← The Bill and Doug Show: Ohio State Football Talk
The Bill and Doug Show: Ohio State Football Talk
Can a 24-team college football playoff with a reasonable calendar exist? Here's the solution
01:40:16
The American Football Coaches Association backed three ideas for a college football playoff recently: A 24-team field, Eliminating conference championship games, Finishing the postseason by the second weekend in January. Bill Landis and Doug Lesmerises got to work on this episode.
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- [00:02]
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- [00:12]
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- [00:15]
Doug LeMarice
Oh, no.
- [00:16]
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We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.
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Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.
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- [01:06]
Doug LeMarice
Welcome back to the Bill and Doug Show. It's Doug LeMarice. It's Bill Landis. We are talking about the proposal from the afca, the American Football Coaches association, about what the future of the College Football Playoff should look like. Bill Landis and we are going to run through sort of the three tent poles of that idea. It's just a proposal from the coaches Association. It's not binding. They're not going to vote on it. It's just like, you know, the guys who get paid millions of bucks in this sport got got together and so like, ah, what should we do? And so of course it's self serving. So we know that, right? That this is what, what the coaches want because they think it helps them. So we're coming in with that understanding.
- [01:48]
Bill Landis
We are. But I also like, you know, I don't. The calendar is a mess. It seems like people just want to continually sort of like pass the buck like to someone else to try to figure it out. So I'm in some ways thankful. I guess maybe that's not quite the right word, but I'm glad, like somebody put something out there to try to solve this. Whether or not it's the perfect solution is another conversation. But I did think it was funny in Rossellinger's story at Yahoo. It was like the AFCA put forth this proposal and then like the next sentence was like, by the way, they actually have no power anyway, continuing on with the rest of their proposal, which may or may not happen because it's not, not up to them ultimately. But yeah, it's a. Not a bad starting off point, at least.
- [02:31]
Doug LeMarice
Yeah. So like the idea that the three things that, that they primarily suggest that they are in support of is a 24 team playoff, getting rid of conference championship games and finishing the season by the second weekend in January. So we are going to discuss like those three parts of it and how we think this could work out if college football just said, you know what, the coach has got this. But the, the, the thing. And we don't have to do this off the top, but I do note that the 2014 thing started with Tony Petiti, the Big Ten commissioner, and the Big Ten was like on an island there. And now it feels like, right. All the other conferences except the SEC have come around to 24 and now the group that represents all of the college football coaches, including SEC coaches, have come around to 24. So it is a little bit of a successful power play by the Big Ten that it was like, well, the Big Ten wants this, the SEC wants this. And as we stand here, everybody in the sport is on the Big Ten side and the SEC is kind of alone at still wanting 16, but also kind of feeling like they're eventually going to come over to the side of 24 and that's where we're going to land.
- [04:00]
Bill Landis
Yeah, it does seem that way of notes, by the way, the AFCA board does include two SEC head coaches, Brett Venables in Oklahoma and Clark Lee at Vanderbilt or two of the people on that board. It seems like, like the, I guess the next step in this to sort of, I think, get everybody in the same boat is to figure out the financials of it. Right. Like how, how much money is lost by potentially scrapping the conference title games versus how much money is there to be gained by adding extra playoff inventory and putting not all of those games up for bid, but some of them because ESPN is entitled to some of them. So like that's a little like convoluted. But it seems to me like the sticking point at this juncture for Greg Sankey anyway is money and how much he stands to lose if they decide to get rid of the SEC championship game game and go to this 2014 proposal.
- [04:49]
Doug LeMarice
Yeah, because obviously everybody else, Tony Petito is okay with it. He's okay with the monetary trade off. And then Brett, your mark and Jim in the Big 12 and Jim Phillips in the ACC, like, they're okay with the monetary trade off. And I do think it's interesting and I've seen some SEC honk media Sort of like suggest this, that it's like, well, the SEC champ is the best championship game. It has a much longer history than the Big Ten.
- [05:13]
Bill Landis
Sure.
- [05:14]
Doug LeMarice
You know, like the Big Ten back in the day when. When it was east and west and like the Big Ten was putting kind of a crappy team into the Big Ten title game some years was sort of like, okay, well, like, you almost have created a scenario in the Big Ten where you can't have a good conference championship game. And like, the sec, because, like, they had conferences too. I mean, excuse me, they had divisions within the conference, divisions within the Big Ten, but they just. Between Florida and Alabama and Georgia and lsu. Right. Were able to sort of like, more often than not, maybe get a more competitive conference championship game. So I guess, like, I wouldn't. I wouldn't even. Even while swinging my sword, I would not dispute that the SEC has the best conference championship game. Right. Historically. And also probably current. Currently. Right. I would say.
- [06:08]
Bill Landis
So obviously that the Big Ten is a little better now that the Big Ten has. Has scrapped divisions. Oh, I see. Indiana was good, Penn State, Oregon good. But prior. But prior to that. Yeah, you're right. No, I think that's true. I. I think there. There's something about the SEC title game that I likewise was sort of like, fully admit means more that got to that conference than probably any other conference title game means to any other. Other conference. So, like, I don't know, I'm not entirely dismissive of the notion that, like, the sec, like, genuinely cares about having its conference title game because of the. The historic or the more historic nature of it compared to the other games.
- [06:46]
Doug LeMarice
So let's make that the first point of discussion. Then it's losing the conference championship games again. Three tent poles, 24 teams get done by the second weekend in January, lose conference championship games. So we are in the lose conference championship game discussion. You and I have both separately sort of created what the ultimate version of this proposal would look like. I have sort of trumpeted in the past the idea that a conference championship game is a celebration of a conference and that I like it for that, that it is sort of a gathering place. It is. It's a family reunion. Like, it's all of us, like, before you go out into the world and now, okay, let's have the Big Ten champ in the playoff, go try to beat somebody else. But it's like, is it like we've been to Indy? Does it feel like a Big Ten family reunion? Or is it just like. Well, it's Penn State, Oregon. There's some Penn State fans here. There's some Oregon fans here. There are a couple Ohio State fans or you know, Michigan fans or whatever who bought the tickets when they thought their team might get there. But is it a conference celebration and family reunion that would be missed by the fans, not money. Yeah, by the ex. Would you miss the experience if it was gone?
- [08:10]
Bill Landis
No, I don't. I don't think so. Like going like, you know, we've been to plenty of Big Ten championships. Going to Indy's fun. I'm sure it's great to go to Atlanta for the SEC title game. I think maybe had the Big Ten title game existed with a more competitively balanced structure, which is to say like no divisions and you were truly pitting kind of like your two best teams against each other in the old world where only one of them can emerge, then to go into the playoff, I think there would be a little more sentimentality attached to it. But that dynamic never existed. So now that it like kind of can't anymore, I think it's very easy for people in Big Ten country to just sort of let it go. And probably in most other and every other conference aside from the sec, like
- [08:57]
Doug LeMarice
the Big Ten never really had stakes in the conference championship game because it went from the one division is so much better than the other division. We kind of assume who's going to win straight to while both teams in it are getting in the playoffs. So kind of who cares who wins? Like they never had the in between where, you know, and we covered this on our, on our 25 year winter show that you can find on an old feed somewhere. But like back, you know, when Florida and Alabama were playing each other in the SEC championship game, like in the BCS era, that's a, that's a play into the national championship game.
- [09:39]
Bill Landis
Right.
- [09:40]
Doug LeMarice
And so it like that, like I don't like did the Big Ten ever have that a single time? I mean, I guess like Iowa, Michigan State was in the four team playoff. That was a four versus a five in 2015. And it was like the winner of the Big Ten championship game is getting in the four team playoff and the loser is out. This is a de facto quarterfinal. But even that, that wasn't two Blue Bloods. That was sort of like, well, defending national champ Ohio State just lost to Michigan State. Can you believe that? It's not Penn State, it's not Michigan, it's Iowa and Michigan State. And I think that you could argue that was the biggest, best now 2014, Ohio State when they have to beat Wisconsin convincingly to like get in ahead of TCU and Baylor, that stakes. But it's only stakes for one side. It's not like winner. It's not. Winner is in, loser is out.
- [10:32]
Bill Landis
Like 2013. Right. Ohio State gets upset by Michigan State. Otherwise Ohio State probably would have gone to the BCS title game.
- [10:38]
Doug LeMarice
100 would have gone to the BCS title game.
- [10:40]
Bill Landis
Yeah. But again that's sort of one sided stakes. Like Michigan State did not beat Ohio State and then go play for the national championship. So there were three. There were only three Big Ten title games pre playoff. It was Wisconsin versus Michigan State in 2011 when Ohio State. No was. It was 2012, the following year in Wisconsin, Nebraska, when Ohio State should have been in it and wasn't eligible and
- [11:02]
Doug LeMarice
Penn State should have been in it and wasn't eligible programs.
- [11:06]
Bill Landis
Right. And then 13 was the Michigan State upset over Ohio State. And then we were into the playoff era, which were again, like there was really only ever one team in there that had a chance to play itself into the playoff with the exception of that Michigan State Iowa game.
- [11:21]
Doug LeMarice
I mean, my God, we had a year where they played the Big Ten championship game and the Big Ten champion didn't get in the playoff. But a team that didn't even go to Indy did make the playoff. Right. In 2016. I was at that game as a fan, just watching for fun with my daughter. Wisconsin, Penn State, Penn State rallied. It was a fun game. And then it was like, congratulations, Penn State, you're going to the Rose Bowl. You beat Ohio State during the regular season, but Ohio State's going to the playoff anyway. Like even that, like it was just. It's never 2017.
- [11:48]
Bill Landis
Wisconsin was number four and lost to number eight, Ohio State.
- [11:57]
Doug LeMarice
And then the Big Ten didn't get a team in the playoff. Right. So it's like you're knocking some that we've seen teams knocked out of the playoff or knocked out of a title game by losing the Big Ten championship game. But we have not lived in the world of like winners and losers out except for Iowa, Michigan State. So then I will say the idea that like it is the last vestige of a just means more. It's like, what's the it? What's the it? This is the last it.
- [12:27]
Bill Landis
That's why Kirby said. Didn't Kirby say the only the SEC is more difficult than winning the national title? Didn't they say that like two weeks ago?
- [12:36]
Doug LeMarice
I, I only listened to the thing where he said the Big Ten's better.
- [12:38]
Bill Landis
But like, maybe it wasn't Kirby, but somebody said that.
- [12:41]
Doug LeMarice
Which again, is a lie. It's a lie that you tell yourself when you're at your. It's like your family reunion. It's like, I don't, I don't want to go there. I'm not going to say the thing I was going to say about an SEC family reunion, but the, the idea that I've completely lost my train of thought because I really knocked myself over with what I was going to say. And I'm not going to say I. I. So here's what I. This is the last it. Nothing else means more because, like, everybody cares. It's the nationalization of the sport. The Big Tens won the titles. There's no it left. Except, like, we admit it, your conference championship game does mean more. It does. So let's rip it away from you and tell you to cram it.
- [13:34]
Bill Landis
The two can't. Can't coexist. Right. 2014 playoff and conference title games can't coexist.
