started, Jesse. Just getting started. Dabo Swinney, 27 year old Dabo Swinney just getting started. So 2012 through 2022, they had 11 straight 10 win plus seasons, double digit win seasons. They won two national titles. They won seven ACC championships over the past three years. They've lost 14 games. So clearly there's been a dip. Now it doesn't matter if they're still better than most of the acc. As I said the other day, we do not measure Clemson football in the modern age against the rest of the acc. You may measure him against Miami, but that's about the long and short of it because the standard in his defense that Dabo Swinney set at Clemson is well above and beyond whether you can go and take care of Syracuse or go take care of Wake Forest and the like. So I almost wonder if the ingredients that we see in play right now where it feels like, you know, you're a year after the expectations were the highest. I almost wonder if we don't get, you know, into the third quarter of the week one game against LSU and it's a dog fight down there in Baton Rouge and ESPN or ABC cameras zoom in on Dabo Swinney and he looks as happy as can be. I almost wonder if we don't find ourselves having overthought the room come season and say, oh, we should have known it, man. Should have known out of all the people that pulled this off, Dabo Swinney would be the one that pulls this off. I think they're on the clock is what I'll say. USC is certainly on the clock. This is no mystery. When USC hired Lincoln Riley, it was a bombshell. Because when USC hired Lincoln Riley, USC was searching and Lincoln Riley was the answer. Or so it seemed. And it's easy to have the revisionist history, it's easy to Monday morning quarterback this thing, but paper pop. Did you know that upon USC's hiring of Lincoln Riley, he had only finished outside the College Football Playoff top six once in the last half decade? So they had won double digit games at Oklahoma four of the last five years. He was rolling. He was everything that USC needed and USC was everything Lincoln Riley needed. And now they're entering year five. His best year was his first year. That's the one and only time he's won double digit games there. They have yet to finish in the top six in the College Football Playoff rankings and they face five of the top six in the Big Ten this year. Show me the schedule. Press. Yeah, they. I got an argument. It's not an argument, by the way. I got in an argument with a guy in the YouTube comment section, of all places. Don't hang out there very long. Yeah, he said, this is not a tough schedule, buddy. It's a tough schedule. They. They play Oregon, they play Washington, they go to Penn State, they've got three east coast road games on this. They've got Ohio State, they go to Indiana. I would not just blatantly overlook a trip across town at the end of the year, but that's to talk about in November. This is an extremely difficult schedule. By anyone's estimation, it is. Now, that concludes my thoughts on usc. However, it does not conclude the commentary on usc because Jesse reaches his ratchety little finger across the table and hands me this post it note. Because Jesse has something to say about the Lincoln Riley tenure at usc, everyone with bated breath awaits what producer Jesse has to say about Lincoln Riley. Has the floor been raised? Yes, but people don't come to the Sistine Chapel to look at the floor. They want to see the beauty of the ceiling that brought Lincoln Riley to his knees. Upon hearing that, I can't imagine, does he even make it to the season. So, yeah, USC is on the clock. Well done, Jesse. Texas is on a different kind of clock, but Texas is still on the clock. Define what it takes to win. I actually am not going to give you 10 or 15 seconds pregnant pause here. We'll probably get dinged in the algorithm for that. But you could hit pause and you could just have this fundamental exercise of defining like, A, B, C, D. You could go all the way to Z if you want to. But what does it take to win a national championship in modern day college football? And when you get done compiling your list, tell me what it is on that list Texas doesn't have, because I would argue they have everything, at least from an ingredient standpoint. Now, if you want to be a sarcader and you want to claim, well, they don't have the right chef in the kitchen, fair, I don't necessarily agree. But the point remains. I asked you about ingredients. I didn't ask you about the guy preparing the meal. Just do they have the ingredients? Clearly they've got the ingredients in the kitchen. So now it's up to Sark and his staff to prepare the meal. I don't think I could be higher on Texas. Not the first time I've said that on this show. Have the. Has it bitten me before? Yes, it's bitten me before. But I will remind everyone, as the guy who wore a clown nose as an apology to Kurt Signetti last year, I can admit when I'm wrong, but can everyone else admit when I'm right? That's really what I'm looking for tonight. More so than anything. Remember last year, Jesse, when Texas went down to the swamp? Remember that loss nobody saw coming? Well, one show saw it coming. And not only that, not only that, not only did we pick Florida to beat Texas, then we picked Texas to beat ou. So I think I had a better grip on Texas last year than Steve Sarkeesian himself. And so you can take it to the bank when I say Texas is on the clock this year. Because paper, this stuff right here, looks really good for Texas. It looks phenomenal for them. But as Memaw taught me time and time again, paper is not production. So paper didn't really matter when they narrowly got past Mississippi State and Brandon Walker and Kentucky last year. And paper didn't matter against Ohio State and paper didn't matter against Florida. But think about this, think about how, how thin the margins have been with sark. Go to 20, 23, change that last drive. Give me a, give me a final drive against Washington or two years ago in the playoffs against Ohio State. They're down there inside the 10 yard line, I believe. I mean instead of that thing getting scooped and taken to the house by Jack Sawyer, punch it in, give me a score there. Think about how different the history books, the recent history books, the Wikipedia page would look for Steve Sarkeesian. And instead, I mean I got people roaming the streets in packs claiming Sark can't get it done. And Sark's not alone. Cause Dan Lanning can't get it done either. Kirby, well he used to be part of that group and now he did get it done. Ryan Day was a part of that group and then he did get it done. So like, you know, we've, we've long since discussed the difference between cannot and have not. But Sark in one score games at Texas is 5 and 12 against ranked opponents. Thank you, Jesse. You know, that actually does matter because there were a couple of one score games against non ranked opponents last last week or last year. So Sark 5 and 12 in one score games against ranked opponents at Texas. Their schedule, it could be argued, is the toughest in the country this year. And if you don't think it's the toughest in the country, please don't go down the semantics road with me. Clearly it's really, really difficult. And so clearly they're going to be in some one possession games this year. They could be as good as I think that they could possibly be. They'll still be in some dogfights this year. That means that stat's got to get flipped on Its ear. Stay in the SEC for a second. Alabama on the clock. I think this is totally fair. They feel kind of like they're emerging from the Nick Saban shadow. By that, I mean this is the year where you'll turn them on now and moving forward, you'll turn Alabama on. And there's very, very little remnant of Nick Saban. You got a player or two here and there. You've got a staffer or two here and there. But by and large, Nick Saban is now history. He's a. He's a legend. He's an icon. He's got a statue out front. The field's named after him. But nothing about the team that takes the field this fall will reflect anything other than Calen DeBoer. So that's not a bad thing or a good thing. It's just a thing. It's just a reality. So then you go back to last year, and people talk about it like this cataclysmic failure. And I have to remind them, they played for a conference title and they made the playoff and won a game in the playoffs. They fell short emphatically. And so being on the clock for me with Alabama really boils down to, what did 383 do to you? What did that splattering