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- [00:00]
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This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. This is the story of the 1. As a procurement manager for a hospital system, she keeps every facility in her network stocked and ready. That's why she counts on Grainger to be her single source for thousands of products, from disinfectants to lighting, air filters and more. And with fast, dependable delivery, Grainger helps her keep every facility stocked, safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickgrainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
- [00:49]
Josh Pate
You know what hurts me a lot is when you have a friend and then you have another friend and then those two friends are fighting because it's like they want you to choose a side. And even if they don't ask you to choose a side, you fear the inevitable is they're going to ask you to choose a side. You know, that's kind of where we are, Jesse, with sark and Joey McGuire right now, friends of the program. And I just hope they don't make us choose sides. What we are going to choose to do is talk about this little Lone Star spat could be the name of a future rivalry game. Sounds corporate enough, so we'll talk about that. We're jam packed. We're high atop a pretty stormy downtown Nashville, Tennessee on this Sunday night, May 31st, the year of our Lord 2026. We're kind of trying to walk a tightrope as I vowed to you that I would walk in the year of our Lord 2026 about not letting the show slash my mood take a negative turn as it can do in May and June when there's no games happening and we're after spring and we're before media days and everyone's just got to find something to talk about so people stir things up. Couldn't be us. We just react to the stirring, but we don't contribute to the stirring. So far we've done, I think, a solid B plus job of that this year and I'm trying to maintain. So we're going to talk about some conference superiority stuff tonight. We're going to have some bold predictions on the show. Somebody asked a question about Alabama's aura and we will talk about that. We got Steve Sarkeesian and Joey McGuire sniping a little bit and as someone who has recently sat down with one and may just sit down with the other within the week, I will comment on the goings on out there in Texas and I will, and I mean ever so briefly, touch on this whole Senate bill. There are some things you need to know, and I will tell you. They're watching us in Myra, Texas. Omaha, Nebraska. Bogota, Columbia. Checked into the live chat and Slidell, Louisiana. Thank you so much. I say thank you every time, but it's not in the script. I mean it. Thank you. We get to do this year round. I'm not forced to talk spur. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but we just get to talk college football year round. And that's all we do. Because that's really what we're passionate about around here. And it's because of you. So just one small request. If you're not already subscribed to the channel, subscribe to the channel. Because that is how we keep this show the way we want it. By we, I mean you and I. Because if you're here, I presume that you want college football year round as well. Big week for the speaker series. Because there have been some allegations thrown around about us in the past, you know, about whether G5 Josh is dead. Jesse, some people think G5 Josh is dead. And I've told you, G5 Josh is not dead. G6 Josh. But you know what? We'll find out this week. We'll find out this week. In the meantime, let's dive into the mailbag. Sometimes we go mailbag to lead the show off. And one of you, you were noticing some things this week about some comments that had. That had come out of these various spring meetings. So Josh from Miami, Florida said, did you see where Brett McMurphy had a poll where the SEC and the Big Ten are basically even in terms of being the number one conference? What says you? Well, the first thing I say, Josh, is, have you talked to Jesse and has Jesse told you that we have proof that this poll even happened? I mean, do we know that the poll exists? Okay, well, let's take a look at the poll then. Cause I've got to. I gotta see the wording for myself. Not that I'm calling you a liar, Josh, but gotta see the wording. So Brett McMurphy's wording was SEC Commission Greg Sankey said the SEC is, quote, by far the strongest football league, unquote. Do you agree which conference is the strongest football league? That was a poll question from Brett McMurphy, friend of the program. The SEC, by 0.1 percentage points, ends up taking the number one spot. So you're asking, Josh, do I agree with these results? No, I don't. The Big Ten is the best conference in college football right now. So I would have. I would have Voted Big Ten. It turns out my vote would have tied it up. So my apologies to everyone. And then we would have gone to a runoff. And I don't even know how that works in Twitter poll. So yeah, the Big Ten is the best conference in college football right now. So no, I don't agree with the Twitter poll results. Now what Brett McMurphy said there, as you'll notice, is by far the strongest football league. Well, those weren't his words. Those were the words of the SEC commissioner. So I'll get to that in a second. But look, let's just re rack the balls here for a second. No immunity. I know what the argument for the SEC is. I make it a lot of times on this show. But I'm not talking about conference superiority. But even, even if I was like if I had to take the side of the sec, I just talk about conference depth, which is the same thing Greg Sankey's talked about. But nobody judges leagues from the middle of the pack. Like, let's be real now, the SEC was in the Big Tens position. All you guys would be banging the drum of Ohio State, Michigan and Indiana past three national champs. That's how you judge conferences. Now it would be different if it was one team. If it was Ohio State that had won back to back to back titles and everyone else sucked, that's a little bit different. But having three different teams win three different national championships over the last three years and then you got Oregon sitting there as a prime candidate to maybe make it a fourth in four years. For all we know this year. Yes, that's the best conference in college football. We don't really need to argue how Vanderbilt stacks up against Iowa or Michigan State. All due respect, but if you did want to argue conference depth, yeah, I do think that's a little different conversation. But I do want to go back to what Greg Sankey was talking about because I do think there's some different layers to this. Okay, so I've already answered the question. Big Ten is the best conference in college football. But Brett McMurphy put up this Greg Sankey quote. This is from SEC spring meetings about a week ago. This was a quote from the league commissioner. He said, if you look at the entirety of our football league, we are by far the most competitive and the strongest in football. By far. The depth of this league, this league stands alone. I don't have a huge issue with most of what he said there. It really is all in the eyes of the beholder. Conference superiority, as Meemaw once said. Is in the eyes of the beholder. If best means deepest to you, the SEC is the best. In college football. I choose to look at the top and at the top the Big Ten's the best. And I think disproportionately that's how most people, including me, judge best conferences. So it's the Big Ten for me. However, if you then want to remove it a little bit and go with all these different qualifiers, like you want to ask about the most entertaining league, the most parody wrought