Andy & Ari On3 - Ari talked to Matt Rhule after Ari's column enraged the entire state of Nebraska

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Ari once again has enraged the state of Nebraska, this time with a column criticizing Nebraska coach Matt Rhule’s stance on the College Football Playoff.(0:00-0:43) Intro(0:44-22:30) Ari and the Nebraska Cornhuskers(22:31-24:48) Watch us on YouTube, Wrapping up Nebraska(24:49-41:51) CFP to adopt Straight-Seeding model(41:52-43:09) BYU QB Jake Retzlaff accused of sexual assault(43:10-1:01:53) Dear Andy & Ari: Accumulating top talent in the NIL Era(1:01:54-1:05:34) The Confidence in Arch Manning at Texas(1:05:35-1:09:00) Revisiting Ari's take on Alabama and Georgia(1:09:01-1:12:42) Wisconsin to play Notre Dame in Lambeau Field in 2026(1:12:43-1:13:49) Conclusion After a joke Rhule made about a 40-team playoff in an interview with HuskerOnline began circulating Wednesday, Ari wrote a column critical of Rhule’s previously stated stance that it wasn’t worth playing difficult non-conference games in the current system. To put it more bluntly, Ari called that attitude “soft.” Rhule and pretty much everyone else in Nebraska took offense, and it culminated in a conversation between Rhule and Ari that hopefully cleared the air. In other news, Ross Dellenger of Yahoo! reports that conference commissioners are expected to approve straight seeding for the 2025 playoff in a conference call Thursday. BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff has been accused of sexual assault in a civil lawsuit. It’s also a Dear Andy/Dear Ari show, and you sent some great questions… Is Georgia coach Kirby Smart’s philosophy of ensuring the proven players on his team make more than unproven freshmen a sound one? Texas and Ohio State both lost a lot of drafted players. Is the confidence in Texas reloading based on confidence in Arch Manning?  Watch our show LIVE on YouTube, M-F at 9:30 am et! https://youtube.com/live/Lx6yt0Wg6Yo Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey Want to partner with the show? E-mail [e-mail]

Welcome to Annie and Ari on three happy Thursday programming note. We're going to talk about the top 100 impact players returning to college today with. We're not doing that tomorrow because Ari has kicked another hornet's nest and we got to talk about it. You've enraged the entire state of Nebraska Ari. Enraged Matt Ruhl, the head coach at Nebraska. Now you guys have talked since the enraging. Shall we back it up and just give everybody the Cliffs Notes version of this thing if you've not been following along for the last 16 hours or so?

I think that you should start from the top. Okay. Matt rule did an interview with Husker online, which is on threes Nebraska site last week. And he said some interesting stuff in that interview. And I'm not sure why it went to yesterday before one of our people aggregated something he said from the interview, which was, you'll see it. You'll recognize it as a joke. I'm pretty sure everybody recognizes a joke,

although when the tweet came out, I think people thought that On3 was taking it seriously. But here's here's the clip. Here's the full clip. This is this is the entirety of the question and the answer, so we'll start with that and then we'll move on. So you got your.

You got your team. It's settled pretty much. It's it looks like a program that's on the trajectory where we need to start kind of pay attention to this playoff talk. Do you, I don't know to what extent you you pay attention to it, but what is best for Nebraska in your opinion? Is it 12, 14, 16, doesn't matter? Oh the more spots the better man. Make that thing 40 and let's go. I think, well I, well, I think, you know, again, you're talking about a league there. Again, we play nine conference games where some others play eight.

Um, so I think that, that puts you at an automatic, like you look at two years ago with five and seven, right? And, and you think about the years with Scott where he was five and seven, you add in one more group of five team, you take out one more big 10 team and actually now you're six and six, the years where you're like this year, you're, and naturally, now you're 6-6. The years where you're, like this year, you're 6-6, now you're 7-5. And, you know, just, you're just adding another win in. And so I think the more spots, I think if they do go to where it's, you know, guaranteed, hey, you get 4 at-large bids, you know, if you can play your way into those things, you just think about playing meaningful games in Memorial Stadium in November, December, and January,

where the weather starts to be a real factor. Every time we play UCLA or USC, the first thing I do is say, hey, where is it? When is it? Like, I want it to be as cold as possible. Now, they're smart. They play each other at the end of the year, and sometimes the week before the final week,

so they're kind of protected from some cold weather games. But as we start thinking about the college football playoff, like, yeah, I want to play those games. I want to play those games in the Midwest, in the Northeast, you know, in the North. I want to play them in cold areas to help the Big Ten. So the more spots, the better. We're playing in a really, really tough league. We're playing really, really good teams. And you know what? If you play in this league, you deserve a chance to get to the postseason and see what you can do. Okay, the 40 team thing was clearly a joke, right? We all agree on that. R, you wrote a column about this. In the column, you said the 40 team thing

is clearly a joke, but you tied it back to something that Matt Rule said in February after Nebraska canceled the series against Tennessee, which was basically, what's the incentive to schedule games like this in the current system? Which by the way, was far more offensive than this, in my opinion. Far more! Yeah. Far more. So the thing that's most frustrating, and I think part of it is just kind of the reality