against Indiana do to you? What kind of impact did it have? I like to think that whether they lost the thing by one or by five touchdowns, they would have understood there are changes we have to make before next season, and they've left no stone unturned. They've made staff changes. They are going to totally overhaul that offensive line, brought in a couple of really good tailbacks from the high school ranks. You'll have a new starting quarterback there. But I've got to think every ounce of energy has been exhausted to try and not just resurrect the run game. The run game production on the ground works downstream of far more basic, fundamental aspects of physicality, of toughness, of just like a baseline of it. You've got to have. And they did what they did last year, lacking that, which is a phenomenal testament to, like, their level of execution, because remember, they lost to Florida State early in the year and had to go on this extended run, which they did. And ultimately they fall short in the playoffs. But, dude, do you remember after week one when they lost to Florida State? You remember what the talk was around that team? It wasn't playoff, I can promise you that. But coming into this year, it like, it's. It's a. It's a difficult schedule on the back end. But I think by SEC standards, this is about as manageable a schedule as you're going to get. Because look at those first several games. East Carolina at Kentucky, fsu, South Carolina at Mississippi State. I'm not overlooking any of them. I'm just saying if you're breaking in a ton of new pieces and you're going to play Georgia, Tennessee, A and M, lsu, you want those teams further down the schedule. And Bama got them. So Bama's on the clock. And then in much the same way Texas is on the clock, I'd say Notre Dame's on the clock this year. These are not pressure cooker, hot seat, kind of on the clock conversations. Sark's not going anywhere. Marcus Freeman is not going anywhere. I just look at Notre Dame, and I grew up in Georgia, okay? So people there don't know a ton about sushi. One of the things we do know about sushi is if you get it and you eat it in a timely manner, if you consume it at the right time, it's phenomenal. Even in Georgia, it's phenomenal. But the problem with sushi is can't let it sit there too long. Like there's a fine line between consuming it at its peak versus consuming it just a little bit later and you can tell a massive difference. And that's kind of the AB scenario to me. When it comes to outcomes potentially for Notre Dame this year, they've got everything that you need to win a national title. I think they'll be right there in the mix as far as I'm concerned. Coming out of spring, I would have put them number one in the country, and they will enter the season like that. And they've got the most workable path imaginable and they've got a great team, theoretically. Imagine them going 10 and 2. Imagine somehow going 9 and 3. I don't know how that would happen, but like, imagine if that's what happened this year. And I want you to imagine how quickly things would turn. Because, see, this is not Ryan Day. This is not Kirby Smart. This is not a guy who already has the national championship on his resume. This is Marcus Freeman, a guy who most of us assume will have one or assume is very capable of. Of winning one. But you only get so many shots at this. And Marcus Freeman, for all I know, May coach another 15 years and never have a better shot than this team right here will give him. And imagine if you squander it. That's why I look at him as being on the clock because Notre Dame, look, they're recruiting out of this world right now. So like they're always going to give themselves a shot. They'll always be within reach to varying degrees, but they're on the top rung of the ladder this year. They don't even have to extend their arm all the way to be right there. You got to take advantage of these opportunities you make for yourself because you only get so many of them. Let's move on. By the way, look, I want to work out a way and maybe it's as simple as me moving the laptop up to this table that I have in front of me, but I know I don't interact with the live chat as much during the show. Ironically, I interact with the live chat more when we pre record the show and I'm watching it at home swinging the ban hammer in the live chat. Sometimes I interact more with it then than I do when we're live. But I do see you guys like someone just checked in from Nebraska over there. I do see it. I appreciate it. Let's talk about pressure and specifically a question that got presented to us, Jerry from Press Country, Richmond, Virginia, after three straight years of not making it to the College Football Playoff title game, would you argue more than any one team, the entire SEC is under pressure this year. A lesser man would try and act like he's intellectually above the room here and he would say no, but I am not that intellectually superior man and I'm saying yes unequivocally. That conference, let me put it this way, they should be feeling a ton of pressure. I don't know if maybe collectively they've taken on the responsibility of upholding the good name of the sec, but it should be personal to them. You know, this is a sport that still even in the portal in nil era, offers SEC schools a ton of advantage relative to almost anybody else in this sport. And you're doing what with it at this point? Just collectively, you're doing what with it at this point. So I would hope that it's personal because if you look at the Big Ten right now, the Big Ten functions as a well oiled machine. And I don't even just mean winning the national championships. I mean think about something as recent as like these arguments about playoff expansion. Now I despise the Big Ten stance on playoff expansion. Like at my core, I almost want to vomit when I hear it. But they're all in unison. It's like we're singing a cappella. It's a church of Christ Sunday morning, and everybody's singing from the same hymnal. And then you go across the street. I don't even know what denomination this is over here in SEC country right now, but it sounds discombobulated. It sounds terrible. It sounds like you're working out the tuning before the service starts. And I got people in fighting, and I got folks complaining amongst themselves, and they're openly questioning leadership. And I can promise you, behind the scenes, they're questioning leadership because I get the calls every week, so I know how discombobulated it is behind the scenes. And then it just so happens, coincidentally, the results on the field don't quite match up what they used to look like. That's probably coincidence. Like I said, though, there's probably nothing more to that. I recently have been tasked with fixing a baseball swing, and I don't want to get any more specific than that, but people come to me. You may not believe this, but people come to me. Look at this swing. What's wrong with it? If you know anything about fixing a baseball swing, you kind of understand what's happened to the SEC recently. The SEC for a long time had all the advantage in the world, to the point where they could be lazy in certain aspects, up to and including hiring, and still get away with it because they just had rosters that were stacked three deep in some cases, especially in places like Tuscaloosa and Athens. And the point is, it's the same way as a kid who dominated Little League, you know, because he just had the Danny Almonte genes, but he was legitimately 12 instead of 16. And so he just dominated smoked kids when he was 11 and 12. And then all of a sudden, a couple of years later, he's trying to play high school baseball and he can't do it. And you're wondering, what's wrong with this? Well, what's wrong with it is he developed bad habits because he was so dominant for a long time, and there's a lot of wasted motion in his swing. And at a certain level, when you've got that much of a DNA advantage on the rest of the kids, you could afford to have wasted motion in your swing. You know, instead of hitting the ball out to left field, it'll just go out to right center. Doesn't matter. Still counts the same in the scorebook. But then when the competition level increases, the you have less room for wasted motion in your swing. So you can either do one of two things. You can either eliminate the wasted motion and make your swing more compact or you strike out a whole bunch. And in the SEC for a long time, you had massive, like, advantages over the rest of