
It's college football rants, starting with the ESPN College GameDay interview of fired Penn State coach James Franklin on Saturday. Doug Lesmerises is tired of college football media culture that puts coaches on a pedestal until they are fired, and then treats them as victims.
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Doug Lamy
Welcome back to the Bill and Doug Show. Doug Lamy solo with some rants at the end. Kaylin Debor in Alabama in the middle fired coaches. And to start off the ESPN interview with James Franklin on Saturday on game day we like to talk about bunch of things in college football. That's what we're going to focus on this week. This is not really about James Franklin. I thought James Franklin, the fired Penn State coach actually handled himself pretty well. It was his first words since being fired by Penn State, at least publicly. I'M sure he had spoken previous to that, but I think we need to talk about how coaches are talked about, talked to and viewed in college football. And this was Reese Davis, Pat McAfee, Kirk Herb Street, Nick Saban. Rhys Davis started it off. They kind of went around the table, everybody had a question and then Reese Davis finished it off. Rhys Davis was the thing, obviously to a journalist on that stage, because he is the only one who is a journalist. The other ones don't pretend to be. But the thing is, then we have to make sure that we don't treat them that way because this was propaganda, this was puffery. And overall, what I think is the issue is the fetishization, and I worked on saying that word, the fetishization of coaches in college football. And it is born out of several things. So it is that and it is the victimization of coaches treating coaches as victims, when what actually I think college football is becoming the victim of is this coach led media culture that everything that is discussed is discussed through the eyes of the head coach. Because the head coach is the constant and the head coach is the contact. The head coach is the voice. The head coach is the guy you schmooze with. And then the head coach is the person who gets fired and, or retires and joins the media. And so like Nick Saban's comments to and around James Franklin were the screwiest ones. We're the ones that we should give the least amount of attention to. But because he's Nick Saban, it can often get the most attention because I actually think this is harmful for college football. Because in professional sports, coaches are not the stars of professional sports. The Kansas City Chiefs are about Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelsey and Chris Jones. They are not about Andy Reid first, right? The, the Philadelphia Eagles are about Jalen Hurts and Devonte Smith. They are not first about Nick Sirianni, but in college football, because these players obviously pass through in three or four years, some of them with the transfer portal are out of program for a year. The coaches are the ones who represent everything. And that's fine as long as we don't kowtow to them. And the interview with James Franklin, particularly Nick Saban saying, you know, James Franklin was asked whether it was fair that he got fired. And they said, fair is not for me to decide. And I thought that that's a good thing. For again, I thought James Franklin handled himself. Nick Saban said, I'm gonna answer it. It's unfair as hell. I'll say it's unfair. And this idea that in a culture, in a world, in a society where people lose their jobs all the time, almost all of them without $50 million buyouts, people lose their jobs all the time. And not every person who loses their job loses it because of an egregious failure. And I think when we get in this mindset in college football, that, man, how could you fire somebody who wasn't an egregious failure? You created circumstances. You created a standard that then led to your firing. That's not what it's about. It's about what the organization needs, what the fan base needs, what the. The overall group needs in that moment. And it might not be fair to the individual, but it is what's best for the whole. And that happens all the time. So the idea that any coach who is fired when he is not a complete and utter failure is a victim is so wrong, and it skews the entire view of college football. And now listen, like, there are other people out there who maybe weren't egregious failures, maybe could have done a little bit of a better job, but there are circumstances, then, like, all of a sudden, you lose your job. So anyway, to pretend that a. A coach with a $50 million buyout, that this is. That it's. It's unfair as hell that, like, this is where Nick Saban draws the line. There's stuff happening all over the place. There are people all over the place losing their jobs. Why is this different? Because we have to kiss. Kiss the butt of coaches. Why? Coaches are. Because they're the. The way player movement happens. Coaches are the faces and voices of college football. But it should not be a coach first culture. Because here's the secret. Coaches are fine. The coaches are fine. And many of those coaches, and to some degree, James Franklin is part of this, are stewards. They are not often creators. They are skilled and talented success stories in their field, but they are often at the highest level, taking over something that was built by somebody else. This is not a bootstraps, ground up kind of, oh, my God. James Franklin made Penn State football out of nothing. He was privileged, and he earned the right of that privilege. He earned it. He earned the privilege to take over that program, and then it ran its course. But just to the way ESPN treated him, Pat McAfee referred to the cultists at Penn State. Again, the coaches, man. The coaches are the third most important group in college football. They are not the most important. Now, there's a way that it gets messed up in our heads, but the two Most important groups are the fans and the players, because the players put their brains and bodies on the line every Saturday for our enjoyment. And without them, we'd be staring at each other. And the fans are what makes it a billion dollar industry. The fans are what provides