league, the most competitively balanced league. Well, I would actually argue the Big 12 has been the most competitively balanced for a little while. But. But, you know, comparing these two leagues, yeah, the sec. I think the bottom of the SEC is probably ahead of the bottom third, maybe a bottom quarter of the Big Ten, you can make that argument. I wouldn't really mind that a whole lot. I don't really think it matters, although it could be argued that it matters when it comes to strength of schedule. So if you want to argue the strength of conference schedules are tougher than the sec, that's fine. If you want to argue that the overall lineup of games is more appealing and more entertaining on a Saturday, these sound like, oh, I don't know what you would call them. They sound like backup arguments when you can't tout the main argument, which is just we're the best at the top. But if that's the route you want to go, then I'm happy to agree with you on that. Just as long as you circle back around and acknowledge why you've resorted to that. Because, Jesse, what I noticed when the SEC was running off that string of consecutive national championships is no one was talking about the things they're talking about now. So you're having to resort to these things, which is fine, but let's just make sure we tell the truth about that. However, it is truth. It is definitely truth about the entertainment aspect. Like, I work in the media business, so I pay a little more attention to this than I talk about on the show. But I remember when we were at CBS still in the latter days, maybe like the last year when I was at cbs, I was so mad that they didn't even put a competitive bid on the table for the SEC contract. And ESPN got the whole thing and they didn't make a serious run at, I don't even think they submitted a bid for the playoffs. And I was mad about that because I wanted to be in a network that had the most valuable inventory. And so, you know, I'm not at CBS anymore, but obviously CBS has a deal. They get a package of Big Ten games. NBC's kind of got something similar. You know that Fox has the number one game per week from the Big Ten, but man, some of those, some of those lineups are sparse and Fox gets first pick. But even with Fox like the, the Big Ten does not really schedule up all that much in out of conference play early in the year. Ohio State notwithstanding, they play Texas this year, last year. Michigan's played Oklahoma this year last year. But there aren't a ton of marquee matchups as evidenced by the Big Noon on Fox. The Big Noon kickoff lineup came out the other day. Jesse, I think Kent State's on there, right? And Ohio's on there. Who is it? It's, it's North Texas, Indiana, and then they got a huge one in Ann Arbor in week two of Oklahoma and Michigan. And then it's Kent State, Ohio State. There's not a lot to choose from. And then you look at those lineups, those triple headers that ABC gets to stack up. So yeah, man, if you wanted to talk about ratings, I don't care. But if you want to talk about that and you want to talk about entertaining top to bottom and keeps you tuned in, great, okay. Advantage sec. I'm pretty sure that conference had traded in a heartbeat right now if they could have back to back to back national titles. So I don't really know what the end result of that argument is. Here's my question. How long does this status quo last? How long do we continue to look at this picture and say, well, the SEC may be the deepest conference, but man, the Big Ten is the best at the top. Is that just something that starts to become a trend that's a constant over the next five years, or is it just that? Is it a trend right now? Is it cyclical? Is there like an ebb to the flow? What could happen, which I would laugh at, is someone like Texas. Any given year, let's say 20, 26, let's say Texas just rattles off a dominant season this year and they win the national title. But elsewhere, nobody else in the SEC even sniffed it. What would be funny is everybody who thinks national titles are the end all be all would look and say, well, I guess the SEC reigns supreme now. And you'd have other people look and say, well, in totality, the league was worse this year than it has been in recent years. So yeah, there's context that has to be added. I get all of it. Here's what I do know, I've never seen the SEC take the field. I've never seen the Big Ten take the field. I've seen Georgia take the field. I've seen Penn State take the field. So I kind of choose to discuss it like that. But I understand that doesn't look as good on the thumbnail. And I understand we don't get nearly as many questions in the inbox about that. Let us move on. 11 minutes, Jesse. Not one of those 30 minute specials for the A block tonight. So there's been, there's been some argument, there's been some, some chirping back and forth. James from Midland, Texas hit me and said, Sark calls out Texas Tech schedule, and Joey McGuire then says, play us, you coward. And now crickets. Is Sark running away from a check his mouth couldn't cash? Beautifully worded question. I assume most of you know what James is talking about, but if you don't. Sark was, I believe, the Houston Touchdown Club. I want to say that's where he was recently. And he made a comment, truthfully, that he made to me a month ago, but it was off the record, so I didn't, I didn't run my mouth about it. But then Sark chose to say it publicly. So whatever. Uh, it's his belief that his backups could go undefeated against Texas Tech schedule. Now, it is important to note what he did not say. He. Because here's what he did say. I'm about to read it, but let's just make sure, because we had a lot of questions in the inbox asking me about what he did not say. And what he did not say is they could beat Texas Tech with their backups. Okay? Because a lot of you heard it wrong. So I did not put those on the air. I put that question on the air because that question was worded correctly. Here's what Sark did say. There is a team in our state that plays in another conference and that has a schedule that I would argue if I played with our twos and our threes, we could go undefeated and they'll probably make the playoff this year. He's talking about Texas Tech. All right, I'll give you my take on that in a second. But then the rest of the story is all Paul Harvey would say. Once upon a time when I was a youth in Georgia was Joey Maguire was not going to sit still and take that. And so word got to Joey McGuire, and Joey McGuire, I think, was at Big 12 spring meetings, which has not become a full on circus like the SEC's has as of yet. And Joey Maguire decided to do what people in West Texas do. You take a shot at them, that's fine, but they're probably going to return serve at the very least. So here was Joey Maguire's response to Steve Sarkeesian's quote.
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Joey McGuire
And I said, there's no way they're talking about us because Sark's a pretty tough guy. His teams are really tough. And I would think that if he was talking about us that he would call us out. Like he wouldn't just say, you know, just kind of this comment of, well, there's another team in our state. And so I guess he was talking about us. So I've actually talked to Keith Patterson and I've talked to G.J. kenny and they're willing to take our games and Abilene Christian will go to Texas State. We'll buy our contract out of Abilene Christian. I'm sure because Texas has got a lot of money, they can buy their contract out. But I do know there's a lot of Red Raiders that will help them buy that contract out if they don't want to. And they can come to Lubbock Week 1 and you know, we can figure out if their twos and threes can win this conference.