the sport, even the Big Ten, due to reasons that we won't get into tonight. I don't think it really pays us dividends to go down those roads. But all of a sudden it's not that you lost that ability, it's just that other people develop that ability. And the bottom line is the competitive balance really tightened up. The Big Ten never had wasted motion is the point. They always had to walk on the razor's edge. You didn't. And so I think we're probably in a period of correction in the SEC right now where a number of things that you could have away with 10 years ago, you don't get away with now. And then congruent to that, you have the matter of understanding that it's never going back to the way it was. And so, like, it's not strictly relegated to the sec. I just think in totality, the league is learning this right now. It used to be, and still is, that you just go pay $12 million for a head coach. And the thing I wonder is how much longer does the SEC, as a collective, look at the return on investment that you're getting from paying coaches 10 plus million dollars a year and then look outside the league and watch what others are doing with less resource wise and say to yourself, is this the direction we still want to go? Is this what we want the SEC to be? I just kind of wonder that because nothing magically says this has to correct itself. You know, you keep looking around and saying, oh, Big Ten, man, three years. All right, well, clearly it's gotta swing back the SEC's way this year. No, it doesn't have to do anything. They could run off 10 years of this in the Big Ten. And by the way, if the Big Ten doesn't win it this year, what if it's Miami? What if it's Notre Dame? Like, there's no guarantee that there's any elite team in the SEC this year. There's no guarantee anyone's better than 10 wins this year. There's no guarantee you'll have a team in the semifinals this year. But look, I said this after the semifinals wrapped last year because I was doing get up and Greaney asked. All right, now that Ole Miss has been eliminated and we are sure that the SEC drought has continued, you know what's wrong with the sec? Well, I would have said the same thing's wrong with the sec. Even if Ole Miss would have won the game against Miami. Like a bounce of ball or an added play here or there doesn't really change the 10 or 50,000 foot view of the SEC. But yeah, I think it will ultimately end up, it will ultimately end up benefiting those who have their eyes open and those who have their eyes closed will continue to fall further and further behind. I, after our show the other night, go over to our analytics, not on the YouTube channel on paintstatematerial.com Jesse we move some of those red, white and shoe shirts the other night. Several of them. And so congratulations to those who have secured those bad boys long before July 4th. Still available by the way. But I just want to remind everyone as I lean back and get out of the way and look at that shirt, some are saying it's one of the best we've ever produced. Pacestatematerial.com is where you can go get that. It says America runs on Saturdays. Clearly that is not an opinion, that is a fact. And also clearly football is coming and that shirt is also available there. We could just only fit one shirt on the monitor right now. So I appreciate you guys because we did bonkers numbers on that the other day. And it's for a good cause. Your wardrobe, it's for a very good cause. Introducing B of A Rewards A new loyalty program with rewards for every ambition. From cash back deals on brands you
- [36:16]
Julian Edelman
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Josh Pate
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Josh Pate
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Erin Andrews
Hey, it's Erin Andrews from Calm down with Erin and Karissa. I don't know about your house, but at my house everybody's online. They're streaming, gaming, shopping, zoom calls, you name it. That's why having fast, reliable Internet that can keep up really matters and why you need Optimum's famously fast fiber Internet. It blows flaky 5G home Internet out of the water. It has the fastest and most reliable Internet speeds and doesn't slow down when everyone's online. Which, let's be honest, is all the time. Right now they have a deal that's tough to beat. Just $25 a month for five years. So don't wait. Call 888 for optimum, visit optimum.com or stop by your local Optimum store today. Famously fast fiber for $25 a month for five Years. That's a no brainer. Terms apply. See optimum.com for details.
- [37:31]
Tab Ramos
This is Tab Ramos from Inside American Soccer and this summer Topgolf is turning into the ultimate soccer destination. They're not just throwing games on in the background. Topgolf is going all in on soccer. They've got a new soccer themed game you can play with your group. Special in venue activations, exclusive food and drink items inspired by the global game and at more than 60 locations. They've even installed full size soccer goals so you can try to hit golf balls right into the net. And every match all summer long will be on throughout the venue. So it's a great place to watch with friends, hang out, compete a little bit and enjoy the atmosphere. And if you want to keep the fun going all summer, you can get the topgolf Summer Fun Pass which lets you play every single day and bring up to five guests every visit. Get yours now@TopGolf.com FunPass Summer hits different at TopGolf.
- [38:28]
Julian Edelman
This is Julian Edelman from Games With Names. As a fellow dude, do you ever get that not so fresh feeling in your butt? That's because you're probably using the dry stuff to wipe wet. Extra large flushable Dude Wipes get what toilet paper leaves behind in your behind. You wouldn't clean the tail end of your truck with dry paper towels, so why would you wipe with dry toilet paper? Wetter just cleans better. With dude Wipes there are no more dingleberries, no more itch and irritation, just a deep down the seam. Confident clean. Plus, unlike baby wipes, dude wipes are extra big for adult hands. You're not a baby so keep them on hand so you get nothing on your hands. And speaking of on hand, dude wipes come in different scents and pack sizes, including a single use on the go pack that you can take anywhere. For that home field advantage, stop being an A hole to your B hole. Drop the toilet paper. Available on Amazon and major retailers nationwide. Dude Wipes Best Clean Pants down.
- [39:45]
Josh Pate
Let's continue. So we did this thing the other night. Prez, this is not your endpoint. We did this thing the other night. You know what Prez, this can be your end point because this can go in the video. I did this thing the other day. Jesse, was this your idea? Whose idea it was was irrelevant. I did this thing the other day where we throw out a tweet. I said, hey, just pretend you returned from January 2027. You got to see the whole season play out. What are the Wildest headlines that will unfold this year. Just give me the future now. And I put it out there. I said, pretend that's you coming back from the future. Give me the wildest headline that's going to happen this year. And somebody said the other day, hey, how's this any different than bold predictions? It's not. First headline up, Kirby Smart steps down. Now. This would shock the world. This would be an earthquake. That would be a college football earthquake. I'm going to say this. It's not about Kirby, but it's in general. I have actually expected something like this to happen for the last three years. I've expected a major head coach to just resign or, like, retire out of nowhere. And I thought it was going to sound something like this. I thought it was going to sound something like, I know I'm 48 years old, or I know I'm 52 years old, but I don't recognize the game right now. And so I'm going to step aside. I think there's someone better to do the job, and I'm going to spend some time on me and my family. And then that person would probably go do TV for a little while and then just wait it out and wait until college football becomes something you're comfortable with again, and then you jump right back in. I've expected that to happen. It hasn't happened. In fact, ask yourself, like, what's the last major retirement? We were trying to think about this today. And by retirement, I don't mean take a pro job. I mean just, I'm stepping away. And unless there was one that we weren't thinking of, and there may be, we didn't spend a lot of time