← Josh Pate's College Football Show
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Spiritual Experience Life Changing Nobel Peace Prize Word. I'm just reading some of the feedback on our Kurt Signetti Sit down from the other day. What a week it was for the speaker series. We're jam packed high atop a glowing downtown Nashville, Tennessee. It's Thursday. It's May 14th, the year of our Lord 2026. And yes, it was a big week on the road. And yes, it's been a big week on the Internet. Jesse, I don't know if you've paid attention this week, if your WI FI connection has been strong, but there's been a lot of talk, you know, there's been, I'll go as far as to say a lot of perceived momentum swings in the College Football Playoff expansion conversation. And I, I don't know, I just want to maybe humbly suggest that none of it matters tonight. Dare I? Yes, I do. So we'll talk about that. I got bold predictions on the show tonight. I'm going to give you a really solid behind the scenes look at our Indiana trip. Some at this point predictable comments from the LSU athletic director about the now departed Brian Kelly. All that. Plus, we don't do this very often, but I figured this is the week to do it. The executive director of the College Football Playoff is going to stop by. In fact, he already did. We recorded the sit down and it is lengthy and there is a lot that we addressed with Rich Clark that I basically asked on your behalf because I imagine a lot of what I asked him is a lot of what you would ask him if you were sitting right here. So if you want some answers instead of just a bunch of speculation and questions, actually, we'll do a healthy amount of all that on the show tonight. They're watching us in Cincinnati, Ohio, Rome, Georgia, Elk Grove, California. Spokane, Washington is tuned in. Please make sure you subscribe to the channel. We've had a ton of subs over the past month or so and it's just, it's just May guys, but it's year round. We do not take an off season around here and therefore it's college football wall to wall. Let's dive into the show tonight, shall we? Stop me if you've heard this before. 2014 playoff it's just inevitable. It's a matter of time. You know, it's whether we like it or not. Josh It's. It's coming for us. You heard that? Have you said something like that? How do you know that? How does anyone know? It's inevitable. So this week there's been a lot of noise. In fact, the past couple of weeks, there's been a lot of noise. We've talked about it a number of times on this show. You know my stance by now, but if you don't, I'll remind you in a few minutes. You know what? I'll do it. Now. A 2014 playoff would be an utter disaster for this sport. So there's my thoughts on it, and you've got your thoughts. And apparently, for a change, most of you agree with me. It's refreshing. We're not normally on the same page, you and I, when it comes to playoff expansion, but you have probably been beaten over the head with the idea that whether you like it or not, you it's inevitable, it's going to happen. And I'm just going to very, very humbly suggest to you that Nothing's inevitable. A 2014 playoff is not inevitable. It's not a foregone conclusion. It's not right around the corner. It's not anything. Now, I know you've probably paid attention over the past couple of weeks like I have, and you've seen the Big Ten, which has long been behind this, continue to be behind it. And you've seen the Big 12 come out and they've spoken in favor of 24 teams. And then just a couple of days ago, you saw the ACC come out and they've been in favor of it. Oh, and not the least of whomst the afca, the coaches just Judas all of us. And then they spoke out in favor of a 2014 playoff. Notre Dame, for good measure, has spoken out. And I understand a lot of you do not exist in the weeds here. And so it can start to seem like one by one is a lot of these real big name brand entities and these powerful people speak out in favor of 24. It just seems inevitable that we're headed to 24. Well, here's the thing you need to know. Two voices matter here, and they are diametrically opposed in their stance. One of them is the Big Ten. You might call them Fox, I'll call them the Big Ten. We have to be professional. After all. The other is the sec. You might call them espn. However you view the paradigm in college athletics right now, there are competing ideologies, and those are the only two voices that matter. The Big 12 doesn't matter. The Big 12's opinion rather on this, on this entire topic doesn't matter. The ACC's doesn't matter because the SEC and the Big Ten constructed an entire world here and got the others to sign off on it, where it is their voices and really their voices alone, their gavels alone, that are going to determine things. So as long as the SEC doesn't want it, it's not going to happen. You can be mad at that, or in my case, be really happy with it, but that's the state of affairs. However, I have noticed and continue to notice that a lot of you are trafficking in various ways of thinking about this. We've gone over a lot of it on the show and I've certainly told you how I feel. But I've noticed that, like I told you the other day, aside from Nico I. Amaliava last year, I don't remember in the last couple of years a singular topic that's gotten this much feedback from our audience. So, like, I'd be happy to move on from it. You guys are talking about it. So I did want to bring a couple of new points to the forefront tonight. I wanted to address a couple of things, but the first thing I wanted to address is, do you notice, like, when Jim Phillips stepped to the podium, I believe yesterday or two days ago at the conclusion of ACC spring meetings, a couple of you pointed out to me, man, he made the very arguments that you said they'd be making. And it's not that I'm a prophet, it's that it's very predictable. Have you noticed that when a conference commissioner steps to the podium, Jim Phillips is just the latest one to do it? The football logic is so hollow in their push for a 2014 playoff. Do you think that's coincidence? Do you think it just so happens they're making really, really hollow points? Not a lot of meat on the bone type points. It's not, guys, it's really easy to understand. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand all this is about revenue. Like, everyone knows it's about money. But the thing is, decision makers really do sit in a room and largely discuss matters of finance. They discuss matters of revenue, namely how to make more of it, which is okay. For all I know, we'd act the same way if we had their jobs. But we don't. So I really don't care. But the follow up is, picture this. You're a conference commissioner and your coaches or your athletic directors, whatever, are saying, hey man, we're paying 30, $40 million now and in the future for rosters, we gotta be able to sell something to our donor class. We gotta be able to sell that we finished 17th in the country, and all of a sudden now that means we're a playoff team. I mean, we got to give them a carrot on the end of the string. These are matters of finance. These are matters of revenue. These aren't matters correlated with the betterment of the sport. Those aren't the conversations happening in these rooms. But here's the problem. If you're Jim Phillips or any of these other conference commissioners, there comes a time you eventually have to sell this to the broader public. There eventually comes a time you have to step to a podium and you have to talk to the media. And it's collectively like five minutes before that happens. There's this awareness that, oh, crap, man, we got to dress this up as a football related issue. We got to dress this up like it's in the best interest of the game. And that's how you get conference commissioners walking to a podium saying, well, hey, I mean, Florida State got left out a few years ago. That's why we need to expand to 24. Yeah. Because Florida State finishing fifth in the country a few years ago certainly did not get addressed by expanding to 12. Certainly they did not. And then the other point that he tried to make is a Notre Dame, which wants nothing to do with joining the acc, mind you, but Notre Dame, they were capable of winning a title last year and they got left out. That's evidence that the playoff's not big enough. I'd counter with its evidence. The playoff is the perfect size, Jesse. Notre Dame go undefeated last year, 11 and 1, 10 and 2. Oh, so. So you're telling me that an undefeated team did not get Left out? A 10 and 1 or 11 and one team did not get left out. You're telling me that two games that were very, very key, by far their two toughest opponents, they lost both of those games. And the consequence for that is just being left on the outside looking in. So, in other words, we have a playoff that's probably the perfect size right now because there's a perfect balance of not having one loss torpedo your season, but also understanding you can't lose two or three games, especially if they're your biggest games, and still just expect the back door to open and you to magically make the playoff anyway. Jim Phillips is one thing. He has to speak up for a lot of different voices. Danny Cannell does not. And I don't really think anyone wants Danny Cannell speaking up for him. But Danny Cannell, I'm not going to go as far as to say a friend of the program. Unfortunately he's a friend of mine and therefore I feel comfortable calling Danny's points for what they are. I feel comfortable calling Danny for what he is on this topic. He's a terrorist, that's what he is. And yesterday in his latest attack on this sport, Danny Cannell said one trend I am noticing the same people who never wanted a four team playoff. Me not, but I'll get back to that. The same people who never wanted a four team playoff are the same people who didn't want a 12 team playoff. And now those same people are pounding the table against expansion. Even though couldn't fully spell out though he's in a hurry. Even though the 12 team playoff has been a massive success and they don't want to admit it. Here is what Daniel Jeremitrius Canel is trying to sell you on right here. He is trying to sell you on the idea that there's this huge group of people that never wanted a four team playoff. I'm not sure that group is all that big, Jesse. Even I'm not a part of that group. Even I supported going to four. Now from that point you better believe I fought going to 12. And the reason was twofold. Let's remember why some of us fought going to 12, Daniel. It wasn't because we thought the 12 team format would be an utter disaster. It is true that I thought it would detrimentally impact the urgency on the regular season to some degree. It did that. But I will fully grant you the 12 team playoff has largely been a success. There have been more pros than cons to it. Okay, so my greatest fear is not realized and I'm thankful for that. Now a normal person would be thankful that their greatest fears have not been realized and leave well enough alone. There's another group of the College Football Society that says, wow, well let's double down on it. Literally let's go from 12 to 24. And that brings me to the real problem some of us had with expanding to 12. Only part of it was what we thought it may do to the regular season. The other part is we saw no reason that it would stop at 12. And I remember getting laughed at. I remember getting shooed away. I remember all that. This wasn't that long ago. That's why I remember it 12. I mean, come on now they're gonna skip past six and eight. Surely when they go to 12, that is a way, way big enough playoff. No, it's not. If you ever understood the basic mechanisms as to why they went to 12, you