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Josh Pate
I know not everyone's a body language expert, but if you are a body language expert, Rich Rodriguez actually had the best quote in that whole sound bite, but he didn't open his mouth. But if you can read body language, Rich Rod said a ton. He was just kind of seated off to the immediate left of Joey Maguire, stage right, I guess. So. That was great. We need to get Rich Rod's thoughts on that because I don't think he's commented on it publicly. Look, that is Joey Maguire. That's the entire attitude of Texas Tech. Texas Tech has either become the heel athletic department in college football or the biggest baby face athletic department in college football, depending on your point of view. Either way, it's wonderful to me because I go back to a couple of beliefs I have about sports, college football included. Not everybody has to like each other. In fact, I encourage this kind of environment and as a child of the spur your era, I encourage an environment where everyone doesn't get along and everyone's not concerned with hurting someone else's feelings this time of year. Especially you want to take a shot at someone, take a shot at someone. I don't care. They're going to have a microphone because everyone does now and they're going to get to take a shot back at you. But if the worst thing in the world is that the head coach at Texas Tech and the head coach at Texas aren't getting along, if the worst thing in the world is people in West Texas and people in Austin, Texas, figure out we don't have a whole heck of a lot in common, which is not breaking news, by the way, then I'm happy to live in that world. Frankly, it had gotten a little too cushy in here for my liking anyway. Too many people just want to be friends. You want a friend? Go to the playground. This is college football. This is major, major collegiate athletics. This is not the worst thing in the world. Okay, so that's the first thing. The second thing is that is the attitude Joey McGuire should have. And of course, the scheduling challenge is not going to be met. I think Texas has the toughest schedule in the country this year. They caught him in a perfect spot. It's just a little chess move by Joey McGuire there. Sark ran his mouth a little bit, and I'm going to address what he said in a second. And Joey McGuire heard it and said, you know what? Let's throw out a challenge we know that they're not going to accept. We'd be happy to play him. Texas has no illusions of adding to what is already probably the toughest schedule in the country. So, like, you knew, it was a risk free shot back. But the overarching, I guess, story here is Texas Tech would be happy to join the SEC if the SEC called and invited them, but that call's not coming. So Texas Tech plays the hand that's dealt to them every year. They can only play the schedule they play, and they play it last year very effectively, and they'll probably play it very effectively this year. And that's with or without Brendan Sorsby at quarterback. But here's the other part of it. All right, so Joey McGuire. I'm not mad at him because Joey McGuire probably handled it exactly as I would. And then on the flip side, I don't think Sark's even wrong, which is the crazy part. So here's a little backstory. When I was out in Austin last month, we did the sit down with Sark. I hung out with him for a little while afterwards, and we got to talking about things of this nature. Okay? So the part of the conversation that's no longer privileged is the part he went public with. So he rattles that off. He says, man, I really believe our Twos could go undefeated against Texas Tech schedule, and That's a Power 4 schedule. What we were talking about was the great disparity in strength of schedule in this sport. Okay? So I shot back and I said, you have the opportunity. You had the opportunity to play Texas Tech schedule every year. It was called staying in the Big 12. But you guys didn't want to do that. So it wasn't Sark's decision, but they didn't want to do that. They wanted to come to the sec. So to whom much more is given, much more is going to be asked. So we have all that and everyone understands that's the world we live in. But I don't even think he's wrong now. You can't prove a counterfactual. So Texas backups are not going to play Texas Tech schedule, and so we don't know how they would do. I will say if we went to fanduel Mike right now and had the traders over there work up hypothetical lines, for whatever that's worth, yeah, they'd probably be favored in most of these games. Texas as backups. Yeah, whatever that's worth is whatever that's worth. Obviously, the overarching point he's trying to make is they were sitting there with three losses last year, and they firmly believed that they were a prisoner of scheduling up, scheduling Ohio State out of conference, not to mention playing a full SEC slate. Opponents to that theory would say you didn't get punished for playing Ohio State, you got punished for losing to a really bad Florida team. And then I think the deeper dive there, and the opinion that I have is I'm not even sure they got totally imprisoned because they lost those two games. Jesse. I think the committee remembered how they were dead in the water against Mississippi State, how they struggled to get past Kentucky. And those were in wins, very close wins. So Texas was not a dominant team last year. But Sarks look, he looks at it and says, you know what? Even if we weren't a dominant team, we could have scheduled cream puffs and just skated by on the strength of our conference schedule. We would have been a playoff team. We got punished for scheduling up. And his point is, and it's not entirely unfounded, is there are a lot of other P4 schedules out there we'd probably go undefeated against, and we'd be the same team in both scenarios, but we'd be left out in one and we'd be in the playoff in the other. Now, to Sark's credit, it sounds like he's making an argument for playoff expansion. There he's not. He's not. And this is where I kid you not, when I was talking to him, I think my voice raised louder than his did because this has been one of my soapboxes I've been on for a long time is I don't have a problem with you scheduling really tough. I don't have a problem with someone not playing a tough schedule as long as we're going to get to the finish line. And I have committee protocol in place that properly judges your record and your body of work. Strength of schedule I always have believed it's been misinterpreted. I've always believed that there is a real seat at the table. There should be a seat at the table for a Vegas odds makers perspective, not on your record against the spread. I'm not talking about any of that foolishness. I'm talking about coming in and providing metrics that really, really are the definitive stance on how tough your schedule was. And if you need to put a 9 and 3 team in over an 11. 1 team, so be it. I wouldn't bat an eye at that. But there is still this, this really, really archaic clinging to you are what your record says you are mentality in enough of college football, Dom, that people like Sark look and say why should we even schedule up if all it's going to come down to is wins and losses at the end of the day? Which makes sense in pro sports because everyone plays roughly the same kind of schedule, but makes very little sense in college sports because people play varying degrees of difficulty in schedule. I get what they're both saying. None of them, neither one of them is even wrong. I my feelings aren't hurt a bit by it. But Texas Just to give you an idea of this year's landscape, we went over and looked at the odds to win a national championship on FanDuel. Texas plays eight teams this year that have top 20 odds to win the national title. Texas Tech plays zero teams in the top 30. Guys. That doesn't say anything about how good Texas or Texas Tech will be. It only says something about the relative challenge that their schedules will present them. Now here's the other follow up to that. This is just preseason stuff. So the regular season will ultimately determine how tough their schedules were. But the season hasn't happened yet, so this is the only view that we have. But rest assured, Texas is going to play a pretty tough schedule and Texas Tech strength of schedule will pale in comparison to Texas. Now what it could be is Texas Tech ends up being the best team in the country anyway. And it doesn't matter. I've always said it doesn't matter who won the super bowl last year. Jesse, remind me right quick Seahawks. If the Seahawks played Hardaway High school schedule in Columbus, Georgia, they still would have been the Seattle Seahawks. As it turns out, they played an NFC west schedule and they still won the Super Bowl. But my point is, you are the team. You are. So it's not like this eliminator that, oh, it's impossible for Texas Tech to be the best team in the country. Look at their schedule. Their schedule is their schedule. Teams aren't their schedule, but teams play their schedule. And so if we get to the end of the road, and this is really the only point Sark's making, if we get to the end of the road, and hypothetically