← Josh Pate's College Football Show
Loading summary
Transcript5 lines
- [00:00]
A
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human new year. Same extra value meals at McDonald's now get a savory sausage McMuffin with egg plus hash browns and a small coffee for just $5 for a limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California. And for. You might think it's a terrible night for me. You might think it's going to be a horrible, torturous show for me because of the fact that I whiffed on Indiana again. And it will be those things. But it's also going to be, as I wrote on this piece of paper, an extremely important, groundbreaking show. We have a major announcement on the show tonight. I single handedly, all by myself, with no help whatsoever from the staff, including producer Jesse, walked into the building today and I fixed bowl season and I fixed the playoff. Me, I. I did all that. It's amazing what one can do when he sets his mind to it. We are jam packed. We are high atop a frozen downtown. Nashville, Tennessee, which pales in comparison to what our great city will look like this weekend. Prayers in advance would be appreciated. Check the forecast if you don't. What? I don't know what I mean. But, but we have to look back, not forward tonight. We have to look back on what Indiana did to Miami last night. We have to look back on what Indiana did to college football this year. Both in victimizing opponents and also in opening the door, at least theoretically, for a lot of coaches and a lot of players and a lot of programs and a lot of fans out there to dream. Dream big. Why not? We did. We made our own show. We dream so big. So if Minnesota wants to win a national championship, Indiana is your Roger Bannister. They ran your sub 4 minute mile yesterday. They proved you too can be a national champ. Or, or did they? I don't mean to pull out the hose pipe that early, I just. I don't know if I'm on board with what a lot of people are saying today. Then again, who cares what I say about Indiana? I've been wrong about them all year. That's going to be the theme of the show tonight. But there is good news and it has very little to do with Indiana or Miami. I really think that we, we reached an inflection point today in the office and I think we're fixing the playoff and I think we're fixing bowl season. I think we're fixing the calendar and I think we're fixing the signing day and the portal. Nothing but fixes here. Tonight we're done complaining. We're going to fix it. I was asked what I love and hate about college football. I figure tonight's show is as good a time as any to dive into that. We are giving not one but two chalice of supremacy, plural of chalice, out on the show tonight because two of you made predictions that I rated 9.5 or bolder on the boldness scale back in the summer. And as of last night two of those predictions have hit. We will announce that later. So they, they tell me the season's over. It doesn't feel that way around here. It's year round college football on the campus of Peight State. They're watching us in Delray Beach, Florida, Indianapolis, Indiana, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, Reno, Nevada. Please make sure you subscribe to the channel. That's all we ask. We don't need you to subscribe in terms of sending us money or giving us your email address. I mean if you want to do that, whatever, I'll just give the money to Bradley and we'll probably form the email addresses, probably sell them. That's probably what we do. So don't send us your email address but just subscribe to the channel instead. It's free, it helps us and we love it when you do it. And we're over 500 and what, 20,000 subs right now. All right, let's dive into the show. I mean we'd go three hours if we wanted. Tonight we won't, but we could. Indiana won the national championship last night. Now if you're watching on YouTube right now, I already did the whole game recap thing when I got home to Nashville about 2:30 this morning. So that's already on the channel. Don't watch it now because the show's on right now, but watch it later. But as for some of the added thoughts that I had throughout the day, I was listening to a lot of people talk. I did a lot of stuff today about Indiana and sort of got what it means for college football. Okay, well let me tell you where my head's at on all this. I don't know that it's possible to understand the significance of what Kurt Signetti and Indiana did. Surely you can understand the significance as it relates to the 2025 season for Indiana. I would even go a step further. You could in the moment understand the significance for the Big Ten as a conference. So all of that I'm on board with. But the whole impact on college football thing, I just don't know if we can define it right now, and to me, I think that way because I don't know what the next decade holds. You know, if we Fast forward to 2035 and we look back 10 years ago, Kurt Signitty in Indiana won a national championship. Here's what we'll know then that we don't know now. We'll know if it was the beginning of a trend of programs coming out of the complete and utter wilderness to win national titles, or if it was a total anomaly and there was a bunch of Georgia and Ohio State and Alabama and LSU before it, and then there's a bunch more of that after it, and there's no other team like Indiana that wins a national title over the next decade. That, to me, will define the significance maybe on the macro scale now, on the micro scale, and how this affects different programs in different ways, how this affects the fortunes of other coaches in different ways, that's a more extended conversation, it's a more granular conversation, and it's one we can have. Probably not worth having tonight. But I think that the big thing I took away from Kurt Signetti this year. You're right, Jesse, that is distracting. Here, I'll move this piece of paper over there. There we go. The one thing that. One of many things actually that I took away from Kurt Signetti in Indiana this year is if you ever hang around coaches at that level, like if you ever hung around a legit big time college football coach, forget about that. You hang around big time high school coaches, college coaches, pro coaches. I don't care if they're active, if they've been fired. I don't care if you hung around them for a day. They all sound like geniuses when they're talking about football because they're able to talk about it at a much higher level than even hardcore fans are able to talk about him. This is not a slight at Jimbo Fisher at all. I'm using this as an example because I experienced it in the last 24 hours. I was doing the altcast on ACC Network last night with Taylor Tannenbaum and Eric McClain and Jimbo. I was standing next to Jimbo and I was listening to him just talk play after play after play and diagnosing play after play after play. And we're on air and I'm just standing there looking at him and I'm thinking to myself, this dude's a genius. It's unbelievable. And like, Jimbo Fisher was fired at Texas A and M for, you know, not getting the job done to the degree that they wanted. And so, like the normal sporting world would look at him and say, oh, look at you, you're a failure because you got fired. Well, headline, most college football coaches get fired. But secondly, just listening to him in a vacuum, he'd make your head spin. Talking about to him the most basic fundamental elements of football that make your head spin. Kurt Signetti could do that to you too. All right, here's what separates. And again, that's, that's not to single out. Jimbo Fisher. I used him as an example because I was on air with him last night and it was an honor and it was really fun. The difference in what Kurt Signetti did this year versus what a lot of coaches could do is Kurt Signetti could make your head spin when he talks football too. He could talk philosophy, he could talk evaluation, he could talk staff building, he could talk player development, he could talk critical factors that he looks for at the DB position. He could talk all those things. He could talk scheme, and he could make your head spin. But a lot of coaches could do that. The difference is not what you know. The difference is in what you can put inside the head of a player and then several players and how, how much in unison you can make an organization sing through action. And he's a master at doing that, as it turns out. Now, people who have been around him, they're not shocked by that. But most of us haven't observed that because most of us, all due respect, are not following Elon athletics. All due respect, most of us are not following James Madison University athletics. A certain member of the staff notwithstanding, Prez worked for SIG at jmu, by the way. We had an inside track the whole time and we still went.04 picking against him. We, not I, we as a staff, yes, we. Because we own our failures collectively. So it's the process oriented approach and people think it's cliched and it sounds so boring when he talks about it. And yet that's the entire key to everything they did there. And even when they were doubters, and there were a lot of doubters, there were a lot of doubters along the way. Even when there were doubters. What I respected the most about that organization is they never talked about it. They never talked about doubters, they never talked about disrespect. Now, they may have harnessed it internally for all I know, and I don't care, because it's a moot point because of the next point I'm going to make. They never thrived on it publicly. They were just steady as you go, they could be favored by three touchdowns this week. And they carried themselves the same way as if they were a ten point dog on the road at Oregon. They just, they just sort of stuck to their process. It's crazy how consistent a bunch of veteran guys and a bunch of coaches who have been together for quite a while can perform when they say they're not impacted by external factors. And they're really not impacted by external factors. But the way I know there were doubters is because I was one of them. Yes, friends, I was one of them. And I just need you to bear with me for a second because my voice may crack a little bit. This is not the easiest thing that I do. And we have a policy. I told you the voice was going to crack. This is rips my guts out to do. I hate being wrong. I hate it. And I especially hate being wrong over and over again about the same thing because it makes it look like I'm not learning from history. Because I'm not learning from history. Okay, so we make predictions all the time on this show. It's fun. And when you win, you celebrate it. And when you lose, you kind of got to stand in the paint. But when you lose over and over again and when you fail to learn lessons from history, you're doomed to repeat it. And so I got to do it tonight. I got to throw on the clown nose. Again. This is difficult for me. I am my own Sarah McLachlan special tonight. Let's go to the tape. October 11th, Indiana at Oregon. I picked Oregon. Indiana won the game 30 to 20. It got worse. December 6, Indiana, Ohio State, Big Ten championship game. I picked Ohio State. Indiana won 13 to 10. It got worse. January 1, New Year's Day, New Year, same me. Indiana played Alabama. I picked Alabama. Indiana won by five touchdowns. They had backups in, as I recall, in the second half. It got worse. January 19, 24 hours ago, Indiana played Miami. Indiana outnumbered Miami in their own building. I didn't care. I picked Miami to win. Indiana won 27 to 21. I picked against them four times. I went 04 in those games. They went 4. 