understood there's no stop sign these see at 12. And I'm going to take it a step further. Hopefully it never comes to this. There's no stop sign at 24, guys. Why would there be a stop sign at 24? Walk your own bankrupt logic through to its conclusion if you believe that more of a thing. In this case, playoff spots equals pro, pro, pro, pro, no con. I don't even hear these people talking about a potential negative side effects, just all good. If it's going to deliver nothing but goodness, why would we stop at 24? And if it's going to make me more money going to 24, why would I stop at 24? And so that was really the genesis of the fear that a lot of us had and the resistance a lot of us had. But I want to even push past that because there were other points that are being made and I'm going to just address a couple of them and then we'll move on because we got a lot of show to get to. But I have noticed that sure enough, the predicted bad faith talking points that we predicted on this show over the past two shows have come to fruition. They're dotting the landscape. And one of them really kind of goes back to what Jim Phillips said. He's not the only one who's made this point. A lot of people have made this point. And the point is this. There are way more teams capable of making a run in a playoff right now. There are more teams than there were 10 years ago capable of winning a national championship. The talent in the sport has spread out, it's flattened the overall sport, which is just categorically true. It's undeniable. And because of that, it means we have to have a bigger playoff. Here is the flaw in that thinking. It pretends that 12 was built to address the way the sport already was, instead of 12 being built and then them stumbling into it being the right size. 12 was the playoff that they conceptualized back when there were still only 2, 3, 4 teams capable of winning at all. Or to put it another way, imagine the 12 team playoff existing but nil and the portal never coming along. You know how stupid that playoff would have looked if you had two or three buzz saw teams? And then we went through the motions of putting seven, eight or nine more teams in a playoff. Do you understand how stupid that would have been? I heard, I think it was Staples, it may have been Ari the other day. Talk about how. And they're right in this. The powers that be kind of tripped into accidentally having the 12 team playoff. Makes sense because the landscape of the sport came to the 12 team playoff. But the thing about it is 12 became the right size. 12 wasn't the right size to begin with. They tripped into it becoming the right size. 12 only just now became the proper size for the playoff. Okay, now this point in moving forward, the same thing to do would be to stick at 12 for a little while. But instead the same people who tripped backwards into 12 becoming the right size are looking to say, hey man, let's double down here, let's go to 2412 only just now makes sense. And if you're of the opinion that the playoff isn't big enough until everybody capable of making a run is in the playoff, then you and I are just at opposite ends of the way we view this sport. It's probably a waste of time for us to debate it or even converse about it in any kind of significant way. I look at Notre Dame not making the playoff last year and it's evidence the playoff is the exact right size. I'd say the same thing if Miami didn't make it last year. I said the same thing the year before when Bama didn't make it and Ole Miss got left out. They barely got left out. That's cause they were flawed teams. And they weren't flawed in a sense that they lost one game. They lost multiple games. They had multiple dents on their resume. Notre Dame had multiple dents on the resume last year. I would much, much rather suffer me being upset that one team I think is capable got left out because they didn't handle their business. Then we filled in all the gaps with teams we think are capable. Oh, we got six more gaps to fill in. And in the aggregate, the impact that had on the regular season. Now more people are starting to pick up on this. Show me the Greenberg quote from earlier today. Bradley. Mike Greenberg baller move. I mean quote tweeting his own quote. I hate I didn't think of it before, honestly. So they were talking earlier today on get up about this very topic and he said if we live in a world where Ohio State and Michigan rest their starters for that game at the end of the season because they've got the potential of five playoff games sitting in front of them, then college football as we have known it ceases to exist. You know what, of course he's right about that. But I was thinking about it more today. Jesse, maybe we need to move off the rivalry games as the example. Because if, if you want to push back on this and you want to say Greeny, Ohio State, Michigan will always matter above and beyond playoff ramifications. No starters would ever be rested. Even if those teams are undefeated. That game is a season in and of itself. Iron bowl, fsu, Florida, like big rivalry games that happen at the end of the year. This would never happen to those games. Hey, look, I hope you're right and I actually think you are right. What about Oklahoma, Missouri this year? If OU theoretically, and we're in a 2014 playoff, if OU had everything locked up. You're telling me that couldn't happen in OU versus Missouri? You're telling me that couldn't happen in Indiana versus Purdue at the end of the year. You're telling me Penn State, Maryland, like we couldn't see that? We absolutely would see it. You're telling me Miami, NC State at the end of the year, if those teams know they got it locked up, then we wouldn't be talking about resting starters. Are you serious? Like you have to be lying to yourself. And the reason I know that is this group out here that's pushing for this, that will not rest until this sport mirrors the National Football League in every sense of the letters. Are they watching the last two weeks of the NFL season, Jesse? Do they see what happens on Sundays? Do you not see teams that already have seating locked up? Do you not see them rest starters? Do you not see them start angling for postseason play in the Sunday game? Of course you do. And you're on a quest for this sport to mirror that one. I don't know why, but you are. Why would you think college football is immune to that? Of course it would happen. Of course it would happen. Now, you either think one of two things about that kind of concept. You either think it's a non starter and the moment that you even marginally encroach on the regular season to benefit your postseason, you're chasing the wrong kind of postseason. And that's how I feel. Or you're thinking, well, maybe it will detrimentally impact the regular season, but if that's the trade off for having this 2014 postseason, then so be it. If you feel that way, it doesn't make you a bad person, it makes you a casual person, it doesn't make you a bad person. But it means we got nothing more to discuss here. We just view the college football world differently. Also, before I move on I want to give you a bit of good news. Okay? I haven't spoken up about the Los Angeles mayoral race lately because my voice doesn't matter there. But I have spoken up a lot about college football playoff expansion because I think my voice does matter and yours does, too. And the feedback I've gotten and the people that I have spoken with, and there have been a bunch of them over the past week and a half to two weeks, the cumulative effect of those conversations has led me to come here tonight and tell you this in this microphone. Keep making noise because it's making an impact. If there's one thing that the decision makers in this sport hate, it's their face being on a topic in a movement this unpopular because they've never been there before when it's come to playoff expansion, which they sold to you in years past as being done for the betterment of the game, even though it was really just a license to print money. Previously, you supported it. The public supported this in probably a super majority type scale. They don't. They don't. You can disagree out there, Whether it's a 1090 issue or a 2080 issue, I don't care. It's the most unpopular major initiative that I've ever seen taken in college football since I've done this. It is wildly unpopular. They've lived in a bubble for a little while and weren't aware of it. It's been made abundantly clear to college football leaders, if you want to use that term, and believe me, I say it in all lowercase letters. It's been made abundantly clear over the past two weeks how unpopular the concept of a 2014 playoff is. So the college football public has seen through this. Like the debating on that, the switching sides on that is over. They've rejected. You've rejected it. You've rejected it. Now you don't get to make the decision. But I am telling you, these are not strong willed people. A lot of these folks, and if you can't tell, check how much they flip flop just over the past few months. These people are not hardened in their principled stance on this. Okay? There's one principle and it's finance. And there are more ways to make enough money for this thing to stay afloat than expanding the playoff. I'm just telling you, continue to make noise on it. That's about as clear as I can put it. Make noise on it. Sometimes it does not matter. I am telling you unequivocally on this matter. It does matter. Let's move On. You know what disgusts me, Jesse? Is people trying to expand something just to make money. Okay, that disgusts me. Now we move on to this news. We have expanded the store@paintstatematerial.com Even today, we have added new items because we want to make more money. Hey, at least we're up front about it. At least we're up front about it. However, I am happy to report to you that in adding more items to the store, we have not diminished the value of the items that were already in the store. Don't ask me to explain it. That's just the way it works. So the other day, we were doing some research on the show just to give you a backstory on why this hat says depth over dopamine. You probably don't need a backstory. I mean, that makes good sense. It's a good life philosophy. But. But the reason we have it in our store is we got a little AI generation. We get a little AI Report every now and then. We just want to know how the robots out there describe our show. Okay, I know how Jesse sees us. How does Claude see us? We just ask every now and then. And so you know what they said, Jesse? It said whatever. It said that our audience. The retention rate is off the charts for our genre or any genre, which is true. You guys watch an insane percentage of these shows. I appreciate it. AI has taken note, too, and it describes our audience as an audience that chases depth over dopamine. Our audience probably not just endlessly scrolling through shorts feeds, for example. Maybe some of you do, but apparently when you come to our show, you're chasing depth over dopamine. Now, I thought to myself, we could pay a marketing department who knows how many hundreds of thousands of dollars to come up with slogans, or we just slap that on a hat and a T shirt. We chose the latter. So we have slapped that on hats and T shirts. And that's available along with the football is coming line, which for two weeks in a row is our best seller. That was, as best I recall a. A 50.50collab idea between Jesse and I. I think that's the way that went. It doesn't matter. It really look. As long as all the money goes into the proper coffers, it doesn't matter whose idea it was. Yes, yes, everybody's smiling. Therefore, everyone agrees with that philosophy. Let us move on.