on it. I couldn't. I couldn't really think of one. But this, This, I got to be honest with you. It would be a bombshell now. It would come out of nowhere. Saban was the last huge retirement. But, like, Nick Saban was in his 70s, so it made sense that he was retiring, even though that was in and of itself a bombshell. But imagine Kirby just after what figures to be some version of a good season this year, you're saying, yeah, I'm done, I'm done. Yeah, that would be a big one. And according to someone, that's going to happen this year, next one. Kelly said, josh Hoover wins the Heisman, leads Indiana to another 16 and oh year. Okay, so I'm already of the opinion that you could argue last year's Indiana season was the greatest accomplishment in the history of college football. And Even if you disagree, you would probably grant me that. It belongs in the conversation. If they run that thing undefeated again and they win a national title again and Signetti has another Heisman Trophy winning quarterback, it is the greatest story in the history of college football. Like what? What compares to it? That's not recency bias, that's not prisoner of the moment. I don't even know what else would compare to it. But they would also have done that in a period of time where the Big Ten is the alpha conference in college football. It'd be one thing if they were doing. Look, I'm not disrespecting Clemson at all, but when Clemson was making their run in the 20 teens, nobody felt like keeping up with them. No one was, no one was keeping pace. It was like Clemson and nothing. Again, all due respect to the acc, Indiana is running this thing right as Ryan Day has Ohio State peaking, right as Dan Lanning has Oregon loaded with talent. And if Indiana does that again, I would argue it's the best story in history, college football. Then again, I would already argue, all things considered, that last year was, and remember, Kelly didn't just say they're going to repeat, she said undefeated. So even when you go look at the few examples we have of repeat national champs. Jesse, we didn't check this, but were there any back to back undefeateds? Bama didn't do that, Georgia didn't do that. Nebraska maybe, I don't know. Yeah, so those were traditional powers no matter what. And Indiana is a recent power. Next up. Boy, this one. Just soak this one in for a second. Nick said his headline that he saw in January of 2027 that he has come back to bestow upon us all is Brian Kelly has been hired at USC LabK. You talk about shirts that would move. Labk shirts would move. Now this is almost certainly not going to happen, but I would like to ask, in the event that the USC job comes open, there's always a list and at a certain point everyone's name's on the list. My sister's name's on the list. At some point it's just several billion names down, but everybody's name's on the list. How far down the list, realistically, do you think Brian Kelly's name would be if the USC job came open? That's the question that we can all just ponder. But tell me that if you close your eyes long enough, you can't see Brian Kelly metamorphosizing himself into a presentable University of Southern California Trojans. Football coach. I'm thinking 1, 2. I'm thinking at least three buttons undone, chest hair, hamburger meat. I think of recently purchased sunglasses. I think of a staged photo op of him on the beach. Look, I could see this. He adopted that Southern accent quick enough where I could see him. Brian Kelly could be a chameleon of a head coach. I think he could blend anywhere. And so I think he would be totally comfortable if given the opportunity here. But hey, look, when Lincoln Riley makes the playoff this year, a lot of people are going to feel very foolish that they wasted their. That's not me predicting. And I'm just saying someone out there is predicting it. Jesse, it's only June, so we don't do predictions in June. But I hope Lincoln Riley's paying attention. You're talking about the Sistine Chapel. Someone else has already hired Brian Kelly out there. And meanwhile, Lincoln Riley's. He's got to be checking like, do we get to play this season? Do I still get to defend my honor? Next up, Blake. Shocking name considering the headline here. LSU wins the national title behind an elite defense. Well, this is not shocking to anyone who believes in American hero Blake Baker, who they almost lost. Remember for a little while it looked like Baker may get what the two lane job, I believe it was. And so Blake Baker's still there. And you know, if they were to win a national title this year and they were to do it winning a game like 13 to 6 or something like that. Hey, hey, color me unshocked. Color me unsurprised. I believe in Blake Baker. And the good news is we will see them in action very early. They play Clemson in week one and you know, if you just start to look matchup wise, you start to look at the front that theoretically LSU could field defensively. You look at the tackle situation, you look at the offensive line situation potentially for Clemson and then you add in prime time Saturday night, Death Valley, 113 degrees at kickoff, 100 plus thousand people at full throat. We'll get to see that, that Blake Baker defense pretty early. But I don't, I mean, look, it is year one under Lane Kiffin. It is hard to win a national championship. But if they won.
- [47:50]
Pharmaceutical/Medical Advertiser
What?
- [47:50]
Josh Pate
Look, I'll put it this way. If they win One defense is 1,000% going to be a large part of the formula there. So if it's, it's kind of down to are they opportunistic but it was a high flying offense or are they just like stone and folks 13 to 10? I mean, are there a Lot of those kind of wins on there. The last headline here put a smile ear to ear on my face. Arizona volunteer said 90s nostalgia strikes back. Nebraska, Virginia Tech, Tennessee all make the playoff. I don't have any magic button in here, but I got to be real, like if I had $10 in my pocket that I had to trade in exchange for pressing a magic button to make something happen, I would do that. I don't need $10, I've already got $10. But I would love to see Nebraska, Virginia Tech and Tennessee in the playoff. What are you trying to say in there, Jesse? Oh, the. Oh, good grief. Okay, well, I would love to wrap the show right now, but unfortunately I have to share with you that are listening on podcast a graphic that has just been put on the screen because someone moseyed over to fanduel and put this three leg parlay in Tennessee, Virginia Tech, Nebraska to make the playoff. $10 wins $4,900 basically. So it could happen is the point, is the moral of the story. There any one of these teams making the playoff, especially the latter two, Tennessee made it a couple of years ago. So if Hypo makes the playoff this year, that's just a solid job. That's a really good job. If James Franklin makes the playoff in year one at Virginia Tech, if Matt Rule makes the playoff in year four at Nebraska, if either one of those things happens, that's cartwheel time. And I haven't done one. I don't, I don't think I've ever done one. But I would be willing to try. That would be hashtag good for the game. In my humble opinion, it would be very good for the game. So those are just some shocking headlines from this upcoming year that you might as well take to the bank because our people do many things, but they never lie. And you know what, Jesse? Neither do I. Now, I want you to remember that as we get into this next segment. Allegations happen all the time around here. Sometimes I address them, sometimes I don't. In fact, most times I don't. But I can't pretend I haven't seen this. Bryce said, I can't help but feel that when I'm listening to you, there is doubt. In Ohio State specifically, Julian saying, did you really say he doesn't have any heart? Listening is not a dying art form. It's dead. Listening comprehension is dead. And here I go with the shock panels to the chest to try and resurrect the college football public against my better judgment here because I've gotten this A few hundred times just over the past week. So Dylan asked the question that many have asked. In fact, Dylan's language was far less forceful than some people. I've seen it on Ohio State message boards, I've heard it on podcasts and shows up there. And it may shock you to find out it never happened. Press throw up the question one more time if you still have it in there. I know this is testing you a little bit. He asked, did I ever say that Julian saying doesn't