0 in those games en route to going 16 0. That makes them national champions. And it makes me a broken, confused man with nothing to console him but a cold microphone. Congratulations to Kurt Signetti. Congratulations to Indiana and that entire staff. I have been dunked on as painfully and repeatedly as I've ever been dunked on by anyone this side of sixth grade gym class. And I hate that this is happening to Me, but I will learn from it. You guys won and I'm left here to pick up the pieces. We had to do that three times this year. Three times. It's not a record that I like to set. Okay. Now as I'm emotionally collect myself, that's really kind of where you miss out if you just listen on podcast, like 98% of the show translates to podcasts. But occasionally when we do Sarah McLachlan special, doubly, especially when I am my own Sarah McLachlan special, it just pays to go watch the clip. So I'm hesitant to get on board with a lot of what people are saying today about how revolutionary this is for college football. Like, I understand how rare it is. I understand how unexpected it was. Trust me, we just documented how unexpected it was for some of us. However, there is a feeling out there. Maybe a lot of you guys feel this way. Maybe you're right, maybe I'll be wrong again. But there's a thought out there that now that Indiana kicked down the door, it opens that door for several more cases like Indiana. And I equated that to college football's version of like the Roger Bannister sub 4 minute mile. It's a metaphor I use on the show several times per year because I think it applies. And for those unfamiliar, it used to be thought to be impossible to run a sub 4 minute mile. Then this dude named Roger Bannister runs a sub 4 minute mile. Then a bunch of people ran a sub 4 minute mile. So the age old question was always, well, was it actually possible the whole time? And a bunch of other people just needed to see it done. And then they realized, oh, we could do that too. Well, is that what's happening in college football now that Indiana of all teams came out of the wilderness and won a national championship? Is it a new day for Rutgers? Is it a new day for ucla? Is it a new day for Northwestern or Arkansas or whoever? I don't know that that's how this is going to go. That's why I said you kind of need 10 years to look back with the benefit of hindsight and understand how big, like a trigger effect, like how big a ripple effect this had in the overall ocean of college football. Here's what I think. I think it was kind of an anomaly. Not in a sense that Indiana appeared for a brief moment and they're going to fade away. Indiana's here to stay. I got no doubt about that. Like Indiana is not a have not. So it wasn't this have not that sort of peaked one year and now they'll fade back to relative obscurity from this point. Moving forward. Indiana is a have what Indiana was was. They were a has not cause for a long time they were also out resourced. But then when the Big Ten and the SEC changed the landscapes the way they did, just from a media rights perspective and then you got the right coach in there and, and he got the right players in there and he kind of showed you what could be done. Well, it was like you pulled a giant lever so they're not going anywhere. Like they're. They're well resourced and now they're very well supported. And in case you weren't in Atlanta or Miami the past few weeks, like we were, those people are an army. I don't. I hesitate to call them the Red army, you know, because of historical connotations, but I will call them an army clad in red. I think that works. We're clear on that. HR is good. Pate State hr nodding their head in approval. They don't exist. So, yeah, I don't doubt he's going to have the support. They're going to have the support and all that. What I doubt is that anyone can pull off this perfect confluence of events the way that Kurt Sagnitti in Indiana just did. If you think about what it took, it's impossible to operate the way this team this year did without the level of experience they had. Like a lot of people are, I don't know how this works, but they're using it almost as a pejorative, like almost as a slight against Indiana that they were so veteran. That's not a slight, that's a compliment. At least when I say it, it's a compliment. Having said that, how many other teams are going to pull that off, Portal era or not? How many other teams are going to have that many veteran guys who have just executed thousands and thousands and thousands of reps together? They can finish each other's sentences athletically, they can finish each other's sentences mentally. The staff is the same way. There's a lot of credit, by the way, to the head coach for creating an environment where guys, both as player and coach want to stick around. Because those folks have had offers. Trust me, those players in many cases, not out of high school so much, but once they started performing, they had offers, they stuck around. Then there's the execution piece, which is a whole nother thing. I've never, ever, ever in my life. And who knows, maybe someone out there is much Older than me and they've seen it in their lifetime. I've never seen a team execute with such precision. I don't know that you'll ever see it from Indiana again. I just don't know that you can replicate it because honestly, I don't know how you could ever get better than that. It wasn't perfect because they're not robots, I don't think. But it's as close to perfect as real life humans playing football and can get from a precision and execution standpoint, just from a pure fundamental standpoint. And then even with all that, they had to get the right quarterback. They had to get Fernando Mendoza. What if we kept everything else the same about this team, but instead of Mendoza, you just replaced him with an above average Big Ten quarterback. They're probably out early in the early rounds of the playoffs. Probably similar to what they were last year. Really good team, but kind of limited and probably weren't going to be able to punch up against the big boys. I'm not saying that to slight them. It's a huge credit to them. What I'm asking is if this is theoretically going to be the dam breaker and then a bunch of teams are going to follow. You got to convince me that someone's going to pull off that blueprint. I don't doubt Texas can win, but Texas is loaded. Texas is expected to win. I don't doubt Oregon. Oregon hasn't won a national title yet and I still fully believe they can. How many candidates do we really have out of the out there that are capable of coming totally out of the wilderness like Indiana, so that already greatly limits your pool. And then how many of them are going to have that combination or that confluence of events and circumstances sort of just all happen? I don't know that that's going to be this chain reaction that people think, which is what makes it special. It was special to witness, although I was on the wrong side of it. Like, you know, raise your hand if you've been personally victimized by Kurt Signetti recently. Yeah, I know. Control room's got hands up as well. So congratulations to them again. The Indiana folks were as nice as any group of people this side of my family reunion have ever been to me again. And that's after they already consoled me in Atlanta two weeks ago. And then I go and I pick against them again. And still it was like these sympathetic looks, like they kind of already knew what was coming and I was gonna find out what was coming. And it was just a smile and it was Just, hey, think you're on the wrong side tonight. But you can still come eat at our tailgate. Still love the show. Great to meet you. Can you take a picture? I almost wanted some anger. I almost needed it to feel alive. But yeah, that's kind of a joke. Cause in reality, I love the Indiana folks. I love hanging around them. Tough lesson learned on my part, but I appreciate you guys. Also got a shout out Quick Trip for fueling the Fall Don't Lie tour every single step of the way. Probably the only sad part of the Fall Don't Lie Tour was when we were in Montgomery the other day. We were leaving family reunion, brief stop in Watumpka. Beautiful Watumpka, home of Wayne from Watumpka. We pit stopped in Watumpka, and then on the way back, we're planning on going by Quick Trip. The exit was closed. Jesse, they had the exit closed on us. So I 65 south of Montgomery got to get its act together. I mean, that's on Aldot. That's not on Quick Trip. So Quick Trip outside of that one exit, and that's only if you're going south. They are there to fuel your every need. That's not actually a bad idea for a shirt name or a shirt idea. We'll table that. But Quick Trip has fueled us all year. They were on board. I mean, the moment we float concepts, they're just. Yes. Then they give away a bunch of free gas to our listeners and viewers all year. And cold brew on tap. Some people for some reason thought I was making up. And then more so by the day, you guys are pumping your gas and then going into Quick Trip and you realize it's not a euphemism. There are quite literally taps that you pull and cold brew of all different flavors and varieties comes out of it. I would call it safely, One of the 15 most important inventions in the modern era of the United States of America. That's what I would call it. So I appreciate Kwik Trip. We appreciate Kwik Trip. Been a fun year. Here's to many more fun years ahead. Now, on the other side of the equation last night was Miami. And by the way, if you're just tuning in, we got a loaded show. So I need to pick up the pace here. Bernard from Wellington, Florida, he said with Miami making it to the title game and Florida State and Florida treading water, is the stage set for Miami to lock up the Sunshine State for the next decade. I just don't know how to see through the haze on that one. Bernard Hayes, meaning College football so unpredictable right now, and the landscape changes every five minutes. I don't know what the next decade looks like. I really don't know what the next 10 months look like, although I think we have kind of a decent grasp on it. Like, I don't really expect much from Florida State this upcoming year. So at least for the next year, I got Florida with a brand new coach for the next year. Yeah, I