of the internet is that I understand why Nebraska fans would be upset at the initial on three tweet because if you read it that way, I think we understood it was a joke, but if you read it in a certain way, you would think that it was real or that he meant it. Okay, so from that standpoint, I want to extend an olive branch to Nebraska fans who are upset and saying that I understand why you might be upset about that. But what happens is I am a column writer and I have opinions, I had a pre-existing opinion about Matt Rule saying certain things that predicated all the way back to February, okay, and I didn't write about it at the time because he was the latest coach in the long list of administrators and coaches to float the idea that playing a non-conference game is not smart because if you risk losing an extra game in the

non-conference then you might risk your chance of making the playoff. But in conjunction with this, because even if you take away the joke that he made, which is what everybody was freaking about on Twitter, he still did go on a pretty long discussion point on the importance or or the benefits of expanding it even further, which you know I'm against. I was against 12, I'm against 16, and certainly against 24 to 40, whatever it could be. So when you are in a position where I believe that Matt Ruhl is actually doing a great job. The talent that he's bringing into the program is much higher than it was under the Scott Frost era. I think like the recruiting rankings in the Scott Frost era were deceiving because they got some good players on paper, but obviously they weren't what they were rated as or wasn't the right fit as a tandem or as a team to convince a five star prospect who was committed to Ohio State and then Georgia to come there to obviously have a better product on the field year over year and to be in a position where we not three days ago said that Nebraska could win 10 games, like all all good things. So my thing to to Matt rule, and I said this to him on the

phone, and I'm saying it to you here, is that if you're in a position where you actually have momentum, you're out recruiting well, you have better players on your team, the absolute embarrassment of the ways that you would lose repeatedly under Scott Frost, though at still times, you know, here is dissipating, you have a lot to feel good about.

And the thing that I can't stand, and it's not even just aimed only at Matt Ruhl, it's aimed at anybody, including Greg Sankey, who I wrote a column about in November, if you remember when he said the SEC is not playing tough non-conference games anymore, is this notion that shying away from big prime time games is a benefit when the college football playoff committee has shown repeatedly that it rewards teams with tougher schedules who have a chance to win. So I understand the thought process of, oh, this guy saw that he said 40, put them all in and joke, which was clearly a self-deprecating,

we're not Ohio State yet type comment, which he owned up to on the phone. That's not what it was. It was the explanation that came after it in conjunction with what he said in February, or it's like, Matt, you're so close to getting Nebraska to where it needs to be. I truly believe they are a nine and three team this year, and potentially a backdoor playoff team who by the way, if they win a big non-conference game would certainly help in a season like this.

But they well, yeah, unless Cincinnati just dominates in the big 12, they don't have that kind of non-conference game would certainly help in a season like this. But they, well, yeah, unless Cincinnati just dominates in the Big 12, they don't have that kind of non-conference game this year. If you played one of the teams, if you played one of the games that you said you shouldn't be playing in February on September 6th instead of Akron, and you win that football game, and then you've finished 10-2 with a big non-con win, and then you happen to trip up on the road at UCLA or have a weird game against Michigan State, but beat Penn State or something,

or do something remarkable or beat Michigan, you have those two wins in conjunction, then your resume as a 10 and two team is stronger as a result of playing that game. So I wanna relate to you the frustrating part, which is everybody is attaching their frustration to the on three main page to my column without reading it.

And like, if you don't want to play the paywall or you don't want to, or you can't read it or you don't have the time to read it, that's fine. But you're angry at me about something that I don't even know you're sure you're angry about correctly. So you don't have to agree with the column. I write columns with opinions

because I want people to feel emotion. I want don't have to agree with the column. I write columns with opinions because I want people to feel emotion. I want people to connect to it. And I don't want you to agree with me. If you listen to the show all the time, you know I'm wrong constantly. But in terms of like this being an overt attack at Matt Ruhl and me thinking that he sucks or that taking his thing out of context, I provided the entire quote in the story. So the word context means you took a snippet of a small quote or a large quote and put the smallest part in there without the rest of it. That didn't happen. So being accused of context, taking out of context is wrong because the entire context was you are saying things that are soft and I call you soft, that's my opinion. Okay. And he, as a human being, understands that in this business that happens

and like was not upset. Well, and now we talked about, and because I talked about rule two and he talked to him. One thing. Yeah, he called me. And yeah, so one thing Matt said to me, which I agreed with Matt on, is gotta give me a heads up on this. And Ari and I talked about this too. This is something that, it's a good kind of journalism lesson here. Like, especially if you're gonna be a columnist, if you're going to give opinions, thing that it's a good kind of journalism lesson here, like,

especially if you're going to be a columnist, if you're going to give opinions, when you're going to take the knives out, give the person a heads up that you're going to, just so they're not surprised when they see it. And it's shocking how often that turns into a conversation that results in a better column anyway, like if you and Matt had had that conversation that you had on the phone last night before you wrote the column, I think that would have been a more interesting call. And I told him on the phone too, um, that if I could go back in time, I

would have given him a heads up. But the thing that is so funny to me about the situation, and I also said this to him was that on the Richter scale of columns being incendiary and being benign, I thought mine was probably a 2 out of 10. If you've gone back and read some of the things that I've written, and you can ask the Ferenc family and other people who have been on the brunt of actual real criticism, like that happened. So here's the thing that is interesting. If you actually go and take the time, and the reason why I got upset to read the story, I don't really think it's all that bad. If bad at all. I actually

don't even think that it's like something that would even register with him. So when I said to him, I actually don't even think that it's like something that would even register with him. So when I said to him, like, yeah, I should have given you a heads up. Like I wasn't in the mindset that it was going to be turned into what it did. And maybe that was a mistake on my part. But like all I'm saying is, is Nebraska, you're on the right track. Keep going. You don't need to expand the playoff. Quit talking about this stuff.

