← Josh Pate's College Football Show
Loading summary
Transcript39 lines
- [00:00]
Josh Pate
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:02]
Podcast Sponsor Announcer
Guaranteed human Amazon presents Laura versus fruit
- [00:08]
Bradley
flies swarming your fruit and terrorizing your
- [00:12]
Podcast Sponsor Announcer
kitchen, these little freaks multiply at a rate that would make a rabbit say yo Chill. But Laura shopped on Amazon and saved on cleaning spray, countertop wipes and fly traps. Hey fruit flies, your baby boom ends here. Save the everyday with Amazon.
- [00:34]
Bradley
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 CarMax?
- [01:07]
Josh Pate
If you've been sitting on a business idea for a while, consider this your sign to do something with it. You can even make it official today by creating a website with WIX Harmony. Just tell WIX Harmony what you want and it'll create the whole website for you, business features included. But don't worry, you can still change anything by hand. It's your website, your call. Try it@wix.com Harmony that's wix.com Harmony support
- [01:37]
Podcast Sponsor Announcer
for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue
- [01:57]
Bradley
over 20% year over year.
- [01:59]
Podcast Sponsor Announcer
You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures.
- [02:52]
Bradley
Not a show for the faint of heart tonight. It's usually Happy show, Jesse. Smiles all over the place. We can smile. You can be a happy person. I'm a happy person. I'm happy with my life. I'm happy with the way things are going in my life, to quote Bill Paxton from Twister. But then it went downhill. And tonight's show, at least the vibe of it may go downhill a little bit for the greater good. We're jam packed. We're high atop a glowing downtown Nashville, Tennessee. A little bit cool on this Thursday, May 7, the year of our Lord 2026. The College Football playoff expansion stuff. I've. I've kind of had enough of it. Sometimes we're sarcastic about this stuff on the show. Tonight won't be a sarcastic show. Tonight won't be, you know, a very, very upbeat show, at least the first 30 minutes of it. Because it's really time to tell the truth. You want the truth teller series? Let's tell the truth about the college football playoff tonight. We do have bold predictions on the show. I've got. I mean, we're kind of burying the lead if you want me to be honest. I've got a lot to tell you about our trip to Clemson. We got the white whale, Jesse. We didn't harpoon him. We just. We just pulled up alongside dabo. That's all we had to do. It was a big week for the show. There's a smile. It was a big week for us. All right, smile's gone. Let's lock in. They're watching us in Knoxville, Tennessee. They're watching us in Dublin, Ohio. Abbotsford, British Columbia. First time check in there. Greenville, South Carolina. Thank you guys so much. Make sure you are subscribed to the channel. If you have not already done so, if you think you have done so, check and make sure. We sat down with Kirby this week and I will play some sound momentarily from one Kirby Smart. We sat down with dabo this week. We got two more big visits coming up next week. You know what? We'll let next week live in next week. We got too much to get to tonight. All right, man. The college football playoff expansion stuff, I've had about enough of. I felt a lot of anger over the past few days. There's really no easing into this. A lot of times when there's a big topic of conversation out there in the college football world, you know, if you fancy yourself one of the voices of the space, sometimes you intellectually want to kind of make it look like you're above the fray. I'm not above this fray. So maybe I'm not one of the voices of the sport, but I'm telling you, I will dive into this tonight. I'm so sick of it. So the, the afca, the American Football Coaches association, released their recommendations over the past week. And, man, this stirred up a hornet's nest, and it should. I'm one of the Hornets. I've been stirred up. A lot of people are very angry about this. I'm one of them. I'm very angry about it. So their suggestions, a couple of which I don't really care about, one of them I really do care about is expand the College Football Playoff as big as you can, really, to make it work alongside the calendar they want. Now, the calendar proposals I'm fine with, but I'm not here tonight to talk to you about the calendar. We talk about the calendar all the time. I am here to talk to you about essentially this group of coaches and a lot of administrators, many conference commissioners, et cetera, pushing for a 2014 playoff. It wasn't explicitly stated by the AFCA, but Ross Dellinger, among many others, has done good reporting on this. They're pushing for 24 teams. Not all of them, the vast majority of them are pushing for 24 teams. There is growing support for 24. Now, I wrote on this piece of paper, there's growing support for 24, but I put an asterisk and then I highlighted it. And I did that because the growth in Support for the 2014 playoff is not amongst you. It's not me that. No one's asked. The players that piss on the players. Who cares about the players? No, it's not players or fans. These people have long since stopped caring about what players or fans want. Who cares about them? No, no. In fact, this is one of the most unpopular proposals that I could ever remember of any magnitude in the history of college football. No, it's wildly unpopular amongst the consumer base. It's growing in support from the very, very small group of people whose pockets may be a little fattened by this. But you know what? We're going to go down the road together tonight. Everybody asks all the time about different aspects of playoff expansion and why do you feel this way and why do you feel that way? Well, I don't know how long this is going to go, but for the next several minutes, I'm going to lay it all out for you and what I want to do. My goal in this show, my goal in this segment, is to stay on the main road. You have probably noticed a whole lot of debate going on about playoff expansion. You've noticed a bunch of takes floating around about what people think about 16 teams, about 24 teams. I've done the same thing. And you've probably, if you've paid any attention, watched several playoff debates devolve into nonsense. And the reason that happens is because people don't stay on the main road. Now, sometimes debates are very, very nuanced and it's not very clear what the main point is. The main point for those of us who are against a 2014 playoff is pretty clear here. It kneecaps the regular season. It's a bailout mechanism for inept leadership. It is wildly unpopular. I mean, to like a 90, 10 degree wildly unpopular with college football fans. That's it, guys. You don't have to go down all the other roads. In fact, it in a way sort of devalues the logic of your arguments when you get sucked into this stuff. Just stay on the main road. So that's what I'm going to try and do tonight. But I'm going to acknowledge a lot of the bad faith arguments. Many of them have been thrown my way by the RG3s of the world over the last 24 hours. So I'm going to address all this because we don't have a hard out tonight. We got all the time in the world. So let's just lower all of the dumbest pinatas in the College Football Playoff debate from the ceiling. We'll take our baseball bats and we'll swing at them one by one, but no blindfolds. So we're just going to. We're just going to knock them down and eat whatever falls on the floor. Bad faith argument number one. We shouldn't expand to 24 because the 20th best team in the country is never going to win the title anyway. I urge you to avoid this. Please avoid this. And you may think, well, this sounds weird, Josh, that's someone making your argument. Well, no, no, no, no. We're both making the same argument that we don't want the playoff to expand to 24. But we're using different logic, your logic. And this is only a suggestion from me. You're free to form your own opinion. I don't think your logic should ever be based on which teams can and can't win the playoff if they make it in. Because here's what could happen. You could sit there and say, oh, you shouldn't expand to 24 because the team ranked 21st or 22nd could never win the playoff anyway. Hey, you're probably right about that. There's a. A big chance you're right about that. But what if the number 21 team in the country did go on to win the national title? Any given year? Texas would have been What, Jesse, like 17th or 18th last year? Something like that? Theoretically. What if we had a 2014 playoff last year and Texas made it in and made a run? Texas was absolutely capable of doing that. What if they would have made a run and won it all? Would that negate your argument? If it does, it just means you're using the wrong logic. It doesn't mean Texas at number 18 proved that it was right to have a 2014 playoff all along. What someone is capable of in the playoff if they get in has never been the point. The point is how hard should it be to get in the playoff? The regular season in this sport is the most valuable commodity we have. The regular season in college football should make you feel something, especially if you've already got one or especially two losses on your resume. You should feel like you're walking a tightrope 100 floors above the ground. And if you fall off of it, you die. That's what's supposed to happen. You shouldn't have a safety net under you. Or put another way, you could be the smartest kid in school, but if you don't apply yourself, what are we supposed to do? Are we supposed to just give you an A anyway? Or if you suck in the spelling bee, but you got a really high iq? Am I just supposed to make the tournament big enough where you keep advancing? Like in the real world, highly