it came down to 9 and 3 Texas getting in or 10 and 2 Texas tech getting in or 9 and 3 Texas versus 11 and 1 Texas tech. Sark's looking at it and saying, I highly doubt that committee's putting a 9 and 3 team in over an 111 team, even if there's a mountain of data that supports one over the other because they can't get past that win loss record. And you know what? Maybe that's just the price you pay for being a member of the sec. Every other aspect of the sport is tilted in your favor. I do not believe if Steve Sarkeesian in Texas were presented the option today to just trade places in life with Texas Tech, that they would. And so if you are accepting your position, it comes with pros and cons, it comes with pluses and minuses. And this just happens to be one of the minuses. That's the only way I've talked myself off the ledge because I told him, man, I think I screamed once. Savannah State was there. She saw it. A couple of people were in there actually. But like, I get worked up over that stuff. But then I just have to tell myself, self, ultimately you're going to have a show the following Sunday. Either way, you personally are not losing any of these games. And if you are basically presenting the supporting argument for playoff expansion, you need to be careful about how loud you yell it. Jesse, did you know last week that when I held up that football is coming T shirt, we saw some web traffic. They didn't crash the site, but we saw some pretty significant web traffic. Which begs the question, why haven't I been holding up pat statematerial.com products on set before this? And the answer is, I forget to bring them in. That's really all there is to it. But take my word for it. Or look at the TV screen, look at the monitor that Director Bradley has dialed up over here. Football is coming. The hats are there. The sleeveless options are there. We've got the baby onesies there. There's a lot of new products over there at the Pate State Store, patial.com they make great father's Day gifts, birthday gifts, random things on a Tuesday. Because your paycheck, there's a little more cheese on the Whopper than you expected in the last PayCheck. Why not paystatematerial.com
- [27:00]
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this is the story of the One as a maintenance tech at a university, he knows ordering from multiple suppliers takes time away from keeping their arena up and running. That's why he counts on Grainger to get everything he needs, from lighting and H vac parts to plumbing supplies, all in one place. And with fast, dependable delivery, he's stocked and ready for the next tip off. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
- [27:32]
Josh Pate
All right, let's move on. I'm not going to spend a ton of time on this, but I did promise that I would fill you in on my thoughts on this, this whole Senate bill thing. Ron from Cincinnati, Ohio, why are we wasting time on a bill that we all know isn't going to pass? Ron, let me tell you why we're wasting time on a bill that we all know isn't going to pass. Because the bill is going to pass. That's why we're spending more time on it. And that's why we're taking it a lot more seriously. You'll notice, as many of you have, because I read your submissions in the inbox, you'll notice that it seems like we've batted a thousand on predicting the way this is going to go. And all the way back to January, talking about how the SCORE act was going to die again because it was terminally flawed again, and how despite the SEC and the Big Ten putting their full lobbying weight behind it, it was going to be a moot point because it was going to die again. And then it died. You'll notice how during all that, I kept telling you, you know what they should do. What they should do is they should take the versions of the SCORE act that work, that is Governance, and they should take this SBA overhaul, this Sports Broadcasting act overhaul concept, AKA revenue, and they ought to just merge it in one bill well, lo and behold, Jesse, it turns out the Senate was working on that all along. It turns out Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell and the folks there in the Senate Commerce Committee just happened to be working on it all along. Dumb luck there. We got lucky with that one. So you'll notice we had a pretty good hit rate, as it turns out, talking about this so far this year. So I am going to put that hit rate on the line here tonight, Jesse. I am going to put our perfect record on Senate bill discussion on the line. And I'm going to say not only is this bill going to pass, it's going to pass comfortably. It's going to pass the Senate comfortably and it's going to pass the House comfortably. So let's just write that down. It's May 31, still got a ways to go. It's May 31, but let's just see how, let's see how that stands the test of time. But here's what I want to ask you guys because there have been a lot of people having a lot of takes on this. And truthfully, a lot of you are probably driving around listening to this show or watching it live right now and you like don't even know what's in the bill. The very, very long and short of it is there has been an attempt by people who screwed up college sports for a long time and could not even so much as write rules that were enforceable because they were illegal to get Congress to bail them out. We can't do our jobs. Please make it legal for us to do our jobs. Okay, not surprisingly, they could not get enough support. They couldn't get bipartisan support. We screwed up. Please bail us out. Unless you run a major bank turns out does not get bipartisan support very often. And so enough people looked and said, wait a second, what about the players? What about the non revenue sports? You guys have screwed your world up nine ways from Sunday. If we give you rules and we're able to give you enforcement via antitrust exemption, how are you going to fix anything? You guys are running yourselves into the ground financially. So then there was this bright idea, I don't say that sarcastically, to amend the Sports Broadcasting act, which would allow college football to do what the NFL did a long time ago, which is take one pooled media rights deal and then bid it out. You'll notice how there is no NFC west or AFC south media rights deal. There's just an NFL media rights deal and college football doesn't do that. College football can do that. If the SBA is amended, and I think it will be, and at that point, you don't force conferences to pull the media rights, but you present the option to. And the theory goes, and I happen to buy into it, because it's true, despite the best lobbying and PR efforts out there of certain big conferences, it's true that it would put a ton more money on the table. And then the follow up theory is that that waterfall would absolve a lot of the financial crises that currently face college athletics. Notice I didn't say it would put out all the fires, I said it would alleviate a lot of the crises. But beyond all that, I want to ask you guys a simple, very selfish question tonight, because this is really where my head's at on this. And with all due respect, I would advise your head to be in a similar place on this. It's kind of a play on that Nick Saban question from like a decade and a half ago, only he was talking about offense and I'm talking about the overall sport. The only thing you ought to really be asking yourself as a fan of college football when it comes to this Senate bill, is what do you want college football to be? Not a guy on Twitter, not a lawyer on tv, not your buddies, not anyone else. Just be selfish for a second. Everyone else is, why don't you just be selfish for a second? And you're sitting in Des Moines, Iowa, Fresno, California, Valdosta, Georgia, wherever you're watching the show tonight or listening to the show and just look in the mirror and ask yourself, self, what do I love about college football? Me and only me. Just look out for number one, what do I love about college football? What appeals to me? What draws me to it? Why am I so passionate about this game? Why do I love it more than any other sport in the world? And then ask yourself, what are we lacking now that we could gain from the wording of this bill? An imperfect bill. That's the very nature of bipartisanship, is no one gets everything they want. But ask yourself, what do you want? So I'm going to tell you what I want. I'll tell you what I want out of college football. I would love to see structure, therefore, I would love to see rules that make sense and that are enforceable so it doesn't really have a Wild west feel to it. I would love to, at least for the time being, stop worrying about the constant financial cliff that seems to be in the near distance. And that is the fault of many, many people, mostly just the adults in the room. Well, the people who are of adult age in the room. But whoever's fault it is, I'd love to take care of that. I would love for a track and field student at Iowa State to not fear that their scholarship may one day not exist anymore because people screwed football up for a long time. I would love that. I'd love to live in that world. And I would love fans and players to win both. I