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Bold prediction season is continuing. Here's the goal here. You want to make a prediction that I rate 9.5 or higher on the boldness scale so that if it comes true, I am legally required to send you a chalice of supremacy. We sent three of them out all of last year. Let's see if anyone qualifies tonight. First up, this is a little mean, but Rob from Tampa said Tennessee will fire Josh Hyp after a six loss season. They made a bowl game, Rob. So Rob thinks they're going, I guess six and six. I think that's a regular season total, whatever. Tennessee's win total seven and a half. So FanDuel looks at this and says that wouldn't be the craziest thing in the world. They're looking and saying Tennessee is just as likely to lose six games as they are to win nine games. You know, so on that case or on that front, not that bold, but Josh Hype will get fired. That's a bridge a little bit further. Is it a bridge too far? I think so. I'm going to make it a nine and a half on the boldness scale. That's not because I don't think Tennessee couldn't go six and six. I mean, all it takes is quarterback not working out. If quarterback doesn't work out for him. You know, maybe the Jim Knowles defensive experiment doesn't quite get its tires under it in year one. They play at Georgia Tech. They got Texas, Auburn, Bama at A&M, LSU. There are plenty of losable games at South Carolina. Like there are plenty of losable games on this schedule where they could go six and six. But man, Hypo's had five straight winning seasons, had a couple of double digit win seasons. He's gone to the playoff. He pulled that program totally out of the gutter and it is widely believed that they are a year away from that team being good next year. Now if that equals 8 and 4 this year, okay. But if it equals 6 and 6, they're not firing him. Like I don't, I got a, I got a hard time wrapping my mind around that. So I'm going to put it at a nine and a half. So if this does happen, Chalice of supremacy headed to Tampa. Next up, this one's bold to CFB red zone, Dayton, Ohio. Prediction. Kansas State wins 10 plus games during the regular season, but they still miss the Big 12 championship game. Two parter here. Classic two parter. Kansas State's win totals eight and a half. So to win 10 games, got to go over that by a game and a half. We think they have the easiest schedule in all of Power 4. Them in Virginia, we think have the two easiest schedules in all of Power 4. Now, schedules are not teams, okay? It just. It's the resistance that the schedule is going to give a team at least as much as we think it will. Two things have to happen here. Number one, if Kansas State is going to go 10 and two but not go to the conference title game, you got to assume both their losses have to come in conference play. So I can't have them losing to Nichols or Tulane or Washington State. They got to come in conference play. Second, there has to be this unique confluence of events that comes together where KSU is 10 and 2, presumably with two conference losses. And then maybe like Texas Tech and Brigham Young, or Brigham Young in Utah, something like that. Houston, maybe they both finish ahead of them. Just winning 10 games would be tough, but it wouldn't be up in the nines, I don't think. But winning 10 games and missing out on the conference title game, I'm going to make that a nine and a quarter. I'll make that 9.25. The schedule is what kept me from making that a nine and a half or higher. Next up, our buddy Dylan from Houston said two teams from the state of Indiana will advance further than anyone from the SEC in the College Football Playoff. Now, he did not say Indiana and Notre Dame. He merely said two teams from the state of Indiana. For all I know, Dylan knows something about Purdue we don't know this year. I've never seen that many zeros behind a plus sign when it comes to odds to win the national championship. But maybe, maybe Barry's cooking something in West Lafayette. Maybe Ball State's got a trick or two up their sleeve. I'm going to assume Dylan's talking about Indiana and Notre Dame just for the sake of time here. So both of them are going to make it further in the playoff than any team from the sec. It requires a lot to go, right. I'm going to make it a 9.75. So this qualifies as a chat list. Here's what has to happen. Even if Notre Dame and Indiana make it, the brackets got to line up the right way. First off, like what if they both play each other in the first round or even the second round. So. So that's got to happen. They got to be on kind of opposite sides of the bracket, you would think. Or if they're on the same side of the bracket, they can't meet until the semifinals. And you have to hope no SEC team made the semifinals. So you got to have a Final Four that's void of SEC representation. It's just hard to pull off. Okay. And then not to even mention, what if Texas is really, really legit this year? What if Georgia is really, really legit this year? That's just hard to do. So I'm going to say a 9.75 on that one. Next up, is this from Jesse? Did Jesse submit this one? No, no. Full tilt did not. A burner, I'm told, from St. Augustine, Florida. Penn State goes 11 and 1 and makes the playoff look, it's an 8.25. Penn State's got a shot to do this. Here is the trap that I'm trying to avoid slipping in. It's the one I just said a few minutes ago. You can't just keep talking about the schedule with Penn State. Schedules are not teams. Penn State, the team is what we got to dive deeper on. And we don't know a ton about them. Cause a ton of more hurt to rap Spring. So we don't really know what they have. We think we kind of do. I mean, I'm going to take a shot in the dark as much as the rest of you, and I certainly look at their schedule. Bradley, if you've got their schedule, throw it up for a second. Because it is very clear when you start with Marshall and Temple and Buffalo, you don't have to be full speed by week one, so you got a little time to get your feet under you. And then it's Wisconsin and Northwestern. You don't really play the meat of your schedule until October 10th and October 17th. That's when you got to be ready. That's Southern Cal and that's at Michigan back to back. So the injured guys presumably are backed by them. But like, what is the top level that Penn State's playing at there? Are they at a level where, let's say they split USC and Michigan and can I really count on them to go take care of business at Washington, not slip up against a Minnesota or a game at Maryland? If they are great, that wouldn't shock me. It wouldn't be the craziest thing in the world. And if they go 11 and 1, yes, they'll be A playoff team. So I'm going to make it an eight and a quarter. I just want to be careful that you don't convince yourself that Penn State merely because of their schedule is going to be a good team. Because if a bad team plays Penn State schedule, you know what? They still are a bad team. That's what you got to be careful with in college football. Talking to myself, speaking of the Big Ten, I did want to get back to Bradley. Here's a good endpoint for you. We've been checking in on the job approval ratings of a lot of these head coaches. We've been making our way around the sec. Now we've made our way around the Big Ten. And I wanted to start in quintessential Big Ten country, Los Angeles, California, of course. And. And I wanted to talk about Lincoln Riley. How do you think the USC fan base would grade the job approval of Penns or not a Penn State of Lincoln Riley right now? Because I would say C minus. Is that too harsh? Do we think it's too. I guarantee you I know some USC fans and they think I'm being kind with C minus. So I just think that fan base, the older fan base, the fan base that understands USC is a national title like bonafide top three, top four caliber program. Those people are not going to bend on their standards. They shouldn't bend on their standards. The situation out there is well understood when it comes to Lincoln Riley, usc, the USC fan base. It is a playoff or bust season. It should be a playoff or bust season. He is gone 11 and 3, 8 and 5, 7 and 6, 9 and 4. And that fan base probably looks at that and says that's not good enough. Five years in, it's not terrible, but it's not good enough. We didn't hire you to not be terrible. We hired you to be what you were offensively at Oklahoma and figure out defense. That's what we thought we were getting. We thought we were getting a guy at the dawn of the NIL era that was going to come in here and take advantage of all that Los Angeles has to offer. Oh, and by the way, then we tossed you into the Premier conference, if not a 1A to the 1B premier conference with the SEC in college football. And you've done what with that? By our standards, you've done nothing so far. Here's the situation. We're giving you another year and if you make the playoffs this year, all's right with the world. If Gary Patterson works out as our defensive coordinator, all's right with the world. They haven't given up on him, but that also doesn't mean they're going to grade him on some curve. It's not that way. It's not like, like some people talk about Nebraska sometimes as well. You can't hold Nebraska to their mid-90s standards. If you feel that way, you feel that way. I can 1,000% hold USC to their early 2000 standards. I can 1,000 percent hold USC to my coach McKay 1970s vintage standards because nothing's changed about the landscape of the sport to where USC should have to take a back seat. Nothing's happened. If anything, the sport has come further into USC's wheelhouse. So the recruiting classes look good. The roster this year is as good as they've had it. I think the C minus grade is right now. But that's also a fan base grading Lincoln Riley to C minus. That would love to bump him up to B plus or A minus. Got to give him a reason. I'd give Dan Lanning an A minus job approval rating for Dan Lanning at Oregon. Amongst the fan base there, I'd say, is an A minus. Here's what's going to happen in the comment section. Bunch of people are going to come in and ask, what does he want? It's the same people every time. They're not Oregon fans, though. They're not. Dan Lanning's crime is he has failed to clear the highest hurdles that this sport has to offer. A couple of high hurdles. He hasn't cleared everything else. He's cleared. This is one of the premier programs in college football. Okay, so I'm giving him an A minus because that's what I think the Oregon fan base feels. The Oregon fan base looks and says, we did not love what happened against Indiana last year either time. We didn't love what Ohio State did to us in the Rose bowl the year before. Those are eventual national championship teams. Didn't love that we couldn't beat the national champs. Everything else we love. We love the talent we're getting and we figure if the talent keeps rolling through here like this, eventually it'll happen. Maybe it'll be this year, because I think this is his best shot to win a title thus far at Oregon. But the criticism of Lanning, almost exclusively, at least from what I've noticed, comes outside the Oregon fan base, inside the Oregon fan base. It's not that they view him as perfect, but they view him as a really, really good head coach with the ability to one day be a great Head coach. That's the way I view him, by the way. So a minus. It's a different story in Madison, Wisconsin. Hate to say it, but at Wisconsin I think the fan base would grade Luke Fickle at a D right now. I can't believe that's the headline this many years in, but it is. They just got off on the wrong foot. It's like the wood's been wet and it's never dried out and they've tried to lighten it every year and a lot of it has to do with how snake bitten they've been. At quarterback. Tyler Van Dyke, he's going to be the answer. No, he's not. He's hurt. Billy Edwards, he's going to be the answer. No, he's not. He's hurt. They've injured conference play a couple of years in a row now. Quarterback's done, and as a result the records have gone backwards. 