capable people fail every day because they don't handle their business. And similarly, in college football, for your regular season to mean what it should mean, then any given year, you should have very highly capable teams who don't handle their business when they're supposed to lose out on a shot to play for a national championship? It's not a birthright. Because I got news for you. If you want to use that logic, why should we even stop at 24? So that's the first point I want to make. I know a lot of you out. I've heard this one. That's why I'm leading off with it. I've heard a lot of you say this. You're against playoff expansion like I am. But the first go to the first bullet in your chamber is I'm against playoff expansion because I mean, number 22 is never going to win at all anyway. How about this? How about Even if number 22 is capable of winning it all. They should never have a shot to compete for it. I talked to Kirby about this the other day. We're going to play a sot later. SOT means sound on tape. Sound bite. We're going to play it later. Because I cannot stand when people use that logic. Because that logic could theoretically have its legs cut out from under it. Don't set yourself up for failure, Miami. Miami almost won title last year, but Miami barely made the playoff. And you know what my reaction would have been? Had Miami not made the playoff, My reaction wouldn't have been, man, we got to make this tournament bigger. That team that theoretically could have made a run didn't even get a shot. Yes, they did get a shot. It was called the Louisville game. It was called the SMU game. In college football, the playoff starts in the first week of September. It starts Labor Day weekend. It's called the regular season. Up until five minutes ago, it was a really beautiful concept that everyone bought into and then people got hoodwinked. Okay, next bad faith logic point. It creates more meaningful games. We got to expand the playoff because it creates more meaningful games. Well, first off, college football games had meaning for many of us long before the letters CFP ever meant anything. So I dismiss it on its premise. I dismiss the idea that you got to have playoff implications on a college football game for it to mean something on its premise. But for the sake of argument, let's let that logic in the door. Let's open the door, let's let it walk in and let's let some fool walk up to us and say, well, we've got to expand the playoff because that makes more games have more meaning. Which games are you talking about? Which games do you just mean? The bigger the bubble of the playoff, the more games gather meaning at no cost to any other games that already had meaning. Because that's not the real world. That's not the way it actually works. See, here's the way it actually works. The way it actually works is Ohio State and Michigan face each other each with one loss in rivalry week. And in the old way of doing things, and even in the 12 team era, in some cases, they gotta win. Number one, they gotta win. Cause it's a rivalry game and that should be enough. But even if you want to bring the playoff into consideration, they gotta win or they could be cooked. We experienced this several times with the Iron Bowl. Texas and Texas A and M could face this. In fact, they did just a season ago, like it was a loser leaves town type environment. And that meant it was the tightrope walk 100 stories above the ground. Here's what you're actually doing. You're not creating more meaningful games. You're just taking meaning off of certain games and putting it on other games. Ohio State and Michigan, each facing each other at 10 and 1 and not only know they're in the 2014 playoff, they're in with a buy. Jesse, according to some of the formats I've seen, and we've taken meaning off of a game that features teams actually capable of going on to win the whole thing. And we've manufactured meaning on, like 8 and 3 Nebraska versus 8 and 3 Iowa. You know, to lock down the 22 seed. A game featuring teams that everyone knows aren't capable of going on to win the whole thing. You didn't create meaning on anything. You actually stripped meaning from games featuring teams good enough to win at all. So they just get to operate with a safety net. Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Oregon, they just get to live with a giant safety net under them. Or put another way, they enter the season knowing they're going to make the playoff. In what world would Oregon enter this season unable to finish in the top 24? In what world would Texas ever do that? So they enter the season knowing they're going to make the playoff. Meanwhile, we got Iowa State up there, and they're going to. They're going to possibly lock down the 22 seed. But don't worry, that game had meaning at the end of the year. It's stupidity. But they just count on you falling for it. And unfortunately, many do. Let's move on to fallacy number three. I got a lot of them. Guys, settle in. We're going to address it all tonight. The access myth. We've got to shoot this down now. This one's not normal. You don't hear fans talk about this one. You hear coaches and administrators talk about this one. I counted on coaches being our friends in this fight, but apparently many of them are not. Here's what the access myth sounds like. Quote, even if we go to 24 teams, that only means 17% of the sport is making the playoff. The NFL sees over 40% of their teams make the playoff. Even if we expand to 24, that's still a fraction of how many teams make it in pro sports. Firstly, just address this one. On the surface, I have never cared how college football compares to pro sports. However, again, in the interest of meeting people in the middle here, I'll entertain that argument. Let's say that I was interested in College football's postseason more closely resembling that of the NFL or the NBA. Cause if there's one thing I wanted to see before I die, Jesse, it's college football look more like the NBA. I've always said that. So here's what this counts on. This counts on you being stupid enough to think Akron is competing for the national championship in the sport. This counts on you believing Wyoming is really competing for the same national title that LSU is. Nobody in their right mind actually thinks it, but people throw those numbers out there, counting on you to fall for it anyway. Akron, Miami of Ohio, Anyone in the Mac, pretty much anyone at the G5 level. If you really want the harsh reality, they're not competing for the national title in this sport. Dude, half of power four is not. You know that. I know that. If I were to go ultra conservative for the sake of argument here, what do we have, like 50 teams? Maybe if we really wanted to make the circle wide. 60 teams competing for the national championship. I mean, programs that have the minimum baseline resource pool to compete for a national championship, teams that. Programs that have a non zero percent chance, what are we talking about? We're talking about 50 of them, maybe, Jesse. Now in reality, we know the circle is a lot smaller than that, but let's say the circle is 50 teams deep. Half of those teams are making the playoff. In reality, you expand to 24. The percentage of teams that are viable championship contenders. If everything goes right for them, you've got a bigger percentage making it than make it in the NFL or the NBA or whatnot. They just count on you not to think. Think. So many of these arguments are bad faith arguments because they depend on you being stupid or at least assuming the role of someone who's stupid. Next up, a lot of people have asked, am I surprised that coaches want this? Of course not. It shouldn't be in their power to decide. And it's not to be very clear. These are just recommendations the AFCA made. That's no different than me asking for the temperature to be turned down in the studio. Doesn't guarantee the temperature is going to be turned down. But I'm requesting that it be turned down. Well, they're requesting this now. The coaches voices matter. Absolutely. Collectively, the coaches voices matter. Am I surprised that people whose livelihood depends on them making the playoff want a bigger playoff? Of course I'm not. Of course not. That's why we've said for months, years, I don't know. That coaches are not. All due respect, the source that I'm going to go to for this. It's not the collective opinion that I'm going to respect or even give a lot of attention to because their motivations are different than mine. My motivation is creating a postseason structure that's in the best interest of the sport overall. Their motivation is creating a postseason structure that gives them a better shot to make it. Therefore, the bigger the better. So, no, it's been expected. I went to Athens, Georgia, four days ago, sat down with Kirby Smart. Actually talked to him for like 2 hours, 40 some odd minutes of it, I think were on camera. And we talked about this. Now, Kirby's been a really good friend of the program. And Kirby, he's a dude who will shoot straight with you and totally comfortable kind of debating him on stuff because we do it off camera. So I decided let's do it on camera. So we were talking about the playoff because Kirby in recent weeks has been outspoken about wanting to expand the playoff. And I, of course, hate it. So it's one thing for me to sit here and talk about it, but we can sit down with him whenever we want to. So why not go to Athens and talk about it? So here is some of the exchange. If you missed our speaker series, sit down with Kirby. It's available on the channel in totality. But here's the part where we sat down and talked with him about the playoff. And I'll have a lot more to say about this on the other side. What do I have to do to talk you off of that? Basically, is what I want to know. What's your. What's your.