would safely lean the old Sunshine State scorecard in favor of Miami, but it's like aiming a gun through the fog right now. I have no idea. And that's even if you were to grant me guarantees like Mario's going to be there for another decade, they're not going to fall off and they're going to be all in. I still don't know. I don't know because there are a lot of external factors Miami doesn't have a ton of control over that have to be baked in. Here's what I do know. As long as that guy's at Miami, Miami's going to be all in. I mean, as long as the current administrative structure exists at Miami, the current attitude will exist at Miami. And as long as that attitude exists, they'll be all in and they'll be a force to be reckoned with. The question from the state of Florida's perspective is does Florida State rise to the equation and rise to meet that level and does Florida do the same? Now, currently, one of them is in Miami's conference and the other is not. I have no idea. And this is one of those external factors. I have no idea. Bernard, if that'll always be the case, how do we not know Miami isn't in the Big Ten five years from now? How do we not know Florida State hasn't moved conferences like, we don't know any of that. So I do know Miami is going to be all in. And I do think it just bears repeating that when we go back a few years ago when Mario first got there and he didn't come there from being an assistant somewhere, he had Oregon humming and could have stayed there indefinitely. And I got no doubt their results would have looked just like Dan Lanning's accomplishing right now. Who knows, maybe better. At least they were going to be a powerhouse there and he came back home to Miami and it did not click immediately on the field. They lost to Middle Tennessee State Year 1. They lost to Duke, but they have improved every year. It went from Jesse, check me on this, 5 wins to 7 wins, to 10 wins, to then 10 wins again, but now they went all the way to the national championship game. So I'm just giving you regular season win totals there that, that won't stop. Like, it may not be a linear progression every single year. I mean, eventually you can only win so many games, but I think they're going to be in the picture every year and you can tell how hungry they are. I mean, this dairy and Mensa situation, I was wondering the other day, where's Miami going to go at quarterback? They had an answer. Now, it may not be one that the rest of the country likes, and I've got my own issues with the way talent acquisition works right now, but they don't write the rules down there. They're just kind of operating under the current climate. So I don't really fault them. As for the rest of the state, yeah, I got questions about the future of Florida State. I've got questions about the long term viability, and I think that's probably reflected in the fan base down there. Like, I like Mike Norvell, so, like, I hope a bunch of people, including me, are wrong about this. But it just feels for all the world like the only reason they maintained status quo down there was because they couldn't afford not to. And that's always a sucky reason to maintain status quo because that translates to. Well, we really don't expect anything to change, but it just costs a lot of money for us to get out of our current situation. That's kind of 2026 for Florida State. At least that's what's expected by people close to the program. Who knows? Miracles, Miracles happen in this sport. Case in point, last night. Miracles happen in this Sport. Maybe. Maybe FSU's next Florida. Tons of variables there. You got John Sumrall in town. I think it's fair to and realistic to at least give him some time. So, like, even if he was a slam dunk, grand slam hire, he's going to be the coach that's going to lead Florida back to prominence. Is that going to happen overnight? I wouldn't expect that. Is that going to happen in two years? I don't know. Kurt Signetti's kind of changed the expectation scale for everyone, fair or not. But I do know Miami's not going anywhere. So they are where they are. If anything, they may still have a few rungs to climb up the ladder. So in that sense, yeah. Right now, sitting where we sit right now, Bernard, I feel great about Miami. I don't feel, you know, tons of optimism whatsoever about Florida at the moment. Although I'm all in on John Sumrall, I don't feel optimism at all about Florida State. So yeah, in that sense, I am picking up what you're putting down. I just think things could change in a nanosecond. How do we know what the rules are going to be in the sport two years from now? How do we know what the structure of the sport is going to be two years from now? There are fundamental changes. They could come from the ncaa, they could come from the conference level, they could come from the playoff, they could come from courts. That would totally change the lens through which we view college football. So all that to say to be continued. I do want to remind you guys, we got a ton to get to. I want to remind you guys over in the Pate State store right now. Paintstatematerial.com so we saw some of these shirts flying off the shelves the other day. But don't worry, unlike in years past, we have plenty of inventory. The university collection is there. And it will not shock anyone to learn that the McLaughlin School of Music shirt was the best seller so far out of the new Pate State University collection. Mainly because I tilted the scales in my favor by overly promoting that shirt over the other shirts, which I also love. And I would just encourage you guys to check it out. Spring's eventually here. I know you guys are loading up on cold weather gear right now and we got that too. But eventually it's going to be time for the, for the tees. So you need to tee up already. And I highly encourage everyone to be wearing one of these by spring. Let's move on. Transfer portal. Just right quick here. Just right quick. The transfer portal's closed. Yes, but, but there are a lot of names in the transfer portal and just because you had to be in it or did you the other day doesn't mean you had to be out of it by the other day. Jordan Seaton, big time former five star offensive tackle. He's leaving Colorado. I know that because the video Colorado's staff edited tells me that he's leaving, although I don't know that they knew that's what they were editing. He's been at LSU. He's been visiting down there. Six, five, three, 30 dwarfs. Lane Kiffin, if you haven't seen the pictures. And Lane's not a short dude, but Jordan Seaton's a different kind of cat. He canceled his Oregon visit. So I mean, if you go and you look at the ON3 transfer portal rankings right now, he's the number nine overall player in those rankings. But in the team rankings, LSU's got a top six class. That just means they're number six. They got several top 100 players. I was talking to a GM the other day, and outside of his own team, one of the schools he had the most to say about was lsu. Said, hey, man, like, good for them, rooting against them, obviously selfishly, but kind of did more than I thought they were going to do given what they were up against. And I don't think they're done. And I think they'll land Jordan Seaton. In fact, they could land him during the show. Has anything happened, Jesse? No. All right. So far, no. Darian Mensah. A lot of drama going down with the Duke quarterback who is trying to head to Miami. This was the Miami plan. Remember the show the other night? I think Thursday was the last show we did. And I said, boy, good for Miami. They're about to play for a national championship, but I don't know what they're going to do at quarterback next year. Well, they did, or at least they figured it out shortly thereafter. It was probably listening to the show that triggered them into figuring it out. And their plan was to go and basically buy out Darian Mensah from his Duke contract. And then lawyers got involved and Duke. And this will shock you guys. Duke looked and said, wait a second, we already signed him to a deal. We don't like this. And so now they're trying to enforce it and they sued him. And this is about where my interest in this stuff ends because it's a big turnoff for me. We got a question later in the show about what I love and hate about college football right now. I. I love a lot. I hate this stuff. Hate it. Now, if I were at Miami, given the current structure, I'd probably be trying to do the same thing, but I'm not. So I hate it. But it is what it is. Here's the summary. It'll be a mess and he'll probably end up at Miami. That's the summary. And a lot of people will be paid a lot of money in the process because that's really what this entire system is built for, to fatten the pockets of lawyers. And on a related note, congrats, it's working. I like Texas A and M's class a fair amount. Yeah, number three class in the on three portal rankings. Currently, several offensive line pieces. Got to get that straightened out in spring. Several top 100 players. They added Isaiah Horton, guy that Alabama went to Virtually every time they needed a big play this year. Now remember, you got two new coordinators at Texas A and M. Several new faces. And they're not unique to having those issues. I won't call them problems. They're just things. And that's why God invented spring football. As Memo always said, top 10 recruiting too. So they're a top 10 recruiter. They're a top 10 portal destination. You just keep getting further and further into the Mike Elko T tenure. And Elko's another one. Man, I've had him circled since the day they hired him. Really high on him. And to this point, A and M just made the playoff. But they were one and done. So I still think there's a lot of hesitancy to buy into A and M. That's okay. It is a new day at Clemson. Yes. Number 16, transfer portal clash right now. What? Yes, it's happening. It's all happening. They've added 10 players, mostly on defense. And this is still a baby step, but it's a huge step for Clemson and Dabo Swinney and now, you know, like for those of us who have been hoping that they would lean just, oh, I don't know, 10 or 20 degrees this way. Fingers crossed that these guys pan out because it could unlock a whole new world for Dabo and for Clemson. And I almost like picture him hesitantly being dragged into this world. It doesn't matter if it works, it works and he'll get the credit for it. So let's just keep an eye. Tom Allen, year two as defensive coordinator there, kind of getting more of his hand picked guys in via the portal. And now I wrap us up with looking at the bottom 10, not in order. This. This is yet another thing I hate about college football right now. Iowa State lost Matt Campbell and lost 44 players. Not all of them went to Iowa, to Penn State. Most of the core of the team went to Penn State. So 44 out or 44 in? 54 out. So they lost 54 players. 