- [13:40]
Doug LeMarice
I like, that's the part of this. This is. This, this is the sword that I'm gonna use to cut the umbilical cord of the SEC and its conference championship game. Man, my sword needs polishing.
- [13:55]
Bill Landis
Yeah.
- [13:57]
Doug LeMarice
Also I should clean this piece of metal. The. The. So no, like, like that's the thing about this, and I think we've worked this out with the three tenants of this proposal. 24 teams, no conference championship games be done by the second weekend in January. You can do it, but like, you can't. If you, if you don't get rid of the conference championship games, then you can't. Right. So it's like to make. So I. To your point, can conference championship weekend. You're using like a valuable weekend in the postseason calendar to play games that are like. I don't want to say meaningless. And I do that. I think we have to start. I don't like meaningless because you line up for three and a half hours and you're bang your brain against somebody else and you get 70,000 people there screaming and yelling. There's meaning, there's. They're stakesless. Right?
- [15:01]
Bill Landis
Yeah.
- [15:01]
Doug LeMarice
What. What's gonna happen? Well, they're both fine. It doesn't mean you don't care as a fan. It doesn't mean you don't care as a 21 year old young man who's putting your brain and body on the line. It doesn't mean the coaches aren't trying to win. So they're not meaningless. But they're stakesless. And to have a stakesless weekend in December when you're trying to have 24 teams in, it feels like you're right. You can't have 24 teams and conference championship games. Not in the real world.
- [15:32]
Bill Landis
No. I mean unless you. Whatever. You want your season to end at the end of January now. Right. So. And which. That's the whole point of this is to get the end of the season to move up. Right. So yeah, it just feels like a necessary trade off. Which is why. Because I. Because you can have conference championships in a 16 team playoff, I think but. And that's why Greg Sankey I think is holding on to that idea so strongly. Sort of. Sort of alone now. But yeah, if this is. If they want the. The was the quote maximum number of playoff participants I think is the way that was reported in Yahoo. Then you have to give up conference title games. I just like there's no other way around it really.
- [16:13]
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- [17:14]
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- [17:14]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.
- [17:24]
Liberty Mutual Bird Companion
Hey everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this your first date?
- [17:27]
Doug LeMarice
Oh no.
- [17:28]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.
- [17:34]
Liberty Mutual Bird Companion
Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.
- [17:35]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
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- [17:39]
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- [17:45]
Doug LeMarice
And then it's one of those things like all this stuff, it's a trade. And what you're trading is 11 conference title games for eight first round playoff games that first weekend. And I don't think in if and when we get to it, college football fans are going to be sitting around saying, man, I wish I was watching Texas and Georgia play each other for a second time to figure out who's the two seed and who's the five seed when they're actually watching seeds nine through 24 play each other in knockout games in the playoff at campus sites. And, and I just, I, I even SEC fans because there's gonna be a bunch of SEC teams playing that weekend. So I think what you wind up trading, and this is the, If it ever was a celebration, if it was ever was a family reunion, if it ever was a, a weekend of conference pride, you are trading it for the opportunity for teams in your conference to go out and play teams in other conferences and beat their butts and have pride. That way we're not all here together. Hey, look at us. It's. Instead of a family reunion, it's like sending your family members out to fight the other families. Right? It's family warfare. And it's like, hey, do you guys want to sit around and like eat some corn on the cob and baked beans and, and like, you know, grill, or do you want to take this baseball bat? And there's a, There's a family 50 miles down the road. There's another family 400 miles down the road who thinks they're tougher than us. Let's go prove they're not. So baked beans or baseball bats, that's the decision here. And frankly, we're in a baseball bat era of society right now, so I think we can give up the baked beans.
- [19:51]
Bill Landis
I think we as. That was beautiful. I think we can go up the baked beans. The one thing. And I actually don't know how much of a sticking point this would be for college football fans, but you're gonna have to share conference titles.
- [20:03]
Doug LeMarice
So I definitely saw someone make this point. Do you think that's a big deal?
- [20:10]
Bill Landis
No, not necessarily. No, I don't, I don't think so. I mean, it'd probably be a big deal. Maybe we're a big deal in the sec, but like the Big Ten has had shared conference titles in the past, right? Like prior to
- [20:25]
Doug LeMarice
the Big Ten. And it's like, oh, there were, there was a four way tie for first in 1962 and everybody got to hang a banner.
- [20:32]
Bill Landis
So I guess the thing. Yeah, I don't know. If you have something like that then, then will you be wanting some sort of on field separator? Say like in an instance where you have a tie with three teams like didn't play each other. Right. So. And then are you. Do you feel the urge for the play in weekend or, or the conference bonanza to settle season standings that Tony Petitis seemed to be once pretty gung ho about? Like. I, I don't know but I think, I think the teams that would be in a position to share a title, those fan bases would probably get over it pretty quickly because their team's going to be going to the playoff and playing for a national championship.
- [21:14]
Doug LeMarice
I think it's zero. I think sharing is fine. Do you know who the Big Ten champs were? Who would the Big Ten champ or champs were for the 2002 regular season?
- [21:29]
Bill Landis
Was it Ohio State and Michigan sharing a title?
- [21:31]
Doug LeMarice
Ohio State and Iowa shared a title. They both went eight. No, they didn't play each other. Iowa lost to Iowa State in the regular season and then lost in the Orange bowl. But they both went eight. No. In the regular season and Ohio State went on and won the national championship. Like, is Ohio State mad that they're only co. Big Ten champs in the year they won the national title? Like, is. Is Iowa sheepish about hanging a Big Ten? I, I think it's. I actually, I would almost argue it's good. Share them. Everybody like hanging banners, three way tie, who cares? And, and like, because, because the idea is like, well, how do you determine it? Well, it's a tie. Like it. You determine if the way you used to determine it. And, and, and there have been times now, you know, back when it was the Big Ten, if you're playing everybody, it's like, well, you still, you might have a tie because you know this team beat that team and that team beat this team. You used to have ties on the field.
- [22:31]
Bill Landis
Right?
- [22:31]
Doug LeMarice
So like that would happen sometimes I think tying for conference championships is, is either a neutral or if anything it's a positive. Like if like the trophy part of it, the banner part of it. If you're saying you missed the game, I want to, I want to see that intra conference competition. I want to have that weekend. I want the fan bases to be there. I want Indianapolis to be the capital of Big Ten football. All those things that's different to me than, well, who's the champ?
- [23:02]
Bill Landis
Yeah.
- [23:03]
Doug LeMarice
And so again Penn State and Oregon played for the Big Ten championship in 2024. Ohio, Oregon won the Big Ten title. Ohio State won the national title. I don't think Ohio State fans give one second of thought to the fact that they didn't win the Big Ten that year. And for Oregon, who kind of got jobbed by having to play Ohio State in the quarterfinals, they have a banner, they have a trophy from that year. So again, and if, and it's like, I just reject like the participation trophy. Oh, you're just gonna hand out trophies to everybody because it's a three way tie. Does it ruin your trophy for somebody else to have a trophy? Like when it's not a goal, it's
- [23:49]
Bill Landis
a goal, but it's not the main trophy. Yeah, yeah. I think when it's at the main trophy.
- [23:52]
Doug LeMarice
Trophy, you can have a trophy. Does Ohio, if Ohio State, Michigan and Minnesota tie for the Big Ten title, like Minnesota's gonna have a parade for that Big Ten trophy. And Ohio State, Michigan could just add it to their list. And. But it doesn't take away from anybody. So I, I think it's worth bringing up, but I think it's nothing. I think it's like literally zero percent. Do you think it's more than that? Do you think it's like 5%, 72%,
- [24:19]
Bill Landis
10%, maybe 5 to 10%. And I also think too, like, if you. Well, one, the, the actual playoff seating would just be decided by the committee anyway and like, whatever in the current criteria. It's like conference championships matter. Like, what are you supposed to do when there's multiple conference champions? I guess I could see that getting a little confusing at times. But I also think the leagues themselves could just devise a formula to say like, yes, we had three teams finished with the same recording league play, but here's our actual order of standings based off of whatever choose to use.
- [24:58]
Doug LeMarice
I think a lot of it, like the 2014 playoff is no automatics, so it's just all open anyway, right?
- [25:04]
Bill Landis
Yeah, but don't you, but don't you. Well, but I'm just saying, like, if you have, if you have three teams that finish 9, 0 in the Big Ten and you have to decide, and maybe they all finish with the same record overall, that you have to decide which one of them is ranked the highest without them having actually played each other, that can get a little wonky.
- [25:23]
Doug LeMarice
You mean for the committee and seating
- [25:25]
Bill Landis
the playoffs and seating the playoff.
- [25:27]
Doug LeMarice
Yeah, but you're just, you're, you're determining things and you're, you're comparing teams who didn't play each other for seating. Anyway. Yeah, I, I, I do that because actually the thing that I think and, and I don't know if fans have been worried about this, but it certainly has been broached. And I will say, considering the fact that Indiana and Ohio State were undefeated during the regular season last year and wound up as the 1 and 2 seeds in the playoff and that the only difference for the Big Ten championship game was the winners the one, the losers the two, we thought maybe the loser would be the three. Right. That was the, the greatest gap. That was a remarkably good football game. That was a hard like again, the Heisman Trophy winner got body slammed on the first play of that game. And like, what if Kurt Signetti would have been like, we're good and taking him out after the first play.
- [26:29]
Bill Landis
Right, right.
- [26:30]
Doug LeMarice
Like that. Or like what? Like the, the, the things here, the people like. And again, this came up when the, when the proposal that the Big Ten put out for 24 teams got floated in February leaked in February. That was in there. The idea of an injury in a stakesless, let's all adopt this word, stakesless. There is still, meaning there are no stakes. A stakes list Big Ten championship game. And it's like Fernando Mendoza's out for the, that would have been horrible. And then you would have started the conversation of why did Kurt Signetti play him? Why do these games exist? Like, we're headed towards that and we're either headed towards if conference championship games stay at least in the Big Ten, in the SEC where they're not playing games both are in. Both are in. That's just like a fact, practice. Right. What would the scenario be? Even in a 12 team playoff where both teams in the SEC and Big Ten championship game aren't getting in. Right. And then even last year, the SEC tiebreakers, it's like, well, all this convoluted tie breaking just to get in the championship game and have the right to win or lose. But like those tiebreakers and that deciding something I think is worse than like, oh, there's a tie for a, for a title or whatever, you're either heading towards a real significant injury that affects the postseason in a stakes list conference title game, or you're heading, and I think this would be worse, you're heading towards the best players not playing in that game.
- [27:59]
Bill Landis
Right.
- [28:00]
Doug LeMarice
And if, and if we had watched a Big Ten title game in which Fernando Mendoza, Elijah Surratt, Jeremiah Smith and Julian Saying did not play, you're dead. And by the way, Omar Cooper Jr. Got hurt in that game.
- [28:18]
Bill Landis
He did.