- [21:22]
Kirby Smart
I'm not. I'm not Pro 16 or 24. I'm Pro more than 12. But what. What is your stance against the 24? Well, watering it down.
- [21:31]
Bradley
It is it. Basically, I don't think we're so far down that road. Is my. Is my whole point that you have to just forever expand the thing because essentially you are ignoring value and scarcity. I still think there's some value and some scarcity.
- [21:45]
Kirby Smart
I agree with all those. I just don't know where that line of demarcation is for Miami, who legitimately, now, I won't say should have won but could have won the national championship. They could have won it. They had two losses to teams that are really competitive. I mean, they're competitive to them and their conference, but maybe they're better than. They shouldn't lose those games. They had two games they shouldn't lose. And I feel like for 10 years I've been here, if you lost two games you shouldn't lose. You're gone, you're out. But they were good enough to win it.
- [22:09]
Bradley
Yeah. I just always looked at it like some people's philosophy is we should have the bubble big enough where any team that's capable of winning it, if they get in, is in. I've always looked at it and said, I don't really view it that way. If you're good enough to win it and you earned your way in the bubble, then I'm fine with it. Otherwise, you're just reinforcing my point that, man, they lost some regular season games they shouldn't have lost. That's why there was maximum emergency on that. But see, the difference with me is I don't view the playoff as the nucleus of the sport. I'm a regular season guy, and whatever the playoff is is more the cherry on top for me. Yeah. So am I surprised that coaches want to expand the thing? Because in many cases, access to the playoff, participation in the playoff is incentivized with, you know, escalators in their contract and whatnot. Of course I'm not surprised by that. What I'm really disappointed in is that a group of people, I mean, head coaches have been the first people to demonize participation. Trophy culture, Jesse. How many times have we heard that? How many times have we seen a head coach wag his finger at a press conference or a camera and say, everyone can't get a trophy? Boy, this precipitation, trophy culture, boy, that's killing us, man. It's killing competition. It's killing the upbringing of kids. They're so entitled. And the first shot they get to build one of those for themselves, they advocate for it. Crazy. Kirby should be different, was my point to him. Kirby is not one of these dudes whose programs fluctuate wildly. Kirby's program, Georgia, is the model of consistency. You see, the reason most coaches and most programs are advocating for this is because they can't count on themselves to be consistently in a smaller window every year. And I get that Kirby can because he's put in the work and he's built the program to where they are in the picture every year. Now, here's the thing. I continued with him, and I didn't have to say much. He ended up walking himself into this own conclusion. Jesse. He made the point for me, and I thought I had it. I thought I had him. And then at the very end, at the very end, he let the point go. But still, Kirby makes a great point for Kirby Here. Roll it, Bradley.
- [24:25]
Kirby Smart
I agree with that. And I think in our model, our program, I mean, I want to say this because as you say this and it'll come back to haunt you. But we, we've had a model of consistency. Okay, we lose games, but we haven't lost a lot of games. We're not supposed to, right? And so if you're that kind of program, you want that thing nice and tight. You don't want these outsiders getting in that could get hot. I've always told people, some of these teams, they can play with anybody on any given Saturday, but they might not
- [24:52]
Bradley
get up for every Saturday.
- [24:54]
Kirby Smart
And that to me is like that. Errors on the side of, well, you want it to be 12, you want it to be less than 12, you want to be 4, because you're not letting somebody in that go in there and just win the thing and take off and get hot. But I am a fan of, of, of a little more access.
- [25:12]
Bradley
I thought we had him. I thought we had him, but we let him off the hook anyway. It shouldn't be up to coaches who starts at left tackle should be up to those coaches, okay? How they invest their nil dollars should be up to coaches that shouldn't be up to coaches. Next up, next up. Now this is where our buddy RG3 comes into the picture. We got to do this. Jesse Bradley, Mitch Prez, we got to do this. And I'm going to tell you why we have to expand to 24. Because if we don't expand well, the sport's going to be bankrupt and the non revenue generating sports are going to go bye bye. You've heard this, right? Some of you may have made this point. I know any administrators listening to the show and there are many, they've tried to make this point to me. Now I've had the argument I'm about to articulate here with many athletic directors. So I'm not shying away from this. They know who they are. We have fought verbally about this for a long time. So our buddy RG3 pops up yesterday as I was talking about this, and he starts it with, oh, Josh. He said, oh, Josh. Expansion is being explored not to devalue the regular season. It's being explored because the schools can't afford to pay the student athletes. There's that term again at the rate they are to compete at the highest level and still afford to cover all the sports that don't make money. So it's either claw back what the student athletes are getting paid or expand the playoff to bring in more money. Now if he stopped there. You're just making a bad point. But he didn't. His final sentence was, that's the modern scenario. Trump didn't tell you in your interview. Well, here's the thing. When someone makes a stupid point and then they take a shot at you, they don't really deserve much respect in the reply. So I didn't give him much respect in the reply. What I did do is essentially describe his reply as like a consultant firm or nameless, faceless, administrative, AI bot generated reply. Because that's basically what it was. It was like an amalgamation, if you will, of every talking point, every focus grouped word and phrase that you get from these people all rolled into one and poured out. That is garbage. What he said, what they say is garbage. It's not the truth. It's not an either or scenario. You don't have to expand the playoff or watch everything go up in smoke. What you do have to do is you do have to spend your money in a fiscally responsible manner on the front end. You have to do that every day or they evict you from your apartment or your house. You have to do this every day or the government comes after you. You have to do these sorts of things or you get fired. In theory, it should work no different in college football. But for a long time, college football administrators have operated under the pretty known circumstance that they're not spending their own money, they're spending someone else's money. And here's the added bonus. If they run out of it, they'll just bail themselves out. I know it sounds like I'm talking about another entity, and I kind of am, because the mindsets very, very closely overlap. It's no coincidence that a lot of people from the political world are recruited to come into the college football administrative state because they're essentially playing the same game anyway. So here's the thing. The answer, because he and I continue to go back and forth, the answer is run your organizations in a fiscally responsible manner on the front end. And if you can't get out of the way and let someone else do it, the answer is not continue to screw up and then allow the people who made the original screw up to screw up more to fix their original screw up. Or put another way, we'll just spend our way out of it or we'll revenue our way out of it. That's what we'll do. And the other part about this, for a million reasons, that's stupid. For a million reasons. And if you guys don't understand It. I'll be happy to do a follow up segment on that, but I don't think it really deserves much more time of day. The other thing is it blows my mind how many people cheer wallets in this sport. How many people cheer the revenue that the Big Ten makes or the revenue that the SEC makes. How many people carry water for these people? Because I got news for you. You're not going to go broke. I'm not gonna go broke. We're just watching this stuff on tv. Who's gonna go broke? Who's. Who's gonna suffer? It ain't our problem. It's our sport. It's not our problem. It's just like when the Big Ten or the SEC sign a record media rights deal, which, oh, I don't know, each one of them have done within the past 10 minutes. No money though. No money left. It's kind of like when that happens. Do you see any money from that? Do I see any money from that? No. Actually, in the aggregate, all