44 in. But like, you understand it's not a one for one exchange. You're losing the nucleus of your team. Most of them are going with Matt Campbell. I hate it. I love it for Penn State, but I hate it in general. Utah, same thing. Lost a ton of guys because a ton of guys are there to play for Kyle Whittingham and he's gone. So they're gone. Michigan sitting at 67th right now. In North Carolina, 65th. I think it's yet another part of what I hate about College football right now is the way that coaching searches happen. If you look where Penn State is, look at what Indiana just did, and look at what Penn State's doing right now, whether it should be this way or not. The current concept behind hiring a coach is closely correlated with how much of his roster he can bring with him. So you're not really evaluating head coaches anymore as much as you're evaluating that coach and that coach's current roster. Because in the current setup of college football, you just bring them all with him. Don't like it, Wish it wasn't that way, but it is that way. Move on. Oh, stuffy nose. Jesse, let me take a sip of water. Nothing cleans out the nose quite like a sip of water from a bottle whose label we will cover because they have not paid for us to uncover their label. Two things that shocked me on this show, no official drink sponsor anymore and no apparel sponsor. We're not going out looking for them, but if they come to us, you knock on the door. Open door policy. Crazy. Anyway, this may be one of the most important segments that this show has ever produced because unlike most of the time when we're just talking, to hear ourselves talk, this could be a moment that we actually fix something. Cameron from Louisville, Kentucky, hit me up. He said, if you could make the college football calendar in, in any order with any timeframe you wanted, what would you do? Cameron, I am so glad you asked that question. Now, there's a lot of talk about playoff expansion right now, right? All right, so throw up the Brett McMurphy tweet. There's so much wrong with January. There's so much wrong with the College Football Playoff number one that it exists. But that's a long gone conversation. So the college football playoffs here, it's here to stay. Brett McMurphy, friend of the program, accurately reporting yesterday that the future College Football Playoff national title games over the next four years are set to be held January 25th, January 24th, January 22nd, and January 21st. So if you're out there thinking to yourself, boy, this season dragged on, boy, the ending of the season was anticlimactic. Why in the world are we playing a national title game this late in January? You're not alone. But what you need to know is the next four years, it'll be later than it was this year, which is insane, but it's the way it is right now. So, Cameron, you didn't ask how it is right now. You asked how I would like it to be. Now I'm going to do something, because I just think this is kind of the direction we're going. So I want to get out ahead of it. I don't want the playoff to expand any further. I'm totally happy with 12. I wish we could just sit still for a little while, you know, feel it out, see how it works out. It seems like that's not what's going to happen. It seems like we're going to expand. So what I'm going to do, for the sake of my calendar here is I'm just going to assume we go to 16 teams in the playoff. Okay? So not that I want it, but I just expect it. Cameron, do we agree there? Are we. Are we good there? Okay. This is worth the paper. Pop. I think we had a breakthrough today. I think we figured out how to fix the College Football Playoff, how to save bowl season, how to move the national championship game to January 1, how to get the portal and nil wrapped up, how to get the portal wrapped up, and how to get national signing day wrapped up all by the start of the spring semester. Do you want to hear it? Here's how we need to accomplish it. Step one. I would like to move week one to what week zero currently is. So instead of that last Labor Day weekend, sometimes it's the last weekend in August, first weekend in September, instead of Labor Day weekend being week one, we need to move week one to when week zero is, because I need to buy myself some room on the back end. So we need to move the season up one week. It's going to be a little hot. I understand. That Saturday prior to Labor Day weekend, that's the weekend that we're going to start. And you'll see why in just a second. Rivalry week, because of that would be the week before Thanksgiving instead of Thanksgiving week. So your Ohio State, Michigan's, your iron Bowls, we're getting all of those done. And your regular season is done the week before Thanksgiving, which leads to a revolutionary Thanksgiving weekend. Because on that Thanksgiving weekend, it's where step two comes into play. We're going to have conference championship games. We're just going to have them Thanksgiving weekend instead of the week after Thanksgiving. So last weekend in November instead of first weekend in December, we're having conference championship games. Your SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, all the G5s. But you know what the conference championship games look like. We have a big problem in this sport right now. Bowl season has been rendered largely irrelevant compared to what it used to be, which is ridiculous. So I'm taking the Shock panels. I'm rubbing them together, whatever that gel is in between, putting them on the chest of bowl season clear. Boom. Bowl season's back. Here's what I would like to do. I'd like to take six bowls. Don't particularly care which ones they are. Let's just call it the Citrus bowl and the Pop Tart bowl, cheez it bowl, etc. And I would like to take six bowls either that Friday after Thanksgiving or that Saturday. You guys can choose because we got conference championship games to play as well. And I would like to have a 13th game essentially for a bunch of teams. I would like to do it basically where take all the teams are going to play in conference championship games. Take them off the board. They're already preoccupied. But this is what it would have looked like this year. My Pop Tart bowl is Oregon versus Houston. My Cheez it bowl is Ole Miss versus Michigan. I I've got A and M, Arizona. I've got Oklahoma, usc. I've got Texas versus Utah. I've got Notre Dame versus Vanderbilt. These are bowl games. They are also College Football Playoff data points. These games count because the day after that Saturday, that is Selection Sunday, 9am that morning after conference championship and bowl play in weekend, that is Selection Sunday. I think it would be an amazing weekend. We have taken half a dozen bowls and we have maintained the image of the bowl. We have totally re engineered the meaning of that bowl. We have totally re engineered the motivation behind the teams playing in the bowls. And we've made those six bowl games sort of semi play in games not in the true sense of a playing game, but those games count because the final playoff rankings are after those games happen. So those are final data points. And we got four big time power four conference championship games. We got all the G5 conference title games. We got another six games that have huge playoff implications right there. You could play yourself into or out of the playoff in many cases in the Pop Tart bowl. Like hoops amongst us doesn't want that. STEP FOUR SELECTION Sunday 9:00am it's an NFL Sunday. We're not scared of the NFL around here, but we're also not going to be stupid and run opposed to them. So we're going to reveal the College Football Playoff rankings and seedings and the bracket 9am that Sunday. And then step five round one happens a week later. Round one of the college Football Playoff on campus is held the first Saturday in December. Round two of the College Football Playoff held on campus is held the second Saturday in December. Round three finally going to kick it to a neutral site. Only because I think I have to. I don't want to. That's the third Saturday in December and then we break for Christmas and our national championship game is held New Year's Day and we crown a national champion and the season's over. And step six is immediately after that. I don't even care in which order you do this. You have signing day and you have your transfer portal window and wrap that thing up in a couple of weeks and then spring semester is here and everyone can go kick their feet up and take a little vacation, maybe have a junior day. Do whatever you want to do. That is how I wish the calendar looked. Because what we did there is we made everyone play the same amount of games to win it all. Notre Dame is not even immune from this. If Notre Dame wants to win a title, Notre Dame is going to have to play 17 games. Everyone's playing 17 to win it all. You got two rounds of on campus playoff games. The bowl games are enhanced in many different ways and you totally resurrect the spirit of bowl season because you maximize the relevance of six of those bowls and you totally reconfigure the importance of them. I think that would be an amazing spectacle. The one thing I don't know is how we take care of Army Navy. That's something that we've got to figure out. The other thing I don't know is that Thanksgiving weekend when we're having conference championship games, we're also having those six big time sort of quasi play in bowl games is which of them do you have on Friday and which of them do you have on Saturday? We debated this today because theoretically you should be rewarded playing in those conference title games. Do you want to have them Friday? Everyone's playing on short rest, but then they get extended rest leading into the playoff, whereas the other bowl games happen on Saturday. Or do we want to invert that? Still some things to be worked out. I understand. Also, if we play these games on subsequent Saturdays in December, you're going to have to figure it out with the NFL. You're just going to have to. Someone's got to walk in the room that has the stones and the relationships and the know how to understand. And hey, here's a bold strategy. If you have to pay the NFL to have the spot, sometimes that's what it comes down to. But I love this. I think this could work. Which is of course why I highly doubt it gets any real traction. But we're trying around here. We're at the very least trying. Let's move on. I got a lot to say about this, as you can tell by the piece of paper in my hand that has so many notes on it. William from Charleston, West Virginia, clear the throat for this one. Everyone is saying the Big Ten is now the king after it's won its third straight title. But I want Josh Pate to look into his crystal ball and tell me if the same will be true five years from now or if the SEC can take back the throne. I would ask you this, William. I would ask you if Ole Miss would have hung on to beat Miami and Ole Miss won the national title last night, would you feel any different about the overall state of these two conferences? Because I