the passion. Because you could have these players go out and play their game on a grass field with nobody there. And would anybody be making any money? Would anybody have the same enjoyment? The culture. The coaches are stewards. The. The coaches are guardrails. Now, this is overall, right? The problem is that a great coach changes everything. And a terrible coach kills you. And so we get this now. And what that actually does is create outrageous contracts for coaches. Because whatever Nick Saban made at Alabama, he didn't make enough. He should have made more. He was worth every penny, five times over for what he did for the athletic department at Alabama, for what he did for the University of Alabama, for what he did for the state of Alabama, for what he did for college football writ large. You can't pay him enough for that kind of sustained success. And then the coaches who drive programs off a cliff, you can't pay them too little, but they still get their money. They all get their money. And so we live in. We fetish. Fetishize. No, fetishize. Dang it. Why did I start saying the F word again? We. We put coaches on pedestals when they succeed because we understand how valuable that is to everybody. And it is difficult. And then when they fail, they fail with the biggest safety net in society, right? They. They leave with these giant contracts, and they've made a ton of money along the way. And I'm not begrudging them the money. I am begrudging media treating them like this. It's embarrassing. It was embarrassing what ESPN and Game Day did to James Franklin. There's no reason to treat him like that, be an adult and then to act like him. Coming on the show. Desmond Howard speaks volumes about who you are, that you can't. You're. You're kissing his butt just for showing up and talking about it. You don't need to do that. The coaches will be fine. They are handsomely compensated. Should they be publicly berated? Well, I mean, they always think it's like if you're. You're publicly berated for your profession. Right? Should they be personally attacked? Should their families be attacked? No, I get it, but like, this idea. So then the thing. The thing that I thought was the. The most annoying about what James Franklin did is like the hardest thing is, is leaving the players like this kind of thing. And the idea that you are responsible for all these people under you when you run a giant organization like that, right? The assistant coaches, the staffers, the players you do have, they are kind of like at your mercy a little bit. And so making it personal. It's not personal, it's professional. This is all a professional thing. And now that the players are paid, we can all accept that even more. So the idea that, like, oh, like poor James Franklin and all his people that he's responsible for this is a terrible thing. He has to go tell his family first that like, he got fired and he doesn't want to hear that. But the idea what, what he was said was heartbreaking was like the leaving and the leaving these people. Did he say the same thing when he left Vanderbilt for Penn State? So is it less heartbreaking to leave when you're not fired or is it equally heartbreaking? Now, I know you bring a lot of people on, which don't bring everybody, but guess what? In any one of these situations, some people lose their jobs and then other people gain jobs and they fill the vacuum, right? It's not like these jobs vanish. It's not like they're not going to have assistant coaches and football staff at Penn State next year. For the new person, it's just not going to be James Franklin'. Sorry. Like, this is how it works in every profession in America. So to, to act like it is this horrible tragedy that's. It's just the perception and it's embarrassing and like, just. It's not media. Like, please, let's. I hope we don't think it's media. It's butt kissing and it's professional butt kissing. Because James Franklin might not wind up working for espn, but it's what passes is journalism half the time these days. And I do think it hurts the sport because do we ever think about victimization as much when the fans are victimized by a terrible coach? When players are victimized by a terrible coach. Oh, poor them. Like, I don't. We don't think about those gigantic groups of people in the same way where we somehow insist about thinking about college football coaches in this way. It's just a job, man. And you're not going hungry, your family's not going hungry. So sorry your job didn't work out. Get in line. So it's just a. And then it, it adds undue influence, it adds undue stature to these people who are very good at their jobs, but they are not the most important people but the problem is that collection of media. A lot of them are former coaches. And then the other thing is they're the sources for everybody. They're the sources for reporters. They're the friends of the people on that panel. They're their buddies. And so it is very difficult because everybody's beholden to the coach. Real journalists are beholden to the coaches because, like, they're. They're your sources, right? It's like, oh, well, I want to get these, know, these coaches on the ground floor so then as they move up, I can have a good relationship with them. Because you can't build the same relationship with players. So they're in control of everything. But I thought it was an embarrassing episode of college game day to just. Isn't it embarrassing to kiss, to be an adult and in public kiss another adult's butt to that much when that adult doesn't even want it? James Franklin's okay. He agreed to come on there. He didn't. I don't think he had parameter. I don't think, like, had a writer. You know, it's like, okay, here's my sheet. What, James, what do you need in the green room? Well, I need. I need a couple Diet cokes and I want some pretzels. And then when I'm on the set, I want everybody to kiss my butt. That's what I demand to come on game day. But it reflects the larger problem in college sports, which is acting like the co. The coaches are the number one most important thing and acting like anytime something goes wrong for them, they are victims. I hate coaches as victims. Oh, I hate it.