I see is the price of everything still go up even as they make more and more money. No. You are counted on to believe this so that there's minimal resistance when they just continue the plan forward and forward and forward, you know, with the help of the RG3s of the world. Next up, this one was my favorite, Jesse. This one came in today. This is a late addition to the batch, but I'm so glad that one of you submitted this. One of you actually said, I'm not even going to talk about how big the field should be. I'm not going to talk about conference championship games and whether they should exist or not. I'm not going to talk about the financial stability of the sport if we don't expand. Forget all that. Someone actually came at me today and their pushback when I said we shouldn't expand. The playoff was quote, why are you against a move that would make you more money? Perfect question, perfect question. For the same reason we turn down most companies who ask to advertise on this show. And I'm going to read a sentence very closely because it's one of our foundational pillars and I'd really love for this to be copied and pasted elsewhere. We talk about this all the time internally. I want you to listen to this sentence. It's just a few words long. This show is at its best when it isn't its most profitable. This show, which we have control over, we think is at its best when it doesn't look like a nascar. This show is at its best, when we turn down profit opportunities and revenue stream opportunities could make a ton more money with it. A ton more money. We don't. Because in the interest of creating a product that is at its best, sometimes you got to say no to that sort of thing. And the reality of this, as infantile and as childlike in the wonder of it as it might seem, is college football is actually at its best when it is not its most profitable. People get fired for saying that, I understand, but it doesn't make it any less true. One of the perfect illustrations of this, and no one's innocent in all this stuff, but I'm going to mention a couple of institutions that I've always had respect for. When I walk in the Big House in Michigan, when I walk in Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend and I look around at the relative lack of signage in the building, it becomes very clear to me these people could make a lot more money if they wanted to sell in stadium signage. Advertising basically. But they don't. Why? Because somewhere along the lines they decided that the pristine nature of their game day aesthetic is worth more to them than selling advertising to Coke or to Chevy or whatnot. Nothing wrong with those companies. But there's also nothing wrong in taking such pride in your product that you forego some revenue for the greater good of the product. College football did this for a while wrong. People got their hands on college football and now we got a fight and claw to, you know, make sure we just maintain some semblance of what we grew up watching. Here's another one for you Jesse. This one I haven't seen much, but I've seen it a time or two today. Let's see if any of you have heard this one. Why should we expand to 24? Well, cause it works for the FCS. You got Guy came at me less than an hour ago. It works for the fcs. Why wouldn't we try it for college football? Hey, tell me something there buddy. Tell me more about the FCS regular season. Tell me more about it. Top five FCS regular season games you watched last year. No one watches FCS regular season games for a million reasons. The FCS is not comparable to major FBS college football. But the one I'm talking about is just the pure entertainment product, just the pure television product, just the pure regular season at magnitude therein product FBS major College football versus or FCS versus FBS major College Football. There's no comparison. And none of you actually watch FCS regular season football. And if you do God bless you. But if you do watch FCS regular season football, you know there's no comparison to USC versus Notre Dame. You know this. You know you're making a bad faith argument when you say it, it works for fcs. What do you mean it works for fcs? Do you mean it works as in they're logistically capable of pulling it off every year? Like it works like pulling a light switch? It came on, so it worked? Is that what you mean by that? Or it works as in this is an apples to apples model and anything that would work for the FCS would work for major college football too? Of course, you know that's foolish. I think you know that's foolish. If you don't know that's foolish, I'm not sure that I'm going to dedicate a lot of time to debating you on that particular point. You got to fight this stuff at the beginning. Okay? So people who have watched our show for a long time, people who have listened to the show for a long time, man, I appreciate it because we haven't agreed on this. You know, back when we were in the four team playoff era, I got a ton of pushback on it. I knew that at the time. Now, I was very, very open at the time to saying there are many of you who look at a four team playoff and you think that's not good enough for college football. College football would be at its best with an expanded playoff. And I said back then and I'll still say today, I've got no problem differing in opinion with someone who truly loves college football. If you have college football's best interest at heart. I heard Pollock earlier today. Our Gabe Ikerd early today advocating for a 2014 playoff. Making some dumb points to me, but I know both of them love college football. I got no problem differing in opinion with people like that. Just like back then, I had no problem differing in opinion. If you thought 8 was better than 4, if you thought 12 was better than 4, so be it. To be brutally honest with you, full transparency, the expansion to 12 and watching the product play out. So far I've had some of my biggest concerns alleviated. Like it did not detrimentally impact the regular season as badly as I was a afraid it could. It detrimentally impacted it, but not as badly as I thought it could. 24 is not only across the Rubicon, it's across the Rubicon and down the road and around the block. That is a different galaxy's worth of issues when you expand to 24. But I don't have a problem even now with people who differ in opinion from me on this. But we both love college football. My problem is the people ultimately in charge of pulling the levers could not care less about the stuff we care about. And that's why back in the day, even if you and I differed in opinion, I banged the table so hard on this stuff because I know what happens. I know the nature of a slippery slope. I know when a snowball starts rolling, it doesn't stop. I know that when the frog hops in the pot of cold water and the stove gets turned on, a lot of times the frog's not going to hop out. It just sits there and slowly boils to death. We learned that in Dante's Peak, Jesse Pierce Brosnan taught us that. And the frog's just boiling to death right now. It feels like. It feels like every day that goes further and further down this road. Someone who had once upon a time had their minds blown and had their gaskets blown at the mention of a 2014 playoff comes around to the idea of, I guess it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. No, no, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Is that the barometer by which we make decisions now? Well, since it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, let's just try it out. Or my personal favorite, hey, you're still going to watch anyway. Yeah, I am. This is it for me. This is the sport I love. This is it for me. So yeah, I'll be here. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. I'll be here. Sure will. And I'll probably spend most of my time, you know, telling the youths, hello fellow kids, let me tell you about once upon a time, what the college football regular season used to mean and how we traded off three to four months of playoff esque urgency to have one month of playoff esque urgency and in the aggregate stripped all the meaning and stripped all of the definition of what used to make college football great. Let me tell you about that story. Yeah, I'll be here. But just understand, there are a lot of opinions that frankly, I don't care about on this. Like people who cover pro sports for a living or pro sports minded people, the drive by types, the ones who just kind of drive by college football. But really, I'm not a Texas A and M fan. I'm a Houston Texans fan. I'm not a Wisconsin fan. I'm a Green Bay packers fan. I'll watch every now and then. Don't care. Don't care, don't care. It's not your sport. It's a sport you're free to watch. It's not your sport. If this sounds like gatekeeping, it's cause it is. It's cause it is. Because a lot of us sort of feel ownership because this sports unlike anything else on the planet. If you're a pro sports fan, you kind of watch mlb, NBA, NFL, and there's a lot of overlap between those entities. There's not. I take great pride in the fact that there's not a ton of overlap with college football and anything else that exists out there. That's what's drawn some of us to it for a long time. And if it sounds like it pisses us off because people who really couldn't define what makes college football great if their lives depended on it, are in charge. Or since nobody's in charge in the vacuum, they found themselves in varying degrees of in charge, it's because it does piss us off. So we're not there yet. This is the most wildly unpopular proposal that I ever remember. See that? That's the key difference to me is back when we were in a four team playoff, Jesse, and they said, let's expand it, I would venture to guess 60 plus percent of the public supported it. I didn't, but I knew I was in the minority. 