7 and 6 to 5 and 7 to 4 and 8. And this year's a big portal year and I have no idea what to expect. Last year they had a brutal schedule too, so at least it lightens up slightly this year. But you know, I say all that and then they open with Notre Dame. So at least us in Green Bay, I think the fan. I don't know what you're looking at right now. I mean, what would you look at? Potential maybe, but that's after year one. You can talk like that. This is going into year four guys and Wisconsin football. I mean, they were not a national title contender per se under Paul Crist or before that. But man, they were a much more solid program than it is right now. And I'm shocked. I'm saying that I did not expect to be saying that four years in. So I'd put it at a D right now, like maybe a C minus at its very best. But I don't know how you'd get up that high right now. And then at Minnesota, it's the exact opposite. P.J. fleck is just, I think, a solid B graded head coach amongst his fan base. You could sell me on B plus if you had a chunk of the Minnesota fan base that says, look, we're not sitting here expecting to beat Ohio State. Here's what we want to do. We want to have a shot every few years to pop a nine win season on you. But we want to float consistently, averaging eight wins per year and win bowl games. That is P.J. fleck. That is what he's done. He's entering his 10th season, by the way. Which is insane. At Minnesota, they've had a winning record every year since 2018, aside from the COVID year, which I'm told didn't even happen. So every year above.507.0 in bowl games, 8 plus wins for their last 5 years. I am now actively recruiting for the University of Minnesota. He's done a really good job there. Did they get dusted by the Ohio States of the World or Oregon or whatnot? Yes. Yes. There is a canyons difference between Minnesota, the class of Minnesota football and the best in the country. What head coach is going up there? Short of Kurt Signetti, I guess. What head coach is going up there and changing that dynamic right now? I'm not sure there is 1. So PJ Flex done a really good job there. I think he gets a B paper pop
- [39:04]
C
now.
- [39:05]
A
Let's jump in the weeds a little bit. Got a little dicey. So Lane Kiffin's the head coach at lsu. You've probably heard that by now. One of you asked a question earlier today. Darrell from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Go Eags. He said, how surprised were you about the LSU AD sounding off on Brian Kelly in defense of the Lane Kiffenhire? I mean, I don't know that Verge. Asbury needs to defend the lane Kiffenhire. But the context is Verge was talking with USA Today about Brian Kelly, but he wasn't mentioning BK by name, but he was doing the whole juxtaposition thing of here's where we were, here's where we are now. And so he spoke a lot about Lane Kiffin embracing Louisiana, embracing dealing with donors, embracing basically doing what you have to do. If you're paying a guy eight figures to be a head coach, you can't resist being a head coach. Being a head coach is more than, you know, drawing it up on the grease board, hiring a staff, recruiting. You got to work the scene, man. Sometimes your plate's more full of that than it is football, but that's what you got to do. So Verge Owsbury was talking to USA Today. Do we have that quote, Jesse? And he said some things that you asked me if I was surprised, I don't know who in the world would be surprised at this. But here's one of the quotes. Quote, he's not one who. He's talking about Lane Kiffin. Quote he's not one who will say, okay, I don't want people to contact me. I don't want people to touch me. I don't want people to be around me. That's who we had. That's why we got what we got. There was no feel. There was no connection between the LSU football program and the coach and the fans. He's right. There wasn't. There wasn't. You're listening to someone here that was really high on Brian Kelly when he got hired. And I started to cool on Brian Kelly in the years after that. And people started to notice it on the show. Like, some LSU folks would hit me up pretty consistently. There were like half a dozen of you who would say, well, why are you selling on us? I thought you were high on Brian Kelly when we first hired him. I was. Then I started to get feedback from inside lsu. And you know what the feedback was? It had nothing to do with Brian Kelly's acumen as a head coach. It had nothing to do with anything football related. The number one criticism by a mile when they hired him down there was, he is not only not embracing Louisiana, he is, like, actively resisting Louisiana. And it just boggled my mind because that was the last thing that I thought would stand in the way. But it goes back to the spectrum of tolerance that I've talked about a lot on the show. There is a spectrum of tolerance for a head coach in college football. And the more you endear yourself, which should be like the minimum requirement to be a head coach, the more you endear yourself, the more you embrace the culture at LSU or the University of Washington, the more you move the needle on the spectrum of tolerance. So the theory was, and I'm right on this, if Brian Kelly was rattling off playoff seasons and undefeated seasons, he could be the biggest jerk in the world. He could despise the colors purple and yellow, and it wouldn't matter as long as he won. But the second it got crooked, and it did, there was no equity. He never built an ounce of equity with the LSU fan base. And I would say, I don't know why. I do know why, or at least I have a pretty good working theory as to why that. I'll float you in a second. But it was the most baffling feedback when you started to get it, you didn't want it to be true. But, I mean, two dozen sources on it, they're not all lying. They're not all coordinating to sabotage what at the time was their current head coach. But look, guys, I don't want to rehash this because it's history now, but there were people in that building that lost their jobs when Brian Kelly took the job. That made no sense. And it almost got to the point where it felt like he was flushing every bit of Louisiana outside of that building just to prove a point. And I think this is kind of my working theory on it. I think Brian Kelly thinks a lot of himself as a head coach. Now, you can think that's ego, and it is, but it's not without merit because Brian Kelly had won a lot of football games. And I just think Brian Kelly took that job and said, I've been really good at Notre Dame. What I think can get me over the top is taking a job at a place where I can get a higher caliber of athlete. Whether that's true or not, I think that's what he thought. And I think he went down there and said, I don't need to do all this. I'll fake an accent for you, but I don't need to embrace this. This place needs to embrace me. I'm the winner. I'm the one who's won for a long time. I've done this stuff my whole career. I. I'll do it here. And I think it got to a point where that became such the mentality that when he listened to people from Louisiana talk about how he needed to embrace Louisiana, it almost became radioactive to him. And it almost became like a point that he was going to make to prove to people. No, no, that's not what makes this place special. Having the right head coach is what makes this place special. I'm the right head coach. You guys think that some uniqueness of the culture down here is why we'll win? I'll show you. I'll just resist all of it. I'll flush it all out of the building. And he did, and people noticed. And if he would have backfilled it with rock stars, then it would have been one thing. But he didn't, and they lost too many games and he got fired. That was the long and short of it to me. I always enjoyed being around Brian Kelly. Like, I never had a bad interaction with him. But at the same time, that's one of the premier jobs in college football. And I just. This is the part that's mind boggling. Each major program has unique elements to it, and it's your job to embrace them. If you don't want to embrace them, don't take the job. The worst thing to do is take the job and then not embrace the culture. Especially when that culture is LSU's, which is awesome. How do you take that? I want the LSU job, but I don't want anything to do with Louisiana. Like, how stupid is that? How crazy Is that so that's why it failed. And Verge, Osberg's just pointing out the obvious. Maybe if you live in Boise, Idaho, and you weren't paying attention to it day to day, week to week, that's a little bit of a surprise. That's not an eyebrow raising quote at all. That's a tame description of what the experience was like down there under Brian Kelly. Look, for all I know, he'll get another head coach and job and apply the lessons learned. I know some folks at Notre Dame who feel vindicated and who think that's a fool's errand to ever expect otherwise. But that's why it didn't work at Louisiana State University. They're watching us in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, in