- [28:18]
Doug LeMarice
Then he was like, he was okay after the fact. Right. But like, what if Omar Cooper Jr. First round pickets, knocked out in a stakesless game. But then how could. If Fernando meant, I mean, honestly, for real, it might happen this year. If Fernando Mendoza had been. Had broken his leg on the first game of the Big Ten championship game last year, if Ohio State makes the Big Ten championship game this year, there would absolutely be a discussion round. Should Julian say and play 100%, that would have become a talking point. And then you're dead because you cannot risk playing stakesless games at the highest level of the sport in December. So then the, the only. Honestly, it's not only like with the calendar can a 2014 playoff and conference championship games not coexist. It's with this reality because you're, you're making them meaningless when everybody's getting in.
- [29:14]
Bill Landis
Yeah. And I think there's, there's some fear that that logic would then like, trickle into the regular season with playoff expansion. But I just think, like, that's totally unfounded.
- [29:26]
Grainger Advertiser
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- [29:26]
Bill Landis
Like, I don't think for one, like, that dynamic sort of already exists. Right. Like take Ohio State, for example. Carnell Tate and Jeremiah Smith don't play a couple games at the end of the regular season. But they played against Michigan, right?
- [29:37]
Doug LeMarice
Yep.
- [29:37]
Bill Landis
Like, and they weren't 100. So like, I, I don't know. We're never going to be in a world, in my opinion, where like Ohio State and Michigan are resting their players when they play each other or Auburn and Alabama are doing it, or frankly, even like Indiana and Purdue because those games mean far more to those programs than any conference championship game would, at least in the Big Ten. Maybe in the sec, it's different. But like, I, I am not fearful at all of this, like, the stakes list mentality being applied to any regular season game that actually has stakes. When Ohio State plays Rutgers, yeah, they might rush Jeremiah Smith, but like when Ohio State plays Michigan and Oregon and Indiana and Texas and on the road at Iowa, they're not going to do that because those games matter. They need their best players for those games. So like, I, I just saw, I saw a little bit of that. Like, oh, great, here comes the, the degradation of the regular season again. No one's going to have to play because all you have to do is win nine games to get in. And just like, teams aren't going to approach it that way, but they would approach conference championship weekend that way. So then what's the point of Playing
- [30:33]
Doug LeMarice
the games when it's staring you in the face. So losing conference championship games, I, I'm not right. Other than the SEC holding out because it's been fun and it's part of their history. I like from the on field playing of it. And then there's the monetary discussion. But obviously most like, who cares about the money? It's their deal. And most of them are on board with it because they think they'll make more from the playoff games. So I don't, I don't know what the holdouts for this would really look like. Of like. No, this AFCA proposal is terrible because it says get rid of conference championship games.
- [31:16]
Bill Landis
I think the only holdout is if. Is if like they've like commissioned a study of some kind, I think to try to determine what the money would be for these additional playoff games if their projections were just way off base. And you stand to make hundreds of millions of dollars more by having a conference title game than you would by instituting these playoff games. But I don't think that would be the case. Yeah.
- [31:37]
Doug LeMarice
Okay, so we're good with that part. Let's do the 24 teams. I have. I feel like I'm a bit. I've been becoming a bit of an evangelist for the 2014 playoff. I've stated that before. I don't just want to restate things I've said before. When you think about the 24 team playoff, first of all, how would you implement it? Ideally, in choosing the 24 teams,
- [32:06]
Bill Landis
I would probably just do. It's hard for me because like, I would, I would love to remove the subjectivity of the playoff committee entirely, but then you sort of have to play it out and I just don't know if there's enough time to play it out and, and then actually do the playoff and then like end it at a reasonable time. So if it's going to be 24, I would probably do what seems to have the most momentum at the moment, which is just like 24 at large with one spot for the G6 and let the playoff rankings determine the CD of that 2014 field.
- [32:43]
Doug LeMarice
Big thanks to our sponsor, BetterHelp, for partnering with us for this important conversation about mental health.
- [32:49]
Bill Landis
This is Steve Smith here, former NFL wide receiver and host of the 89 show on YouTube. So having a counselor and working with BetterHelp, that gives you an opportunity to really start to unpack. But people don't understand when you unpack things, you also open up a box that you're not always sure what's inside. So I think that's why seeing a professional is extremely important. If you need someone to open up to visit betterhelp. That's better. H lp.com89 to get started.
- [33:21]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual, even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.
- [33:30]
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Doug LeMarice
Oh, no.
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Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.
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Liberty Mutual Bird Companion
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Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
Anyways, get a quote@libertymutual.com or with your local agent.
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- [33:51]
Doug LeMarice
So I think, like, that's what the Big Ten proposal was from February, right? The G6 gets one guaranteed, and then it's. Otherwise it's the top 23, which very well. Now, the hard thing is, it's like, I think most years you'd probably have one G6 team in the top 24, but I don't know if you'd have two.
- [34:10]
Bill Landis
I think most years old. Yeah.
- [34:12]
Doug LeMarice
So, like, you're gonna guarantee one, and then it's like, so is that, like, that team that's guaranteed it? It's the highest seated G6 team, right? The highest ranked that, like, you know. So it's like, are you gonna, like, are they going to be 19 and then somebody else's 22? So, like, I think you could. I think you could toy with the idea of should they get two guaranteed? But, like, the big ten and the SEC are making the decision here. And the driving force of this is get more of their teams in so they're not given. And now you're turning. All right, we're expanding from 12. We're not going to 16. We're going to 24, but we're actually going to 22 because we're given two spots away. The G6, they're not going to go for that. And.
- [34:54]
Bill Landis
And, like, especially on the heels of what just happened last year.
- [34:58]
Doug LeMarice
Yeah, we just saw it. Was it good? Did you like 2G6 in the 12 team playoff?
- [35:04]
Bill Landis
Did I like it?
- [35:05]
Doug LeMarice
No.
- [35:05]
Bill Landis
Oh, no.
- [35:06]
Doug LeMarice
Like, did anyone like. So you didn't like it? I didn't like it. I'm anti underdog. Underdog. Underdogs are like buffets. They're good in theory and then in execution, it's like, really? We talked about this on our show on Wednesday. I chose a buffet over a steakhouse. That's that's like, that's G6 versus the fifth best Big Ten team. It's like I, I like the. Hey, I can't even remember the. Who made it? James Madison.
- [35:35]
Bill Landis
James Madison lost the Oregon. And
- [35:40]
Doug LeMarice
who was the other team that made it?
- [35:45]
Bill Landis
Who won? Who won? The American Navy?
- [35:49]
Doug LeMarice
No. South Florida? Texas State. No, no. This is what we're talking about.
- [35:55]
Bill Landis
I honestly can't even remember who it was or who they played.
- [35:58]
Doug LeMarice
I can't. It completely vanished from our memory. It was only a 12 team playoff.
- [36:04]
Bill Landis
Ole Miss played Tulane.
- [36:06]
Doug LeMarice
Tulane.
- [36:07]
Bill Landis
Yeah.
- [36:07]
Doug LeMarice
And they had played in the regular season. Yeah. I picked too lane to win that. Yeah, I'm good. No, no, yeah. No. Give me a steak. Give me a. Like, what are we sitting there? Like, what are you talking about? Oh, you never know. What. Like, absolutely. Gotta guarantee one. Which every. Like of course you're gonna suit otherwise. Right. But two is too many. Two underdogs is too many.
- [36:31]
Bill Landis
I think guaranteeing too. I, I wasn't upset that 2 made it last year because like you guys created the structure and you didn't have 11 teams good enough to make it at your fault. Um, but I would not guarantee them two spots moving forward.
- [36:44]
Doug LeMarice
Yeah. Okay. So it's just a matter of people getting their heads around 24. But I do think like this is the important, the discussion that I think will help people get their heads around 24 is like, what are you gaining? And you are going from four campus games to 16 campus playoff games. And because you are going to have eight games in the first round between seeds 9 through 24. So 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 9 through 16, get home games. And then after that round of winners, those eight winners then go on the road to play campus games at the top eight seeds. And so I feel like there is a, Is there not a consensus around. Maybe the best thing about the expanded playoff is the home campus games. And if you are giving four times more campus games, is that not a plus of a 2014 playoff?
- [38:00]
Bill Landis
I think it's a plus. I think, I think the. Now they haven't, they all haven't been super competitive. In fact, I guess like most of them haven't been. But I think most people would agree that probably like outside of the national title games, the best thing about the. This expanded playoff model have been the first round on campus games just because the atmosphere has been awesome. So yeah, more, more of that. Sure. And there's like some really. I'm just looking at like in last year, like Iowa would have won the Plate of Miami last year. Right. That's cool.
- [38:26]
Doug LeMarice
And I. And again, like, the specifics of this. The specifics matter. So we'll talk about the, the specifics, like in the Big Ten proposal from February, this is not from the afca, but it's like, no, no rematches. So like, for instance, even Ole Miss, Tulane last year was a rematch of the regular season. So it's like, and that's the thing, like, when you're getting to 24, you can monkey with some lines. It's like, well, you would have been 21, but we're to make you 22 because it would have created a rematch. And like they were saying you could like their, their proposal was conference opponents can play each other if they did not play in the regular season. But this again, is eliminating a lot of this stuff. For instance, like, again, one of the great fears that never came to pass, and it's almost surprising that it didn't come to pass. But like Ohio State Michigan as a rematch in the Big Ten title game the week after the regular season game is like, what would that, would that right. Explode the universe? If Ohio State Michigan played in consecutive weeks and it's like you're getting rid of conference championship games and then you're saying, like, that can't happen. You can't just be like, oh, well, Ohio State Michigan both went 10 and 2 and they wound up opposite each other in the bracket that you're going to avoid it. And so I think even like the specifics of this, that first round you're getting eight campus games and like, they're going to make. I think that the job is not to make cool matchups, but you're probably going to wind up with mostly cool matchups if you're avoiding rematches.
- [39:52]
Bill Landis
Yeah, I don't know this. I'm not gonna go through all because I don't know what was a rematch and what wasn't. But like Texas would have hosted Houston in a playoff game last year. Right. Like I do. Yeah, that, like, that's, that's fun. I, I can. I'm not a huge proponent of 24. If playoff expansion is inevitable, I think I would prefer 16, but you can also sell me pretty easily on an extra 8 on campus games if we're getting some of these fun matchups that are bound to happen.
- [40:23]
Doug LeMarice
And I do think it is one of these things where trade offs. It's all about trade offs. It's not theoretical. It's about trade offs. If it's 16 conference championship weekend stay. I think do you think that's the case?
- [40:38]
Bill Landis
So yes, I could also like we were sort of like making our own calendars and I operated with like assuming there's a 2014 playoff, not a 16 team playoff. I don't think it would be unreasonable just for like the sport to finish before Thanksgiving weekend. Sort of like take a beat and don't play Thanksgiving weekend nothing and then come back with your 16 team playoff starting on what has traditionally been conference
- [41:07]
Doug LeMarice
championship weekend, but not have the conference championship games.
- [41:10]
Bill Landis
But not have conference championship games.
- [41:12]
Doug LeMarice
Because I think the math, I think the monetary math makes that impossible. Because what you're talking about is like, you're right.