wouldn't. I would still feel like the Big Ten superior right now. I say that to say I don't put as much stock in, like, these one off situations. I think it's a big cumulative situation that exists right now. We've talked about it on the show a lot. So as I sit here right now, five years from now, my blind guess is the Big Ten is still superior only because I don't know what would fundamentally change. Like the. The talent flow is not going to stop becoming dispersed further around the country. The Big Ten is not going to have less room in their pocketbook with which to operate. So I don't. I don't know. Like, short of the SEC finding a new angle, you know, their old angle used to be we'll just get all the best players. What is the new angle? If they find one, then absolutely they can reclaim their death grip on the sport. I just don't know that that's realistic now. What I do think is more realistic is there's probably not the gap between the Big Ten and the SEC cumulatively that it's made out to be. It's just. I know what that headline says. That headline says three different national champs last three years. I get all that. I'm saying that probably means there's separation, just not a ton of separation. Which means, like, randomly, the SEC could have three of the final four teams in the country next year. Well, what does that mean? The whole world changed? Or does it mean a different year produced a different result? You know, that's boring because then you start talking about percentages and statistics and likelihood and all that. Who wants to get bogged down in math? No, no. We want headlines, we want narratives. We need clicks. But this morning I was asked this on get up and I went pretty in depth on it. And some guy hit me on Twitter and said, oh, look at this man. He refuses to say the Big Ten is the best conference of college football right now. To which I replied, the Big Ten is the best conference of college football right now. It's not like it's difficult to say when I throw a bunch of word salad out there. Number one, salad's not the worst thing to be eaten in January. And secondly, it's usually because I think there's a lot more nuance to the equation than let's go look at bowl records and let's look who won the national title this year. Humbly, that's the way I look at it. So I think the Big Ten has a coaching staffing edge cumulatively on the SEC right now. I think the SEC probably still has a talent edge or an athletic edge top to bottom, but it's far less than it used to be. I also think in the aggregate of the whole thing, the talent edge is being rendered irrelevant because they used to have such a bigger talent edge that they got lazy in several other practices that the Big Ten was never lazy in. And so that gap is more than made up for because of that. But again, it's so overarching. It's so 50,000 foot. Does the fact that Illinois is better than South Carolina right now impact what Texas could be capable of doing in the playoff next year? No. Just like how good Georgia was in years past didn't adversely impact what Ohio State could do unless they literally met in a game, which they did. So I don't know. I do think that that's not going anywhere for obvious reasons. I do also think the fundamental construct of these conferences could change. I have no reason to believe that we're done with conference expansion. So we just, we just saw this like we just saw Oregon and USC added to the Big Ten. We just saw OU in Texas in the last few years added to the sec. Who knows if that's done or not? I don't know. I do think that it very much reminds me of the old school wcw. WWF made this comparison the other day. College football's attitude era, if you will. And what you don't know is if there's just continuous, you know, jockeying back and forth or if one of them has just permanently claimed the throne and the other is going to be, you know, left to run half empty arenas. I don't know. I don't expect half empty buildings in the SEC anytime soon. But you get my point there. Academy sports and outdoors littered all throughout the conference footprint of both the Big Ten in the SEC and they've got what you need for winter sports, they've got what you need. For spring sports, they've got what you need. If you just randomly want to have a barbecue this Saturday, they've got what you need. If you want some big league chew in your back pocket. You feel like going fishing, going kayaking, going biking. Sorry about that. They've got you hooked up. Academy Sports and Outdoors has been a partner of ours for a long time. Academy.com fully functional if you can't get there in person. And we appreciate them. They've been a really, really fun partner to be in business with for quite a while. Appreciate you guys watching live. Hey, show's not going anywhere. We do the show year round. I just kind of have to remind you every now and then. Some people think when the season's over, there's something called the. What is it? Jesse? Off season. Yeah. I've never heard of her. Don't know her around here. So we just keep on going. Cause college football keeps on going. We had a really interesting question earlier today. Paul from Guthrie, Oklahoma, said, I know you've been a bit more negative lately about the sport. I know that's just the circumstances. But what do you love about the sport and what do you hate and what do you wish could change? Paul, have I been negative? Sometimes it gets that way. I don't realize it. Well, if I've been negative, let me answer your question by telling you what I love. First. I love Saturdays in the fall more so than anything in sports. I love Saturdays in the fall and everything that entails. Saturdays in the fall are the pinnacle of college football. Not the playoff, not the national championship. Saturdays in the fall. There have probably been many of you who have been feeling a certain type of way watching the playoffs, and you can't even explain it. Well, I'll explain it. If you're feeling what I think you're feeling. You're watching the college football playoffs and you're excited for it. And you know there are big ramifications and big implications on the line. There's a championship on the line and you're watching the games and it's very entertaining. But you're left feeling like you kind of are only 75% fulfilled or 80% fulfilled. And. And it doesn't make any sense because when you watch NFL playoff games, it is the absolute height and pinnacle of the sport in any given year. And then the wild card round is superseded by the divisional round and then conference Championship round, and then you got the super bowl. And that's where it culminates. And that's the. That's the top of the mountain. Everyone gets that. And you're wondering, why don't I feel that way with college football? I still like it. Indiana and Miami was a great game last night. I still like it, but I don't know. There's a little hollowness to it. The reason you're feeling that way is because college football is different from any other sport, including the NFL. And that's because the regular season is the pinnacle of college football. A lot of people try and fight this. I don't know why. Why would you shy away from four months being the pinnacle instead of a few weeks being the pinnacle? It's great if you sort of train yourself on how to look at this. College football has something that no other American sport or sport on this planet has, and that is State College, Pennsylvania. And that's Eugene, Oregon, and that's Champaign, Illinois. And that's Gainesville, Florida, on a Saturday in the fall. That is theater come to life. It's unbelievable. If you've never experienced it. I can't explain it in words. You have to experience it. Your eyes, your smell. All the senses. All the senses are involved on a Saturday in the fall. Unbelievable rivalries. I love rivalries. Rivalries are the pinnacle of this sport to me as well. Saturdays in the fall, rivalries during the season. I'm very, very, very old school in how I think about this stuff. Like, I value the outcomes of rivalry games more than I do what you do in the playoff. Now, I'm in the minority on that, and I will grant you that. But I'm just sharing to you my college football worldview. Like to me, last year's Ohio State national championship. I look at, and I always remember that you lost the Michigan game. You got the trophy, you got the banner. You deserve it, because that's the construct of the sport. But to me, like, if I'm Ohio State, I am not fulfilled fully there because I don't have the Michigan win to go along with it. Conversely, this year, I won the Michigan game. The fact that I didn't go on to beat Miami does not render that any less significant to me. So rivalries are their own season in college football. To me, some of the stuff I hate, I hate the way the transfer portal works. I don't like talking about it on the show. You've probably picked up on that. I do talk about it because there is massive interest in it. So I mean, it would be like a dereliction of duty for me not to cover it, because all I try to do is build the show around what you guys tell me you care about. But the Portal, if I never had to talk about it again, I'd be totally fine with it. It's not the concept of the portal. It's not the concept that players can move if they want to. It's the frequency with which it happens. It's how many bad actors are involved in it. It's how many kids you can see making terrible, horrifically bad decisions, getting horrifically bad advice. And technically, they're adults. And you got a lot of people out there bitter towards the whole thing. So they look at a kid getting hung out to dry and say, good, good. I don't feel that way. I don't feel that way because I was once upon a time 20 years old, and I'm pretty sure I would have listened to the adults in the room telling me to do something as well, because, you know, I was stupid enough to think they had my best interest at heart at 20 years old. Boy, did I learn. So, yeah, I hate the whole vibe around the Portal right now. I love the root system of college football traditions. I love that. I love. When I go to a Michigan game, I see a family tailgating at the exact same patch of land that their parents tailgated at, that their grandparents tailgated at. I love that they're about to walk in the big house and. And it's one of the biggest buildings on planet Earth, and they're going to chant some of the same things and enjoy some of the same in game traditions and game day traditions that their parents enjoyed, that their grandparents enjoyed. I love what the colors maize and blue mean. I love the feeling you get, like when you get off on that exit and you drive down those same streets you've driven down a million times. Sometimes you get there on a Friday, and there's nothing like breathing in a campus on a Friday, right on the eve of a big game on a Saturday. That is the root system of tradition in college football. I love it. I will again repeat. This is the sport