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Doug Lamy
Talk about fire coaches. Because guess what? They're just people who lost their job. They're not victims. Eleven openings this year. Two of them were open coming into the year because the coaches were fired in the off season. But we'll still count it. Seven in the power conferences, four in the group of six. Florida, Penn State, Arkansas, Oklahoma State, ucla, Virginia Tech, Stanford. Those are the seven among the power conferences. Oregon State, Colorado State, UAB and Kent State. There's a thing that like some, some people really like to talk about, like the idea of relegation with North American sports and with college sports. And it's like, well, if you win a group of six league, then you should move up into one of the bigger leagues and then if you're bad, you should move down. And they just love European soccer and like just keep it in Europe. I mean like I'm, if I need another, like another theoretical story about relegation in American sports, it's like, let's Europe can do it their way. That's fine. We're not doing it here. Like nobody's going to agree to it here. This is relegation. The relegation is there are 68 Power Conference football teams. Eleven of them are going to make the College Football Playoff. Seven of them already have fired coaches. We're probably going to get to 11 by the end of the year. So if you think of it that way, there's 68. 11 move up, you're in the playoff. You don't go anywhere. The next year, you still play the same teams. 11 are in the playoffs and like, let's say 11 get fired, that's your relegation. You have to rebuild your entire program. So Florida, Penn State, Arkansas, Oklahoma State, ucla, Virginia Tech and Stanford, they're not moving down a level, but they also kind of are because in this world with Nil and the Portal, you could lose all your good players and then you completely have to redo your roster and you are relegated. West Virginia is relegated this year because they have a new coach and they rebuilt the roster. Purdue's actually playing pretty well, but they haven't, they haven't done much. They don't have wins to show for it. Not many. They're relegated this year. North Carolina is relegated this year with Bill Belichick. Right. Like, you gotta suck it up. You may as well be in the lower Premier League level for all that is. But I do think, like, if we can. Now, this is a lot. I don't. I'm not calling as much as I'm like, against the coach on a pedestal agenda in much of college football media. I'm not calling for 11 power conference coaches to be fired every year. But if you sort of think of it like there's 11 in the playoff. If there's 11 or fewer fired, you take it. Because I'm at 68. It's like, whatever, you know, it's like whatever. 18, 18 are going to the playoff and 18% are getting fired. It's like rents, it's survivor s. Like, would you take those odds? Would you like, well, I just want to be in the middle, but I, you know, I'll take the shot at the top 11 and risk the bottom 11. I think it's an interesting way to look at it. Again, I think only five power conference coaching changes the previous year. North Carolina, Wake Forest, Purdue, Central Florida, West Virginia. So this is a lot. There were in the group of six last year, coming into this year, 13 coaches, 23 coaching changes overall, 13 on firing, two retired and eight left. This is another thing too. It's like, yeah, there's a bunch of coaching changes because people left. And guess what? Like, do we treat, do we treat the people that coaches leave as victim programs? So anyway, like, we could get like, so Luke Fickle on Monday sort of got like a half vote of confidence from the ad. I don't know. He said he doesn't know if he's going to be back next year or not. Florida State kind of gave a half vote of confidence to Mike Norvell, like for now. But I think we are going to get to 11. But I think if you're a power conference coach, any year where it's 11 or fewer, where the number of firings does not outweigh the number of playoff spots, take it. Good enough. But what if we did that? Okay, here's the Power 68. The top 11 are going to the playoff. The bottom 11 have to fire their coaches. Now we're on to something and some of them would want to do it. You wouldn't have to ask them twice. But some of me, like, if you're coaching at the end, it's like, okay, like right now you're the 54th best power conference team, but you definitely in a week could be the 58th best team. And if you're the 58th best team, you're getting fired out of 68. Sorry. You want to make people watch two games in November between lousy teams. The firing requirement. The firing requirement. You know what, like, if we did that enough, like, you would not build up these coaching call to personalities because you'd be like cycling dudes out every now and then. We have like, term limits are good, right? We have term limits for president. We have term limits. Probably we should have term limits for other political offices. Does anyone, anybody want to see somebody in political office, Senate, House, whatever, for three decades. Does that serve anybody? Like, there's a, there's a point where the experience, you hit like a sweet spot. Like, the experience is good, but you haven't completely like gotten stale and the world's passed you by yet. But like, we might have cycled out Kirk Ferris by now. We might have cycled out Kyle Whittingham by now.