Go get better. Like is that not a thing that they all agree with? But generally anytime you say somebody's soft or say something they said was soft, saying stuff. Quit talking about this stuff. Go get better like is that not the thing that they all agree with but generally anytime you say somebody soft or say something they said was soft was saying was soft. Yeah, that's it's still that's going to strike a nerve that that's

going to touch a nerve no matter what yeah that that's like I acknowledge that so like the thing is is like when I talked to him on the phone, I think I was on the phone with him for like 15 minutes and we were close to getting him on the show. He's gonna come on the show in the future.

But- By the way, I told him if he never comes on the show again, I understand. So- And he told me that that's not how we, like, listen, who are we talking about here? We're talking about a person who worked at Baylor during a rape scandal, okay?

Like the guy has been through- Well after. Yeah, well after, but like also- He cleaned it up, yeah. He's about it. Yeah about it Yeah, he's been fired by the Carolina Panthers like the dude has alligator skin Like if you think that like this column is going to keep him up at night Like you don't know anything about that rule like the guy has been through it all and he's that I just like I just don't Want him to get boring because this and this is a something I struggle told me Andy because he said that he's that this is he's proud to say that he hopes that this is his last job or that he thinks that this is his last job.

So like he wants to be there for a long time and he wants to get. And I think even privately, Nebraska fans will know to hear that the coach that has the program going in the right direction has designs and being there for a long time. And he said, as a result of this being his last job and him being a veteran who's been through it, that he's able and more freely to speak and say things that he hears in meetings all the time from other coaches that maybe other coaches might not want to say. So that's an important piece of context that you need to know that like he sits in Big Ten meetings and hears people complaining about the SEC schedule, having one less conference game, and he's the one who comes out and says it. So he kind of is a representative of Big Ten coaches in the way that they feel. So like Matt rules saying it out loud, I don't agree with, but if Ryan Day said that out loud, or I wouldn't agree with it either.

I wouldn't agree with any of them. So like if you're one of the Big 10 coaches. One guy in the chat is like, Hey, Urban agreed with Matt when he said it on Urban's podcast. Urban's not right about it either. Yeah. Better games are better. Urban's not a better. Do you know what I was going to

work? I was covering Ohio State of urban Meyer would have said we're not going to play non conference games because there's a chance we could lose. It's a soft thing to say regardless of who's saying it. I don't think that Matt rule is soft as a human being. I think that that notion of play less good teams so that you don't hurt your record is not the way that you would want to get your program to where it needs to be. And at the end of the column that most people didn't read,

I wrote, but for once, wouldn't it just be nice to hear a coach say they wanna play an extra tough game because it gives this program an opportunity to be excellent? Wouldn't it be great for someone, anyone to acknowledge that winning a big game in a non-conference environment gives you

a margin of error later in the season that you wouldn't have otherwise had by winning. Wouldn't it be great to hear you crave competition against the best because it brings out the best in your players, your off-season workout regimen, and your program standard? Like is anybody who is a Nebraska fan disagreeing with that? Or a college football fan? The one thing that I will say that Matt Ruhl said to me, and this is the important context that I wanted to make sure that I said on his behalf because he's not here, is that he believes that the system is broken.

That he is not afraid to play people, but wants to play within the confines of the sport where everybody is subjected to the same standard and the same schedule. He wants things to be equal and he wants equity. And he thinks- I have great news for him. It's coming. But I think that like when you say the thing where what's the point of playing those games, if you think the way that it comes across is, well, we just want to do what the SEC is doing. That's not how it comes across. And secondly, I know this is an SEC show, right Andy?

Cause I have an SEC co-host who lives in Gainesville. But- Oh, you're a big tenor. You got that red mustache. I'm a big tenor. We balance it out. But as a big tenor, I also could acknowledge that while the SEC does play one fewer conference game,

the rigor of their schedule typically is much more difficult than a big 10 schedule. And even though- So like, they're gonna start playing a ninth conference game, the rigor of their schedule typically is much more difficult than a big 10 schedule. And they're going to start playing a ninth conference game. Probably. But what I'm saying though is that like even if the games themselves aren't equitable in terms of the total number of games, for the most part, I would say if you get through the SEC as a 10 and 2 team, even if you play an FCS team in the middle there, a lot of them play tough non-conference games. And I would say that their strength of schedule often measures up and in the metrics.