- [41:18]
Bill Landis
Yeah, you're giving up too much inventory.
- [41:19]
Doug LeMarice
We're giving up conference championship games, but we're getting these eight extra playoff games. Right. And if so like if you go to 16, you're just getting four more games or actually because you're just like, you're limiting the buys and that's basically it. And that's not enough to give up Alabama versus Georgia and Ohio State versus Oregon.
- [41:42]
Bill Landis
Yeah.
- [41:43]
Doug LeMarice
So then it becomes if it's an either or. Because I think in reality it is. Would you rather have a 16 team playoff with conference championship games that have the possibility of being stakesless or would you rather have a 2014 playoff and no conference championship games? And then for me, and it's like, well, I don't accept that. Right. I don't accept that as a binary choice. I'm sorry, but I think it is. So then what if, could it, could
- [42:13]
Bill Landis
it not be though? Like, I think maybe it would be able to do this. It's a 16 team playoff. Conference championship weekend still exists. But you're like, reward for being among the best two teams in your conference is that you don't have to play conference championship weekend. And then. Well, I guess you're all you're doing then. Like it's a different version of an expand of a 2014 playoff. If you didn't have like other teams within your conference play for playoff spots. And that's maybe more of like an automatic qualifiers conversation than it is like a straight 24 team seating. Like I think there's a, there's like a very narrow lane for a 16 team playoff and no actual conference championship games. But it still involves playing football that weekend, which sounds like if you're going to do that and they just have a 2014 playoff because the big tennis
- [42:57]
Doug LeMarice
sort of proposed that at times. Right? Like make it sort of like a play in weekend and then people were like, right, that if it's gonna be four guaranteed spots each for the SEC in the Big Ten in a 16 team playoff, well then have that weekend be three versus six and four versus five within your conference for the last two playoff spots. But then it's like, well then why don't we just have a playoff?
- [43:19]
Bill Landis
Right?
- [43:19]
Doug LeMarice
And like, why is it better to have those first round games be within a conference as opposed to.
- [43:26]
Bill Landis
Yes.
- [43:27]
Doug LeMarice
Letting your team go out and play other conferences? And then maybe, you know, maybe the Big Ten has seven of the final 16 teams. Right? Because they had three teams that had Buys and then four other teams got in and they all won their first round game and they earned it. Right. And then you're not limited by your conference. So I do, like, to your point, it's like, well, it's a, it's a 2014 playoff anyway under just a different name.
- [43:56]
Bill Landis
Differently. Yeah.
- [43:58]
Doug LeMarice
So. So then I think like you get eight, right? Yeah, you get it now. It is a little, I will say, like in the absolute specifics of this, it's like, how do you do it? So you go like conference championship weekend right now, right. You know, there's a couple, right. There's the games on Saturday and there's a couple on Friday night, right. On conference championship weekend you're trying to like, because it's the, the G6 conferences are playing theirs and like you're trying to figure it out and. But there are some that are head to head against each other. You would now be playing, right? So you're playing eight games, nine plays 24, 10 plays 23. All that stuff that weekend. The way I. And this is, this is still the 2014 discussion. The specifics, I was not the calendar discussion yet, but like, like, how do you do that? So my suggestion for that was two games on Friday, like one at seven and one at 10:30, right. There's going to be a west coast team hosting at some point, right?
- [45:03]
Bill Landis
Yeah. So you think so.
- [45:04]
Doug LeMarice
And then, and then I said like six games on Saturday at 12, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 where you're like six staggering and it's like, well, one's ending as another starting and it's not quite head to head and it's gonna feel a little bit like the NCAA basketball tournament, but you can double screen it and have, right. The, the. It's the start of the fourth quarter in one game and it's the start of the first quarter in another game or you know, because otherwise like you're. If you're going head to Head. It's like, well, there's two games at noon, there's two games at four. There's. It's like, well, why. But I do think like we'd have to figure that out to maximize the TV audience. But you want to give me six college football playoff games on the first Saturday in December at 12, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10. I'm not getting off my couch.
- [45:57]
Bill Landis
Right. I will, I will sign up for that marathon of, of, of college football. And I think too if they, because that Saturday I think is still open NFL wise. Right. Like there's nothing.
- [46:10]
Doug LeMarice
Right. I think that's right.
- [46:11]
Bill Landis
NFL doesn't start playing Saturdays until like later in December. I think. So. Yeah. I'd watch that. I'd be on my. Well, maybe I'd be at one of them, but if I wasn't at one of them, I'd be on my couch watching ball all day for sure.
- [46:23]
Doug LeMarice
Yeah. And again, it's like we don't, we don't know what that would be like because like the only stuff that replicates that is when it's like, you know, New Year's Day or other days where there's a bunch of bowls. But like in the modern era, like a lot of those, you know, if it's just bowls, it's like, well, then they're stakesless. Doesn't mean they're meaningless. But they're stakesless. Right, but now you're, you're dropping six stakes filled college football games on my head the first Saturday in December. I just like, tell me again what you're mad about. You know, like I, like, like I know there's another side to it, but that's always the thing in the argument. It's like, I don't think this has to be the case, but I think it is the purest form of an argument. It's like I think this and I disagree with that. And if you do that, I'm not participating. I'm out. Yeah, I'm, I'm against it. So you can do it, but I don't have to partake and so I don't want to make the four team truthers do that. But I would be curious if you would be. So like you're, you think that 24 team playoff is the death of college football? Don't watch. Take that weekend off. Yeah, I'll see you at the Christmas market. Like you're not going to watch, right? Because you think it's so bad for the sport. You're not going to watch. Right. You won't watch until it's down to the final four, because you think it should only be four. So you will sit out all these games because you think they're bad. Nobody's gonna do that. Right? So I'm not. I'm not, like, I don't want to kick those people to the curb. But then it's like, are you really against it, or are you just, like, theoretically against something because you think 1988 was cool? So I don't.
- [48:24]
Bill Landis
Anything else they'd watch.
- [48:25]
Doug LeMarice
They want Anything else about the 2014 playoff, like, so that, like, this idea, right? And so, well, we can get into the calendar later. So the calendar is, like, really the last thing that we want to go through here. But I'm not saying, like, you have to go to 24 to save college football, but I definitely am saying I don't think 24 kills college football. And actually, I have one more point to make about the 2014 playoff. Where else are you. What other things are like, when you thought about. We're making this ideal scenario. The AFCA wants 24. Let's think about 24 and make it as good as you could possibly make it. What else do you have in mind?
- [49:04]
Bill Landis
Well, part of it is, like, when it would start for me, which gets into the calendar. So I don't want to jump the gun necessarily, but I. I mean, I'm. I'm. I'm kind of of the mind of, like, 12 is fine, but I also, like, there's no point in holding on to that because they're not going to stay at 12. So I don't know. The only. The only other thing about 24 that. I don't know if concern's the right word, but you sort of been smart about pointing this out in the past is like, what. What. What does that look like relative to the balance between the SEC and the Big Ten because of 24 without automatic qualifiers? It's like, are you going to get a playoff that has 11 SEC teams in it because of biases that we're all still trying to shake? Like, I don't know if there's something that could be instituted aside from automatic qualifiers that would help prevent that. But I would still be a little worried about that in the. In the sort of like, straight, seated, all 24 at large playoff field.
- [50:10]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
And, Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual, even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.
- [50:20]
Liberty Mutual Bird Companion
Hey, everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?
- [50:23]
Doug LeMarice
Oh, no.
- [50:24]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.
- [50:30]
Liberty Mutual Bird Companion
Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.
- [50:31]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
Anyways, get a quote@libertymutual.com or with your local agent.
- [50:35]
Liberty Mutual Bird Companion
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- [51:12]
Doug LeMarice
I think in the Big Ten proposal from February, they pointed out it would have been 7 sec, 6, big 10 last year in. In this scenario. Right. And that's one of the things. When we did a show about this a couple months ago, my big point was if you go from 12 to 16, history would show you you're bringing in a lot of SEC teams in that next four, and the Big Ten is not gaining much from it. But if you go to 24 now, you're bringing in where another chunk of Big Ten teams have been traditionally and talking about the idea that the perception is behind the reality when it comes to judging these teams. And so that the Big Ten, I understood their argument of either guarantee stuff or expand it far enough that it actually scoops in our next layer of teams. Right. And so they're, they're believing in the idea of, listen, there's going to be Big Ten teams between 17 and 24 that, like, it doesn't have to be official because it's gonna happen. But get back to. Gets like, get back to when, yeah, the playoff is 12 SEC teams and 12 non SEC teams and then the sport will be on fire. And.
- [52:19]
Bill Landis
Yeah, yeah.
- [52:19]
Doug LeMarice
Well, so. But I, I don't think that's gonna happen because the SEC sucks and they can cram it. But.
- [52:25]
Bill Landis
And I'm also like, knocking out. I. Yeah. And it's not like I fully aware that there will be years where, like, the SEC has more teams in the Big Ten. Like, I'm not opposed to that on principle. It's just like, there's a point where it becomes more about perception and less about reality that you worry about, but I, I don't. With 24, maybe that's less likely to
- [52:45]
Doug LeMarice
happen, but yeah, we can't be In a world where it's 9sec and 4 big 10. Because everybody thinks that Vanderbilt is that much better than.
- [52:52]
Bill Landis
Right.
- [52:53]
Doug LeMarice
Washington. Right. And it's like, what, like based on what. You know what I mean. I do think 24 increases the chances of keeping good non conference regular season games. And I do think like whether you, whether that makes you mad or not, there's a discussion about devaluing the regular season. But I think the discussion for the regular season is value versus like excitement or interest. Because if it's all, if it's, if it's really value first, then what the teams are going to do is be like, we have to, we have to value it so much that we have to be 10 and 2 that we'll do anything to make sure we're 10 and 2. And that includes getting rid of all the cool fun games in September. Right? So because there is, because the regular season, like, there's still, there's much more room for error than there used to be. And again, I just have no patience for the people who are like, I liked it better when you had to be undefeated to have a chance to win a title. And it's like, oh, you mean like in no other sport in the universe is that the case. But you want it to be the case in college football. You have teenagers have one bad Saturday and you can't win a title anymore. That's what I love. It's like, okay, then I just can't talk to you. And also you lost. So sorry, but Enjoy again, enjoy 1986. But like, fine, watch that. Watch Vinny Testaverde highlights. But like, you're not part of the modern discussion. So congratulations on holding on to the past. I'm gonna live in the world. And also I think it's okay for teenagers to have a bad Saturday and still have a chance to chase the ultimate goal. So then where now we're in a discussion of how many bad Saturdays more than zero. Okay. But they, if 12 is still not a lot to these people, I, I kind of wish it was, but they don't think it's a lot. Steve Sarkeesian doesn't think 12 is a lot. And so a, a lot of those arguments are phony baloney, right? That like, it's like, again, oh, we lost to Ohio State, we didn't get in the playoffs. Like, no, you lost Florida, you didn't get in the playoff. But 24 I think keeps a lot of the non conference series going that people do love. And so it's like, well, you're devaluing it. Well, it, it means that losses don't hurt you as much, which means teams are more willing to schedule games they might lose. So that, again, I'm sorry, but we live in the real world. I think it's a binary choice. So you can either have greater value, you have less wiggle room and now you're gonna lose those games, or you can have more wiggle room and you can keep Ohio state, Georgia in 2030. Do you think that that's a, that's an either or choice?