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Man.
Doug Lamy
Some of the Kyle Whittingham decisions in that Utah lost to BYU maybe should have been cycled out. But like, schools are, schools are afraid to do it. What if we just took firing off the plate of ads so you don't have to act with fear because you're afraid to fire somebody because you might hire somebody worse. But if it's like, well, we didn't fire you. You were just in the bottom 11, so you lost your job. Sorry, here comes somebody new. But as long as you're the 31st best team or the 44th best team. You're not fired. It's called Good.
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Doug Lamy
Last one is Caleb De Boer in Alabama. So after Alabama lost to Florida State, my good friend Connor o' Gara from Saturday down south had me on his show and I was talking about how Kaylin DeBoer is Rich Rodriguez and I didn't think it was going to work. I have not thought it was going to work from the beginning. So that and Connor o' Gara on on. I still call it Twitter. I'll always call it Twitter Posted. Hey Douglas. Maurice, do we need to get old takes expose involved? Because Alabama hasn't lost since Florida State. So then I said Connor, like we can have a takes party if you want. If you want to talk about how you picked LSU to win the national championship so which was obviously a terrible pick. So I'm not. I am acknowledging that Alabama now at 6 and 1 Alabama at number 4 in the AP rankings. I am acknowledging Alabama has done. I would just hold off on the smug Bama takes just a little bit long. Just a scooch bit longer. Because if this thing still goes south for Bama I am never gonna stop talking about it. Alabama success rate right? The success rate is the do your job stat of college football. You have like what the the yards you need to gain to make a successful first down to be judged as successful second down to be a third down conversion. Right? Like success rate. Did you do your job on every player? It's just a good baseline. Alabama FBS 136 teams. Alabama's 31st in offensive success. Here's some of the teams above them. Vanderbilts 1. USC 2 Indiana 3 Ohio State 4 Cincinnati 6 Washington 8 Tennessee 9 Oregon 10 Georgia 11 Notre Dame 1631 like not great maybe for what you would think is the number four team in the country. So then it must be a dominating Alabama defense then, right? 73rd in defensive success rate between Minnesota and Virginia. So I'm not saying that Alabama is a complete and total fraud, but I want to. 2421 over Georgia 30 to 14 over Vandy. 2724 over Missouri, 3720 over Tennessee. They won the turnover battle 63 in those four games. They're plus nine on turnovers for the year. That's tied for the third best in major college football. I'm one of the people who subscribes to the idea idea that turnovers more than anything are luck. There certainly are defenses that take the ball away better than other defenses and there certainly are offenses with who can't protect and their quarterback gets hit. Or they have a quarterback who's inaccurate or is late all the time and just throws more picks. It's not pure luck, but I do think some chunk of it is luck. And so when I look at the success rates of Alabama, I still see a team that has a chance to lose some games. Now they've maneuvered the slightly less mid part of their schedule. Georgia, Vandy, Missouri, Tennessee. Next up, South Carolina stinks, LSU stinks. Oklahoma might be okay. Eastern Illinois and then at Auburn. Auburn's Hot garbage. I'm just saying I've picked Alabama to lose four straight weeks and I wear that badge proudly. I'm also wrong. And I'm gonna admit it. I'm wrong. I was incorrect four straight times on Bama. But I'm just saying I'm. I'm calling myself out for being incorrect there. But I'm just saying if you are all the way there on Ahaha. Because Florida State stinks. So I guess we're just in the business of completely ignoring Alabama's horrible loss to a terrible now terrible Florida State team. Mike Norfeld is going to get fired. He beat Alabama. He's going to get fired. Okay, but we're going to. If we're going to completely excuse it. I just would watch the smugness a little bit because if Bama falls apart, I'm coming for you. Or if Bama does make the playoff and gets its doors blown off by a Big Ten team or a Northern team, I'm coming for you. So I get it. Like, I. I get it. You're more right than me. Rich Rod never made the playoff. Richard wasn't ever six and one at Michigan. I. I get it, but I just am not all the way there on Bama. And I'm a little surprised if you are. They probably should have lost the Georgia game. They easily could have lost the Mizzou