Yeah, the ones that are competing for playoff berths for the most part are playing at least one and sometimes two tough non-conference games. I mean, Texas is going on the road to play Ohio State in the non-conference and that's a necessary thing because they got a good draw on the SEC. Like it's LSU's yeah LSU's going on the road to play Clemson. They did not get an easy draw in the SEC. And like Nebraska fans who if you're still here you want to trade schedule with Oklahoma and play one less conference game go ahead and do it. Look at your schedule look at Oklahoma's schedule.

Whose would you rather have? You want to go trade them and play one less conference game? Go trade them. We'll see how the seasons play out. Nebraska's in a more than okay position to make the playoff against this schedule. Look at Oklahoma's. They have to play Texas, South Carolina, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Bama, Mizzou, and LSU in a row.

You want to do that? They also play Michigan in a row. You want to do that? So they also play Michigan like Nebraska does. You want to do that? Let's look at Nebraska's now. Cincinnati, Akron, is that Houston Baptist? I learned. Michigan's a tough game. What was it?

Houston? Well, Houston Christian. Houston Christian, whatever. Yep. I thought it was you guys. They used to be Houston Baptist. You're right. I'm getting better.

Yep. Michigan's a tough game at home, but every single game on their schedule, maybe outside of a road game in November at Penn State seems to be a game that they can win. We think that Nebraska, if they beat Michigan or do what Nebraska fans think they can do, actually has an outside chance of playoff contention

in the current system. So excuse me for not wanting to hear the head coach who is doing a great job, try to relax the entry to get in because it's more advantageous for his team because it has to play an extra easy big 10 game that the SEC isn't subjected to. And like, I feel completely and utterly fine

with every single word that I wrote. I said that to him, I said that to you. And if, I feel completely and utterly fine with every single word that I wrote. I said that to him. I said that to you. And if you are mad at me because you think I thought that what he said was real and not a joke, you're yelling at me for something that's not true. So like, that's how I view it. And I think that I'm completely within my rights as a, you know, a person with an opinion to have that opinion. And for the most part, and the reason why, because this happens all the time, Andy, where one specific fan base gets mad. You know what I'm scared?

When everyone's mad. You know who's not mad? Everybody else. You wanna know why? Because it's a completely reasonable and benign column. On the scale of what we're mad. When everybody else is mad, you're like, wait a second. Yeah, like, wait a second.

Yeah, like, wait a minute. I may be wrong here. If everybody is reformally mad, I don't see any Michigan State fans being like, you're an asshole. Like, that's not what happened here. It's people on Twitter who have no idea, who are accusing me of missing the context and not using the context, not having the context, yelling at me about lack of context. That's what's happening here.

So that's fine. You want to say things to me in my, this happens to me all the time. You're not gonna bother me by, you know. Oh, they're gonna bother you. I saw you, I saw you on social media last night. No, no, no, the thing that bothers me isn't like the, oh, you're ugly or your wife's ugly,

the comments that you get on the internet. And because we both know that's not true. Is people who get mad about things that aren't real or get mad about things and accuse me of not having context when they don't have the context. And some small beat writer from Nebraska like retweeted my stuff and was like, this is stupid. And it's like, dude, he admitted on the internet,

like I didn't read it. It's like, aren't you like in my business? Like, don't you know how this works? And like also to the outrage about paywall, is like the paywall new? Is that a new thing? Some people still don't like the paywall. Okay, you don't have to like the paywall,

but like we have a business to run. Right. So. And on the audio side of this business, we can give it to you for free because we have direct sales ads, we have programmatic ads. Here we are.

But in the writing part of the business, the paywall is the one proven way to continue making money. It's been proven after about 25 years of experimenting that giving away writing for free, bad business model. So that's- Do you like my house? I like my house, yeah. Do you like mine? I do like your house.

Do you know why I get to live in it? Because people pay Because I invested personally in a company that had a paywall that sold for a half a billion dollars That's why so anyway, if you don't like the paywall that's fine, but I like living in my house so like that's part of the way it works and And like it's the same thing with me. It's like the movies. I like I feel like it's like a really good comparison. It's like if you don't like the paywall, that's fine. Or if you see a movie trailer, and you think the movie looks crappy, then you don't go to the theater to see it. Right. But you don't write a movie review about the movie and watch. Now that I did recommend Breaking 2 Electric Boogaloo which he admitted he hasn't seen.

I don't even know what that is. It's terrible. Breaking 1 is awesome. Breaking 2 is terrible. I didn't even know what that person was talking about. Like it was just so off the radar. And like listen I also want to acknowledge Husker Online and Sean Callahan because it was his show that he said this on. He is part of the On3 network and he has a job to do too. And I don't want him to get any unnecessary flack about my opinion. Like my opinion is mine.

Again, I share them not with the hopes that everybody will agree with them, but that they strike emotion. I think that that happened. But if you are a Husker online subscriber, he's got nothing to do with it. So if you have any beef, you can call me ugly on Twitter, but leave him out of it. But if you're watching on Twitter right now,

it's time to go to YouTube, get in the chat. You could yell at Ari personally. I guarantee you he'll see it. We might put it on the screen so he can definitely see it. Someone did say that I would have fondled your balls yesterday and we posted that. So that's good. We did.

Yeah. I mean, that was funny. It was that was well, well, by the way, you know what I didn't realize that he hot takes just made a bunch of big 10 fans angry by saying that SEC schedules hard, but you can come talk about that on the other side of this. Just do another show.