would love both fans and players to win. And so if you tell me that you have things like five years to play five in this bill, if you have one penalty free transfer unless your coach leaves, in which case you know you have the addendum language in there. If you tell me that, then that to me means, wow, the transfer portal is not out of control anymore. In this structure, people aren't playing for four or five schools. Full grown adults 28 years of age are not threatening to come back and play college football. I love that. I love what it does to the value of a commitment out of high school. I love what it does to completely reignite what high school recruiting used to mean and feel like, because there is a much, much higher percentage chance that a guy who commits to South Carolina out of high school will be there three years from now. I love what it does to reinforce the G5 rosters because you will have far less total and complete rating of those rosters. But more importantly, if you can only move once, think about how much more strategic you have to be on that. And I also, I look at it especially from the second part of this, the revenue piece of it, and I think to myself, how awesome could a viewing experience be for a fan if they were to ever pool media rights? Now there's a long way to go on this and the SEC and the Big Ten are diametrically opposed to it. But I don't think we've seen the last of that story. But I'm asking myself, I'm being selfish for a second. I think about an Ohio State fan, a Michigan fan, a Penn State fan. I think about fans of major schools in the Big Ten. You guys live in a world right now where you know, if you've got a big game on the calendar, 90% chance it's going to kick off at noon Eastern. And your boy here does not mind a noon kickoff. But I'm in the vast minority and I know that like Ohio State just never gets to play major primetime games at home. It's just stupid. But that's the world we live in right now because everyone's locked into one network. The SEC's got a great deal with ESPN because they can just stack them triple header style. And, and so all the big games are in primetime, but that's not the way it is for the Big Ten. And forget which conference you're in, think about this. Think about a world where everyone's making more money in the aggregate. But for us as fans, if I am a Michigan fan, I may be playing on Fox one week at noon, I may be playing on ABC in primetime the next week. I may be a mid afternoon kickoff on NBC the next week. And, and so all the networks are invested in all the leagues. Instead of this silo, incestuous marketing approach that you see right now where it's like one conference and one network locked arm in arm and basically you might as well fuse the two logos. That world's stupid, but it's the one we live in right now. The NFL did away with this a long time ago. So if you ever want to know about a category I think we should copy the NFL in, it's that the way media rights work. Now, networks don't like that because they got to pay a lot more money in that kind of world. But I'm not a network executive. I'm a fan of college football. So I love a world where all of the networks are invested in all the leagues because they cover all the leagues. And I also love that all networks theoretically are invested in the College Football Playoff. Although that's a totally separate argument here. We're just talking about media rights right now. But I love that as a fan. Okay, I would argue most of you probably agree with that. But the tough part about supporting this bill is I agree with like 60% of the opposition's viewpoints on it. Because if you oppose this bill, I'm not so much talking about the people who say, oh, this victimizes the player. Screw that. No it doesn't. No, it doesn't at all. No, it does not. And if you, if you really want to get a real world view of this, just go campus to campus, go talk to college football players. Not the ones who were sent out there from organizations. I mean just normal everyday college football players and college athletes, but specifically college football players and go look at their day to day lives. I do all year. I'm around them all year. And I can tell you there is none. I don't think, Jesse, I've ever heard any major arguments about quality of life and about being victimized. It's, it's all, it's all adults that are speaking on behalf of players, almost without the players involvement in it. And so I don't buy that part of it. The part I do buy is you guys are pushing back on this bill and saying this is essentially bailing out, terrible decision making. The adults who screwed it up are getting bailed out. And you're not wrong. You and I are locked arm in arm on that. If you want to talk about how administrative spending has been out of control, if you want to talk about how buyout structures have been out of control because it's monopoly money and they know that, oh, don't worry, someone will take care of us. We'll get bailed out one way or the other. Yeah, it's pathetic. It's pathetic. Those people ought not be in charge of anything. But it's the best we can do. If you guys could show me a magic lever where I could pull it and all of those people are flushed out during the process, I'd love to pull it right along with you. That'd be a bipartisan lever pull. I'd love to do that. It's not the world we live in. So in an idealistic world, I'd be happy to have that conversation with you because you're right about it. Even though you're opposing the viewpoint I have. I agree with you. But in a more realistic world, a lot of these folks are going to be around for a long time. They're just. They're career collegiate bureaucrats, basically. This is all they have. They've never built anything in their lives. So they got to leech on to what someone else built or a bunch of people built a long time ago and just ride it as long as they can. Realistically, they're going to be here. So is the bill a net positive or a net negative? It is a supreme net positive. Supreme net positive. If selfishly, I'm looking to get what I want out of college football. Cause it returns a lot of what's been missing in college football the last few years. Keep an eye on the SEC and the Big Ten in this. They opposed it. They currently oppose it. They lobbied hard against it. And I understand why. I understand why I disagree with them. This was the fun part. Jesse, I told you for like a month when we were talking about this stuff and the comments, certain people in the comment section kept saying, oh man, you're just an SEC shill or you're just a Big Ten shill. You're just shilling for the Power 2 conferences. Me knowing all the while These people are in Washington lobbying hard against a bill that when it comes out, I'm going to voice support of. And so now I'm taking a stance against the SEC in the Big Ten. I hope they don't get their way on this. They tend to get their way on it, but I hope they don't. What I do hope is I hope that especially when it comes to the revenue sharing piece of all this, which is really the key, pretty much everyone wants rules that are enforceable. You got consensus on that? They don't want to have restrictive language placed on them that is telling them who they can and can't add to their conferences. Because really, there are a lot of folks in those leagues that love the super conference idea, that love the idea of just breaking away entirely. And I absolutely hate it. Just at my core, I hate it. Everything you can do does not mean you should do so. A lot of people in these two leagues cried for a long time. We want help from Congress, man. We want rules that are enforceable, and, man, we want to back away from this financial cliff we're all headed towards. Well, a bill just landed in your lap that gives you both of those things, and now you're about to be called. Your bluff's about to be called. Because if you meant what you said about the greater interest of college athletics, and a lot of you are on record, by the way, as saying you care about the greater good of college athletics, then this bill serves those interests. It gives you the enforcement piece and it gives you the revenue piece. But you still fight it behind the scenes. Why? Well, it's because it may not put you in the most pristine position. And that's okay if you openly claim that you're only looking out for yourself. But that's not what you guys claimed. You guys claimed that you wanted what was best for the overall greater good of college athletics. Did you mean it? If you meant it, then you'll take a good hard look at concepts that would serve the greater overall interest of college athletics. But look, no one's asking the SEC in the Big Ten to go full charity case here. Here's what's going to end up happening, and this is why we're still very early in this game. I know the SEC came out immediately and said, yeah, we're totally opposed to this concept of pooling media rights. You just give that some time. Here's what the SEC is opposed to. The SEC is opposed to pooling media rights. Not on their terms. The Big Ten as well. Now, the networks that are behind those two leagues, mainly Disney and Fox, they're against it full stop because it would cost