60 plus percent of the public supported expansion at that time. We've run poll after poll. I've seen the athletic run a poll. Everybody like Clay Travis, who by the way, I mean, what a fantastic baton drop by our boy supporting this nonsense. He ran a poll the other day. A bunch of folks have run polls. Every one of them is somewhere between the range of 88% to 92% against. It is very hard to get 90% of people to agree that the sky is one given color. 90% of college football fans against this. And look, the very nature of people who are pushing this thing is that they're not in touch with the college football public. But I don't even know if they understand how unpopular this is. I have never seen an idea in this sport in my lifetime that I can remember more collectively unpopular than this is. And if anyone has a suggestion like present it to me, I don't remember it 38 minutes, Jesse. We were afraid it would go over 20 and it did. Look, we do know we have a 12 team playoff this year. We do know the season will eventually get here. Or translation, football is coming. It is. And the evidence of that is that we've got shirts that say that in the Pate State store right now. And those things move the other day. Now the bad news is allegedly this shirt was Jesse's idea. Allegedly. It's three words. Big deal. Alex designed it anyway. It's not like you picked up a pen. It's not like you pulled up Canva and got to work. We're not designing our shirts in Canva. But we could. We could, theoretically. But look, this right here, this is really what Jesse's priding himself on right now. So if you think Jesse needs a little emotional pick me up, grab yourself a Football is coming shirt. They're available in sleeveless too, and I saw several of our sleeveless options fly off the shelves the other day.
- [42:29]
Josh Pate
These days I hear about AI so often that I tend to tune most of it out. But I gotta say, Wix Harmony actually lives up to the hype. It's an AI website builder that lets you build any type of website with AI, but still gives you the freedom to edit anything yourself so you're not just stuck with whatever AI gives you. And you've got an AI agent named Aria that can help you out. Try it for free@wix.com harmony that's wix.com
- [42:56]
Wasabi Representative
harmony innovation is what gets your business to market and Wasabi is designed to give every business a shot at competition. How Break free from skyrocketing storage costs and unpredictable egress fees from old and top heavy legacy providers. You know the big guys. Wasabi is the world's hottest cloud storage company and the go to provider for professional and collegiate sports teams and leagues around the world. And here's why. Innovation From Wasabi's AI enabled intelligent media storage, Wasabi Air to the industry's only cloud storage service with triple protection against cybercriminals, data deletion and ransomware. The world's top companies trust Wasabi. Remember, Wasabi is up to 80% less than market competition and doesn't charge a cent for businesses to access their own data. Wasabi Another championship story. Check them out for free@wasabi.com Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage Proud partner of Iheart Podcast Network.
- [43:58]
Podcast Sponsor Announcer
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI, it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flows to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures this
- [44:59]
Jacob Goldstein
is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem? When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out Odoo at O D O o dot com. That's O D O O dot com.
- [45:34]
Bradley
All right, let's move on. Much happier terms the rest of the show. Much happier terms. We got him. Ladies and gentlemen, the White Whale. We got him. Dabo Swinney has somehow evaded the Pate State speaker series for four years now. We have tried thus far in vain to get Dabo on the speaker series. And I have been asked several times, who's the one guy, who's the coach that you haven't been able to sit down with? It was always Dabo Swinney. Drum roll. Boom, there he is. We went up to Clemson actually Monday. I'll give you some behind the scenes in a second. I was so happy. I was so happy that we were finally able to do this. And the thing about Dabo is pretty long winded and he was very, very flexible on that day that we were there. And I knew that we were gonna go. We could have gone three hours if we wanted to. Normally I want about 40 minutes. We went an hour, a little over an hour on camera with him, but that was on the day of. And I just want to tell you about the day before. So the day before last Monday, we met with Kirby in the morning. I was down in Athens that morning, flew in there Sunday night After the show. So we're meeting with Kirby that morning. Hung out at Georgia, worked out but we were out of there by what Perez, One or two o', clock, something like that. So it's only an hour and a half drive from Athens to Clemson. So I mean we got to Clemson mid afternoon. We're good man. Take a nap, do whatever. Get some early work done for the show that coming Thursday which would be this show right here. No, no, that's not what ended up happening. So our buddy Ross Taylor over there at Clemson hits us up and says hey man, Dabo's got a speaking engagement tonight. I believe in Rock Hill but he's going to be back by 8:30. You guys just want to come over here and hang out? I've never spoken to Dabbo in person before so I said absolutely. So I want you to picture this. It's nine o' clock at night, Jesse. Only the custodians are in the building and we go over there and spent it had to be four hours. We didn't get out of there until after midnight, like closer to 1am Just hung out with Dabo. Most surreal like fever dream type vibe that you could ever imagine. It's like back in the day if you ever did a lock in, if you were a little kid and you ever did lock ins, like a church lock in. There was a place in Columbus called Hollywood Connection. I mean it was awesome. The lock in and you got the putt putt course. And essentially what I'm saying is this theme park, this entertainment complex was very similar to what Clemson's facilities are like. So we just went around golf simulator, the slide. I've got footage I'm not playing you, so don't ask. Got an entire wiffle ball field outside. You got the basketball court, you got two bowling lanes in that place. And it's just us and it's Dabo and it's acting like a 10 year old for 4 hours. Whomst amongst us would have ever expected it. And also hung out in his office and just talked for a long time. Just talk. Just, just laid it all out. The things I've said in the past, the things he's heard in the past, the reasons for stating it, the logic behind it is awesome. Side note, his office is like a museum. I have seen museums with less paraphernalia than Dabo's office. So anyway we go get like 30 minutes of sleep and we come back over to the facility that morning and I want to say a couple of things. I'm Going to play you some sound right quick from this. There's a whole hour of it on the channel right now. I'd never been to Clemson before. I've been to a game there, the A and M game at like 2018 or 2019, roughly 150 degrees at kickoff. I was there for that. I've never been in their facilities before. I think Clemson has the best facilities I've ever seen. And I've said that about Texas Tech recently because Texas Tech is recently upgraded. Clemson's facilities most readily remind me of Texas A&MS. And what they have in common is infinite amounts of land. Like, if you go down to Miami, they're in Coral Gables, they're in a neighborhood. Like Mario has to do unspeakable things to grab five extra yards of land here. It's just like acres and AC acres and whatever you want, you take. Well, when you win a couple of national championships over Nick Saban, apparently what happens, Jesse, is you get a blank check to build whatever you want. So Clemson pretty much has built whatever they want. I, I was blown away by it. I told Prez we were walking through there