That'll be Monday show everybody. All the Big Ten fans come yell at Ari. Although his would you trade schedules with Oklahoma? Like I think that's a pretty like that's a pretty fair one. If you're a fan who's upset about what Ari just said about the Big Ten in the SEC schedules, go look at Oklahoma schedule or Florida schedule or Florida schedule or Georgia schedule and just ask if you trade

and if the answer is no, then you're not mad anymore. The biggest problem about equity is. The number of games doesn't matter because it's not the NFL. Like not every game is created equally in the Big Ten, by the way, much better than it was at the bottom. Way better. So I'm not saying that Nebraska has an easy schedule or that Nebraska, but like in terms of making it into the 12 team field right now, the one criticism I would have of Nebraska schedule is that they don't have a non conference marquee opportunity.

I mean, even Colorado last year helped. They don't, I'm not saying go play Alabama on the road, but they would have, if they would have been in a position to make the playoff beating Colorado last year would have been a really nice help for them. I would love if Nebraska Colorado just played every year. But I'm saying like that, but that's the thing. It's like big time. What's the point of playing a big time non conference game?

I don't know because you beat the crap out of Colorado on national television last year and everybody watched it and was enjoying it. And Colorado actually turned out to be a team that was competing for the big 12 championship game. And that would have been a quality win on your resume to get into the 12 team playoff if you were good enough at the end of the year.

The game, that's the game you don't want? Like, what are we talking about? So yeah, I mean, like Matt Ruhl, by the way, is the coolest, most down-to-earth, reasonable human being ever. I love the guy, okay? I disagreed with something he said. Freak out about it.

Big deal. It's May, Ari, that's what everybody does, we freak out. It's just like, yeah, just go freak out about it. Tweet at me. All right, let's move on to some news that is breaking this morning. Ross Dellinger from Yahoo! reports that college football playoff executives, which

is the commissioners of the various leagues, are prepared to adopt a straight seeding model for the 2025 college football playoff. According to Ross, there will be some financial considerations given, presumably to the the leagues that would have gotten a top-four seed that might not be getting a top-four seed now because the seeding will be different. And it's just proof once again that while you can't solve every problem with

money, you can solve some problems with money and this problem seems to have been solved with money. They're expected to approve it in a call on Thursday, straight seating for the college football playoff. And we have the graphic on screen, because we talked about this the other day, of what the college football playoff would have looked like had it been seated straight last year. So your one, your one, two, three, four seeds would have been

Oregon number one, Georgia number two. Those were the same. Number three was Boise State. Number three would have been Texas. Number four was Arizona State. Number four would have been Penn State had it been seeded straight. Everybody's happier except Penn State

in this scenario, right? No, no, we were good with the old one. Please go back. The five seed was the golden ticket. They were the six. They were six and got the. Oh, the reason why the six seed got it because last year they put Boise, I got it.

But this looks better. Does anybody disagree with that? Well, in the first, it's the first round games to me. And look, they're going to be first round blowouts. I'm sure that like doesn't matter how you see it, how you do it, there will always be situations where you get blowouts in every round. But the first round matchups, which were not competitive at all last year, like Indiana Boise State looks like it would, I think that would have been a pretty competitive game. Tennessee SMU, I think would have been a very competitive game. Ohio State, Arizona State,

you could say, Oh, Ohio State would roll over them like they did everybody, but Arizona State played Texas to overtime. Like there's no. No guarantee that that would have been easy for Ohio State and then Notre Dame Clemson. I think that would have been a decent game. I don't know. Clemson loses to Texas because of some some defensive issues it had.

It might have been that Notre Dame just ran all over Clemson's defense, maybe, but it would have been fun. I've been good to see the. Thing that is best about this matchup bracket, sorry, not matchup, is that the teams who actually earned it on the field in the regular season actually have a more advantageous path in most cases. Like I look at Oregon, like Oregon's the one.

If anybody is upset or should be upset about last year's seeding, it's Oregon. Yeah. Because they ended up being in a position where they had to play a team that was much better than their seed right out of the gate. Whereas here I see a path to the semis pretty easily and maybe the national title game

depending on the bottom half of that bracket. But the problem- You don't get rewarded for losing the conference championship game. In the Big Ten situation, because we talked about this the other day, when we were doing your projected bracket, and you're saying you think Penn State

might win the Big Ten this year, in the projected bracket, which you did using the old seating rules, and by the way, thank you for doing this. So when I do mine next week, it looks like we actually thought about this and did one the old way and one the new way. So, but, but you were worried, you were like, Oh no, I think Penn State may get punished for winning the big 10. If they win the big 10, well, that's, that's exactly what happened. Oregon got punished for winning the big 10 championship game. Penn State got rewarded for losing it. If they win the big 10, well, that's, that's exactly what happened. Oregon got punished for winning the big 10 championship game.

Penn State got rewarded for losing it. And that was the biggest gripe anybody had about the seeding process. Right. Yeah. And like, that's the thing too. If you look at some of these games here, all the teams that had to fight tooth and nail to get in have a chance at a winnable first round game like SMU.