game. Dandy and Tennessee aren't nearly as good as people think. I'm just telling you, if you're all the way there on Bama the way, you could be all the way there on Ohio State right now or all the way there on Oregon or all the way there on Indiana or even all the way there on, like the Notre Dame comeback narrative. If you are all the way there on Bama, I would just say be careful. And so then I also spent my day on Monday taking down other SEC people I do know Connor. He does a good job. He's a good guy. We're just having football talk. I don't know Adam Spencer from Saturday down south, but somebody had tweeted that UCLA has more ranked wins than Tennessee and Missouri. John Rhodes had tweeted that. So Adam Spencer tweeted UCLA has more losses to New Mexico and Northwestern than Mizzou and Tennessee 2. So then I quote, tweeted that and said double checking that the league that last year wanted to ignore the Ole Miss loss to Kentucky and the Alabama losses to Vanderbilt and Oklahoma is now playing the bad loss card. Are SEC people officially acknowledging that bad losses hurt you? Can we get this in the public record because that was the SEC defense last year. And then Adam said bad losses did keep Ole Miss and Alabama out of the playoff last year, as I recall. That's a good recollection. Recollection. Because it's true. And remember how everybody around the SEC was okay with that? Remember? Oh, they weren't. They never stopped complaining about it. So I responded, yep. And everyone in and around the SEC was totally fine with that thinking and didn't complain about it at all and didn't try to brush off the bad losses and making cases for those teams. Right. And then Adam said, are you surprised that fans of teams in certain leagues cherry pick the metrics they want to use? Last year, SEC teams wanted bad losses ignored. The Big Ten wanted a lack of quality wins ignored. It's exhausting to keep doing this back and forth. And I said, is it exhausting or does the SEC just not like it when someone pushes back? I'm not exhausted. I'm good. When Greg Sanke, Paul Feinbaum and Nick Saban and the SEC mouthpiece has stopped, I'll stop. So I like making SEC people on social media mad. And the thing that I like the most about it is that the facts are on my side. So I am going to keep doing this because somebody has to keep doing this. But you can tell that the SEC knows they're hollow and they're grasping for straws a little bit. I'm not saying that Big Ten is perfect, but the argument, like the evidence, is on our side. And so when Alabama's 6 and 1 and I thought they wouldn't be, I have to admit that I have to acknowledge evidence. I am in the. The business of acknowledging facts. But while acknowledging that fact, I'm just telling you, be careful because I don't know that I have seen a 1000% dominant Alabama team. And then also, also when I see media outlets with the Heisman list and they have Ty Simpson of Alabama one and Julian sand of Ohio State five, and Ohio State's undefeated number one Bama has a loss to three to a terrible Florida State team that Ty Simpson had a lot to do with that loss and Julian saying stats are better and Ty Simpson is the Heisman leader on a. On. On three, I would say why? And I would say I'm not stopping and I'm not exhausted because I think there continues to be a puffing up of the SEC that every year and every week they deserve it less and less, but it's not diminishing. So the SEC is so Diminished. The SEC is so lacking a dominant team that and listen, Texas A&M's win over Notre Dame is good, right? It is a good win. Now I also would say that the game winning touchdown pass was was thrown on a play where there was obvious holding on Texas A and M that everybody admits the refs missed by terrible officiating. Not like a judgment call. You can go back and look, their eyes weren't looking at it. Guys were looking in the wrong places. If they someone had been looking where he was supposed to, they see the holding and the touchdown pass is nullified. And then maybe Notre Dame wins that game. But Texas A M did win. I like Texas A M. I think Texas A M is pretty decent. No way Texas is A M is as good as Ohio State, Oregon or Indiana. So as soon as the SEC doesn't have a dominant team, the discussion turns to depth and the discussion turns to Holy moly. It's crazy. It's chaotic. There's. Everything's going crazy this year and it's like it's actually not going crazy. Ohio State and Indiana are both undefeated and have looked awesome. So go ask yourself how often you hear people in college football media talking about, oh, this crazy year. And ask yourself if Alabama and Georgia were undefeated and the top two