have any heart? Well, that would be a very, very bold thing to say. No, I didn't say that. Now, I'm normally quiet 95% of the time when I get feedback from coaches, from other players. It happens constantly. Okay? Coaches give you stuff, constantly. Player personnel, people, recruiting people, other players. We've got a ton of players who watch the show and you talk to them all the time because you're on campus all the time. Camp High, plural of campus. DMs are always open, so you get a lot of stuff. Okay, A lot of times it's one offs. Then there are other times where 15 people independently tell you a version of the same thing that makes your ear perk up a little bit more. But even when that happens, I normally stay quiet. Firstly, because you don't want to betray confidence. But secondly, even if you know you can keep everyone anonymous, normally I keep my mouth shut. And the reason is because people hear what you don't say and it happened here. So to make this make sense for those of you who have not heard this yet, in other words, for anyone interested in reality, I'm about to play you a clip that I assume is where all this was born from. And I'm just going to ask you to do one thing. Most of you have two ears that work. And so I'm going to ask you to ignore the question that was presented here to start this segment. And I just want you to listen, just start from scratch and just listen to this. This is from Crane and Cone. Do appearances with those guys every now and then. We're talking about Ohio State. The other day they asked me about Julian Saen and I had this to say. When you talk to some other people around the sport, they don't question Julian Saen's physical ability or if they do, it's really, really whispered. They question more the toughness side. They question more the the heart and desire side. Now, I don't ever look at a kid and say that because, like, to me, I know what it takes to win a starting quarterback position at Ohio State. And so like if you're, if you're good enough to do that, then I think you're willing to put your face in the fan more than most other people who would ever criticize you. However, I can't ignore that football people around the country have shared that feedback. And what people took from that was. Pace said Julian Santin got no heart. Well, luckily I've got a microphone. I can tell you what I think about Julian saying, I think he was a really good quarterback last year. I think he's got a chance to be an elite quarterback this year. He was a first year starter last year. The Texas game, the Indiana game, the Miami game, like those are the big games you've got to win at Ohio State and those are games they have several of this year. And I'm very excited to watch him because he didn't play terribly, especially against Indiana and Miami. It wasn't that he was terrible, it wasn't anything like that. It's just you watched him in his performance in those games and you said, all right, first year starter, second year starter. When I look at Ohio State schedule, I wonder against Texas or I wonder against Indiana or maybe in a playoff game, I wonder if there's a leveling up. That's all. I don't question his heart at all. That wasn't the message that I was delivering there. What I was doing was echoing sentiment that I thousand percent have gotten from several people in college football players and coaches because they do question his heart. Okay? And so I've heard that enough times to where I wrap it up in a ball, I'll throw it out there. And I like Julian saying, and since I happen to be familiar with several folks at Ohio State, I didn't mind throwing that chum in the water for him. I know that'll be used for good. But if anyone thinks I'm saying that about Julian saying you're high on bath salts because I'm not saying that about him. But other people have. So if you go back again to like a former life, there have been some years where you look at Ohio State schedule and you say, man, there are two games, there's one game, there's three games, whatever. And if we can get past those, we'll be favored by double digits in every, every other game this year they go to play Texas, they go to play Iowa, they go to play Indiana and usc. They got Oregon at home, they got Michigan at the end of the year. There's several other games in there that if they don't take care of their own business, are technically losable. Quarterback has got to be a strength for that team this year and it can't be someone that they hide. And fortunately for them, like they'll have a really good ground game. They should have either. A really, really good defense is like the floor for Ohio State. But it'll it'll come down to Julian saying at some point this year, and I got actually a fair amount of confidence in him, but that sentiment's not reflected by everyone. So that's what I was sharing. So like we could either live in a world where occasionally when you get that kind of feedback, you share it, or people just misquote it, at which point you just keep everything to yourself for the rest of your life. I would hope we can live in the former world instead of the latter.
- [56:38]
Erin Andrews
Hey, it's Erin Andrews from Calm down with Aaron and Karissa. I don't know about your house, but at my house everybody's online. They're streaming, gaming, shopping, zoom calls, you name it. That's why having fast, reliable Internet that can keep up really matters and why you need Optimum's famously fast fiber Internet. It blows flaky 5G home Internet out of the water. It has the fastest and most reliable Internet speeds and doesn't slow down when everyone's online. Which, let's be honest, is all the time. Right now they have a deal that's tough to beat. Just $25 a month for five years. So don't wait. Call 888 for optimum, visit optimum.com or stop by your local Optimum store today. Famously fast fiber for $25 a month for five Years. That's a no brainer. Terms apply. See optimum.com for details.
- [57:32]
Tab Ramos
This is Tab Ramos from Inside American Soccer and this summer Topgolf is turning into the ultimate soccer destination. They're not just throwing games on in the background, they're topgolf is going all in on soccer. They've got a new soccer themed game you can play with your group, Special in venue activations, exclusive food and drink items inspired by the global game. And at more than 60 locations. They've even installed full size soccer goals so you can try to hit golf balls right into the net. And every match all summer long will be on throughout the venue. So it's a great place to watch with friends and hang out, compete a little bit and enjoy the atmosphere. And if you want to keep the fun going all summer, you can get the topgolf Summer Fun Pass, which Lets you play every single day and bring up to five guests every visit. Get yours now@TopGolf.com fun pass summer hits different at TopGolf.
- [58:29]
Julian Edelman
This is Julian Edelman from Games with Names. As a fellow dude, do you ever get that not so fresh feeling in your butt? That's because you're probably using the dry stuff to wipe wet. Extra large flushable dude wipes get what toilet paper leaves behind in your behind. You wouldn't clean the tail end of your truck with dry paper towels, so why would you wipe with dry toilet paper? Wetter just cleans better. With Dude Wipes, there are no more dingleberries, no more itch, an irritation, just a deep down the seam. Confident clean. Plus, unlike baby wipes, dude wipes are extra big for adult hands. You're not a baby, so keep them on hand so you get nothing on your hands. And speaking of on hand, dude wipes come in different scents and pack sizes, including a single use on the go pack that you can take anywhere. For that home field advantage, stop being an A hole to your B hole. Drop the toilet paper. Available on Amazon and major retailers nationwide. Dude Wipes Best clean. Pants down, bro.
- [59:45]
Josh Pate
From the show last night to this drive.
- [59:47]
Julian Edelman
Why is it never chill?
- [59:48]
Josh Pate
Because this is our life backstage on the road. It's loud, messy, real. And that's the best part. Whole crew, no plan, just moving.
- [59:57]
Tab Ramos
Good thing.
- [59:58]
Josh Pate
Nissan builds for that kind of chaos. Not just test tracks, real life scenes, late nights, road trips, all of it. That's why it holds up. Nissan was ranked number one in initial quality among mainstream brands by J.D. power. Yeah, you can tell. 2026 Nissan Rogue. Built for what really happens for J.D.
- [60:16]
Tab Ramos
power.