I think probably has a better chance at potentially beating Tennessee than they would have. I don't know. Maybe that's a similar game. Tennessee was really good last year. We don't want to want to rewrite history, but then you have Boise, Indiana. Would you rather have gone to Neyland Stadium in round one? Or or Beaver Stadium in round one? I would rather play Tennessee than Penn State if I'm SMU. Yeah, both places are rowdy environments,

but I think that Tennessee was not as good as Penn State last year. But even though. The 89 game is better and the 512 game. You know, might have been better too. So here's the question that I that I not the question the thing that needs to be said that will continue to be true is when these conferences are so big that not everybody's playing each other or somebody has a bad game you will continue to have a elite level Ohio State-ish like team from

last year in the eight or nine spot. And when that happens, there's no way to avoid what is equitable. Like if Ohio State drops an extra game or somebody gets injured or they have an extra loss, there will be a Georgia, Alabama, somebody at the nine seed who got off to a tough start, but actually is really, really good. And it's not going to look this clean. Like, I feel like straight seeding is necessary because at the end of the year, like Ohio State was six,

but were they really six last year? Like Texas would be screwed in this scenario because they will have to play the Ohio State team. Right. They're like, yeah. Let's say Ohio State, and I think we agree, the way Ohio State was playing, it probably wouldn't have mattered where you'd seated them. They're probably winning their way through this thing. But you also have to take into account

that when the seating occurred, the last time we saw Ohio State play was the Michigan. Oh yeah. So we didn't know what they were yet, but there will be teams that even in the straight seating will be playing again. Like Texas has a harder path in this bracket than Penn State. Like there's no way to ever stop everybody from having,

or stop. It's never going to be absolutely perfect. And I don't know what does that happen on the NFL or not. They're more evenly matched. Well, the NFL is interesting because, and it's interesting that this comes up now because the NFL just I believe tabled a proposal or no, the Lions withdrew the proposal because the NFL does it where if you win your division, you get a home game.

Even if there's a wild card team from another division that had a better record than you, you get a home game because you won your division. What the Lions had proposed is reseating after the first round. So you give those teams the home game, but then you reseed based on just regular season record. But they pulled that proposal. But I think it's different in the NFL already

because obviously the teams are more equal. Team 32 and team one are really not that that far apart in the grand scheme. In college football, it's pretty different. Like teams one, well, it's becoming flatter, but teams one through eight. Probably fairly different than teams nine through 16. Right. This is the most rational way to do it, but there's no foolproof way to do it in college football without somebody doing something like especially when you have 10 in the years where there's a conference that has five elite level teams. Like it's not going to be seated one through five like you're going to like you're going to have a Georgia at nine one year and that that nine seed is going to have to play the one seed in the second round and the one seed is going to be like what the hell.

But last year was was certainly bad because the one seed not only had to play Ohio State and had to watch the team that it beat in the Big Ten Championship game walk into the semis which is like the worst part about it. And the one thing that I think that we need to address, and I, if you want to accuse me of being a power homer, that's fine. I don't think that we can continue to put group of five teams into the top four seeds, like I just don't think we can do it. They're not, you mean, you mean as a choice, because that would have to be a choice

at this point, Boise state would have been number nine last year. That's what I'm saying. Like I think Boise being number, what were they, four or three last year? I can't remember. They were three. Were they three? That's the rule they're changing Ari.

They won't be doing that anymore. It can't happen. Well it can if the committee members think that that team is the third or fourth best team. Which won't happen. Because Boise didn't get a lot of. Of favor in the rankings week to week last year, right? Boise was number nine, right in the final ranking, so.

So now that we're straight seeding it, Boise can't be number three and fuck up the whole thing. Sorry, mess up the whole thing. Well, they right, unless the committee members think Boise State is the third best team. Then they'll be worthy in those years. But let's be honest, that's probably not going to happen. It wouldn't have happened. They were as good as they could have possibly been last year and they would have been. Cincinnati 2021. That one. And Cincinnati is obviously in the Big 12 now, but they weren't then. They were in the American. They finished number four. That would be your example.

In that Cincinnati team was legitimately number four was really good. Yes. Beaten it, you know, beat Notre Dame had gone undefeated. Like they were very good. Yeah, and I don't just mean like Boise as a program. I'm saying a group of five team getting in to the higher echelon because it's the highest ranked group of five. Right. And because their schedules are very different than the schedules

that the teams and the other four leagues have. And their resources are different, and their roster talent accumulation is different, and I don't need to explain it to everybody to get it. But I think if you do that and you put the ACC champ at 12 or whatever, then you are putting yourself in a position to create those inequitable paths to the semis. Now the ACC champ would have been 12 last year because Clemson was a three loss team that that won its way in. Yeah. Because Miami lost to Syracuse, Clemson got in the ACC championship game,

Clemson beat SMU. So it will there may be situations where the Big 12 or the ACC champ is number 12. That that can happen so yeah and like you're okay and you're obviously okay with the Big 12 champ. Not getting the buy because then Arizona State doesn't get to the second round and they have to play Ohio State in the first round. Well, Arizona State gets a bad draw here, but like what if Arizona State's one spot higher and they're playing Tennessee? I like Arizona State's chances against Tennessee if they come out playing the way they did against Texas. Yeah, I actually

think that you could make the case, and I don't know if you're with me on this, that straight seeding it actually makes the margins more important because last year we weren't debating whether or not Indiana should have been 9, 10, or 11 mm-hmm we're like are they in or not but now when you get to a point where your actual seed plays a factor well and and and it's just the matchup like it's it's not even the seed itself but the matchup itself because like again 11 6 Arizona State Ohio State if the committee's like Ohio State after losing to Michigan's like, Ohio State, after losing to Michigan, we're gonna put them at seven

and put Tennessee at six. I don't know that anybody would have argued with that. We might have, because they beat Penn State in the regular season and we were, like, where did we have Ohio State? Five. Yeah, that's what I thought. Okay, we had them five.