Roanoke, Alabama, maybe Roanoke, Virginia. And they're watching us in, wouldn't you know it, Slidell, Louisiana, one of Brian Kelly's favorite haunts. Slidell. Louis. Big Thibodeau guy, too. He loves it in Thibodeau. Okay, I wanted to, before we, before we welcome our guest in. Rarely say that on the show. I went to Indiana this week and I'm a better man for it. Jesse. I spent a whole day with Kurt Signetti in Bloomington, Indiana. Prez was along for the ride. I am so, so happy that we made this happen. Got a really, really good tour of the facilities there, which are fully encapsulated in the stadium. Kind of unique. That's not the way that most places are set up, but the May vibe, by the way, in these buildings is really unique. When we're going in this window of time to give you a behind the scenes look at what's happening like at Indiana University, Kurt Signetti is the only one not allowed to be on the road recruiting right now. So the whole staff's out on the road. Building's pretty much empty. The players, this is like one of the few windows that they can go home. So most of them aren't there. Students have graduated. Graduation was last week. Congrats, by the way. And so they're not there. And so it's like a ghost town. And it's the craziest thing, but it's also, in a very strange sort of way, my favorite time to be in these places, aside from literal football season, because it's laid back, at least as laid back as a football building can get. And you get time and you can talk to folks. And we got that with Kurt Signetti. And I want to tell you I'm going to play you some sound if you haven't heard this yet through 24 hours, out of all of the speaker series sit downs We've done through 24 hours, this is the most viewed sit down we've ever had. We've had Kirby on the show multiple times. We've had Ryan Day on the show. We've had every. We have Nick Saban on the show. Nobody has had more viewership than through the first 24 hours of US posting the video than Kurt Signetti. And I'm going to tell you why. This was an awesome sit down. I don't know how we rank these, but this is easily one of the top five we've ever done. You could argue it's the best one that we've ever done. Really revealing. We went a lot of different places. The full video is on the channel right now or in the podcast feed if you want to access it. If you haven't seen it yet, here's just a small taste of our 40 plus minute wide ranging sit down with Kurt Signetti. Process oriented thinking made no sense to me for the first half of my life.
- [48:15]
B
Right.
- [48:16]
A
And I remember I've told the story on the show many times. Saban gets hired at Alabama in 07.
- [48:20]
C
Yep.
- [48:21]
A
He's doing his speaking circuit going all over the Southeast. He comes to Columbus $45 a ticket. I got to borrow 45 so I can go listen to him speak. But he spoke about what you're talking about and I probably heard it a million times before and it went in one ear and out the other. But because a big time college football head coach is talking like this about defining goals but setting them off to the side and then focusing on the process it takes to achieve the goals, it just clicked with me. It's a big, life changing moment for me. Right. But that was age. I don't know. I'm in my early to mid-20s. When that happened, did you always have that perspective or was there a light bulb moment for you?
- [48:54]
C
No, I think going with coach and I went with him in 07, part of his original staff. I just learned so much. And like you said, he had a philosophy. He had been a head coach 13 or 14 years by then. Right. Trial and error. And he could lay it out there where it just made so much sense and he had an organized, detailed plan for everything. And really after one year with coach, I felt like I had learned more about how to run a program than maybe the previous 28 as an assistant. And I'd come from a coach and family dad, you know, hall of Fame coach. But my, my experience with coach Saban was invaluable and in the sense of urgent. Every day was fourth and one with coach Saban and. But that's the way it had to be kind of to fight complacency and find the edge on a daily basis and be as good as you could be. And I, I just learned so much.
- [49:51]
A
But see, after that first year, the first year was, was very much an install culture type year down there. But after that, it's not that that program was immune to losing games. They'd lose one every now and then, but there was never a dip, there was never a losing one. You're not supposed to the inexplicable result. And to me it was always. Because when you're up 50 to 10, you're operating to the same standard. You're holding people just as accountable and expecting them to be as dialed in as when it's fourth and goal tied at 27.
- [50:18]
C
No question.
- [50:19]
A
Because that's when that stuff shows up.
- [50:20]
C
No doubt. And now I understand all those end of the game ass rippings I used to get on the sideline and why and it makes so much sense now, but you're exactly right. And so that team played to a standard and you know, now we won 29 in a row, regular season games at one point. And I can remember being on the sideline, we had Florida at home, we were up like 316 in the third quarter, but it just didn't feel the same. And the next weeks when we went to South Carolina and got beat by Esperrier, Garcia and those guys, Lattimore and you know, and so even when like you're at the top of your game, it's so hard to beat complacency down, you know, on a daily or long term basis. And we stumbled, but you know, and then you learn from defeat, you learn from setback, you come back stronger and win six more national championships.
- [51:20]
A
I loved it. Man, we could have gone for like five hours. It was that for 40 minutes. Hung out with him a significant portion of time before and after that. Talked about a lot of things. You know, what I always wanted to talk to him about is his story. Out of all the active head coaches who have shared their life, professional story, I think I relate to Kirt Signetti more than anyone as much as someone can who's not a coach. They're just different elements. I actually talk to him a lot about that. Like there's just different elements that I can really, really relate to that I could pretty much copy and paste. Like If I was telling you my story of what all has happened to me in my professional life, and he sits there and tells his story, I'm like, oh, wow, that happened to you too. Oh, wow, you found yourself feeling that way. We talked about that. But he was. He was four minutes late, Jesse. Four minutes late. And Sig is not late. Never late, Very punctual. And he walked in and he apologized. His Gatorade was frozen. Gatorade was frozen. Had to go find a new Gatorade. And then he asked me about fabric warehouses. First thing we talked about. Didn't catch it on camera, but stirring conversation. The Indiana trip was amazing. The Indiana fan base also. I just want to kind of tell you, this is not something I realized on that trip. It's just been re emphasized from that trip. I think sometimes if you've worked in sports media for quite a while, if you've worked in college football media for quite a while, you've gotten this pretty hardwired view in your head of what the big markets are, the A markets, the B markets, the C markets, etc. And then you know, the ones where even if you're personally fascinated, you probably are not going to spend a ton of time talking about them on a national platform because it's just not a big enough needle mover of a topic. Okay. For a long time that's been pretty set in stone. Indiana comes along and when they started their ascent over the last couple of years, one thing that it just my fault here, I badly, badly overlooked is how massive this alumni base is and how passionate Indiana. I always thought it was Indiana basketball, but it's really Indiana athletics. It's just football had never given it a reason to really ignite. But how passionate Indiana just sports fans are, and the reason that you can see that is because if Sig was doing what he's doing at some other places, there would be very, very limited viewership on it. I don't care if he had just won a national title. There are some places he could be where we'd put it on the channel. But we, we know we're going to take a traffic hit on this Indiana, folks. It's just a massive untapped viewer base, untapped fan base that was just sitting there dormant, always waiting to erupt. And so I'm just, I'm just telling you like we've seen it time and time again. This is a legitimate, like massive Big Ten fan base that's all of a sudden just shown up on the scene now because they've been given reason to show up on the scene. Sold out season tickets in one day for next year. Like it's, it's happening up in Bloomington, Indiana right now. But that was a really fun trip. And for those of you who haven't watched it yet, it's only been up like 24, 36 hours or something. It's on the YouTube channel right now. I got another conversation coming up in just a second. You're going to want to hang around for FanDuel exclusive odds provider of the show. New market, new market out right now. It's called the Advanced 2 Market, the old ATM. Jesse, it can be that for you. If you play your cards right, it could be that for you. Here is what this looks like. Of course, if you go to the college football tab right now, you would see national title odds, you would see conference title odds. There's some games that you can wager, you can wager over unders on teams for win total. But FDM fanduel Mike hit us up the other day and said, hey, we have got a new market this first time we've ever done this. It's called an advanced 2 market. What that looks like is if you pick Notre Dame, for example, there are odds that Notre Dame makes it to the quarterfinal, makes it to the semifinal, makes it to the national championship game. And so like if you've got a feel on a team, let's say you think Penn State's going to make the playoff and you think they're going to make it mainly because of their schedule. So you don't think they're going to make the national title game, but you think they could win a game. You can go bet that right now. You can go bet that. I don't know what number you're going to get, but you can go bet that. So this is what we've been pushing them for. More and more markets, more and more options. It used to be you got none and had to like it. Immunity and then it was where maybe two or three things you get Heisman national title. There are a ton of options on there now.