for me, because there's nothing else like that. I know you guys get after it in the parking lot in Philadelphia before an Eagles game. There's nothing remotely comparable to that and what it's like at a Penn State game. And some of you experience both. So you know good and well what I'm talking about. I. Let's talk about something else. I hate. I hate the drive by leadership that treats college football like it's just a line item. I hate that. I hate it because that is not what the sport is to me. In some cases, what's best for the sport would make the sport a little bit less money. And once upon a time, we were kind of okay with that. And in certain places, they're still okay with that. I've always been quick to give credit to Notre Dame and Michigan. Few other places where, as an example, they have chosen to forego plastering advertising signage all over their venues. Not because it wouldn't make them money, it would make them money, but they've looked at the relative pristine appearance of their venues and they've said, you know, that matters to us more than making extra money because we don't need it. We're already loaded, so let's put our foot down there. That kind of attitude doesn't exist nearly enough. You know who else figured that out? The Rose Bowl. When I was growing up in Georgia, everyone would say, the Rose Bowl's getting in the way of progress. And it wasn't until years later, when I defined sort of my college football worldview and what I loved and didn't like and what I value, that I realized, wait a second, my value system is directly in line with the Rose Bowls. The Rose bowl has defined their value system and they are adhering to tradition, and they couldn't care less who has a problem with it. They're going to be New Year's Day and they're going to have that sunset over the mountains there in the second half, and they're going to have the Rose Parade and they're going to have all the pageantry and the tradition that's always been associated with that thing, and they're going to take themselves very seriously because it's tradition that deserves to be taken seriously. And if you don't like it, like all due respect, piss off. We'll have the game with you, we'll have the game without you, and we'll be fine. That attitude used to be very prevalent in college football. What I hate is the sort of drive by leadership. The people who somehow someway got their hands on the wheel of the decision making apparatus of college football. And they make decisions like they're not going to be here in five years to reap the consequences of it. That I don't like. I don't like that. You know, when we hear proposals about conference realignment, when we hear proposals about playoff expansion, when we hear proposals that would introduce fundamental change to the game, Two of the words you never hear out of any quote unquote leader's mouth is fan and player, because they couldn't care less how it affects fans or players. You ever notice that? If you ever wonder who has the best interest of the sport at heart when they're making decisions, just. Just check how frequently they mention fans and players. You'll find out pretty quick. You'll separate them pretty quick. One more thing I hate, since we're trying to balance this out, bad faith arguments. There are a lot of these out there. Sometimes it comes from people who benefit from the current chaotic landscape of college football. I mean, there's some legal types out there that I couldn't care less about because they make arguments that they know are in bad faith and it's in the nature of a lawyer to understand they're speaking a language. The language of legalese is a language most of us do not understand. And when you speak a language most people don't understand, the thing you come to realize is you can say pretty much anything you want and you'll confuse everyone else who doesn't speak the language. This is how politicians have thrived for a long time, but this is how legal types have thrived in an open environment like this right now for a long time. So if it's in your best interest, if it's in your best financial interest, especially for the chaos to continue, frankly, I don't really care what you have to say about what's best for college football, because you and I probably don't agree on that. But then on the other side, you know, we probably got a lot of. Probably got a lot of administrative types over there clapping. Good for you. Get after them, buddy. You're just as complicit on the flip side of the coin of the bad faith arguments, because you and your lack of foresight created the climate that the chaos could exist in. And then you make a lot of bad faith arguments. Like what? We can't afford to pay players anything. Well, how'd that work out? And now it's, we can't afford to make them employees. Well, can you not afford it or can you not afford it? Those are two different things. I'm not even taking a stance on that necessarily. I'm just saying there are a lot of bad faith arguments. So those are some things I love and hate about college football. Next up, how about this? Fresh off the presses, right as the confetti rained down last night in Hard Rock Stadium, Richard from Marquette, Michigan, hit us up. He said, hey, I saw FanDuel dropped the early 2026 College Football Playoff odds. Did anything stand out to you? Yes. I was looking at this on the flight home last night. Several things stood out to me. Firstly, with all this talk about the SEC drought, the odds are reflecting that now. So it's one thing for the SEC to not finish in the top three or top four or whatever, but for a long time, even if that was the end of the story, if you rewind to the beginning of the story, the SEC littered the top of the odds board. There is no SEC team in the top three of the odds to win next year's national championship. It's Ohio State, Notre Dame, Indiana, and then Texas is there, Georgia, LSU, A&M. So there's still four of them in the top 10. Used to be like six or seven of them in the top 10 and several of them in the top four. And that's in the odds. So yeah, that stands out a little bit. I'm not disagreeing with it. I'm just saying it stands out. I think Notre Dame and Texas by far out of the teams listed at the very top, those are the teams that will shoulder the highest level of expectation. Notre Dame's got the second best odds to win it all. Extremely workable schedule. Texas has got the fourth best odds to win it all and they got arch and they just loaded up on a portal class. Plus, Texas always recruits well and with the way that the season ended with them not even making the playoffs, there's a lot of pressure on Steve Sarkeesian, which he obviously understands he got it the day he took the job. They especially understood it with this portal Hall. LSU may be a little bit too low. So LSU's got plus 1400 odds that is good for seventh best in the country. Sam Levitt, if he's fully healthy and he gets paired up with Lane Kiffin and he gets paired up with that offensive staff and then you mesh in the portal class that they're bringing him and it's not even done being constructed yet. Lane Kiffin has proven in the past he and that staff do not need an incredibly long Runway. Like, they are very used to putting together a team in a little bit different manner than his forefathers have in the coaching world at least. So I think LSU may be a little bit too low. If you look at where Oregon is, Oregon's at fifth, which is not low. Alabama's not even on the slider. They're at 11. I think Oregon and Alabama are probably a touch lower than they otherwise would have been because of the way their season ended. And there's a really bad taste in people's mouths, especially with Bama. I think probably more so than Oregon, but I think with both of them, I'm going to enter the Keelan Russell era at quarterback with Alabama. I am continuing the Dante Moore era at Oregon. I would slightly think that they may be undervalued. I think USC is well worth taking a risk on at 13th right now at plus 3500 or 3300. Yeah, 3500 odds. I already, I already put a little coin or two down on usc. Someone get that to Lincoln Riley. We're not doubting them over here. Everybody else may be, but we're not. You just got to figure out a way not to regress on defense. They lost Danton Lynn to Penn State. Still looking to backfill his spot, but good recruiting class coming in, but they just got a good team coming back. I mean, USC is going to be legitimate in the playoff picture next year. Firmly believe that. Penn State is 19th, tied for 19th. They've got plus 6,000 odds. Now I'm going to go ahead and get out ahead of it because you're going to hear this a lot. Could Penn State be the next Indiana? Well, I'm going to ask you to stop that kindly. But I will say very workable schedule next year. We got Matt Campbell, we got our boy up there. He's bringing over a large chunk of his former roster that was at Iowa State and that includes experience at the quarterback position in Rocco Becht. Again, I want to say for a second time. It's a very workable schedule. So got the roster continuity there. Still, still looking maybe to make, I don't know, one final move in the portal. One or two final moves in the portal. 19th best odds to win the national title, Penn State. Those are a few things that I looked at. You can go to FanDuel right now. All of that is available at FanDuel. They have three win totals at Fanduel right now. Jesse, it is Virginia Tech, right? Was it Penn State? Lsu? It's Virginia Tech. Lsu. And out of nowhere, like out of the rafters, we got to hit Mike about this. There is a third team with an over under season win total. Would anyone like to guess who it is? There is no context clue like you would never in a million years guess that. Arkansas is randomly the third. Yeah, there you go. Four and a half by the way. So welcome to Fayetteville, Ryan Silverfield. But that's not what I want to talk to you about the NFL playoffs still ongoing. And I like no one covers the NFL like me. This has been well established in the past few weeks. No one covers the NFL like me. I was on Caleb Williams before anyone was Jesse. He doesn't play this weekend consequently. But yeah, I was on him before anyone was. Anyway, you've got all customers, every single one of you getting profit boost in the conference championship round coming up. So looking forward to watching that and looking forward to exciting new markets opening there because I mean as spring ball comes around we get many more over under win totals games of the year, Heisman odds. We get a lot of that.
- [67:17]
B
Must be 21 and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C. 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 1-888-78-9-7777 or visit ccpg.org chatincenetic or visit ndgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelp linema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24. 7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE NY or text HOPE NY in New York.