And people were like, you guys were idiots, why would you do that? And our thing was they beat Penn State on the road. Like, does that not matter? And we did it on the previous model, not on the current model. Right, right. The thing that'll be interesting

about the straight seating, Andy, is whether or not they're gonna continue to treat conference championship game losers with favor the way they did last year. Well, and honestly, I don't know that that even matters because it's just this year. Like I think there's a chance conference championship games are going the way of the Dodo after this year. Like this is a

stopgap right here. We already know they're going to something else. We already know they're going to something bigger. First it was fourteen now it's 16. Whether they keep conference championship games or not is is an open question right now. What do you think they did to Brett Yormark? Paid him. Not him, but the big 12. Now there's some weird like backdoor on what if there was a

bag man? They were bringing back the bag man just for the night. I don't think that happened. But I do think probably there were, as Ross reported, there's some financial concessions, I'd be curious to know what they are. But this was a strain. This was not a super high leverage situation for anybody. Because yes, the Big Ten and the SEC are taking everything over and you're going to really be kind of in charge in 2026, but they needed the votes from all the other conferences this

year. The other conferences had some leverage because they needed those votes, but it's just one year. The Big 10 and the SEC probably could have lived with it. So I'm guessing it's a modest sum of money that is going to the leagues that now may not get a higher seed than they would have. Yeah. Good though, good. Yes, I'll take it.

I'll take it and as someone who has to do a projected college football playoff bracket for 2025 for next week, I'm thrilled because mine gets to look completely different from our, no matter what. I think that your teams might have been different anyway, but I'm going to redo mine. That's a layup. And we'll see if the postseason.

We'll see if the bracket turns out similar. That's you know, because the math. I mean, we got it. We got to reshuffle. You can we reshuffle yours now? Can we can we try it? We can try it, but like I'm not good at this stuff. It's hard. OK, who are your three and your four? But I think I have.

I think I have the actual rankings on my computer. So why don't you like sing a song while I go try to find it? OK, these are lauda. These eyes have seen seen a lot of love and they never know. Okay. Well Penn State's your two Texas is your one Clemson's your three and BYU is your four. So BYU you're probably moving. I don't know if you're moving Clemson. Like you tell me. I don't have it. So we're gonna have to redo it. Sorry. My talk of trade is deleting word law. You know it's on the internet, right?

Yeah, it's on the internet. But like You type in Ari Wasserman on three, the first thing that comes up is a list of your articles and you can click on it. No, I know. We have the bracket. I don't want to have to try to figure out where everybody can rank. Oh, your actual rankings. I got you. Your pure C-line rankings. That's what I did. My project was I made my one through 12 first and then I put the bracket together after the schedule analysis.

I think the question that you would be asking, because I'd be curious what your final ranking said about Clemson, is did you think they were the third best team or did you have them like number six or number seven, but move them up because of the rules? I think I had them six or seven and moved them up because of the rules. Okay, so yeah, it would look very different. And good, I can't wait to see it.

You're right, that is a layout. Easy story, people will get mad, but not as mad as they did about it. I'm excited to reorganize the bracket. Let's not do it now. Let's do it next week and talk about it on the show. But to see if my projections and like, this is all like we were talking about.

This is difficult. I don't know. But like if my bracket will be different and like all of a sudden the person or the team that makes the title games is different. Like I'm still going to pick Texas to win everything, but I don't know like if you have different matchups in the first round and stuff if it comes out differently. Yeah, it's going to be it's going to be fun to debate, fun to speculate, and I think it's going

to make this year's college football playoff quite a bit easier to explain to people because that's I felt like that was the hardest thing because you had people coming in who don't really follow the sport all year round as the playoff was approaching and you had to reset it every time like okay now this is why this team is number three and this team is number four even though it kind of doesn't make sense now it's gonna make. So thank you commissioners for doing that. Thank you for solving a small problem with money and away we go.

Other news before we get to dear Andy and dear Ari. Jake Ratz left the BYU quarterback has been accused of sexual assault in a civil lawsuit. We don't know what this means. It is an accusation. We don't know what it means going forward. We'll find out. We'll keep our eyes on this one. A woman filed a suit saying that she was assaulted. She said she filed a police report but did not give the person's name. When she filed the police report, according to the suit, she later gave the name to the police.