- [60:17]
Josh Pate
2025 U.S. initial Quality Study Award information, visit jdpower.com awards awards based on 2025 model year. Newer models may be shown. They're watching us in Greenwood, Mississippi, St. Paul, Minnesota and Hendersonville, Tennessee. Thank you guys so much for watching. Okay, it's the end of June, so we're going on a little bit of a hiatus for July. And then when we come back to start August, camps are open and we don't even breathe until like December. And we'll probably do a more in depth version of what I'm about to do in August for several shows. But in the meantime, Prez, here's a good endpoint for you. I just wanted to look at some of the biggest questions that I have as we sit here in late June, early July, depending on when you're watching about college football this year. Just kind of like where my mind's at. You can tell me where your mind's at. I'll look in the comments. Cause honestly, a lot of the things that you guys put in comments, the comments make me go, I wish I would have thought about that. So you could, of course, look at the quarterback position this year. Which of these returning quarterbacks makes a legitimate leap? Everybody who has a returning quarterback thinks they're going to make a Quantum leap. History 1000% of the time says that is a lie, that is not founded in reality. But someone or several someones on this list right here. It could be Julian saying, it could be Dante Moore, it could be Marcel Reed. Maybe it's John Mateer, healthy all year. Maybe it's Bryce Underwood. Under a new system, someone or several of them are going to make pretty sizable leaps last year to this year. Arch Manning's on this list, obviously, CJ Carr is on this list. And those will be the teams that are there at the end. And it's okay to have the expectation, like Jaden Mava is on here. And if he's one of the guys that fits this description, then USC absolutely is a playoff contender. And if he's not, USC is going to be looking for a new head coach. It's really as simple as that. So I look at the quarterback position, hey, I look at Miami just to kind of zoom in on a team, and I wonder about Miami. Are my suspicions right about them? Because I've thought ever since I went down there in the spring. I was around that team in the spring. I watched them practice. I looked at him and I said, this team just played for a national championship. And I know that. I think they could be better this year. And that's tough because there's a much further way to fall than there is to climb for Miami as it relates to last year. But I look at what I think is upgrade at the quarterback position. I look at what I think is upgrade at the wide receiver position. I think they're excellent at tailback. I think they'll be excellent defensively, and that's even losing the guys they're losing defensively. I just think overall, like, collectively, they'll be excellent defensively. If offensive line is your biggest question and Mario Cristobal is your head coach and Alex Mirabal is down there, I just refuse to believe they're going to trot out an inferior offensive line product week one to week 12. And I think that team could be nasty, especially by November and maybe before then. I wonder if my suspicion's correct. There. I wonder how open the Big 12 is. You know, Texas Tech is still the favorite by somewhat of a margin to win the Big 12. They were the overwhelming favorite with Brennan Sorsby, and it's them and it's Brigham Young, sort of one, two, same way the conference stacked up last year. Utah's a little bit behind. There's a little teardrop. And then you got teams like Kansas State, you got teams like Houston, tcu, but Houston plays at Texas Tech in Week three. That's that same day that I believe LSU goes to Ole Miss. That's a really big day because that's the day to me that we'll start to find out what the shape of that conference looks like. And even if Houston goes to Lubbock and it's a dog fight, Texas Tech pulls it out, if that's the way Texas Tech's going to have to win games this year, well, then it's game on. It's the Big 12 that I know and love. And last year was not the Big 12 that I had known and loved for several years. I'd even dubbed it America's College Football Conference because it was basically like throwing darts at a board any given year blindfolded to find out who was going to win the thing. Very unpredictable, very exciting. It was a land of endless opportunity. It was a land where you could finish dead last one year, make a tweak or two here and there, and boom, you win the conference the next year. That doesn't happen in the Big Ten. It doesn't happen in the sec. At least it typically doesn't happen like that, Kurt Signetti notwithstanding. And so Will Hammond, health wise, is he ready to go early in the year? Got to get those questions asked. Even with Will Hammond, is this team really head and shoulders above the rest of the league or is it really, really compacted? Because look, Texas Tech is going to be either the best or one of the very best teams in that league in all scenarios, I think. But the one where it's Texas Tech, you know, by a nose is way different than Texas Tech and Sons, which is what it was last year. Do we have any failures to launch this year? Because last year we had several. Last year around this time, we were sitting around, you and I were just talking as friends do in June to pass the time. And what did we know? We knew, hey, Dabo's got his best team at Clemson in a while. They're coming off a playoff appearance. Kate Club next back. Everyone's back. Got NFL talent on all three Levels of the defense, which was true, by the way. And they're a preseason top five team. Good for Dabo. They're back. And James Franklin, they were in the semifinal last year. Heartbreaking finish. Jesse was standing right there on the field in Miami. He watched it all happen. But that's okay because those players are back and they're hungry. And James Franklin is assuring us at Big Ten media days that it's championship or bust for us. And they're preseason top five. And hey, don't overlook Brian Kelly at lsu, because that's going to be a really good team this year, too. And hey, then BK and LSU go on the road in week one, and they beat Clemson. And so they're really off to the races because what could Brian Kelly not do? He couldn't win a road game, they couldn't win an opener. And then once LSU knocked that domino down, that's a top five team. And two of the three had job openings before Halloween or the shortly thereafter. I can't remember the timeline. And the third one finished seven and six in Clemson. And so we had several failures to launch last year. And the thing about a failure to launch is almost no one would have believed those headlines had you printed them last June. Franklin's going to be fired. No one's. No one's buying that. Even the biggest Penn State doubter probably would have only said, oh, they're going to go 9, 3 this year. No one predicted what actually happened. No one really saw that coming with LSU and Brian Kelly, Clemson, the bottom falls at. What were they, like 1 and 2, 1 and 3 to start or something like that. So in Dabo's own words, it was a miracle. They won seven games. Are there any failures to launch this year? Those are the odds to win the national championship on your screen right now. Penn State was number two last year, Jesse, is that right? All right. Notre Dame's number two this year. Like, what is the worst case for them? And then imagine it going worse than worst case. You define whatever worst case is. Oregon, like Dan Lanning, Miami, Mario Cristobal, like, just imagine the absolute and utter bottom falling out. That's the thing. You really can't until you see it happen. You really can't. But see, here's the thing. The SEC schedules have been like this. The Big Ten schedules are like this, too. Now, where you. You don't just have one or two games to get up for. There are several teams that are inferior to you technically, that could bite you if you don't play better. Than a B minus game. And if you play several of those B minus games, then you have a disaster on your hands. So I wonder about that. I wonder about Indiana and something I call the Roger Bannister effect, which is long time ago, science, the medical community said it is impossible to run a sub 4 minute mile. I've mentioned this several times on the show. Then this kid named Roger Bannister doesn't get the headline and he runs a sub 4 minute mile. Then a whole bunch of folks ran a sub 4 minute mile. And once upon a time up until very recently, it was not possible to do anything remotely along the lines of what Kurt Signetti has done at Indiana. But the thing is now he's done it and now everybody sees that technically anything can happen, especially in this era. And so I look from UCLA to Virginia Tech to Oklahoma State to Auburn, all these places that just pulled the new higher lever slash leverage. Kansas State just hired a new head coach. Michigan just hired a new head coach. Pete Golding is the head coach at Ole Miss. Imagine that headline this time last year. Do I want to say Ryan Silverfield at Arkansas? Like it? Is that a bridge too far? That's a, it's still under construction. That's a little bit of a bridge too far. But you get my point. In this world where anything's possible, it's not just Indiana that's going to find out anything's possible. Someone else is