- [68:02]
A
Big moment to end the show tonight, ladies and gentlemen. I take a sip of water for this. This is a monumental moment. Two of you are about to have your lives changed forever. I don't think I'm overstating it one bit. Okay, we do bold predictions on this show. A lot of them in the spring and summer. I make some predictions, but but I open up the Pate State mailbag and I take tons of predictions from you guys. And we do like 30 of those segments in the spring and summer. And I put a boldness rating on every one of your predictions. And the rule around here has always been if you make a prediction that I rate nine and a half or higher on the boldness scale and it hits, you take home a chalice of supremacy. In fact, take camera one, Bradley. There are two chalice of supremacy back here on our set. It's hard to see because they're made of glass or are they made of crystal? I don't know. But there are two of them right there. Ironic because we have to give two of them away tonight and I'm Going to get to it in just a second. But some other bold predictions that came true this year. Coach Jakes from Cherry Valley, New York. The SEC will not win the national championship. That's an example of a prediction that we did not think was that bold. We put a seven and a half on that one. And as it turns out, the SEC was Bradley. Why do we have to show this? Oh, no, that's not my predictions. That's how it actually went. Yeah, I have. I have forbidden Bradley from actually showing my predictions. You know, mainly because Florida was in them in the preseason. They were tough times for me. But, you know, I'm reformed now. I put the clown nose on earlier tonight and we've learned the next one was about Penn State. Now, remember, Brandon hit us up from Orlando. He said, penn State under eight and a half wins. Penn State was top five preseason. Penn State, this was the year. Don't think about him now. Think about him in July. This was the year that they were going to make the run. And Brandon sitting there saying not only are they not going to make the run, they're going to crash and burn. Under eight and a half wins. And I made that an 8.75. I'm surprised I didn't make it more bold. Well, Penn State went 7 and 6. If James Franklin got fired and man, he hit, he hit with room to spare. Could have made it seven and a half. What about the one about the acc? So we had one. That was the ACC runner up will not make the playoff. That was JRU J. RU possibly a soft J there in Greer, South Carolina. The ACC runner up will not make the playoffs. I put an 8.75 on that one. Now, in fairness, the ACC's tiebreaker rules were all jacked up this year. So Miami ended up making the playoff and they didn't even play in the conference championship game. It was the whole stupid thing. So. Yeah. Who. Who was it, Jesse? It was Virginia and Duke and neither one of them made the playoff. And great job, accident. So made a very unnecessary mess of things. Rumor on the street is they will rectify their tiebreaker rule before next year. We'll see. Next up. Now, this one came close. This one is from Josh in Savannah. A lot of jokes could be made. No joke will be made. But what Josh did predict is Brian Kelly is done at LSU before Thanksgiving. LSU was a top 10 team, everybody. And then LSU went and Josh couldn't have known this, but LSU went and beat Clemson on the road in week one. So then it really looked like they were off to the races and this man called Brian Kelly being fired before Thanksgiving. And Brian Kelly got fired before Thanksgiving and I put a 9.25 on this. It just missed being chalice worthy. That was very close. If he asked me a different day, I may have made it a 9.5 because I was right on the ledge on that one. Okay, two of you have secured chalice of supremacy. Chalai is the plural of chalice around these parts. Let's go to the tape. First one. College football with Sam from Pinckney, Michigan. Kurt Signetti takes the Indiana Hoosiers back to the playoff except this time he wins at least one game advancing to the quarterfinals or better. And I made that a 9.5 because truthfully, the schedule was getting tougher. I very notably was a doubter of Indiana this year also. I didn't know that they were just going to magically recreate and exceed the dynamic that they had a year before. How was I to know? Apparently everyone else did but me. College football with Sam. I put a 9.5 on that prediction. Chalice of supremacy secured. We will get your shipping, address and information. And that's not all. We had one more Cam Sunrise, Florida. Cam said a team will go 16 oh this year en route to a national championship. And wouldn't you know it, Kurt Signetti and the Indiana Hoosiers 160 National Champs. I rated this a 9.5 on the boldness scale and I may have picked him against him four times, but I went 04 and they went 16 oh and they won a national title. So Cam, Kurt Signetti got a hold trophy and they're going to get rings and everything. You're going to get a chalice of supremacy. So in the end, who was the real winner here? Because they give out trophies every single year, we rarely give out Chalai of supremacy. Great show. We'll have another show Thursday. Look, I'm not going to be the one to call it early. I highly suspect we won't have a show Sunday because, you know, of the whole foot to two foot of snow predicted for Nashville. So in the meantime, I know we can be here Thursday. So let's just make good use of what time we have together over the next week. Nothing is promised. Appreciate you guys so much. Make sure you're subscribed to the channel. The football season is ended, but our season has not ended. We're not going anywhere. So we'll still be here for you. Director Bradley Producer Jesse I'm Josh Bait. Take care. Have a great rest of Your evening and God bless. Hey, for those of you listening on podcast, this is a quick cut in. This is just between you and I. They can't even hear me on YouTube. When we got back from Nashville the other night, immediately after the national championship game, I recorded our actual game Reaction. So in the show so far you have not heard the usual game reaction that you'd hear on the show during the season. And I thought to myself, that's great. If you're on YouTube, a lot of you just listen on podcast. And so you missed that until now. I'm having the guys drop that audio of the reaction video into the show. So here you go. Listen and enjoy. The Indiana Hoosiers. What? Indiana Kurt Signitti. National champions 27 to 21. The final, brought to you by Academy Sports and Outdoors. You can always gear up at Academy if you can't get there in person. Academy.com they've been locked arm in arm with us all year and wow. Indiana is a national champion. Indiana Kurt Signetti, 27 21. The Hoosiers are national champions. I've been saying that over and over again for about the past two and a half hours. Just got back in Nashville from Miami and I've been trying to get used to it and I've come to the conclusion I can't get used to it. So huge, huge, huge congratulations. And I'm going to own some things both in this video and in the show we'll do tomorrow night. But I was thinking about it. I don't know that you can really properly define how big this is in the moment. I think this is the kind of thing that takes history. Now we've got history looking in the rear view mirror, so we know how historically unprecedented it is. But just the full impact. I don't know that we can know because, you know, like 10 years from now we'll be able to look back and we'll know. Was this the dawning of a new era? Did, like two or three other teams randomly do this? Did UCLA and Minnesota go on to come out of nowhere and win national championships? I doubt it. But 10 years from now, I'll know for sure. So I'll know if Indiana was the anomaly to end all anomalies. And I don't think they're anomalies because I think the program's here to stay. But you get what I'm saying. As far as a team slash program coming out of nowhere, or was it the beginning of a new trend? Ten years from now, we'll know right now we don't. What we do know is they operated like nothing I've ever seen before. Just the efficiency. It's almost like watching an AI football team, honestly, it's like they execute at such a high level. I don't care how old they are. I don't care if they're 34 years old on average. If you just put 11 humans on a football field. And the other guys are really good too, you know, the other guys on the other side, they're allowed to try really hard too. And just the ruthless efficiency. And especially in the second half of this game tonight, it was a heavyweight fight, man, standing there on field level, you're watching blow after blow, you're watching what should be a knockout shot delivered multiple times to Miami. And they get back up. And then Miami answers in a way that would stagger or knock out most other teams. And then Indiana in some cases, literally with their mouths bloody, just get back up and say, okay. And it's not like this arrogant, cocky okay either. It's like a okay. Well, now we're, we're going to give it, we're going to give it our best and our best is good enough. I was thinking towards the end of the game when you've had multiple answers from Miami, there are two different distinct moments there, at least in that second half where you think to yourself, oh, so it's a 10 to 7 game and then you got the block punt, touchdown, and that should be ball game. And then they answer right back. And then Indiana answers again. Were there three different times they had 10 point leads in the second half? I think there may have been. And Miami answers again. And, and I looked to Tom Luganbill who was standing next to me because all I could think of was the movie the Perfect Storm. And I said, loogie. The perfect storm in them. He said, of course. What are you talking about? And I was thinking about the moment in Perfect Storm. Spoiler alert. It's 25 years old for those of you who haven't seen it. But they're in the middle of that storm and it's just crazy. And everyone thinks they're going to die. And then the clouds part and the sea's calm and everyone's overjoyed because they thought they were going to die. And now they're happy and now they're going to go back to Cape Cod or wherever it was they set sail from. They're going to see their families again. And then the clouds close back in and the wind picks up and the waves start Tossing them left and right. And George Clooney looks as there's this last ray of sunlight. And he goes, she's not going to let us out. And that, if you've never watched Indiana football, is what watching Indiana football was like tonight. Hey, do me one favor. Right here, look down. Are you subscribed to the channel? If you are, thank you. If you're not, please click subscribe. It helps us keep the show free and free of corporate interference. All right, that's it for me. Back to the clip. Perfect storm. Perfect storm of a season. I guess that metaphor works multiple ways for Indiana. You could just pick whichever way it works best for you, but man. All right, so Fernando Mendoza, also known as Alberto Mendoza in the postgame press conference, what a Warriors effort. Not tonight, all season, but especially tonight because it reminded me a lot of that Ohio State game where he just gets boom. In that case, he got blasted on the first play of the game, got back up and ended up winning. The thing tonight gets his mouth bloodied early in the game. I know a lot of people were upset there was no call on that play. Maybe there should have been. I'm just forget about the play itself for a second. Think about what he did after that and think about coming down to the wire. It always ends up, if you're going to make a championship run, that you can't hide your quarterback. Not that Indiana had been, but even in a game, in