them more money at the end of a day. But again, I don't run those networks, so I don't have to think like that. I think like a fan. But as for Greg Sankey or Tony Petitti, for that matter, here's what that's going to end up looking like. They take a stand and say, yeah, we're not on board with that. And then those other conferences are going to have to suck it up and say, all right, well, what if we negotiate with you and then the SEC and the Big Ten will come to the table, or at least they should. It doesn't cost anything to listen. And what should end up happening is there should be a negotiation that arrives at a revenue split that makes sense for the SEC and the Big Ten the same way they've done the playoff deal. It's the only way you got them to sign off on that. Is that idealistic? To me, no, it is not. But that's the only realistic way that you're ever going to get the SEC or the Big Ten to listen to any conversation about pooling meteorites. And they may still not. But I imagine there's going to be a conversation on that front. And university presidents and chancellors ought to think long and hard, because that is who Mr. Petiti and Sankey answer to. Ultimately, they ought to think long and hard about what your role in all this is. I mean, do you really think, at the end of the day, your role in as the president or chancellor of a major university is just to make sure that the conference whose sticker is on your chest sucks every dime out of a sport you had no part in creating, by the way. But that should be your mission statement, if that's what you think your spot in this whole game is, if that's what you really think your role is as a university president. I fundamentally disagree. I think there's gotta be some part of you that says, you know, maybe it's on me holding the position I hold to maybe wave a little bit of my influence for the greater overall good of collegiate athletics, which, by the way, is a gravy train that has made all of you a boatload of money and will in the future, by the way, if you play your cards right. So this is going to pass. This bill is going to pass, okay, and it may happen pretty quickly. By quickly in Senate terms, I mean, over the next three or four months. But I think there's a shot that's done before the college football season. So I know that a lot of people who disagree on that, I'm happy to bookmark that statement. But the real piece I'm interested in is the revenue piece, the pooling of the media rights and how flexible in the end, the SEC or the Big Ten end up being willing to be on that front.
- [46:29]
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- [47:01]
Josh Pate
They're watching us in Speedway, Indiana. They're watching us in Seaside, Florida. They're watching us in Homer, Alaska. Jesse, Alaska checked in. Is it true that we're still the number one college football show in Alaska? Well, there is no oppo research on that. Just say yes. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, let's move on. The Truth Teller series is continuing and about two weeks ago we were going to do the truth about the accident on the show. And then what did we do? We just forgot. I think we bumped it and then we never got around to it. So the piece of paper is like a month old, but here it is. What is the truth about the Atlantic Coast Conference now with multiple member institutions who can see the Pacific Ocean out of their window? What is the truth about this conference? I think it's a conference with an identity crisis. That's what I think it is. I have viewed the ACC as a supreme disappointment for a long time because I think the ACC should be a powerhouse conference. I have looked at the ACC for a long time and said it is inexplicable that you guys have struggled like you have the Big 12. I get they're in the middle of the country and outside of Texas being a pipeline for everyone, there's not a huge talent footprint there. This is a conference that has the Carolinas, the Virginias, Georgia, Florida, Florida all in its conference footprint. And you've looked and with the exception of Clemson carrying the entire thing for a decade, there was some Florida State early in the 2010s and Miami as of late. But there's never been a sustained period where there's like a Big Three, Big Four, Big Five, and there's no reason for that. That grant of rights deal in 2012 looked good and it ended up being an albatross. And it may very well be what sinks the conference. Some people think it's already sunk. It's not already, but it very well could end up being that way because I am a believer that conference realignment is not done. But that's another show that's not tonight. But it's not just the media rights thing. It's not just the grant of rights because Florida State and Miami failed to ever put together what we thought they'd put together. If you're 17 and you're watching now, you don't recall when Florida State and Miami first got put in the same conference. The thought was, oh, dude, they're just going to dominate every year. It's just going to be them every single year. And it hasn't been at all. And it's mind boggling that one of them couldn't get out of their own way while the other one was good and then they were both bad for a little while and then vice versa. And all the while Virginia Tech fell off and Virginia never got its act together. North Carolina's been a perennial underachiever. North Carolina State has not been able to put together any kind of run, although it has not been a bad football program. But it hasn't risen above just good. It's been merely good, which is not a crime. And you've just, you'd had, outside of Clemson, again, you had perennial underachievement as a conference and Miami has now taken the place of Clemson. So you look at Miami and you think that's a bona fide national championship threat every single year. At least that's the current status of Miami. But now Clemson's fallen off a little bit. And so you, you just never have this period where you look at the ACC at the beginning of the year and say there are multiple teams in that league that could win it all this year. You just don't feel that way. The conference champ in this league was 7 and 5 last year. I kid you not, Jesse. We didn't even do a Duke Virginia preview, did we? We never even previewed the conference title game. That's how. That was mainly a tiebreaker issue that they had. And I still don't know if they fixed that rule. We just assumed they're going to fix that rule. But that's what screwed the playoff up last year too. So we didn't even preview the game. I don't think we broke down the game on the back end. Congrats to Duke. Congratulations, sincerely, in Virginia for making the game. But it was an afterthought and so inexcusable for this conference to be in this position because of what it should be. And I have never convinced myself that I'm just wrong in what this conference should be. I think I'm right in what it should be. It just has not been. The future is very uncertain here and that's the ultimate truth about the acc. Like, I judge it very harshly only because I know what it is capable of and hasn't achieved. And now you look out on the horizon and if I told you at any given point over the next three years, you're going to wake up one morning and Ross Dellinger is going to have this big breaking story that there's major conference realignment, which conference would you think it is? You all know which conference that would emanate from. Everyone's been sitting on pins and needles about Florida State or North Carolina or Clemson, Miami, and it's been varying degrees of rumors for like four years now. Those aren't going anywhere. They haven't gone anywhere now, guys, they're happening right now. I don't think there's been a major headline about it recently, to my knowledge. I don't think there has. Oh, they're happening right now. Trust me, this time of year. Especially all these people getting in the same rooms. They're happening right now. Just there's so much uncertainty and I hate that. I hate that because I think the accuracy could be a premier conference and it's never lived up to it in my lifetime. I don't remember it ever living up to a sustained run. I'm not saying they haven't had good individual years, but like a sustained. A stretch of greatness. Never been that way. Let's talk about games. Let's talk about the players on the field. Someone asked a question, someone dared to ask a question about football players. Jesse, Doug from Westminster, Colorado, which players are you most excited to watch this year? Great question, Doug has nothing to do with the Senate bill. Has nothing to do with conference versus conference. I am excited to watch Jeremiah Smith because I think he's the best player in college football. So this year, Jeremiah Smith I think will go off. We had a bold prediction the other night from one of you and your prediction was, I think he's going to have 1800 receiving yards and 15 touchdowns. And I only rated that a nine and a quarter on the boldness scale because that's how capable I think he is as a player. He is the biggest potential game wrecker any given play in the sport. He easily would have been the top receiver in last year's draft. He's