Monday night and I said multiple times, I've been to all of them. Now, there is no place out there that you would even think is is loosely up there in the facilities arms race. I know people don't care about facilities as much anymore, but I always enjoy it. Never seen facilities that are on par with Clemson's. I was blown away. I did not expect it. Not a lot of people get access over there. So like, not a lot of people have seen this full place. I know people, I know they get a bad rap for the slide and people think, oh, they just threw money away. There's not functional purpose behind this. The slide is the slide, man. I had my fun on it. I know that. Well, I had my experience on it. But the rest of the place does not really, does not really mirror that one piece of facility that you've seen. Anyway, as for the interaction with dabo, my stance on this show has been pretty consistent on him for a few years now. And my stance has been very conflicted. Okay, so there's the part of me that really, really wishes he would bend or adapt with the times. In other words, there's a part of me that thinks you can maintain all your values and principles, you can value your culture but still use the transfer portal more. Okay. However, after I put a period on that sentence, my follow up has always been but. But I have supreme appreciation and respect for someone who defines their value system, defines their principles and sticks to them. Whether I agree with them or not, all the time, they value they principle and they stick to it. Times are good, times are bad, they stick to it. Okay, but I've never gotten the chance to talk to him about it, but now we got the chance to talk to him about it. So I'm going to have Bradley play you a couple of minutes of what was a marathon, sit down with dabo. Here's a little bit of what that sounded like. There's a lot of noise always, even from your own fan base sometimes about what they wish you do differently or I wish you change this, I wish you changed that. And one thing, I think I've said it a million times on our show is independent of my position on it, the one thing I know about that guy is principles and values defined. They are not going to bend. Does not matter if it's 99 people out of 100 in the room that want him to bend. He's the 100. He's not going to bend them.
- [52:44]
Dabo Swinney
This has come up many times over the years. Like I've just never been willing to compromise what's best for the long term health of our organization and our program or for the 30 year old version of this kid, for what's best in the moment. I've just never been willing to do that. And I've always told our staff, you guys want to stay employed long term or y' all want to be short term. And let me tell you, I've been, I've had a front row seat going on 18 years. I've seen a lot of people that were really hot in a moment and you can't find them two years later. I got a, I got a long list of those people and I've never really wanted to be that. I want to be consistent. I don't know how to be anybody but me. And I have, I don't. I have conviction in what I believe and I have conviction in what I think is best for the 30 year old version of these players. And that's what matters most to me. I want to win as much as anybody, but what motivates me and drives me is how we win. Because when it's all said and done, it's you and you. And you better be able to, you know, have peace with you and you. I've had 430 seniors and 424 graduates. We lead the nation in graduation. And I know that that's not a man, that's like Uncool to talk about the value of an education now, but not to me, not to me. And that's never going to change for me that my. We have a responsibility as coaches to serve these players hearts. Yes, there's a transaction and there's all this stuff that, that's all fine, but these are young people, these are young people who need to be equipped as men that are eventually going to be 28 year olds, 29 year olds, 30 year olds and eventually they're going to look back and they're going to think differently at 30 like we all do, and they're going to look back on the people that were in their life in the process and they're going to go, man, where were the adults? Where were the people that told me the truth? And at the end of the day, man, I want to be a guy in all my players life that they could say, man, he was genuine, he was authentic, he was tough on me, but he loved me and he cared.
- [54:47]
Bradley
So when I was sitting there listening to him say that, like I said, it affirmed what I already personally thought about Dabo, about Clemson. But I was also thinking that framed against the backdrop of everything going on in the sport right now, and I couldn't help but say to myself, people are not going to appreciate that guy until he's gone, until he's retired, whenever that is, until, until he's no longer the head coach at Clemson. Only then will people probably look back and say, you know, in an era where A, B, C, D and E were largely void from the landscape, that guy embodied a whole lot of A, B, C, D and E. And man, I hated on him, I shouldn't have done that. So it's this tightrope that I have to walk with Dabo. It's always been this case, it always will probably be this case. And that I don't always sign off on every single decision he makes. But it really doesn't matter because I'm not the head coach at Clemson. There's probably a pretty good chance I say some stuff on this show he disagrees with. I know there is. He confirmed it. So it was great. Great. I wish we could have recorded Monday night, but we probably would have run out of tape. But that notwithstanding, think about it beyond the frame of Clemson or just beyond the frame of even Dabo. Just like think about what it is you love. And you may feel differently than I do, but I know our audience pretty well, I know college football fans in general pretty well. And a lot of the things that Most of us appreciate he's talking about right there. Like, most of the stuff that you used to take for granted, and even if it didn't really exist, you know, we at least had the illusion that it existed. He still believes in. And it's very, very obvious that there's not as much of that out there. It's very obvious that, you know, in pro wrestling, Jesse, they call it hot shotting. A territory back in the day where you'd come in and you would, you know, book the thing in such a way that you just blew it out and you'd throw everything you could at the crowd. And, man, you'd sell it out for a few weeks and you'd give them all the best matches and all the best angles and. But then what happens? It kills the town because you can't keep delivering at that level. And similarly, in college football, I think about ed Orgeron in 2019, and I think about that's maybe the best team we've seen. But I think about the hot shotting tactics that were incorporated that led to him being fired a couple of years later. And I've never seen Dabo do that. And I got a lot of appreciation for that is all I'm saying. And this really has little to do with the trip I took there because I thought this before that it just kind of reinforced a lot of what I thought. So I'm, I didn't leave there any more conflicted than I always am. In fact, I, I thought it was one of those trips that perfectly affirmed every belief I already had. But, man, I couldn't have any more respect for just, just a coach's worldview than I do with Dabo swinning. So I hope it won't be our last trip. In fact, I'm pretty sure it won't be. I was a little discouraged, Jesse, that he walked in, Savannah State was with us, and, you know, his first order of business before he even sat down was to text her. Didn't even airdrop it. Just flat out texted her some really compromising video of me from the night before. No, no, no. I don't even care. I read your lips. No, that's not happening. She's watching right now. No, that's not happening. She called RG3 a beta. That's how I know she's watching. So I, I, I don't. I didn't like that. Did not like that. But all in all, I did enjoy the trip. Okay, we're gonna save that for Sunday because this show is, is. It's going the way of a Dabos 20 interview very, very quickly. It's really getting away from us. All right, let's go. Bold prediction. I got bold predictions in my hand actually. Bradley, take it down for a second so I can give you a proper intro. And if you're watching live, just ignore all the production. Just ignore all the sausage immunity. No, we don't want you to see the sausage even as we make the sausage. Here we go. Bold prediction season continues. Or put another way, do you believe something so bold that I'd put a 9.5 or higher on the boldness scale on it, only to see it hit this season, therefore earning you a chalice of supremacy? If you can pull that off, I welcome you to attempt it. Here we go. First up tonight, Tyler from Wildwood, Missouri. Ole Miss beats LSU in week three, but they missed the College Football Playoff.