- [55:58]
Bill Landis
I do, yeah. I think if for like whatever was reported on Thursday that the Alabama, Ohio State series is, that's in 27 and 28 is still going. I know, but like, I think a lot of the, whatever the, the drama around that game was manufactured. But I think there was a fair amount of reasonable anxiety about that series or anyone like it being canceled. But I think the fact that teams know that a 2014 playoff is coming is why we haven't seen a bunch of them get canceled. So like Alabama canceled the Oklahoma State one that it had because like, I don't think they need to play two power conference teams in the non conference when they have nine conference games already. So like, I'm, whatever, I'm not up arms about that. But yes, I think in a, in a world where teams still have to very much be fearful of a third loss, you're, you would have entered into territory where you just would have seen fewer and fewer of those games. Like, there's some unease, I think, for Ohio State and Texas for instance, and Ohio State especially, I think, going into this year, because it's like, well, what happens if they lose three times? They're probably still in, but you don't know that. And there's just obviously a lot of peace that comes with knowing that if you were to lose three times, you'd still be in. If you were Ohio State, I think there would have been like six teams last year that would have gotten at 9 and 3, 5 or 6 and even Iowa, like with I think 8 and 4 record would have gotten in. So. But I also don't think like the bottom of the playoff field is going to routinely be filled with four lost teams either. So like, I'm not like, I, I, if, if it were, then I think you'd have a little stronger argument for devaluing the regular season or devaluing whatever, what it is to compete for a championship in college football. But if there's like one team here and there that gets in with Four losses. I think that is palatable. If it's the trade off is you're keeping these marquee non conference series in the regular season.
- [57:55]
Doug LeMarice
So then I do think it's incumbent upon and because it just makes more money too. But incumbent upon the conferences to like demand. I think the Big Ten, if this gets passed and they get to 24, I think the Big Ten should say you've got to play another power conference team. Like, like to the SEC's credit, like the SEC is saying again, I have also argued in the past for 12. I like 12 because I like where the cut line's drawn. It's like some 10 and two teams got in, not every 10 and two team and no nine and three teams got in. I like that cut line. I do. But I don't think lowering the cut line ruins the sport. So like that's the main thing here and I understand and again, I do think you in this, in thinking about the trade offs now, the hard thing about this is why the Ohio State, Alabama like informed speculation slash reporting that that series was on the chopping block is we're not going to be at 24 by 2027 and 2028 and they kept the series anyway. We're not going to be at 24 by then. Even the Big Ten proposal is not to get to 24 in the next two years. Like, I don't think they have the wherewithal to like snap their fingers necessarily and get to 24. So it might be 16. I don't think it'll be 24. And they didn't cancel it. Like there's still value to those. So like Paul Feinbaum came on Columbus radio in February and was like, I don't think they're gonna play this series from what I'm hearing or whatever. And it's like, you're freaking wrong. So where are we on? Like, so then like you get, if you're right, you do a victory lap of like, oh, I'm an insider. I have great sources. I did all this reporting. I told you this was gonna happen. You're freaking wrong. Where's that? Where are we on that? Does anybody who's an informed insider and treat speculation like fact ever get called out when they're freaking wrong or do we just move on with our lives? I, I hate it. And it's up to fans to call that crap out have a longer memory than a minute because you can't get sucked in. Oh, did you hear about the thing? My informed insider speculation said they're going to cancel that thing. And now we officially on Thursday reported the status quo staying as news. So nothing happened. Now Brett McMurphy is breaking. Nothing happened. Oh, you mean the thing they've scheduled for a decade is still scheduled? That's now breaking news? Because this warped sports journalism, this scoop culture. Here's what happens with scoops. Three times the scoops one. It's an agenda fed to you by an agent or an ad or a coach and you're a parrot. They stick their finger right up your butt and you're a puppet. Blah, blah, blah. My source told me this and I regurgitated it without any thought. That's one. Two is the press conference. The press release is coming in eight minutes. Congratulations on your eight minute scoop. And the third is you were wrong. That's like 90 of scoop outcomes. Puppet. I beat the Press release by 30 seconds or I was wrong. That's our industry. And our industry can cram it as hard as the sec, but you have to make them cram it when they do crap like this. Oh, Alabama and Ohio State will play their series. Oh, they will. You mean like the Ohio State ad has been telling people on and off the record for three months they're playing it? Oh, thanks for the scoop. It makes my blood boil. It makes me not want to be a part of this. And so like, call it out when it happens or don't trust those people anymore because it's in search. And this is like, like people call everything clickbait. This is clickbait. How many on three headlines have been made? Are they going to do it?
- [61:47]
Bill Landis
Are they not going to do it?
- [61:48]
Doug LeMarice
There's a report. Here's a report. It's still on. That's like seven clickbait stories. Are you kidding me? How many graphics single handedly employing graphics people to report that nothing happened for four months?
- [62:07]
Bill Landis
I don't believe.
- [62:08]
Doug LeMarice
I don't want to live in that world. It makes 2014 playoff. I don't think it's going to kill the sport. And I think like, we've outlined a little bit of like, if you're gonna do it, this is how to do it right. And I think like, you can be against it, but then it's like, okay, if this is how they do it, is it okay? Like, is it. Can you get your, like, can you come around on it? Can you wrap your head around it a little bit? I, I'm not trying to like railroad everybody. And they're like, you better get on board with the 2014 playoff. I would like to try to help create a roadmap for people whose initial instinct is to hate it, to try to outline. Well, there's trade offs, there's pluses and minuses, but it's not only minuses. And let's think about some of the pluses, and then if it's going to happen, that's. It's implemented the best way possible. So I think that the 24 number, that's the second tent pole. I. I think there are ways, again, where it can be okay.
- [63:08]
Bill Landis
Yeah, I think so. I think, like, the. What you said about pluses and minuses, I think is true. Right. And. And probably in some ways easier to just harp on the minuses and kind of shake your fist and be upset about it. And I don't think it's, like, totally unfounded. Like, there are things about it that I. Yeah, I agree. Whether or not they're inherently bad, like, will force you to consume the sport differently.
- [63:31]
Doug LeMarice
Right.
- [63:31]
Bill Landis
And. And I think that is. That is hard to kind of wrap your mind around. It was also true of the 14 playoff and it was true of the 12 team playoff. And eventually I think people more or less got on board with it and in fact, enjoyed it. So maybe there. I think there is a, like a point of diminishing returns there. It's like, okay, like, we got. We got there with four, we got there with 12. Are you sure we're gonna get there with 24? I don't think it's a guarantee, but it's possible. I think it's. I think it's okay to, like, keep an open mind towards it. And I say that as somebody who's, like, a little skeptical of it actually being worthwhile. So we'll see. Yeah.
- [64:05]
Doug LeMarice
Yeah. All right, let's talk about the calendar. So we are now trying to map out a scenario where if There is a 2014 playoff and there are no conference championship games and the desire of the AFCA is to get done by the second weekend in January, what would that look like? So you have mapped out the Landis calendar for that?
- [64:31]
Bill Landis
I believe I have. I make no promises. Or I might have. I might have stumbled at a point or two. Maybe it doesn't, like, logistically doesn't quite make sense, but I feel like I'm a. I'm a. Let's end the season on January 1st and play the national title game with the Rose bowl person. So I have that version. But even whatever you want to bacon, you want to start the season where it currently starts now, or you want to start it in week zero and bake into bye weeks. You can still, I think, get to that second week of January. That's when you want to end it. But the calendar that I actually devised was starting in week zero, giving yourself 13 weeks to play 12 games and ending the regular season before Thanksgiving.
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- [66:17]
Doug LeMarice
So, for instance, and we can use a couple dates for this season, we know it's not going to be implemented this season, but what would that mean? Week zero. So then week zero becomes week one. We get rid of the. The name of week zero that would be starting the season on August 29th this year instead of September 5th. And so if you are then saying, let's end it after 13 weeks, you would be playing the last game of the regular season on November 21, I think correct the way that would work out. Okay, so you, you are moving up. So they've already been discussing, right, let's move up the season. A week like this is a separate proposal that this is going to happen, right? Week zeros can. There's going to be no more. I do like college football getting out of the waiver business. So it's like it's week one, except these special games that play in week zero. And it's like, okay, well, you're playing in Hawaii or Ireland or some. If you're playing on an island, then I think you should be able to play in week zero. But then also like Kansas is playing Sam Houston State in week zero. Like, why? So that is like, yeah, it's silly to me. So they're gonna be done with that. It's not going to be like, oh, we're gonna play on August 29th, but some teams might play on August 22nd. We're done with that. Everybody starts the same week. It's just a week earlier.
- [67:36]
Bill Landis
Yeah, I, I've never really been a huge fan of like the soft launch of the college football season. It's weird, it's very odd. And like, typically those games don't have a ton of juice. I just, just start everybody at the same time. And you can do. Still do like whatever the Thursday, Friday, Saturday thing that we do in week one, you just do it a week earlier. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday thing, I guess.
- [67:57]
Doug LeMarice
Sure. But have it be the same weekend, right? I think that's fair. Do you have any consternation around playing 12 games in 13 weeks as the regular plan? Again, we are coming off two consecutive seasons where because of a calendar blip, everybody had two weeks off. So they played 12 and 14. This week we are back to a normal calendar. The normal calendar in college football is played 12 games in 13 weeks. We just got a little, a little taste of it because of the way the sun goes around the moon. I don't know, I don't know why we had two. Whatever. What's. Where the, where Easter falls or something. I don't know what it is, but it was weird. It's like, I feel like that calendar blip has started people thinking about like, should we have a double buy?
- [68:44]
Bill Landis
I think it did. Yeah. I'm not hung up on it because players are getting paid. If players weren't getting paid, I think I might say give them an extra week off, but they're getting paid. So I'm, I'm a little more okay with it.
- [68:58]
Doug LeMarice
So if you are playing 12 games in 13 weeks, are you then taking Thanksgiving week in the Bill Landis calendar as a, as a bye week there for the whole sport?
- [69:10]
Bill Landis
No, not in a 2014 playoff. You can't.
- [69:14]
Doug LeMarice
Okay.
- [69:14]
Bill Landis
I think if you were doing a 16 team playoff, you could, but no. So, so then for me, the playoff starts Black Friday. So you do four games on Black Friday, four games on Saturday.
- [69:30]
Doug LeMarice
That would be awesome. Like let, let college football. And again, like, they're not going to own it. NFL's not going to let you own it. But like that's. We're announcing like this is our postseason. Yeah, we're doing four games on Black Friday. That is, that is tasty.