a one off four quarter situation at this level of the season, like at this level of playoffs, you don't hide your quarterback. And that's even in a defensive oriented game or maybe, you know, a three phase oriented game, there's going to be a couple of moments where quarterbacks have to make plays. And Fernando Mendoza did it tonight. And you know, you can say it takes a lot of guts for that coaching staff to make that call, especially the second fourth down call on that drive with about 10 minutes, 9 minutes and change to go. Yes, it takes guts. What it really takes is knowing your personnel. That's what it really takes. And when you got 80 over there, Charlie Becker, who literally hadn't dropped the ball all season. But then also when you know you got Fernando Mendoza who's going to touch the ball every play, it doesn't give you 100% statistical likelihood you're going to make anything. It just gives you this comfort in knowing he's on my side. And look, if I go down swinging him on fourth down, leverage situations, if that's how we go down, that's how we go down. That's got to be a good feeling. All four of Indiana scoring drives tonight were 11 plus plays. So they never let Miami tilt the game. They never let Miami tilt the criticals in their favor. And as a result, I mean, look, I know that Surratt and Cooper have been headline grabbers all year, rightfully so. Has there been a more clutch player than Charlie Becker? I remember I was talking to an Alabama staffer when they were going into the Rose bowl against him. That was the dude. They just kept circling. They kept saying, we got to have an answer for 80. Well, no one's had an answer for him. Contested catches, wide open catches, doesn't matter. He's been. He's been incredible to watch on a. On a team where it was already perceived that they had a big two, which they did, and do him emerging as well. I just. I've never been more sure. I'm watching a guy that's going to play 10 plus years in the league. Just. I got no doubts that he will. So just. Man, on all fronts, just an unbelievable scene that unfolded down in Miami. I know a lot of you guys made that trip, man, I'm so glad for the Indiana folks. They got to do it because, like we talked about, those ticket prices were through the roof and it didn't stop you. And you took over someone else's building and then you got what you paid for. Sometimes things fall flat, but you guys got what you paid for. But Miami was right there. I picked Miami to win the game. All right? So let's not bury that. I buried it like three or four minutes, but let's not bury that. Picked Miami to win the game. And if. If I picked him to win the game and then you told me, hey, you picked Miami to win. Yeah. All right, here's what I can guarantee you. They're going to have the ball at midfield with a minute to go, down six. Do you take it? Yes. Sign me up. Sign me up. After all of the things that you can't do against Indiana. Okay, they. They're bad on third down, partly because Indiana forced them to be bad on third down. They missed a field goal. They got a punt block for a touchdown. These are all things that we would universally agree you cannot do if you're going to have a shot to beat Indiana. They did all of them and still had a shot at midfield. Down six, a minute to go, and Indiana makes play. And Indiana comes out on top because that's what they've done all year. But I just. I know it's, it's one thing if you're Bama and you got run. It's one thing if you're Oregon and you got run. But man, Miami took some blows. They dealt some blows and it's right there, which is all you could ask for in a national championship game. From my perspective, just being able to stand there as a bystander, I know a lot of people aren't Indiana or Miami fans. And you were sitting there wondering when you woke up yesterday morning, now are we even going to get a good game? Yeah, we got a good game. We got a great game. I don't know. Four and a half Chalet. That was a great game, man. I mean, you, you had a lot of championship metal both sides exhibited, especially in that second half. But you know, it's funny, when you look at the immediate, what they call a one sheet that they'll give us at the game, and sometimes you'll look on your phone, you look at the box score really quick. Sometimes the box score tells you everything you need to know. Sometimes the box score lies to you. And then there are other times where the box score just doesn't tell the whole story. I felt like this was one of those, those third category games. It was a classic three phaser, as Memaw would call it, because the box score does not really tell you what you need to know. The box score tells you Miami outgained Indiana. Yes. The box score tells you Miami, you know, needing to run the ball to win the game. 5 and 5.2 yards per carry. If you, in fact, if you told me that number this morning, I would have felt really good about my pick. 5.2 yards per carry. Now what I couldn't have known is that special teams and defense were going to tilt so heavily Indiana that it rendered a lot of that moot. Miami misses a field goal. Indiana's 2 for 2 kicking threes. Indiana blocks a punt for a touchdown. Also, talk about tilting the field, which Indiana has been so good at all year. Miami's final six drives started on their 25 yard line or worse. That's the kind of stuff that wins games. That's the kind of thing where turnovers aren't heavily tilted. Either way, you get outgained and you still win the game. It's because the box score is not lying to you. It's just not telling the whole story. A lot of people are asking right now, what does this mean? Like the Indiana win, What Kirk Sidney has done in Indiana, people were asking him in his postgame oh, what does that mean? And everyone's, everyone's columns post game had at least a portion of what does this mean for college football? I'll get to that in a second. I do want to thank Quick Trip Kwik. Trip made this entire tour this year possible. The Fall Not Lie Tour, huge success, I would say easily my favorite tour that we've done. It was the most successful tour we've done. And I learned a long time ago, man, when I first got to cover college football and I was working local news, we would come to the end of a season and I would always be on my way out of the stadium and I would just turn back around and I would hang out in there and it's empty. And you're just reflecting on, of course it's the end of a season and you're reflecting on the fact that you just got to cover a whole season of college football for a living. It wasn't much of a living back then, but it was a living. It beat having a real job, as I always said. But I always remembered that there were, you know, people, my peers, other, other reporters covering college football. And you realized this beginning of the next season, you know, five or six of them weren't around anymore. And over the span of four or five years when I worked in local news and local sports, I just came to understand you don't ever assume another season because there are always layoffs or just life could take unpredictable turns. And so I always felt that way. I still think that way. We got a good thing going right now. I don't take a day of it for granted. And you guys know I appreciate you. And the days I don't tell you, just understand. I'll probably tell you the next day, I appreciate you. But even tonight, leaving Hard Rock Stadium down there, I mean, our show is having a ton of success, but you still look around, you'd never assume another season. And so we had a great win this year fueled by quick trip. And I appreciate it. So did Indiana. Let's get back to this. So million different ways to ask the same question. A million different people are asking the same version of this question. What does the Indiana win mean for college football overall? To me, it can't be overstated. This was college football's Roger Bannister moment. Roger Bannister, pretty famously first dude to run the sub 4 minute mile. Up until that point, a lot of people thought it was impossible. And the entire moral of that story, it was never impossible. It just took a guy doing it to show you it was possible. Or put another way, a lot of people said it can't happen when in reality it just had not happened. Which is a familiar theme we talk about a lot on this show. Well, a lot of people, and I got to be honest, I would group myself in here. A lot of people would have told you a team, the ilk of Indiana will never win a national championship. We'll never sniff a national championship. And I believed that because everything about the history of college football had told me that. And look, I'm not ignorant to the changes of this world. I'm not ignorant to the changes in Nil and the Portal. I'm not ignorant to any of that. I had baked all that in and still believed that there was no way that this could ever happen. That's part of the fun. Like anyone who sits around and tries to tell you, when Kurt Signetti got hired at Indiana, they sniffed this out. No, they didn't. No, they did. You. I was, I was talking to, I was talking to Van Pelt earlier tonight. Name drop. I was talking to Van Pelt earlier tonight and we were talking about the first Signetti game. Going back and looking at the B roll of his first game in Indiana and how there were dozens of fans in the crowd. No one knew. That's what makes it fun. That's what makes it incredible and memorable and you know, fill in the adjectives. But the Roger Bannister of it all for me here is now that someone, in this case Kurt Signetti in Indiana show that it can happen. Where else can it happen? For whom else can it happen? Can it happen for Minnesota? Can it happen for Arkansas? Can it happen for Houston? Just Arizona. You start naming them. All those programs, by the way, have a more storied track record than Indiana did. So Rutgers, you're on the clock, Purdue, you're on the clock, et cetera. It's an amazing thing once you watch something proven to be possible, all of a sudden you think, hey man, maybe it's possible for me too. Maybe it's possible for us too because Roger Bannister ran that sub 4 minute mile and then a bunch of people ran a sub 4 minute mile. So the age old question is, were these people always capable of, of also running sub 4 minute miles? They just needed to see this one kid do it. Looks that way. So now is it really that simple? Is it just watching Indiana do it? Because I, I happen to believe even Indiana will have a hard time recreating what they did this year. I know there will be more talented versions of Indiana. You cannot have a more efficient version of a team than Indiana just put on the field. That doesn't mean they may not win another title, but you will never operate more efficiently than they did. I don't think it's possible. There I go saying I don't think something's possible. And Kurt Signetti, of course, in business proven that wrong. You. You put together a more efficient operation than they did this year, and I'm not really sure the season's worth watching for the rest of college football. So huge congratulations to Kurt Signetti and Indiana and the fans up there again picked against you guys again. I had nothing but, you know, pats on the head again. And I guess finally it took until January 19th for me to learn my lesson. But learn my lesson. I have the Indiana Hoosiers, undisputed champions of the college football world.
- [92:03]
B
Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C. first online real money wager only. Five dollar 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. Do chat in Connecticut or visit nd gamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24. 7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE NY or text hopeny in New York.
- [92:47]
A
This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed human.