- [59:35]
Wix Harmony Advertiser
I admit it, I'm a control freak. Luckily the folks at WIX get it. That's why they created WIX Harmony. It's an AI website builder for people just like me. It lets you create any type of website super fast, but stay in control of every detail. You can even choose whether to use AI or click and edit things yourself until your website actually feels like you. Try it for free@wix.com harmony that's wix.com harmony
- [60:06]
Wasabi Representative
innovation is what gets your business to market and Wasabi is designed to give every business a shot at competition. How Break free from skyrocketing storage costs and unpredictable egress fees from old and top heavy legacy providers. You know the big guys. Wasabi is the world's hottest cloud storage company and the go to provider for professional and collegiate sports teams and leagues around the world. And here's why. Innovation from Wasabi's AI enabled intelligent media storage, Wasabi Air to the industry's only cloud storage service with triple protection against cyber criminals, data deletion and ransomware. The world's top companies trust Wasabi. Remember, Wasabi is up to 80% less than market competition and doesn't charge a cent for businesses to access their own data. Wasabi Another championship story. Check them out for free@wasabi.com Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage Proud partner of Iheart Podcast Network.
- [61:07]
Podcast Sponsor Announcer
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI. It all starts with your prompt from renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers, growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures this
- [62:08]
Jacob Goldstein
is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem? Business software is expensive and when you buy software from lots of different companies, it's not only expensive, it gets confusing. Slow to use, hard to integrate. Odoo solves that because all Odoo software is connected on a single affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you need. Odoo has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odoo has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have, all at no additional charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting. All linked and talking to each other. Check out Odoo at O D O o dot com. That's O D O o dot com
- [62:52]
Bradley
Tyler it's fairly bold, but I'm only giving it an 8.75 because of ole Miss schedule. It's not out of the realm of possibility at all that they beat lsu. That should be an extremely competitive game. That's week three. That's super bowl mode for Pete Golding and company, who I think are very underrated. I mean, Trinidad Shambliss is starting for him, right? Jesse yeah, he is. So they're very underrated. So yeah, man, they could, they could absolutely win that game. But the problem is after that they still go to Florida. They got Missouri, they go to Texas, they got Auburn, they got Georgia, they go to Oklahoma. There are several losable games on here to where Ole Miss could beat LSU and still go 9 and 3 and be on the outside looking in. I could see that. And for that reason I give it an 8.75. Now remember, they have to beat LSU or the rest of it's a moot point. And so doing that plus still you know, finding a way to lose more games, that's not the wildest scenario in the world. It's bold, but it's not crazy. Next up, we go to the ACC. Hokieman, 31 from St. Louis, Missouri. Virginia Tech wins the accident. That's a 9.5. Now, I don't doubt that James Franklin's going to upgrade Virginia Tech. I don't doubt that that's his specialty and doubly, especially when he's got the chip on his shoulder. Yeah, he's going to do that. I mean, they were three and nine last year. Here's my question. If we flip the record, Jesse, do you think a 93 Virginia Tech is en route to winning the ACC championship? Because I don't remember. There's a big difference in making the game versus winning it because you could make it there and still be a 20 and a half point dog to Miami and lose. And that's by the way, Miami's first ACC title. I just gave them hypothetically. But making it versus winning it, like it sounds like you're going to have to go through Miami and in Virginia Tech's case, they got to play Miami the second to last week of the season. So you may have to go through them twice. But they also got to go to Clemson. They got Georgia Tech at home. It's a very, very backloaded schedule. They go to Clemson and to SMU and to Miami in their last five games of the season. So I'm going to say a top 10 portal class. Therefore creating a top 5 returning production roster is a very good thing. They're going to be a competitive team, going to be a really fun team to watch. But they still got the 8th best odds to win the ACC. This is plenty bold enough. I'm going to put a 9.5 on it. Next up, this one's close. Roger from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, no, South Dakota hit us up and said Michigan wins the Big Ten, Ohio State misses the playoff. 9.25 for me, Roger. So firstly, we need a couple of things to happen here. Firstly, Ohio State needs two losses minimum going into the Michigan game and then they need to lose that one. Now Ohio State schedule is brutal and so they have at Texas, they got at Iowa, they go to Indiana, they go to usc, they got Oregon, at Nebraska, Michigan. There's several losable games here. Ton of ton of lost production to the NFL. Maybe it's just a slight down year for Ohio State and they do go 9:3 with a loss to Michigan there at the end. And maybe they do miss out on the playoff. Michigan also has to go win the Big Ten in this scenario, and both of those things happen in Ohio State being down, Michigan being up. You parlay these two things at FanDuel, it returns plus 2000 odds. So if you want to do that, go ahead. But if you just want to put it on the show and aim for a chalice of supremacy, I'm only giving it a 9.25. So it's going to have to be the parlay for this one. My apologies. Lastly, this one's pretty creative. I will give credit for this one more College football from Wall, New Jersey. Not a single team from Texas makes the College Football playoff. Texas has 13 FBS teams. So you got Texas out there, you got A and M, you got Texas Tech in Houston, smu, Baylor, tcu. You got utsa. A lot of opportunities for a Texas team to make the playoff, and I'm just flat out telling you one of them at least is going to make the playoff and therefore I'm putting a 9.5 on this one. The Big 12 is what makes it hard, really, because you think about the Big 12, Texas Tech's the most likely to make it, but let's say Texas Tech doesn't make it. Well, you've also got Houston and TCU that are pretty high up in the odds to win the Big 12 that may end up being the beneficiary of Texas Tech not making it and therefore they make it. So like in a weird sort of way, Texas Tech losing out could actually torpedo this prediction. But just think about Texas for a second. Texas missing the playoff this year, not impossible, but them and A and M both missing out is pretty hard to imagine them and A and M both missing out. And Texas Tech being out of the thing is even harder to imagine. Does SMU as all that's going on not put together a pretty decent season in the ACC where they have the second best odds to win the league? Does UTSA not make noise in the G5 ranks? So lot going on there. I'm Gonna put a 9.5 on that one. That one earns a chalice if it hits. Now a lot of those numbers that I just cited are available, like SMU. If you want to pick SMU to win the big or to win the ACC, you can do that at FanDuel right now. It was plus 750 I think when we made the graphic a few hours ago so you could do those sorts of things. You got some Game of the Year stuff already up there, guys. I don't know if you've looked at that lately. Like, hey, if you just got inspired by Dabo Swinney, you could go grab Clemson plus double digits against lsu, who by the way, they open with. If you really, really want to be crazy, you can go back Clemson to win the acc. And if you want to be just purely, absolutely out of this world insane, pick them to win a national title bet $5 win 5 million. Not official odds, by the way, but thereabouts you can do all of it at FanDuel, the exclusive odds provider of
- [68:55]
FanDuel Announcer
the show must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in DC. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as non withdrawable bonus bets which expire seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms@sportsbook.fanduel.com gambling problem call 1-800- gambler or visit fanduel.com rg call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chatincut or visit MDG in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-505 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE NY or text HOPE NY in New York.