played alongside guys that have ended up being first round draft picks just by being associated with him. And so I guess my follow up question there really more so than questioning Jeremiah Smith is who takes that role this year? Who falls in behind him this year? Brandon Ennis, Is it his years at Chris Henry as a freshman? I'm really high on him, but yeah, whoever's on the field with him him is Jeremiah Smith. Good T shirt idea there by the way. So that's one player Darian Mensah at Miami. Darien Mensah I'm looking very much forward to watching because I think he's kind of a blend of the best aspects of Cam Ward and Carson Beck and I think he's in a perfect situation. He gets to play in an offense that can really, really mold itself around his full skill set. And man, he's not there alone. He brought Barkate, who was his number one receiver from Duke, he brought him down to Miami with him. But also he just walks onto the same roster as Malachi Toney. They've got really, really good tailback talent. It's an overall loaded roster, but just the wide receiver group that he's going to throw to and the overall leadership piece that I think he walks in with. He walks in with a much different vibe about him than Carson Beck and he's not walking in, just grabbing everyone by the throat like Cam Ward did. But it's a really, really good blend of what's worked down there at Miami so far. He is one of the main reasons I think they could end up being a better team than the team that played for national title last year. Leadership +fit overall talent roster Dylan Stewart still at South Carolina. Looking forward to Dylan Stewart this year. It's kind of a regression last year on his stat sheet. He only had four and a half sacks last year but that was kind of South Carolina's story as a team. They've got to have him explode. I remember watching him in person as a freshman and it's really, it's amazing when you get that high a level of player, it's you look. I remember Myles Garrett like when Myles Garrett was at A and M. Seeing him in person as a freshman and saying that person looks different than everybody else in the field. Dylan Stewart's that way. Dylan Stewart just looks different than everybody else on the field and he's six'5 245 and he's entering his third year and it's kind of him and Colin Simmons as those big time game wrecking edge presences. One of them though is at Texas where they're expected to do a lot. And Dylan Stewart's at South Carolina where everyone's asking, I mean, can they make a bowl game? Will they win seven games? If they win seven games, they go over the win total. So I look forward to watching him. I just wonder is the context him going off and having a great year in the middle of South Carolina having a bad year, or does he go off as Lenor Sellers goes off and all of a sudden South Carolina is this surprise team. So there are two different compartments there. Leonard Moore at Notre Dame I think is the best corner in the country entering the season. And you look at him like when they played USC last year, Jesse Makai Lemon didn't do a whole lot against Leonard Moore. And you know what's going to happen this year? They're going to play Miami. They're going to play Miami in week 10 in South Bend. And so Notre Dame schedule might not be loaded, so you might not see Leonard Moore against a ton of future first round draft talent, but you will see him in premier matchups when they end up playing Miami. That we can pretty much promise ourselves. Those are four names. I just wanted to rattle some off. Like I could rattle off a hundred right now. We could probably go deeper than that and maybe we will because we have a few more shows before the season starts, obviously. But yeah, Jeremiah Smith, Mensah, Stewart Moore, those kind of players I'm looking forward to watching this year. Let's move along merrily along. I would say fairly good pace tonight. Man, that's small writing. Don't worry, don't worry. I'm going to lean in. Let me bump my readers up. Jason submitted a question in the fanduel discord, which means Jason's about to get $100 in bonus bets dropped into his account just for asking this question. He said Alabama's loaded with talent, but they've lost their physicality and their reputation because of it. Can they fix it in time for the 2026 season? Well, we all watched Alabama last year. I think we all agree Alabama looked a little down physically, couldn't run the ball and struggled to stop the run at times. Not terrible, but it's not great defensively. Overall they're pretty good, but can they find it? People talk about physicality and toughness like it's an Easter egg, like you just go search for it. Once you find it, you got it. It's a lifestyle. It's not an Easter egg. It's a lifestyle. You have to live it. Notre Dame does not play the way they play because they kind of just find it and then other teams don't because they haven't found it. You have to live it. And so the question is not are they going to find it. The question is, are they living it? Are they living in an environment? Are they creating a culture? Do they have a DNA that exhibits that toughness? You don't find it. You don't. You just have it. You develop it. You live isn't a talent thing either because there are far less talented teams than Alabama that were far better running the ball than Alabama last year. So if it's not just a talent thing, then what does it come down to? It comes down to a lifestyle. It comes down to a belief system. It comes down to what you believe in, what you emphasize, what you tolerate and you don't tolerate. That's the beautiful thing about the best teams in the country is the environment that you walk into. Ohio State practice, Miami practice, when you go watch them and you, you look around and you got recruits there and you realize, man, some of you probably need to look elsewhere. I don't think this place is for everybody. That's how practice should feel. That's how I feel to Georgia. That's absolutely how it should feel. There ought to be a bunch of five star recruits any given year that would fail miserably in your program because you're running it at such a high level and the cultural filters are so fine on your program that they'd squeeze out even most of the premier high school talent in the country. Now you don't want them so fine that for the sake of making a point, you create an environment where good players don't want to play for you. But there's a fine line there. There's a balance. Your place ought not be for everybody, but the ones who do come in there, they ought to have a mentality that leaves very, very little doubt whether your team collectively possesses the required physical nature, the required toughness. So if you don't have it, it's a gut check, it's a mirror look, it's a top down assessment of who are we, what are we accepting that we shouldn't be accepting, what are we tolerating that we shouldn't tolerate and how long does it take to find out we're not in the building every day. You And I are just watching from the outside. How long does it take? Well, I'd say not very long for this upcoming year. Not very long. Now, I do think with Alabama, the element of the RPO in their offense this year is going to be a game changer for them regardless of who starts at quarterback. But especially if it's Keelan Russell, the element of the RPO is going to open up their ground game. I think they will be very, very much improved running the ball this year just because of that. And so that's one thing. And a lot works off of that. But there's no shortage of effort. I mean, I know that staff. We've been down there this spring. I've watched him practice this spring. There's no shortage of effort being put in. They pretty much overhauled their entire offensive line. They went and got a new offensive line coach. They tried to get Hollywood smothers out of the portal at tailback. Then Texas took care of that, which, you know is what it is. But they've got plenty good enough players there. They signed an incredible pair of freshmen. One of them is a five star and everyone knows about him. And the other one's not out of East Texas and everyone will know about him. But they got plenty good enough talent there. But they had good enough talent last year. Talent wasn't the issue there last year. It was. It's a lifestyle. They didn't live that lifestyle last year. You got to live the lifestyle. FanDuel right now is where you can go, like if you believe in Alabama, you go over there and bet them to win the national title. Right now. You can bet them to win the SEC right now. You could bet anything you want to. Over at FanDuel, they're the exclusive odds provider of the show. We appreciate them a whole lot. That question was just delivered to us via the fanduel Discord. And the added bonus, quite literally for you, if you ask a question for the show that winds up on the show and you ask it in the FanDuel Discord, you just get $100 in bonus bets dropped into your account. Like Jason, I think that's who it was that asked the question. Jason will check his account tomorrow morning and ask, did I place a bet? I forgot. Did I win? No, you just got your question asked on the show. In this economy, that's a big deal.