teams in the country and everything else was happening, is that what people would be saying? And I would say, no, that is not what I think the conversation would be. It's wild and crazy. I think the conversation would be the two best teams in the SEC are dominating college football and those are the two teams that are the odds on favorites to win the national championship and it's Ohio State and Indiana. And that is not the conversation. Find me somewhere where you heard or read that conversation that the overall view on college football this season is Ohio State and Indiana are dominating. And ask yourself if they were SEC teams, would the media be talking about it the same way? Okay, those are my rants. Here's the thing. I'm not perfect. I get stuff wrong all the time. I do my best. I have opinions. I try to have strong opinions backed by evidence. I like us to have fun talking about college football. But on this particular thing, which has been the thing that I've been banging for three years now about this, I'm a hundred percent right. There's a puffery to the SEC that does not exist for northern teams in the Big Ten. And right now the Big Ten teams are better. Enjoy the puffery in the South. Thanks you guys for being here. We have a lot of stuff coming your way the rest of this week. Ohio State is off, but we have a lot of stuff coming your way, so we're just grateful that you're along for the ride. You can check out our substack for Ohio State coverage. Bill and Doug OSU substack.com we'll have playoff Conversation Our latest playoff brackets on Tuesday night. We will have ari Wasserman from On3 joining us for a conversation about title contenders here on this YouTube channel and on these podcast channels this week. And they'll be making our national picks at the end of the week. And we'll also have some stuff we think about Ohio State receivers. We're going to Bill and Atlantis and I are going to talk about that. So for now, thanks to you guys for being part of it. I'm Doug Lay Maurice and that was the Bill and Doug show.
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Episode: ESPN's Embarrassing James Franklin Interview; Fired Coaches Relegation; Alabama Smugness: Rants
Date: October 21, 2025
Host: Doug Lesmerises (solo; Bill Landis off this episode)
Source: Blue Wire
Doug Lesmerises steers this solo episode through several passionate rants on the state of college football media—including ESPN's treatment of fired coach James Franklin, the nature of coaching changes (including a mock "relegation" system), and his ongoing battle against the media's perceived Southern (SEC) bias. Using recent events, analytical stats, and a healthy dose of humor, Doug deconstructs the myths and narratives orbiting college football’s biggest personalities and programs, especially those outside the Midwest.
Timestamps: 02:26–15:47
Timestamps: 18:19–24:10
Timestamps: 26:34–38:05
Timestamps: 37:00–38:05
| Timestamp | Topic/Quote | Speaker | Context | |-----------|-------------|---------|---------| | 03:10 | “This was propaganda, this was puffery... The fetishization of coaches in college football.” | Doug | On ESPN’s Franklin interview | | 08:22 | “Coaches are the third most important group in college football...” | Doug | Reordering CFB priorities | | 13:09 | “It's embarrassing... what ESPN and GameDay did to James Franklin.” | Doug | Calls out media deference | | 19:55 | “11 move up [to playoff], 11 get fired. That's your relegation.” | Doug | Satirical “relegation” system | | 22:39 | “...you would not build up these coaching cult personalities because you’d be cycling dudes out...” | Doug | On benefits of rapid coaching changes | | 27:08 | “Hold off on the smug Bama takes just a little bit longer...” | Doug | Post-Alabama Georgia win caution | | 33:48 | “Are SEC people officially acknowledging that bad losses hurt you?” | Doug | Tweaking SEC’s shifting narratives | | 36:24 | “Find me somewhere... that the overall view on college football this season is Ohio State and Indiana are dominating...” | Doug | Exposing bias in media narratives | | 37:21 | “There's a puffery to the SEC that does not exist for northern teams...” | Doug | Closing the episode’s argument |
This episode puts a spotlight on how media narratives—and not just on the field action—shape the culture and business of college football. Doug’s frank, data-driven takes challenge long-standing assumptions about coaching importance and conference supremacy, while defending fan and player priorities. If you love blunt truth-telling mixed with the fine details of CFB discourse, this solo show is a must-listen (especially if you're tired of Southern football media’s “puffery”).