- [69:47]
Bill Landis
I think it'd be pretty good because like they're what there's the one NFL game, I think on Black Friday. Now it's like a Netflix game or something like that. So, like, what I also think, and maybe this is like a little foolish to say and, and not realistic, but like, you can't worry about the NFL. Like, you just, you got to get your games in if you're college football. And it's like some people watch the NFL and some people will watch college football and like, sorry, this country loves football. They're gonna have to pick between what they want to watch. Like some crossovers unavoidable. So, I mean, I guess you could do your thing, right? It was like you play two on Black Friday and you put them around the NFL game. You could do that and then do your six game marathon on Saturday too, or do like three and five or something like that. But I think like a nice, robust college football playoff schedule on Black Friday could be pretty successful because you have people coming off the holiday and typically not doing much anyway. And like, there's, and I, I've, I've liked the college football Black Friday, right? You get like, Nebraska, Iowa game is good on that day. There's, I think last year Georgia, Georgia Tech was on Black Friday, wasn't it?
- [70:51]
Doug LeMarice
Like, there were actually some bangers on Black Friday last year.
- [70:53]
Bill Landis
Yeah, I think it's a good day for, for watching football. Actually, like, more re. Like, I think better a better day for watching football than like Thanksgiving day, which is more. Which is more associated with football because, like, you're not doing stuff with your family on Black Friday.
- [71:10]
Doug LeMarice
So yeah, I was thinking, because, like, in this scenario that you're creating, and like, we've had conversations with Ohio State fans in the past that like, it's an interesting conversation because it's not like it's always been this way because it used to be that rivalry weekend in college football was the week before Thanksgiving, back when they played 11 games. And then when they increased to 12 regular season games, that bumped it to Thanksgiving week becomes rivalry week. And I know from talking to Ohio State fans that there are a lot of people who enjoy that, that it's like your family from out of town comes in for Thanksgiving and then they stick around and then everybody's together to watch Ohio State, Michigan or Auburn, Alabama or Purdue, Indiana or whatever else. Right. On rivalry weekend and rivalry weekend linked with Thanksgiving, I do think is like kind of a special part of college football. But you're making a trade off instead. You're trading it for eight playoff games. So there's only 16 teams in the sport that are playing Thanksgiving weekend. Everybody else can have Thanksgiving with their families, but anybody who's a college football fan. So your family's in for Thanksgiving. Instead of sticking around to watch the rivalry game, they're sticking around to watch a smorgasbord of eight playoff games for that first weekend. Which also is cool. It's a trade off, but it's still cool.
- [72:35]
Bill Landis
Yeah. I mean, it's not. And perhaps I'm being naive to people really feeling like Thanksgiving weekend and rivalry. Rivalry weekend or inextricably linked and we can't separate the two. But. But I. I think it's a worthwhile trade off because you're not. You're still getting the rivalry games. You're just playing one week earlier.
- [72:53]
Doug LeMarice
Yeah. And they've been linked for 20 years. They're building for 100 years.
- [72:56]
Bill Landis
Right.
- [72:57]
Doug LeMarice
So like, I don't know, like just. Right. Just because something happened doesn't mean it has to happen forever. So.
- [73:05]
Bill Landis
Yeah.
- [73:07]
Doug LeMarice
Okay, so you have the first round of the playoff Thanksgiving weekend. So then what's the rest of your calendar?
- [73:13]
Bill Landis
The next batch of eight games. The first weekend of December, which is typically been conference championship weekend. Okay.
- [73:21]
Doug LeMarice
The.
- [73:22]
Bill Landis
I'm just going like, because I think it would work, right? Because I know, like sometimes we get like playoff games or whatever and like Thursdays or whatever like that. Like I. Or sometimes even Wednesdays. But I just think it makes sense to like stick with the weekends. So I have just using this year's calendar as the example, it would be so Black Friday, that Saturday, eight games. The following Friday, Saturday, eight games.
- [73:47]
Doug LeMarice
So that would be.
- [73:49]
Bill Landis
That would be the quarterfinals, I guess.
- [73:51]
Doug LeMarice
The quarterfinals, like on like December 11th, 12th.
- [73:57]
Bill Landis
No, fourth and fifth.
- [74:01]
Doug LeMarice
No, fourth and fifth is the first weekend in December. That's your.
- [74:07]
Bill Landis
Oh, sorry. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. So it's. No, that's still quarterfinals, isn't it?
- [74:11]
Doug LeMarice
No.
- [74:13]
Bill Landis
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, you're right.
- [74:15]
Doug LeMarice
Yeah.
- [74:15]
Bill Landis
So 4. Yeah, 4 and 4 and 5 is.
- [74:19]
Doug LeMarice
It's like 1 versus 16, 2 versus 15. 3 versus 14. Yeah.
- [74:23]
Bill Landis
Yeah.
- [74:24]
Doug LeMarice
Okay.
- [74:25]
Bill Landis
11, 12 would be quarterfinals. Yeah.
- [74:29]
Doug LeMarice
And those are bowl games, so I
- [74:33]
Bill Landis
would prefer them to be on campus.
- [74:36]
Doug LeMarice
Three rounds of campus games.
- [74:37]
Bill Landis
Three rounds of campus games. And then, I mean, I would like everything to be on campus, but I really. I understand that's probably never going to happen. So if we could get three rounds of campus games and then play the semifinals of both sites and the national championship in a bowl site, I'll kind of be okay with that. But I would assume in this scenario Once we get past the first round, everything's up at both sides, probably.
- [75:01]
Doug LeMarice
Okay, so.
- [75:03]
Bill Landis
And then the third weekend of December, or, sorry, the second week in December is 11 and 12. That's playoff quarterfinals, but also, like, Army Navy.
- [75:12]
Doug LeMarice
Okay.
- [75:13]
Bill Landis
That weekend. So I. I do think it's workable to give Army Navy probably its own window. Right. If you have. You're trying to get four games in around Army Navy on a weekend. So can you do two Friday to Saturday and have Army Navy like, be in between the two games you play on Saturday?
- [75:36]
Doug LeMarice
I can't say what I think.
- [75:38]
Bill Landis
You don't care about the Army Navy game?
- [75:40]
Doug LeMarice
I don't care. Figure it out. Play it. But, like, I'm sorry that it mattered in 1944, during World War II or whatever. But, like, figure it out. Like, I. I don't cancel it. But, like, like, what if Army Navy's in the playoff? It's like, I don't know. Then maybe, like, play it to start the season. Like, yeah, I don't know.
- [75:56]
Bill Landis
So maybe it makes me a college football blasphemer as well. Like, I don't, like, move it to week one. Yeah.
- [76:03]
Doug LeMarice
It's not Ohio State. Michigan. I'm sorry. Like, I. I get it. Like, it's. It's. Because here it is, right? It's meaningful. I am not denying the meaning of. Of Navy. Of Army Navy. Right. Nobody ever says Navy army, do they? Have you ever heard anyone say the Navy army game? Feel bad for Navy?
- [76:25]
Bill Landis
No. The Navy fans call it that, I don't think.
- [76:27]
Doug LeMarice
I don't know. That big be good story for us. Other than substack Bill and Doug osu.army.navy.com. Like, it's stakeless, though. Like, it's stakesless beyond like. Like, it's. There's meaning. Because they care who wins. Nobody else cares who.
- [76:44]
Bill Landis
Like, like, it's incredibly valuable television inventory.
- [76:49]
Doug LeMarice
That's. That's great. So, like. But also, like, I don't. Like. Are we gonna, like, move a playoff weekend because, like, Army Navy, like, no, But I think 1961.
- [76:59]
Bill Landis
I don't know. I think you could very reasonably give it its own window. Okay. Like, if. Because especially if you're. It depends on which round of the playoff you're in, I guess. But if. Because if it's. If the. If we're not going in my way and the first round of the playoff starts December 5th or whatever that first weekend of December, then you have more than four playoff games you're trying to squeeze in around Army Navy, which I Think could be tricky, but if you're only trying to get four games around it, I think you could do it.
- [77:31]
Doug LeMarice
Okay. You're nice and.
- [77:34]
Bill Landis
Yeah. Or maybe I support our troops.
- [77:36]
Doug LeMarice
I just don't support our troops playing football.
- [77:38]
Bill Landis
You could. I don't know. I also wonder, like, what's going to happen if. If it ever comes to pass. Like, one of those teams is in the playoff, like, what are they to do? I don't know. Probably unlikely to happen, I guess. I think maybe you can play Army Nevaeh, like on Thanksgiving.
- [77:54]
Doug LeMarice
I'd watch.
- [77:54]
Bill Landis
That'd be great. Yeah, I guess there's NFL games. I don't know. I don't care about the Cowboys. And then I would be playing the semi finals the third weekend of December, which is like a moment, like the weekend where we get the first round games now.
- [78:14]
Doug LeMarice
Okay.
- [78:15]
Bill Landis
And then I would actually take the next week off. Like the. Whatever. It's like the. The.
- [78:21]
Doug LeMarice
The.
- [78:23]
Bill Landis
This year, it's Christmas Day. Is the Friday, the 25th, 26th. Like, if we're using this year's calendar, I would have no games that weekend, and I would give the. The two teams who advance the national championship some extra Runway going into the national title game on January 1st.
- [78:39]
Doug LeMarice
Okay. Why. Why is that where you have the break?
- [78:44]
Bill Landis
To give teams the best possible chance of being at their best for the national title game.
- [78:50]
Doug LeMarice
Okay. I definitely. I think I would be more interested in giving more than two teams that break, though. Like, if you're gonna build in a break, would it make sense to build it in earlier in the playoff so that more teams are fresh?
- [79:06]
Bill Landis
Eight teams are getting a break because they're not playing the first week.
- [79:09]
Doug LeMarice
That's true.
- [79:12]
Bill Landis
I don't think everyone who gets to the playoff deserves an extra week off, though. If you want one, be better.
- [79:18]
Doug LeMarice
Okay, so. So recap this for me. So Thanksgiving, so the last weekend in November and we have 24 teams still. Then the first weekend in December, we have 16 teams left playing in the first weekend in December. The second weekend in December, we have eight teams still left.
- [79:37]
Bill Landis
Yep.
- [79:39]
Doug LeMarice
The third weekend in December, we're playing the semifinals, and then we're taking a week off and then we are playing the national championship game. On what day is it on January 1st?
- [79:51]
Bill Landis
Always on January 1st.
- [79:53]
Doug LeMarice
Yeah, always on January 1st. Okay. Is there anything you don't like about your schedule or do you think, like, would you go to the AFCA and be like, I gotcha. Like, this is it. No downside. If you're gonna do this, we're Accepting your premise, afca, these three things. This is the way to do it.
- [80:14]
Bill Landis
I don't really know what the downside would be. Like, maybe you get some pushback on the extended break before the national title game. But, like, that's. That's what the NFL gives teams. Two weeks before the Super Bowl. Like, it's weird to me the way things are currently constructed. It's like college football takes off for two weeks before the playoff starts, and I think, like, cuts its own legs out from under it. Right. Like, you should. You should roll from the regular season immediately into your postseason, and then there's just natural momentum going into a national title game that I think would persist if you take extra time off leading into that game. So I don't know. Maybe I'm. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't. There's nothing, like, glaringly off with my proposal, unless you're just, like, staunchly in favor of. Everyone should have two bye weeks before the postseason starts.