- [62:59]
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- [63:44]
Josh Pate
Let's wrap it up. Bold Predictions what do you believe? Do you believe something that's bold enough to get a nine and a half or higher on the boldness scale? Because if you do and it hits Chalai of supremacy, plural of chalice, headed out to anyone that fits that description. First up tonight, Connor from Rogersville, Alabama. He predicts half the College Football Playoff field this season will be made up of teams who were not in last year's playoffs. Hmm. All right, so we got 12 of them. For now. I think that the two G5 teams are highly likely not going to repeat. I don't think Tulane and JMU are going to be in the playoffs this year, so that's two newbies, so we got to find four more at least. Now the remaining teams, the remaining 10 teams from last year, they all have top 15 odds to make the playoffs. So there wasn't some team that made it last year LA like Auburn 2010 that's expected to fall off a cliff the next year. All of them are expected to be back in the mix this year, so we got to find four more that made it last year that aren't going to make it this year. Now I think Notre Dame and Texas are highly likely to make the playoff this year, so they got to be taking somebody's spot. Or so one would think. But what if they take JMU and two lane spot? Then we just did a straight two for two trade off. Jesse, really quickly we start having to ask ourselves, is Michigan going to make the playoff this year? Is Clemson going to make the playoff this year? Will Oklahoma or Alabama not make it? Could LSU make it in? Is Ole Miss going to make it in again? If you're telling me I got to find six of them, especially if two of them I think are already virtual locks, I think I can make it. I think the season could be that unpredictable. I'm only going to put a 9 on the boldness scale here, my number would be like four or five but I think we can get up to six so I'm only going to put a nine on the boldness scale. Next up. Boy, things are going sideways for Oklahoma. Cody in Katy, Texas not so ironically predicts Oklahoma will finish with a losing record. They're going to fire Brent Venables. Harsh. Nine and a quarter is my boldness rating for that. Oklahoma's win total is seven and a half. So for them to go five and seven would not be the biggest shocker in the world. Now we assume that a losing season would be 5 and 7, but it could be 4 and 8. It could be 3 and 9. It's highly unlikely. But in this post 2024 Florida State World of ours, don't dismiss anything but let's say they go five and seven, that's one thing. Then the other part is are they firing Brent Venables over that? So you got to have both of those things happen and I think that's a nine and a quarter. Injuries could happen. Variants in schedule could happen because they play a tough one again. Now this would be Venables third losing season in five years. So 6 and 7, 10 and 3, 6 and 7, 10 and 3. Another losing season here. Is that enough? Is that enough for him to get the ax? I don't know. I don't know guys, I'm going to put a nine and a quarter on it. Next up, Bob from or Jimmy Sorry from Austin, Texas. Indiana runs it back, no losses, undefeated season. Signetti puts himself in the Saban conversation with back to back national titles. That is a nine and a half. I respect the boldness because notice he didn't even say just Indiana's going to repeat. He said they're going to go undefeated. Another perfect season and repeat as national champs. The last back to back perfect season, national champs. Who was that? It wasn't Nick Saban in Alabama. Who was it? It was Nebraska 94 and 95. So this is not easy to do. It's not easy to do. One time they do play Ohio State and USC at home, they play Michigan and Washington on the road. Then theoretically you would have the Big Ten championship game. Then you got to win three playoff games. It's just tough to do. New quarterback, got to have multiple new guys at wide receiver workout. A lot of defensive production lost. Brian Haynes is still there though. Guys, I think even if they win the national title they're doing it with at least a blemish this year. So that's a nine and a half on the boldness scale for me. And then lastly, what a world. What a change in our world. Kent believes in his prediction so much he sent the bet slip in. He said. Energized by the events of the off season, Dabo leads Clemson back to the playoffs by winning the accident. Now here is here's what I mean by what a world. Clemson has won eight of the last 11 ACC titles and it is a bold prediction. Now to predict Clemson to win the acc, I'm putting an eight and a half on it. They have the fourth best odds to win the conference behind Louisville, SMU and Miami. It should be noted Clemson is well behind SMU and Louisville, who themselves are well behind Miami. But this is the acc. Okay, Duke played Virginia in the ACC title game last year. The winner of the league was 7 and 5. Crazy things can happen. Of course you still got to make the playoff. That was part two of the prediction here. I think it just makes perfect sense from a script writing perspective to have Dabo make a crazy run to a conference title the year after everyone expected him to. It seems like the most Dabbo Sweeney thing in the world. And because of that, I'm only putting an eight and a half on this because I will not be the poster child that he is finding at the end of the year to claim that no one believed in little old Clemson. He has already referred to his roster multiple times as a bunch of nobodies. Okay, the plot is being set right now. I will not fall victim. I'm only putting an eight and a half on that. Appreciate you guys so much. Speaker Series A lot of travel this week. A lot of travel. We're going to set out tomorrow night. We'll be somewhere Tuesday, we'll be somewhere Wednesday. One of those somewheres is a first time trip. In fact, unlike Bradley, I've never even been to the state that we're going to be in Wednesday. Bradley has inexplicably been to two states that he has no business being to and so we're gonna go to one of them Wednesday and I was in the other one the other day. Storm chasing. So if you really, really stalk me hard by process of elimination you just eliminated one. We will be back probably Thursday unless I randomly make a trip to the Women's College World Series. Is UCLA game final yet? Do we even know? We'll go find it anyway. Stay tuned to the socials oshpatecfb I'll let you guys know what's going on this week. Until then, let's have a great week. For director Bradley producer Jesse I'm Josh Pate. Take care and God bless.
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