- [69:40]
Bradley
I want to wrap up tonight. I want to wrap up. Actually Bradley, I'm going to give you a different endpoint here. The Truth Teller series is continuing where we tell the truth about someone or something randomly and tonight Auburn popped up on our radar. What is the truth about Auburn football? The Auburn football program I grew up less than an hour away from this place and I went to school with kids, a majority of whomst were of the Auburn family as they call themselves. And I know Auburn very well, got a lot of friends there. It can be among the most special places in college football. Most programs out there, most fan bases out there claim that there's something special about that place. There's something different about that place. Largely it's just because they've never experienced anything else or anyplace else. I will give Auburn credit. There really is something different about Auburn. Always said that really will give them credit for that. And it's not just the lemonade. So I have always given Auburn credit for that. And at its best it is one of the most special places in all of college football. It can also be its own worst enemy and it often is. I will say as an Auburn fan, it has to be among the most wildest fan experiences imaginable in this sport. If you just think about the past 15 years, what came right before and right after their best seasons, like 2010, they won the national championship 14 0, Cam Newton, Nick Fairley, all those folks. Michael Dyer, I think was on that team. So they go win the national championship. The year before that they were 8 and 5. The year after that they were 8 and 5. The Year after that they were 3 and 9. And the staff that won the national championship got canned. Just think about the what? You could go up the road an hour and a half to six flags and not experience that kind of whiplash, even if you ride the ninja. And the ninja has taken many a soul pre upgrade of course. So then Gus Malzahn gets the job. 2013 they're 12 2. So coming off 3 and 9 they go 12 2. Then it's back to 8 and 5, then it's 7 and 6, then it's 8 and 5, then they're back to Atlanta, they're 10 and 4. But even in that season, they tried to fire Malzan halfway through the season, only to see him beat back to back number one teams in the country at the end of the year. And who was it? Bradley, Kerrian, Johnson who was hurt going into Atlanta. Or else maybe they would have beaten Georgia and who knows what would have happened at that point. And then UCF beat him for the national title according to some history books. But anyway, I digress. So it's just up and down, up, up and down immunity. Nothing Auburn does can shock me. Like Jesse threw some scenarios at me today. Would it shock you if Auburn did this, did that? If you've watched Auburn football for any length of time, you should never be shocked by anything that happens at this place. You should never be shocked. I've watched him go from middle of the road to winning a national championship amidst an NCAA investigation. I've watched him go from 39 to watching Malzahn come in and lead 213 in a national title game only to lose it. I have watched them hire a head coach only to try and sabotage him from within. I have. I've watched everything imaginable. I've watched everything imaginable at this place. It is never boring. It is never dull. Now here's another truth. I think they just fell into what will end up being an excellent head coaching hire. And I do mean fell into it. Like this side of the Penn State coaching search. There was no bigger debacle down the stretch than the Auburn coaching search, and that mainly centered around John Sumrall So, I mean, they should be paying the price for it right now, but they're not because Alex Goelish exists and Alex Goelish ended up getting the job. And everybody who's watched this show for quite a while knows if I've ever had the name John Sumrall come out of my mouth, very closely behind and in some cases in front of Sumrall in the same Senate has always been Alex Golish. And they land him. And all's well that ends well. Now we got to check and see that it ends well. So he still has to win there. I think he will. Like, I think Alex Golish would have worked out fine at Arkansas if he went up there. It's a little bit easier road at Auburn. You're going to have a little bit more wind in your sails at Auburn. But I think that, you know, five years from now, Golish is probably winning at Auburn, and some folks are getting pats on the back down there that have no business getting pats on the back. But that's okay. That's quite all right. It wouldn't be the first time nor the last time that that's happened in business or in sports. So Auburn football will always be on the radar. Auburn football at its best is a national championship contender. They belong in that conversation. Great tradition, prideful fan base. It's also a place that growing up there, I always took for granted. Jesse, you grew up in Pennsylvania. So growing up in Pennsylvania, when people say Georgia, you know where Georgia is? It's the University of Georgia. It's the University of Florida, University of Alabama. Did you guys know where Auburn was? Like a lot of places, a lot of people don't know where Auburn is. Well, I never knew that growing up because I grew up right next to Auburn. So it never occurred to me for a long time. It never occurred to me that people didn't just automatically know Auburn's right there in Lee County. Idiots. Of course it is. It's right there in east central Alabama. It's in WLTZ, NBC 38's DMA RIP so it's a great memory for certain members of the staff. So that's the truth, as I see it, about Auburn. All right, I think that's our show tonight. Hey, we tried to do good on this show tonight. I mean, we tried to spread the proper message on this show tonight. Hopefully it takes root somewhere for director Bradley, for producer Jesse. I'm jock participate. Let's. Let's have a fun and safe weekend until Sunday night. Take care.
- [75:57]
FanDuel Announcer
Must be 21 and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in DC first online real money wager only $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as non withdrawable bonus bets which expire seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms@sportsbook.fanduel.com gambling problem call 1-800-gambler or visit fanduel.com rg call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24. 7 support in Massachusetts or or text Hope NY in New York, I'm US
- [76:42]
Bradley
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. We all get distracted when we drive, whether it's from our phones or kids in the backseat bickering. But how we handle these distractions can be a matter of life or death. Before you get on the road for your next road trip, please put your phones on silent and take a mental note to focus on driving. Paid for by NHTSA
- [77:12]
Josh Pate
when you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery so you can keep your facility stocked, safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [77:42]
Bradley
You know how it's never really about where you're going. It's about who you're going with. The right people can turn any drive into a great memory. That's something Toyota really believes. They design vehicles around real life and real people, the ones who make plans happen and bring everyone together inside. Everything's built with passengers in mind. Comfortable seating, smart layouts and space that actually works so everyone can relax and enjoy the ride. There's room for the people, room for the stuff, and room for the moments that happen along the way. Because when people are the destination, your ride is important. Learn more@toyota.com and find the vehicle that fits your people.
- [78:17]
Wix Harmony Advertiser
I admit it, I'm a control freak. Luckily, the folks at WIX get it. That's why they created WIX Harmony. It's an AI website builder for people just like me. It lets you create any type of website super fast, but stay in control of every detail. You can even choose whether to use AI or click and edit things yourself until your website actually feels like you. Try it for free@wix.com Harmony that's wix.com
- [78:45]
Bradley
Harmony this is an iHeart podcast.
- [78:50]
Josh Pate
Guaranteed Human.