- [56:12]
D
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- [56:56]
A
Been waiting on this. We don't do a ton of interviews on the show. We don't. However, these are not normal times. The College Football Playoff conversation is really heavy right now and there's a lot of question and even going back to last year, there was a lot of question about the procedure. Why did they bump Miami down so low when they initiated the playoff rankings? And then they climbed and then why did Miami jump Notre Dame and why did Alabama stay in even though they got blown out in the SEC title game? You remember all this, right? And you remember how when you would watch the playoff reveal show on Tuesday night, it would just lead to more confusion. You thought that you had a procedure that was held behind closed doors and you didn't have enough explanation. I felt that way. So we invited Rich Clark, who is the executive director of the College Football Playoff here, to Nashville in the studio. We did this yesterday and I mean, I thought this was going to go like 10 minutes. It went nearly 30. But there are a wide ranging list of questions that I thought a lot of people would love to have asked. And we got the opportunity so I just asked him. Here is our sit down yesterday. Appreciate him joining us. College football executive director Rich Clark. Now, you live in Dallas.
- [58:13]
B
I do.
- [58:14]
A
But you're in Nashville because look at this, it's our studio. We finally get to do an interview in Nashville. What are you guys doing right here? What's the playoff doing in Nashville right now?
- [58:21]
B
Yeah. So we came here, Josh, with our selection committee. So this is our first training session with the selection committee. All 13 will come in. We'll go over expectations, we'll go over some of the rules of engagement with them. They'll get to know each other because some of them are new. But it's just really an orientation section for them, session for them. So it's their first time together. But it's good. It's important.
- [58:47]
A
So obviously the debate, the selection process, the rankings process, we only see the final version of that.
- [58:53]
B
Right.
- [58:54]
A
The public's not looking behind closed doors. So if I'm a committee member, I'm coming into Nashville this weekend. It's my first time on the committee.
- [59:00]
B
Right.
- [59:00]
A
And you guys are laying out the processes and the protocol and what to expect like On a granular level, what are you telling me to expect?
- [59:09]
B
Yeah, so there's. The first expectation is that you're ready to put the work in, because it is, I would say it's a busy period for them for what they need to do. So we make sure that they understand what's expected. Then we'll talk to them about the protocol. What are the rules of engagement in the room, what can you talk about? What are the things that you should really consider? For example, if you were comparing two teams that are really close, what are the differentiators? Things like head to head competition, things like strength of schedule, how they fared against common opponents, things like that that they need to understand when they're evaluating a team, what they should look at. We take them through the metrics. What are all the metrics? There's so many numbers out there, I mean, it's like mind boggling. But we introduce them to what those metrics are, how they can think about them and look at them and what they tell them because everybody's going to look at it a little bit differently. And then we have to introduce them to all of the, I'll say the technical aspects, because they get an iPad, right? That iPad has. Every weekend we download every game in three different formats for the committee members to have. And they need to know how to work that. They need to. And you know, some of these guys are my age and they're like, iPad, what is this? And so we take them through that, but they have to watch a lot of games, so we show them how. And like for example, one of the formats, they can watch a game in 30 minutes. We cut out all the in between so they can see every play and just run it through the game. So it's important that they understand what the tools are that are at their fingertips. And I kind of liken it to this. There's the science of it and then there's the art of it, right? The science is the metrics. The science is what they can glean from those metrics and how everything is laid out top to bottom. But then the art of it comes from really watching the film and looking at the film. And that's important. If there's one thing that we emphasize to them is set aside the time to watch the film. And I sort of compare it to my military time. I was in the Air Force for a long time, 38 years. And one thing that I realized is in my time in the Air Force, we became very reliant on computers, on AI, on Data. But one thing that we never let go was the human element. We always, always have a human involved, a human in the loop. If you're delivering a weapon or you're employing some, you know, something that's dangerous, you have to have a human being in the loop. And that's because war is a human endeavor and you've got to have human involved. Just like football is a human endeavor and somebody to see what's happening on the field, to see what's going on. Is it a walk off field goal that made the difference in this game? Who's not playing in the game? What's happening in that game can only be seen by human eyes. You can't get that from the data. So you have to have the human, the art, and you have to have the data and the science and bring those together in the right way.
- [62:26]
A
Last year was the first year you had the role that you had.
- [62:29]
B
Yes.
- [62:29]
A
And so you got to have a front row seat to what I thought was one of the most debated Novembers and lead ups to the final college Football playoff rankings. You had Alabama in the mix, you had Notre Dame in the mix, you had Miami in the mix. And you're talking about the human element. Competition also factors into that.
- [62:50]
B
Absolutely.
- [62:51]
A
And so you, you had metric after metric thrown in your face from people who were trying to make one argument, and I'm talking about in the public sphere, and then you had other people that said, hey, the metrics are there if we don't have a head to head result. But if I'm putting a Miami and a Notre Dame here and I've got a head to head result, that's competition. We've got to honor that. Now that was the kind of debate we were having out here, Right. I know you guys were having that, you were observing the committee have that behind the scenes. We only get to speculate. But you witnessed like how, how heated and how combative did that get in the right spirit? But how combative did that get last year?
- [63:28]
B
Yeah. So. Well, let me say one thing. This, this was my second year, so I, this was my second season in the role. And you're right, this one, that last weekend, that was tough with the Notre Dame, the Miami, Alabama, byu, they were all kind of clumped in before the championship weekend. And when it came down to it and you had Miami and Notre Dame right next to each other, that discussion was really, really fascinating. Especially in that room. You have coaches, you have athletic directors, former coaches, athletic directors, former players, journalists, people that know the game and understand the game. And in the end, though, when that difference between those teams, especially when you looked at the numbers and you watched them on the field, they were really close. It boiled down to one thing. It was the head to head between Notre Dame and Miami. And that's actually in our protocol. It's one of the main considerations when you have teams that are comparable, you have to honor the head to head or you at least have to consider it. It has to be a strong consideration. I'm not going to say that that's always the case. There can't be absolutes, but that's the competition on the field. It's right there in front of you. You have to recognize it.
- [64:52]
A
What we're used to watching right now, we're used to watching the games on a weekend and then we get the College Football Playoff rankings delivered to us the following Tuesday for several weeks in November. And then we're, we're going to see a committee chair probably give, you know, five to 10 minutes worth of answers on the ESPN broadcast. But largely, you know, if I'm watching at home, I may get one or two of my questions answered, but it always seems like afterwards there, there are more questions than answers. So when you guys look at that and you do a healthy inventory of the entire infrastructure, is there ever any thought to not maybe even changing the rankings process, but maybe tweaking the way that we communicate the rankings process, the way that we explain on the backside the rankings process, where it removes a whole lot more of the conspiratorial nature that can exist absent answers that the public wants?