- [81:05]
Doug LeMarice
So the one thing. So in this scenario, you would have one week off during the regular season, and then the top eight seeds would have the first week of the playoff off. Okay, everybody. So. But if you were seated nine or lower, and you made the national. If you made the semifinals, you would be playing 16 games in 17 weeks. Is that a lot to ask?
- [81:40]
Bill Landis
I. I don't know. I don't think so.
- [81:42]
Doug LeMarice
Okay. Because my. My.
- [81:46]
Bill Landis
Are we gonna do that this year? Is it 16 games?
- [81:53]
Doug LeMarice
Well, I mean, it, like, because the conference championship game is still around. It's like. Well, not every. You know, only two teams in each conference are playing the conference championship game, and then, like, the only teams who might be doing that are, like, conference championship game losers, probably. Or like, I guess if you're a conference championship game winner in the ACC in the Big 12, and you don't get a top four seed. Right. So it's. It definitely could happen. It definitely could. Right. But. But also. But actually, it's not. Because there's, like. It's not every week. It's like, there's 10 days off between games in the play, and there's that weird. Right? So, no, it actually is not happening this year. Like, it just. It's like, there's 10 days, 10 days off, then there's 11 days off, then there's nine days off. It's not every. Every quite every week.
- [82:36]
Bill Landis
Yeah. I think maybe the one thing. And I don't. Like, again, logistically, I would think this is possible. Maybe be difficult to accomplish. Like, don't don't have your bye week in September. Like, there's, I think there's a couple teams like Northwestern. I think, like it's bye week is like the third week of the season and then it just plays every week the rest of the year. I would, I would, I don't know if you have to mandate it, but I would encourage teams to avoid scheduling that way.
- [83:07]
Doug LeMarice
I think that's smart. I think that's part of it. Is this a January 1st national championship game that is always in the Rose Bowl?
- [83:16]
Bill Landis
Yes.
- [83:17]
Doug LeMarice
Okay. That is the new home. We're not moving it around. We're not having it in Indy or we're not having it in Miami or we're not treating the college football national championship game like the super bowl that is like up for bid. We are, we are placing it on college football's historic day in its most historic place.
- [83:38]
Bill Landis
Yes.
- [83:41]
Doug LeMarice
How much of a win do you think that is for the sport, for fans, for history, for pageantry, for, like, consciousness in the greater culture of America? If it's like, oh, I'm not that huge of a college football fan, but the title game is always in the rose bowl on January 1st. I can remember that.
- [84:04]
Bill Landis
Yeah. I think, like, it's a little, it's a little. Well, I guess when we play the championship now on a Monday night. So like, I don't know, sometimes the national championship game is going to be at 5 o' clock on a Tuesday, which I guess could be weird, but it's like it's New Year's Day, it's a holiday. People are already, people are already off. So I don't think, I don't think it's that much of like a mind warp to be like, oh, this very important thing is kind of happening at a weird time. Because I actually think whatever the arbitrarily putting it on the third Monday in January at 8 o' clock at night is, it would be, would be more strange. So I think it'd be, I think it'd be helpful for the sport to like, kind of have like, sort of like the beat of the season kind of locked in that way. Because I just think, I do. Like, I think now there's just a lot of like, oh, it's January 20th, the national championship games tonight. I guess I'll watch kind of thing. Or like, the game happened last night and I didn't even know kind of thing. Like, I do, I do think you, you set yourself up for kind of larger or broader appeal if you kind of set it this way.
- [85:05]
Doug LeMarice
Did you backtrack it? Like, did you start with I want the national championship game and the rose Ball on January 1st and now let's work backwards to make the schedule.
- [85:13]
Bill Landis
Yes.
- [85:14]
Doug LeMarice
Okay.
- [85:15]
Bill Landis
Yeah,
- [85:18]
Doug LeMarice
I'm.
- [85:18]
Bill Landis
Part of it's the route. Part of it. Sorry. Part of it's the roster building piece too, right? Like, because I don't even know, like, part of this proposal from the AFCA was like, to end it by the second week of January, but with the portal still open the second week of January like it did this year. Because then, look, what's the point? Like, like my idea, like, get it, get it done on January 1 and then the portal opens the next day. Like, it's like basketball this year.
- [85:45]
Doug LeMarice
It not only like, it's all the things we just said about having the national championship game on, on New Year's Day in the Rose bowl, it also snaps the rest of the off season calendar into place in a much better way than it does right now.
- [85:57]
Bill Landis
Yeah, you're just, you're not doing the, the thing all the coaches say about having the draft and free agency in the playoff all happening at the same time. They happen in quick succession, but it's not. They're not overlapping as much as they do now.
- [86:14]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
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Hey, everyone, check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?
- [86:27]
Doug LeMarice
Oh, no.
- [86:28]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.
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Liberty Mutual Bird Companion
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Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
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- [87:15]
Doug LeMarice
We had talked about this when we discussed like they were going to move week one up to week zero. And it's like, I liked it doing that because it gave everybody two buy weeks and you sort of said then, right, well, if you're going to move it up, then let's move up the whole calendar. Let's not just, like, move the season up to give everybody one more week off. Let's move the. And so this account, I'm not against this. I think a lot of college football fans would, would get in line with this. I think you even hit, like, the tent pole. Like, the Thanksgiving weekend stuff is kind of cool, like, getting it on weekends. Like, you just kind of own December with this playoff push. I know Ryan Day and other coaches have talked about, like, this time off, like, why are we having 10 or 11 days off? Like, this is crazy. Like, you know, and that it, I, it actually, as much as I would remain somewhat concerned about playing this many games in a row, it really does make that buy for the top eight seeds valuable. I think that, like, because everybody else, we don't want to risk injury, we don't want to risk any extra. Like, you know, the guys are gonna get hurt because they're playing so much, but if, like, you don't play as well because you're more tired. And the teams in the top eight had a week off, and that week off was super valuable to their pursuit of a title. Now that adds relevance back to the regular season because it's like, oh, who cares if you lose? It's like, man, we got to be a top eight seed.
- [88:48]
Bill Landis
Yeah.
- [88:48]
Doug LeMarice
We can't lose three games, be a top eight seed. We're not gonna have a break. We're gonna be dead by the middle of December. We gotta be. So that's like, talk about value. Tough grind. Which adds value to the top eight season.
- [89:02]
Bill Landis
Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I, I, it's not like, Well, I don't know. It's probably not as sexy as, like, trying to compete for a conference championship. Maybe. But I do think it's honestly, for teams, it might be more valuable for, maybe for fans, it's less valuable for teams. I think it'd be more valuable to try to compete for, for that extra week off. Yeah.
- [89:25]
Doug LeMarice
So mine, I, you know, I don't, I think this is a really good proposal. I'm not going to run through my whole thing. My, my main thing was keep the two bye weeks. And then it's just like, you start the first round of the playoff in the first weekend in December when it, that would have been conference championship week. And I wound up, like, given a little wiggle room to, like, first weekend is right. That the nine through 24 games, the second weekend is like the true first round. And then I got to the next. So those are all campus games that Would have been. Anyway, I. I ended up, like, wrapping some, like, quarterfinals around Christmas at both sites that, like, this year would sort of fall, like, in the middle of the week, and it's like, would you play four bowl games? I said, like, the quarterfinals, like, two on August, two on December 23rd, one on the 24th, and one on Christmas. And then it's like, that's like a little bit of, like, 10 days off before that game. And then you go from Christmas to the semifinals on January 1, one of them always in the Rose bowl, and then also, whatever, Fiesta bowl, the Sugar bowl, the Orange bowl, whatever. So you. You. You retain, I think, a decent amount of traditional stuff. It's a big day for college football, that place. And so, like, for instance, this year, then, like, the. If you want to keep the title game on a Monday, you'd play the semifinals on January 1, and then January 11, that Monday would be the title game. So it's like, that's the second. The second weekend, right? It's just that, well, if they like to play it on a Monday instead of a Saturday or a Sunday, but that would hit the AFCA counter. If you want to play it on the 9th or 10th instead, that's fine. But I. I tried to keep January 1st as special, but it was for semis, not a final. And then that way I kept the two bye weeks for everybody during the regular season. But. But, like, I might like yours better. I sort of. Like, in both of ours, we end up wrapping, like, around a holiday, whether it's the first round around Thanksgiving or the quarterfinals around Christmas. And I do think you have some opportunities with stuff like that. Let me throw one more thing to you. I feel like now I feel. I always yell then I feel bad. I feel, like, guilty that I'm yelling at everybody. Can I drop a. An idea on you? You're playing that first round, so it's like, I don't care what happens to the bowls, but I don't think it should mean that, like, there's no bowls. And then if you're not one of the 24 best teams in the country, that's it. You're done. Totally. Right? There's no conference championship games, and now you don't get to go to a bowl. So I can keep some balls going. First round losers eligible for bowls.
- [92:24]
Bill Landis
Oh, I. I'd be okay with that. I don't. I don't know maybe how many teams would actually take you up on the offer to play, but I'd be open to them being eligible so if like,
- [92:35]
Doug LeMarice
and, and I don't know what the rules would be around, like so much of the discussion now is like, oh, you get 15 practices for the bowl that actually you're like pre spring football or whatever. And so I think you should just give everybody those practices. Right? Like, like, we have to get out of the business of that. But if you, it's like, hey, we were the 22nd best team in the country. We never would have been in any kind of playoff before. And then we got in and we wound up playing like the 11th best team in the country that was a preseason national title contender and had a couple goofy losses and beat the living crap out of us in our playoff game. And like our fan, it was on the road and our fans were excited for it, but also like, holy moly. And then it's like, hey, do you want to play another game that's kind of like an exhibition and somewhere warm in four weeks? And it's like, yeah, we'll do that. Or three, like three weeks. Like, I think, I think that would be okay. And like, we'll find some, you know, maybe you can match up some of the first round losers against each other in the whatever bowl. If you don't want to do it, then opt out of it, you know, but like, I don't care about the guys in the fancy jackets who come on boondoggle trips to figure out who's gonna go play in the potato bowl that no one's gonna care about. But I was trying to think about, like, how could you? And then it's like, and then you get down to the 16 teams that are here to try to win this thing, and now you're in. But it's like, also, by the way, everybody then who's not in a bowl, it's like, you're the final 16. Well, you either were a top seed and you're pretty awesome or you won a game, you won your post first postseason game. So that was the reward and victory in itself. So then the first round losers, you get like a little, A little do over of like go on your warm weather vacation with your fans and talk about how you lost the first round. 53. 8.
- [94:27]
Bill Landis
Yeah, I mean, again, I'd be, I'd be okay with it. I just don't know how many teams I want to do it. I think maybe if there was more, if there was more structure to it that like moved the transfer stuff entirely out of the season, then I think maybe you'd be more likely to get teams who like Stick together and play that last game if you give them the opportunity to. The one other thing I didn't include in mine, and I don't even know if it'd be possible, but just something like, if you do, if you do move the season up a week and, and use that, that 14 week window to play 12 games, can one of those off weeks be like a universal bye week? And that's when you sign your recruiting class. Oh,
- [95:07]
Doug LeMarice
I don't know if TV would go for that.