going to run that sub 4 minute mile. Bob Chesney at UCLA looks to be in very good condition, looks to be in very good shape. I can see him running that sub 4 minute mile. Or translation, I could see the USC UCLA game having stakes on it at the end of the year. No one is predicting it to have right now. I could see that sort of thing happening. And then lastly, not to take a turn towards negative town here, but we did have several firings in season last year and I just wonder if any of that repeats itself this year. The James Franklin thing. Remember DeShawn Foster got fired at UCLA pretty early. Hugh Freeze gets let go. Mike Gundy, an institution in Stillwater, jobless. Brian Kelly, he's working for CBS now. Sharon Moore, now that was a little bit of a different circumstance. But Billy Napier got fired. Brent Pry got the ex. Mark Stoops got fired. So many guys who had been around for a while got fired. You look at FSU this year, you look at usc, we've already talked about that. Baylor, Dave Aranda went and got DJ Lagway. They open with Auburn in Atlanta because Baylor and Auburn don't have stadiums on campus or being told they do. Why would you play on a neutral side if you have a stadium anyway? South Carolina is there, rumbling there if it starts off poorly. Wisconsin if it starts off poorly. Look, man, half the country already thinks they know where Wisconsin's gonna go once they do get rid of Luke Fickle. So just some things I'm thinking about, just some of the big questions in college football this year. We move on. I have had a lot of fun telling the truth on the show lately. It's one of the new Year's, new season's resolutions around here. Let's just tell the truth. So we try to tell the truth at least once per show about somebody or some team or some program. But I figured we could tell the truth tonight about an entire committee full of people. The truth about the College Football Playoff committee. Now this ought to be fun because I'll give you guys plenty of room to cook down there in the comments. But I got to tell you, you and I are probably in lockstep when it comes to most of our opinions about the playoff committee, especially last year. Last year was a tire fire. However, I don't think I've talked about this a whole lot on the show, and this will be a minority opinion. And I will grant you that most of you will disagree with what I'm about to say. But I actually never have hated the human element, only because it's unique to college football and it's kind of one of those things that makes no sense to anyone else. It's like a language that only we speak. I don't know, just the kind of the nuance and the imbalance, the weirdness that it gives college football. I've never hated it, but I understand why people would hate it. Because it's this thing where you wish that you could enter a season with the path to the playoff clearly defined. And people who feel that way, trust me, I understand the logic behind it. It's just that I've never cared about the playoff nearly as much as most of you. So I've never gotten myself overly worked up about the human element. But I did get myself worked up by those humans last year. So last year I thought was the worst job collectively that the College Football Playoff committee has done on messaging in a long time. And I mentioned messaging for a specific reason, because there have been several times in the last decade plus of this College Football Playoff Committee experiment that I thought procedure is their problem, not the product. There have been years where ironically, I've thought their rankings made sense. They just sucked at explaining them. Now, I got a couple of theories about why that is, but last year I think those folks believed it was just going to work itself out, and it didn't work itself out and it made them look foolish. And I believe it was Hunter Jureczyk, Jesse, that was the chair last year. Hunter Jureczyk's going on TV every Tuesday night and in five minutes with Rhys Davis, he's trying to sum up why they feel the way they do. And it was so obvious. And I've long had this theory. My theory has always been computers do 95% of the job for the committee because no one in their right mind is claiming that they can watch all the games that they're supposed to be watching. And so I've always thought they loosely stuck with the BCS formula and that thing gets spat out in front of them and they may make one or two little tweaks. But largely, I've always thought the work was already done for the committee before the sun ever rises on Tuesday. And a lot of the supporting evidence of that is how poorly, poorly a job they do at explaining their own rankings. If you were really like knee deep sleeves rolled up in those rankings, you'd be intimately familiar with the logic. And instead it's like Hunter Jurczyk saw those rankings five minutes before the rest of the world did. And they're trying to explain like, why did you drop Miami all the way down to 18 and Notre Dame's at 10. And of course we know how the season played out now. Miami starts at 18, Notre Dame starts at 10. Even though Miami's already beaten Notre Dame, neither one of them lost a game the rest of the year. They both play comparable schedules. Miami ends up in the playoff and Notre Dame doesn't. The only way you make that make sense is they thought it was going to work itself out and it didn't. And the explanations that they gave at the beginning of the process start to change and start to metamorphosize. And then we have to talk about something called comparative pools. And then we find out how the sausage is made or allegedly gets made. And really what happened is Miami wasn't supposed to be done losing, but Miami was done losing. And Miami turned their season around, played their best football. And then the committee had to try and soften the blow as they explained to you why what was about to happen was going to happen. And it looked really, really bad. And again, the irony of all ironies like an Alanis Morissette level. Irony for me is I thought they got the right teams in. I know some people thought Bama didn't belong in. Like, we all spoke our piece on that. I thought they got the right teams in, and yet their procedure sucked. It was horrible. So I do get why the powers that be feel the need to maintain this thing. A lot of you hate it, and I get why you hate it, and I hated the procedure of it all last year. But what they're thinking is, all right. The unspoken truth that we all understand about college football is this is not the NFL. So all conferences, like all divisions, they're not even roughly remotely equal. So we can't just write down on paper in the preseason. We know if you win this conference, you're going to go. And we know if you win that conference, you're going to go. And we know that in the preseason, it's like the NFL in Major League Baseball. It's like pro sports. You just shake the season and then let the tumblers fall into place. They look at college athletics and they say, this thing's a little bit unique, so we may need to keep a hand on the wheel. And also, you have very, very vested interest from certain powerful conferences that don't ever want to relinquish control. And you can think about that, what you do. I've certainly got my thoughts about it, but I don't know, regardless of where they go with this format, that we're ever going to lose this part of it. Because losing this part of it, defining the criteria that it takes to make the playoff and etching that in stone, I just don't think that's something that the SEC or the Big Ten are interested in unless it greatly behooves them. And I'm not sure that they're going to get sign off from everyone else, even though technically they control the process now. So the truth about the committee is if they could just fix their procedure, that would solve a lot of the issue. And I. Look, I got to be honest with you. I've talked to those folks about this. I talked to them about it after last year. I mean, they wanted honest feedback. I gave them honest feedback. I said, you guys got to change the way that you articulate your thinking. Like that Tuesday night show, if you're not going to scrap it and they're not going to. That message has got to be delivered either by a different person or it's got to be delivered differently, because that's really your Achilles heel, right? Now it's not so much your rankings and rankings are going to be debated no matter what. There is no perfect set of rankings because perfection would mean everyone agreeing with it, which is impossible. So don't chase that, but just chase putting out your rankings and then having logic based reasoning behind it. That way, even if I disagree with it, at least I know why. Right now we don't even know why. And it drove people up a wall last year, me included. FanDuel is the exclusive odds provider of the show, as we all know. The World cup is going on right now, as we also all know. And I have got. I wouldn't even call this good news, Jesse. I say this is phenomenal news for new customers right now at FanDuel. I mean, if you've got a spare dollar and you bet it on Team USA to make the round of 16, which just means they got to win this week, right? That's it. Bosnia and whatever else it is. I mean, they got to win this week. You bet $1 on them, they win this week, you get $250 and oh, I get what they did with that. I get the 250. I understand.