- [65:45]
B
Yeah, so there's that. You're, you're bringing up a good point. The show, it, it's going to happen, right? We're going to do the show. The committee chair really, you said five or 10 minutes. It's more like three or four minutes.
- [65:58]
A
I wanted to be kind.
- [65:59]
B
Yeah, you were being kind. But that's about all that. That person has to really talk about what's going on for two days in that room and some really hard choices and decisions that have to be made. But that's what we have now. That's not the only opportunity because we also do a session afterwards where the chairman is able to do a broader sort of press conference and an opportunity to talk to the media. But even that doesn't do justice with everything that happens in the room. We're always looking to improve our, you know, what, what happens with that show and how we're able to present to the, to the fans because that's really important to us. But three minutes is really hard for that chairman to tell. Everything that happened, all the dynamics, every decision that was made, the discussions that occurred, you just can't capture it. You really can't in that short of a time. So hopefully we'll continue to improve, we will continue to improve that process and give the fans a little bit more so that they can understand, understand what's going on in that room.
- [67:08]
A
I know there is a ton of conversation even as you and I sit down right now in early May about size of playoff.
- [67:14]
B
Right.
- [67:14]
A
Which is not new. That's been a conversation piece for a long time. I know. I heard you speak less than a year ago even. And at that point it was, are we going to expand from 12 to 14?
- [67:24]
B
Right.
- [67:25]
A
And I remember myself a lot of people thought they're probably going to 14. That's probably what it's to going, going to be. And we fast forward not even nine months. It feels like over the past three or four months there's been this perceptional shift from 14, 16, well then it could be 24. And you hear that as well as I do. You probably have a better vantage point on it than I do. Has it surprised you at all how radically that that tone has shifted just here in the past few months?
- [67:52]
B
I would, I would say it doesn't surprise me because people got to see the 12 team playoff two years now, they got to see how it goes and they're able to formulate some opinions on it. Right. What does it do? What's the access like? What does it mean for the fans? What does it mean for the student athletes, the coaches? And everybody has thoughts about this. I will tell you, the commissioners, who have a really tough job have been talking about this a lot and you've read about what a lot of them say in the paper or in the media. But I'll just say that this is a, it's a hard, hard issue to work. And there are pros and cons, honestly, to every one of Those, whether it's 12, 16, 24, there's pros and cons to all of that. And people come into the room with different philosophies about what a playoff should look like and what it could present for the sport and for the fans and the students and the athletes. But it's not easy. And I will tell you, they are, they are having discussions on this constantly since that time we talked about it, you know, when you heard me Talking about it 12 to 14, it has been a constant dialogue between them. And, you know, they're not. I mean, they're cordial, they talk about it, they're all professionals. But it's hard to get to a good answer on this one. And the good thing is we have a good format right now. 12 team format is good. People like it, it's working. But can we make it better? And that's the question. Will whatever we choose make it better? And that's the discussion that's going on. So we'll see where it goes. But I will say for me personally, you know, I go into the room, I present the pros and cons. My team and I, we try to spur the discussion on, but in the end, we're going to execute whatever that decision is. We're going to make it great. We're going to make whatever number it is a great playoff for the fans and the student athletes. But it's, it's not easy. This is a hard, hard one to, I think, square the corner on. But they're working on it.
- [70:01]
A
Here's, I think, a lot of people's biggest question. I was around when There was a 14 playoff and I was fine with four teams. Yeah, most of the public wasn't though. Like, most of the public clearly wanted expansion.
- [70:12]
B
Right.
- [70:13]
A
If you had focus grouped them, there would probably have been a super majority consensus, yeah, we want a bigger playoff. And so I went with it. We're sitting at 12 now and the dime has totally shifted. We do a ton of research on this. When you start floating out different proposals, especially maybe a 2014 proposal. Well, now I'm kind of sitting over here watching the public and I'm surprised. Wow, you guys are pushing back on this a little bit more. It's way more unpopular than the initial expansion was. And their question, which I'll ask to you because you get to observe this, is how much is my voice being heard in that room? So I'll ask you, how often does the consumer's voice, the fans voice, come up in conversations about playoff format?
- [70:56]
B
It absolutely comes up. It's not though. It's not the only thing, but it comes up. And I will say there's so many different voices that have to be heard and brought in. The fans are certainly an absolutely one because, I mean, fans there, that's what makes college football, college football, the passion, what fans bring to it. But you also have voices of coaches, you also have voices of student athletes, you also have voices of institution presidents, college university presidents. All of that has to come into the room and then you have the commissioners on top of that, who have different points of view on this. So it is, it's almost like democracy in its, in its finest form. It's coming into that room, people are talking about it, they're trying to hear everyone's voice, trying to incorporate these different ideas, but we just haven't gotten to that, that final answer. Where's that line of demarcation, if you will, from, you know, where to, where's the right number, you know, where do we cut it off? And I, I don't know what it is right now. I do know that there's a lot of advantages and disadvantages to every one of those choices, but we're going to keep talking about, we're going to keep working. I know the commissioners are committed to making sure that we're at the right place on this. So. But the fans, to your question, fans, voices and podcasters, I know where you are on this for sure. But, yeah, it's all heard and it's all discussed and it's all put on the table. You have 11 people in that room and they all have their perspectives and they bring it forward.
- [72:40]
A
Now, the easy one on my side that pretty much everyone agrees on, you included, is home playoff games are pretty incredible.
- [72:46]
B
Yeah.
- [72:46]
A
And everyone's watched those things, and some of us have been blessed enough to be at those games, several of those games. And you're like, how do we make more of this? And I've heard a lot of the proposals for expanding, and maybe with expansion comes more home playoff games. But I sit over in this chair and I say, well, forget that for a second. Is it possible for us to create more of those environments, even if we don't expand, even if we're still sitting here at a 12 team format? And I know that's something that's kind of on your plate. You talk about a lot of. So whether we expand or whether we still remain at 12, whether we go to 16, how much of an emphasis is there on your side of the fence of making sure we at least explore more home playoff games?
- [73:25]
B
We have explored it. And having those first round games, you are right, they were spectacular. My first year, I went to the first one, Notre Dame, Indiana, 12 degrees, 15 degrees. It was cold, cold, cold.
- [73:39]
A
And then the next day in Columbus.
- [73:41]
B
Yeah, yeah, I went to both of them. But I will tell you, the atmosphere was electric. It was. I, I've been to a lot of football games, played in a lot of football games, never anything like that. But I will say that is, to me, that Environment. A lot of it is coming from the students that are there, the fans that are able to be in the stands. And just the. I don't know, the energy that comes from all of that is what makes it so good. One of the things that we have to consider, though, is as you go later into the year, given the schedule that we're on now and the calendar that we're on now, you do start to lose some of that because students start to go home, administrators, people on the campuses start to leave, weather starts to change, things become a bit. They're different. The later you get into the year and going to our bowl, our New Year's, six bowl sites, for them to put those games on and to have them in the. In the stadiums that we have is. Logistically, it works out well. In most playoffs, it seems like there comes a point where you get to sort of neutral sites. You know, you get away from the home. The home field advantage and you move on to neutral site. So there's that element of it. But honestly, I just don't. I personally think that you lose some of that energy the later you get into the winter. You know, when you get into January and you start moving down the calendar, you start losing some of that. And so we want to have that outstanding environment that we have in that first round. And then we. We bring in the tradition of the bowl partner and that neutral site and those great stadiums and people that know how to put games on and make that a spectacular event for our fans. And then we go to the, you know, all the way into the championship game, where we go to that destination city, Atlanta last year, Miami this year, they were just amazing hosts for the game. And we sort of tackle a few different elements of what makes college football. Great bowls, home field, home teams and the electricity there. And it's also very doable, right? Logistically, it's very workable. It also makes sense given the calendar. So we explored it, but the commissioners made that decision, the management committee, because we also have the Notre Dame athletic directors involved. So it's the management committee that made that decision. Decision to just stick to the first round. Now, if we did expand, though, and we had games earlier before where we're having the first round now, that'd be a great opportunity to have more campus games, theoretically.
- [76:31]
A
And then I'll move on from this because you have to see this on paper sometimes for it to make sense. Theoretically, let's say you stick at 12, but you still move the season up, because it kind of sounds like that's going to happen either way. Theoretically, we do at least move the calendar up and adjust it to where potentially we're starting to play off earlier. And potentially we may be able to thread the needle there of having those games early enough on campus to where it's at least explored as an idea. Or does that still not make sense?
- [77:01]
B
That's a good hypothesis.