- [95:09]
Bill Landis
Just like there's no. Yeah, probably not taking a week, an entire week off from games. But it's like, like if you could do that somehow like the first week of November, whatever the, like the first weekend of November is. And then you have your draft which is assigning your recording classes and then like you have the stretch run of your regular season without having to worry about if 13 kids are going to flip out of your class. And then like having to having to finalize their deals while you're preparing to play a playoff game. I don't, it's probably like to your point, it's probably not feasible, but I don't know if it's something worth considering.
- [95:51]
Doug LeMarice
I wonder like, could you make it if it was like, if Saturday was signing day and then you could have the studio shows, you'd have the drama of like you'd have kids announcing on that day.
- [96:03]
Bill Landis
Right, Right.
- [96:04]
Doug LeMarice
You'd be, you'd be going around the sport and it's like now we'll go to. It would be like draft headquarters. Right. Like with the NFL draft, like you would treat signing day like the first round of the NFL draft. Here I am, I'm live at Clemson with Dabo Sweeney. They're waiting to find out if three top 100 players will in fact say sign with the Tigers. Dabo.
- [96:23]
Bill Landis
Right.
- [96:23]
Doug LeMarice
And like that's your content.
- [96:26]
Bill Landis
Right. So it's like the players that the players have off but the coaches don't. But it's okay because the, they can be focused. Yeah.
- [96:34]
Doug LeMarice
And they, and they, and it's, but it's like for the, for the TV partners, it's like we paid all this money and now we don't have anything to show on that Saturday. But would they like, could they be capable of building content around signing day, treating it like the draft and Fox is doing their show about the Big Ten and the ESPN's doing their show about the SEC and then the Big Ten networks, instead of showing Minnesota Rutgers on Saturday night in the Big Ten network, they're doing like A three hour wrap on signing day and like trying to get a huge audience for that. I. Because obviously like you'd have to, you'd have to get the TV partners to go along with it. But like, do you think you could create the content in a way that would get them to.
- [97:20]
Bill Landis
Yeah, I think maybe you could, you would be doing it like during like high school playoffs if you're doing it that way. So it's like you wouldn't have a ton of like prospect, like whatever, like I'm at so and so school when he's signing his letter. Because like so and so is probably playing a playoff game that way. Playing a playoff game that day. But I do think, yeah, you could be at various school sites, breaking down all the classes, covering whichever flips and stuff might be out there. I think there's a, I think there's a way to create compelling content. It wouldn't be as compelling as games, but it would still give you something to put on your airwaves in lieu of games. If you took a week off.
- [97:55]
Doug LeMarice
Yeah. I mean even if you like pre recorded. So like if a kid's like, I have a game today, but like I'm going to pre record my announcement. And then it's like, okay, we're going now we go to the number 68 player in the country who is choosing between Penn State, South Carolina and lsu and here he goes. And now here on, on ESPN they're showing that. And then it's like, oh, right, he picked South Carolina. I can't believe it. Now let's come back and talk about it. I think college fans might watch that. I think college football fans might watch that. I would be curious, I don't know the answer to this, like what the TV ratings are for the draft compared to games in the NFL.
- [98:34]
Bill Landis
Oh yeah, I don't know.
- [98:36]
Doug LeMarice
But okay. But I do think to your point, there are things, and this is how everything works in life, but I think particularly in sports, there are traditional things that are worth trying to hold on to, but they are fewer than people think if they're special. And so like January 1st, Rose Bowl. Right. Like you're trying to prioritize that. Okay. You've got to be open minded about everything else.
- [99:01]
Bill Landis
Right.
- [99:02]
Doug LeMarice
And so like this, be open minded about a universal bye week in the first weekend in November to give the players a break, let the coaches focus on recruiting for five days and then create like a cool but different kind of content weekend and then hit the home stretch. I'd talk about it.
- [99:19]
Bill Landis
Yeah. Again, like it's, it's like. I realize it's like pie in the sky and perhaps not feasible at all, but I do think, like, to fixing this weird calendar requires, I think, a lot of out of the box thinking. And that could be one potential idea to throw out there.
- [99:35]
Doug LeMarice
If the AFCA calls, would you meet with them?
- [99:38]
Bill Landis
I would, yeah. I bet they got a good, good cold cut spread at those meetings too. So I'd be. Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [99:43]
Doug LeMarice
Do you think we should have that be. You could be the media representative to the afca.
- [99:48]
Bill Landis
Yeah. There you go.
- [99:49]
Doug LeMarice
The liaison.
- [99:50]
Bill Landis
Okay.
- [99:52]
Doug LeMarice
We're gonna do a lot of Texas, Ohio State content next week here on this feed. We are going to talk about that game. We're going to talk about the matchup, like, what it's gonna mean, like how good it is in the annals of great non conference games, that kind of thing. So we'll do that with around the shoe. We will endeavor and we'll get somebody, a Texas writer to join us to talk about some of that.
- [100:16]
Bill Landis
Somewhere there's got to be one of it.
- [100:18]
Doug LeMarice
If you know a Texas college football writer who wants to give us 40 minutes of their time for no money, please contact us. And then we'll keep doing. We want to drop in some of these national shows here and there. And so we were going to do this later, the ultimate calendar, but we decided to move it up because the coaches spoke. And so we wanted to see if we agreed. All right. You are like, everything that you said today, you are what percent like, okay with it? Like, as we keep saying, like, well, you're forced into it. Sorry, there's no choice. You gotta. But just like, generally speaking, how do you feel about if your proposal got adopted and adapted tomorrow, A to Z, Everything Landis said we're doing, you'd be what percent happy? Maybe, like, compared to the way things
- [101:07]
Bill Landis
are now, pretty happy. Like 95, maybe.
- [101:11]
Doug LeMarice
Oh, that's great. I thought you were maybe gonna still be like, I got to the 70s, but I'm just like, so against the 2014 playoff, I'd rather it be 12. Quit jamming this thing down my throat, Les. Maurice, like you, I can only go so far.
- [101:25]
Bill Landis
The thing that drives me craziest is the transfer stuff happening while the season's still going on. So, like, if you can make that not happen, I'm pretty happy.
- [101:36]
Doug LeMarice
Okay. Okay. No, and I do think, like, I think, again, that is a. I, I think your calendar is, like a little sped up. And like, I remain with your calendar, like 25 concerned about the health and welfare of the players who now are being compensated, which matters. But I do think it is in service of not just having a sunset in Pasadena like, it is in service of the greater calendar that I think will benefit players, coaches, fans, the entire sport. And so like, if it's like, if it feels like a little quick, it's like, well, I'm sorry, but like, that's kind of the way it's got to be. And really it's only gonna be, it's only gonna feel that fast for like some 17 seed who gets to the semis one year, you know what I mean? Like, most of the time it's like, well, who's in the quarterfinals? Or like who's in the semis and is still playing and hasn't had a break. It's like, well, it's, it's for the top eight seeds who all had a week off, like, they're fine.
- [102:36]
Bill Landis
And I don't, I, I certainly like, respect and would understand anybody who thinks it's a little sped up, it's a little, it's a little too tight of a window. Why then couldn't they start in mid August instead? Like, I get to the top like, it's hot in October now too. So like, I don't like, if that, if that's what you're worried about, then we need to play all the games in air conditioned stadiums. So like, if you want to add that extra weekend to get, to get that buy to get that rest, then just start it. The, like I said, would be the third week of August instead of the fourth week of August.
- [103:08]
Doug LeMarice
I do think it is like, I'm not sure, like, when do all the. I do think there's something to, I don't know if you want to play a gazillion games before the students are in class. Because it's like there is a component of college football that is related to like students.
- [103:23]
Bill Landis
If you did it that way.
- [103:24]
Doug LeMarice
Most places, I guess most places start like in mid August. Yeah, I think a lot of places start maybe like in the 20s in August. So I think you're like, I think right now most schools, like, if you're playing August 29th as your first week, everybody except a couple of schools that are on the quarter system, everybody's in. If you start playing your first games on like August 22nd and some years that might be like August 18th, I would wonder how that would fit with like, are we sure we're going to have a bunch of students at this game?
- [103:59]
Bill Landis
Yeah, Like Ohio State. I'm just looking at Ohio State's calendar. They start August 25th.
- [104:05]
Doug LeMarice
Yeah. I would take into consideration we At a place that's on a normal semester system. We don't want to play a game before the students are on campus.
- [104:18]
Bill Landis
You don't want the chaos of student moving with a football game.
- [104:29]
Doug LeMarice
There's a Buckeye bus where I'm trying to unload my car to take my computer up. Yeah. So, I mean, it is. It's hard. It's like, build a professional sports schedule around the educational apparatus of America, and it's like. Well, it doesn't always fit perfectly, so. Okay. Thanks, you guys, for being here. I do. I. I'm. I'm. I'm a lunatic sometimes. It's like I really get wound up, and then I feel. I felt Guilty for 40 Minutes
- [105:02]
Bill Landis
about your. About. About your media rant. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, that was good. That was one of your better rants. Okay. Yeah.
- [105:09]
Doug LeMarice
I don't want people to think I like being mean to everybody. Just makes me. I'm just. I'm just here. I don't like fans getting jerked around, which is where, like, a lot of my. And it's just like, the continued thing of, like, is your role in the media? Is the thing that you are doing, is it primarily in service of the fans, or is it primarily in service of, like, the. The power brokers of the sport? Coaches, players, or, like, just trying to, like, get people to read your stuff, even if it's flimsy? Like, I don't like any of that, because it should be, like, having an honest conversation with your readers and your viewers and your listeners should be the number one goal of every journalist in the country, regardless of what it is. But especially in sports, when it's just, like, it's all supposed to be fun. Right. And so, like, to get people wound up about something that they didn't have to get wound up about is, like. It winds me up. All right, we will see you guys next week. Appreciate you being here. If you want to go check out the substack, you've probably had enough of me, but you can. We. We're writing stuff over there. We're doing shows over there. Bill and Doug osu.substack.com For now, he's Bill Landis. Mr. Calendar.
- [106:20]
Bill Landis
That's me.
- [106:21]
Doug LeMarice
This is like, what. Like, this is the Landis calendar. It's like the AFCA officially is behind the Landis calendar. Right? Like, this is. Let's. Let's put this stake down for you. Like, this is pretty good. Yeah.
- [106:34]
Bill Landis
And then we'll make a calendar that has myself and Brett Bielma on every other.
- [106:40]
Doug LeMarice
The Landis Calendar, brought to you by Bill Landis. I'm Doug Lamoriz, and that was the Bill and Doug Show.
- [106:54]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
And Doug. There's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.
- [107:03]
Liberty Mutual Bird Companion
Hey, everyone. Check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?
- [107:07]
Doug LeMarice
Oh, no.
- [107:07]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.
- [107:13]
Liberty Mutual Bird Companion
Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.
- [107:15]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
Anyways, get a quote@libertymutual.com or with your local agent.
- [107:18]
Liberty Mutual Bird Companion
Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.
- [107:22]
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