- [79:46]
Julian Edelman
Okay.
- [79:46]
Josh Pate
FanDuel. Okay. Very smart. Very. I was not even looped in that. That's Fanduel Mike all on his own. That is. That is Fanduel Mike's brain at work there. Anyway, you bet $1 on your own country and they win this week, you get $250 in bonus bets in your account. And if they lose, it's their fault. It's not our fault. FanDuel.com Josh Pate by the way, it just helps for us to get credit for it if you go and sign up that way.
- [80:18]
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- [81:02]
Josh Pate
We end the show tonight with Bold predictions as we do every show, bold predictions. And this is one of the boldest batches that we've had in a long time. Every prediction tonight rates 9.5 or higher, which means all four of these will qualify for chalice of supremacy if any one of them hit first up. Interesting. Ringgold, Georgia. There's a quick trip in Ringgold. No Big Ten teams make it to the semifinals.
- [81:29]
Julian Edelman
What a thud.
- [81:30]
Josh Pate
After that three year run. What a thud. So the last two seasons the Big Ten has had four of eight in the semifinals. Three of the top four teams in the odds to make the semifinals this year are Big Ten teams, which by the way, you could bet right now you got a fanduel and bet teams to make the semifinals. It's really an incredible selection of markets they have over there. The Big Ten championship is almost certainly going to have a buy in the playoffs. So that means like that Big Ten champs just got to win one game to make the semis. They'll probably maybe have a second team with a buy. Which means like last year, you got two teams that only need to win one game to make the semis. I just don't find this realistic. So I'm going to make it a 9.5. But that qualifies as a chalice if this does happen. And the good question there, you can keep that up, Prez. The good question there, if there's no Big Ten team in the semis, what does the semi look like? You may think, oh man, the SEC must have, they must have dominated. Dude, what if, what if a G6 team made a run? What if I haven't been influenced by any guests that we may have in the control room in the there whatsoever. Probably check Twitter later for a photo that disputes that. But yeah, probably a Notre Dame. Probably a Miami. Like I would guess a Big Ten less semisa. That's also a bridge too far. Next up, this is from Tuscaloosa. So Bama and Georgia will play each other three times. Regular season conference title game, playoff. Well, that gets a 9.75 from me. We've yet to see this happen in the playoff era. That is the number two and number five teams in the SEC preseason odds. That has been the conference championship matchup three of the last five years. But understand this, they play in the regular season so they're going to play once. Even if we do get that second matchup, and we did get it last year, they played twice last year, you've still got to get both of them in the playoff. Which if they're in. If they're in Atlanta stands to reason they got a good shot at being in the playoff. But then you got to have the brackets line up and if they're not playing each other in the first round, you got to have them line up to where they would play each other before getting eliminated. And it's just everything has to break right more so than anything. So making it to Atlanta, both of them, that's step one and then step two is beyond their control. And that is making sure the brackets line up right. So that's a 9.75 for me. Thirdly, we always love the geographical or the geography related bold predictions More college football from Wall, New Jersey. Not a single team from Texas makes the playoff. That's a 9.5 because that means we got Texas seventh best odds to make the playoff, right? Or is that are those odds to win the title, Jesse or odds to make the playoff? May have make the playoff. Okay, so Texas and Texas Tech are tied with the seventh best odds to make the playoff. A and M just behind them. Ninth best odds to make the playoff, SMU's 20th, Houston's 33rd. I'm going to come back to UTSA because there's a little caveat there I got to mention with them. TCU's 38th, so North Texas is in there, Rice is in there. Utsa has the 34th best odds to make the playoff, but Those are the second best odds out of the G6. So you got to understand you're talking about some like premier teams like Texas, Texas Tech, those are the favorites in their respective conferences. You're asking them to miss the thing entirely. And then you're also asking for A and M not to be the beneficiary of that. And you're asking for SMU not to make any noise in the accident. And you're asking for Texas Tech to fall off, but Houston wasn't the reason they fell off or TCU or Baylor. So there's a lot that has to go right there. And then even if all that happens, what if UTSA screws you because they're the G6 rep? Because you've got to have at least one and so I find this one very difficult to fathom. Jesse, you wanted to go what, 9.75 or you wanted to go 9.25? I think it's bowler. I think it's a 9 5.
- [85:55]
Tab Ramos
That's.
- [85:55]
Josh Pate
That's a good one. I like that one. And lastly. Oh, this is controversial. Chuck from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Who Mr. Carr up there who you're not hearing talked about a lot in quarterback conversations, but Tommy Carr replaces Bryce Underwood halfway through Michigan season. Sqb1 now we took a liberty with this and we're going to assume this is not because of injury. This is just Bryce Underwood's not good enough and Carr you're in. Underwood you're out. Just a straight benching, that's a 9.5 for me. Here's the reason. It's not because we haven't had some misses in the past five or so years when it comes to five star quarterbacks. We've seen several five star quarterbacks either just bust entirely or they play. But they never quite reach the level that their recruiting ranking would have led you to believe they'll reach. We've seen that happen. Bryce Underwood this year. Think about the approach for Michigan, okay? The approach is not an air raid approach to begin with. They're not asking him to sling it all over the field 50 times a game. You got to think it's going to be a run heavy approach anyway. And so even if he's imperfect, like even if his play has only marginally improved and I know there's been a lot of speculation and negative talk coming out of spring, I'm going to guess he improves somewhat. Okay? But even if he only marginally improves, his mobility fits what I think would be their run heavy approach this year way more than the alternative. So like even if he's not showing these quantum leaps of improvement, he's got to be horrible for them to bench him. And that's a new staff, by the way, coming in. And we've seen this recently. You remember at Alabama when DeBoer came in and Milroe was a little bit up and down in year one and as it turns out he had Ty Simpson on his bench but he never made the move because there is such a different dynamic in a year. One coach coming in and making that move because you never know, like how attached is that locker room to that QB one? What does a new coach do to that locker room if he makes a move on QB1? For those reasons I make it a 9.5. We appreciate you guys watching. It is man, it's about to be July. We got one more show before we take our several weeks break and that show will be Tuesday night and when we come back camps will basically be open. What a wonderful time of year. I just ask if you've got a wedding, make sure you get it out of the way. If you've got loved ones to see if you've got affairs to tend to. This is the time of year God has given you. Get it out of the way now because there will be no loose ends. We don't leave loose ends around here. Once the season starts, we're in it and we're all in this together. Appreciate you guys for Prez once again manning the wheel in there as Bradley is missing. He's on the back of milk cartons in the kitchen right now. We appreciate that. Producer Jesse Got Mitch come up with a title for yourself. Have it to me by Tuesday. I'm Josh Pate. Thanks so much. Take care. We'll see you Tuesday night. Until then, God bless.
- [89:27]
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