- [77:02]
A
You gotta see it on paper for it to make sense.
- [77:04]
B
You brought that one around. You do. I guess theoretically it's something that could be explored and I'm sure the management committee would look at that, you know, to see if we did walk it back. What are the possibilities? I will say, though, just from my perspective as someone who, whatever format we have, we have to make it awesome. Like, it has to be a spectacular event for the fans and the players and everybody. It's logistically a lot tougher to continue to have those big games on campuses and you lose that neutral aspect of the playoff. Right. I think, like I mentioned earlier, at some point you kind of transition to, all right, there's no home field advantage here. It's mano a mano right here. Let's decide on the field to go forward. So there's that element. But I guess, you know, if we. If we went to a. And shifted earlier, the whole playoff, it could be explored. It could be explored. But again, like everything else in this, there's. There's pros and cons to it.
- [78:15]
A
Very fluid. Very fluid.
- [78:17]
B
Yeah, for sure.
- [78:18]
A
The SEC commissioner, Greg Sankey was talking the other day and he just casually mentioned something that's a reality. And that is, I believe, starting this season, the higher seeded teams choosing their location in the quarterfinal. And I guess the public just wasn't aware at that point because it was almost presented like a breaking news or, hey, did you hear what the SEC commissioner said? But that's not being explored. That's a reality. This year, the higher seeded teams, the number one seed, for example, starting in the quarterfinal, is choosing the bowl destination. It could be Fiesta, it could be Rose, whatever those rotational games are this year. Walk me through that procedure. Like, what kind of change is that? How does that work?
- [79:00]
B
Yeah, so this, this was actually decided on two years ago that because we had contract bowl agreements that we had to meet. So, you know, the conferences had agreements with certain bowl partners. So through the games, the quarterfinals and semifinals, we had to honor those. Those agreements are over now. So. So now what we're going to do, and this, again, this was decided a couple years ago. But the top seed, the number One seed will get to choose their quarterfinal and their semifinal. Then the number two seed will get to choose their quarterfinal of the remaining ones, and then the 3 and 4 will fill in from there. But it gives the coaches, the athletic directors, the football ops folks, an opportunity to go, okay, what's best for us? You know, is it the date, is it the location? What is it that best suits us and gives us the best opportunity to win? And they get to pick, like I said, the quarter and the semi. So there's an advantage to be in that top seed and to the second seed because you get to pick the next quarter of the bowl game. So I think it's a good, it's a good process. And it also gives some advantage to the higher staff seed. They've earned it, right? They should have that.
- [80:18]
A
Yeah. What gets interesting, there's any given year, I mean, to be clear, what we're talking about here, this could be USC choosing to play in the Rose bowl, right? This could be Indiana blocking Georgia from playing in the Peach bowl, like, so there's a lot of strategy there. Even if, even if you, even if you're Michigan and you don't have a game specifically in your backyard, if you got a high enough seed, you may be able to block someone else who do has that game in their backyard
- [80:42]
B
from being able to get 100%. And there's, and you're hitting it on the head like there's a hundred different options just in there, right, Based on, you know, what bowls there are, who your opponents are, who the other seeds are and who you're going to be playing, what you pick, right? And so if I'm a school, I'm thinking about all those options beforehand because they don't have a whole lot of time from when the selection, you know, when, when the rankings are released to when they have to make that decision. There's not a lot of time. They don't have days. They have minutes to be thinking about this. I'll say maybe hours, but. But it's, it's not much more than an hour that they're going to have to think about it. And so they should have hopefully thought about it beforehand. They're like, okay, there's a good chance we're going to be the number one seed. If so, where do we want to go? And if, if X school is, you know, the school that we're going to be playing in the quarterfinals, then what, you know, how would we respond to that? So that when the rankings come out, they've already thought about it, but now they put it into practice. You know, I always refer back to my military time, but it's kind of like, you know, you're going to fight and you have to think about, okay, what. What is the scenario that I'm going to be up against? And if you haven't thought about every different contingency that could happen, then you get surprised because you don't have a whole lot of time. Things are moving, and you have to have thought about things ahead. That's what they need to do. You said it. Strategy. It's about war. Gaming it out, thinking about what the possibilities are. And then when those rankings come out, what's most advantageous to our team? And that's what the commissioners wanted to give. They wanted to reward that number one seed so that they could build the scenario that suits them the best. And then the number two seed gets the next best, and then. And so on and so forth.
- [82:42]
A
Yeah. One piece of clarification on this. The quarterfinals. I understand the semifinal selection. If there are a ton of upsets in the quarterfinal round, is it simply the highest remaining seed is choosing where they want to play in the semifinal? Is that how that works?
- [82:57]
B
So the way it'll. The way it would go is the number one seed would go. I want to play, you know, the Rose bowl for my quarter, and I want to play the Fiesta for my center.
- [83:10]
A
If I make it.
- [83:10]
B
Yeah, if I, you know. Well, when the number one. Yeah, if I make it. If I make it. If they, if they don't make it, the bracket set. So there's no more choosing. So nobody gets to choose after that.
- [83:21]
A
Okay.
- [83:22]
B
The number one seed makes their choice. The number two seed makes their choice, and then the bracket is set. And after that, everyone plays it out as. As it was laid down.
- [83:30]
A
Okay. So from this point, you. You guys are convening in Nashville. I believe you'll have another convening, another meeting in la. I believe it is a little bit later. And at that point, you'll have your committee. Committee's already formed, but you'll have them fully informed. You'll have them ready to go. Are there MOT sessions and whatnot before you start the real thing later in the season?
- [83:51]
B
Yeah, so that's a great question. So they'll go through. They're going to learn about all of the metrics. We have a metrics expert that's going to come in and talk to them about what the, you know, what these numbers tell them and you know, how they can apply them in their. In their thought processes. And that's. That's really great. And they'll do that for a couple sessions. Last year, we added another session where they could just get together. It's a session that happens before the actual rankings start.
- [84:22]
A
But this is during the season.
- [84:23]
B
This is during the season where they just get together and we call it. We call it a level set meeting where they can come in, they can work some of the computer scenarios. They can do, look at the data. They can. They have watched the film and they will have watched the film going in there. They'll have discussions and they'll go through the ranking and they'll use all of the equipment and the tools and the technology. They'll have the discussions and they'll actually go through. Now, we won't produce a ranking, but it just lets them go through the motions and it lets them talk about what's happened up to this point in the season so that when the first rankings happen, they're not coming in from a cold start. So they get that opportunity. They also will have an opportunity earlier on to learn the materials and to use the data, use the computers. But the best thing about the level set is they're actually looking at real stuff. Like it's real data that's actually happened in the season. It's real film that they're going to actually be watching, and they can kind of get their heads around what's happened and what's transpired that to that point in the season. So it's a. It's something that the committee actually, the. The selection committee members actually asked us to include so that in that first meeting, they're like warmed up and ready to go.
- [85:40]
A
It's been really fun behind the curtain. Rich Clark, we appreciate it.
- [85:42]
B
Thank you. I appreciate you, Josh. Yeah,
- [85:47]
A
big thanks to Rich Clark for stopping by. I just thought it was worth a peek behind the curtain. I mean, that's the executive director of the College Football Playoff. In a time where there's a lot of speculation. We talked about it on the front end of the show tonight. He's in the room, he watches this stuff happen. Not necessarily a voter not deciding TV contracts, so he's not pulling those levers, but he is privy to the levers being pulled, how they get pulled. So I thought you guys would enjoy that. I know I did appreciate him stopping by. Look, it's going to get real this weekend when it comes to storm chasing, my second career hobby, so I can't promise a Sunday show. In fact, I would put it 50, 50 at best. Right now. So stay tuned to the Socials. Oshpatecfb here's the good news, Jesse. Like if we don't do a live show Sunday, it almost certainly means that we're live streaming Storm Chasing Sunday. Just not on this channel. Maybe on another channel. That's why you got to follow on the Socials. So whatever happens this weekend, let's be safe, okay? Let's enjoy this time, just a little bit of downtime while we can. If you've got Saturday activities, you got to get in, you know, you can't do it in the fall. So I mean, if you're thinking about getting married this weekend, don't do it. Do it. Don't do that in September or October. Don't be dragging your friends to that foolishness. But God bless the sanctity of marriage. So appreciate you guys so much. For director Bradley, for producer Jesse, I'm Josh Pate. Take care. Have a great start to your weekend and God bless.
- [87:21]
D
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- [88:05]
A
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.