When she filed the police report, according to the suit, she later gave the name to the police. Provo police came out yesterday and said, we think we have a report that matches this. We made several attempts to get the accused's name and we're not given the accused's name. So there's something, there's a disconnect between those two two stories. So we're gonna have to find out what what happened there. And so we'll see what happens. But that's one to watch because obviously BYU is a big 12 title contender. He's their starting quarterback. Not much more you can say. It's an accusation right now and don't want to go too far one direction or another with that. Ari, let us move on to questions from the readers,

the listeners, the viewers. This is a good one from JJ and he sent it in last week after we'd already done the Mailbag Show and it's related to Jackson Cantwell the Mailbag show and it's related to Jackson Cantwell and his decision to go to Miami over Georgia and I thought it was a really interesting way to phrase the question and I think you and I ended up talking about this on the phone for like 20 minutes last night because it's such a good question. So here's JJ's question. Kirby Smart recently missed out on five-star offensive line with Jackson Cantwell and said that he, Kirby Smart, prefers incoming freshmen not make more than seniors. Some of these five-star freshman NIL deals remind me of the 2000s era non-capped NFL rookie contracts. For example, Jermarcus Russell got a six-year, $68 million deal, which is still higher per year than Caleb Williams' current four-year $39 million deal.

Caleb Williams obviously was the number one pick in last year's draft. Without a CBA, can teams do anything to mitigate the risk of giving so much money to what is still an unproven player or are these types of five-star recruits simply can't miss? Also worth noting that Cantwell is represented by Drew Rosenhouse and Bryce Underwood, the number one recruit last year who went to Michigan, is represented by Rich Paul and Clutch. Rich Paul is also obviously LeBron James' agent.

If these guys have a big year, are these super agents going to leverage the hell out of teams to renegotiate or hit the portal? Are Jackson, Kent, Waller, Bryce, Hunter, was NIL deals written with more constraints than the average NIL deal? Great questions all. Let's go to the meat of it though.

You know what I love this job? Because I was on my way last night to go pick up Greek food for my family for dinner. And Andy and I talked about this as friends just because we are into it. And then we get to work like we had this conversation already. It's like, why didn't we just record this? Like we just like that's what we would be talking about if we

both sold insurance on my way to take up free food, I'd call Andy to talk about this. So Kirby Smart did say this, where he doesn't wanna be paying a freshman more than he pays an impact player who's been on his roster for a while. And I personally think Kirby's right on this. I think Kirby will be proven correct in the long run.

That that will be, especially if you're a program that recruits at the level that Georgia does or Ohio State does or Alabama does, I think that is the prudent way to handle this because paying more for a freshman than say for a junior who's gonna be in the NFL next year, who starts for you and has started for you for a year and is really good. Probably is a way to upset the balance of your locker room.

And Ari, this is but but this is also what we talked about with. Why Georgia can't stockpile talent the way it used to because a player like Jackson Cantwell, pre and IEL era, probably still signs with Georgia. But because Miami made it much more worth his while to sign with Miami, he signs with Miami, it's a double-edged sword. I do think it's the right way to look at it if you're Kirby smart, but also, if you're Miami and you don't have a stockpile of talent that Georgia

does in Miami, obviously has talented players, Francis Maui, Noah Rubin Bain. They've got some really good players, but if you don't, you need to get those players and this is how you get them. So what I said to you Ari, and this is where you push back on me and I'm excited to get this conversation going. I said, let's say Jackson Cantwell is as advertised, is as good as he's supposed to be at Miami and is awesome. And going into his junior year, he's coming off an all American year as a sophomore. He's you know, his third year as a starting offensive tackle at Miami.

And there's another number one five-star recruit. You're probably not paying that recruit more than Jackson Cantwell. And guess what? That might mean that recruit goes somewhere else. That's how it spreads. So in the NFL, not with rookies, but with regular players, not with rookies, but with regular players. Like if CD Lamb wants a new contract, he goes and figures out what Justin Jefferson just signed for, right? Like there's a precedent for what your position

and what your caliber of talent commands in the open market. And they use those as metrics and guidelines to craft what they think is a reasonable expectation. I'm right about that, right? So the thing that I think is most fascinating about this discourse is if you want a five-star prospect and Jackson Cantwell is in his third year at Miami as an all-American starter who's going to be a first-round draft pick and there's a five-star office of tackle coming up through the ranks, is the ask what Jackson Cantwell commanded when he was a senior in high school,

or is the ask in the comp what he's currently making? Because those are two very different things. But this is not the NFL, it's not that system. Because the NFL has a hard cap. So that's where you can do slots. So it's reasonable for the five star player in that area. The ask is the ask, unless the college system changes, which it might, given how everything works.

But the ask, if the system is similar to what it is now, is as much as you can pay me. What is your biggest offer? So that's the interesting thing too about Georgia is I don't care about the seniors because if you're a senior at Georgia, for the most part, something went wrong, right? Okay, but you can replace that with a junior who's coming off an All-America season as a sophomore.

That's right. Who's going to be a first-round draft. I wonder if the natural progression of because it's an interesting thought and I didn't really think about it this way of like if you have a lot of really good juniors who can't go to the NFL and they're making a boatload of money are you naturally going to lose out on Jackson Cantwell in the future because you cannot pay them more than the juniors on your team, especially at places that have a lot of really good players like Georgia? Or is there a fee that the roster just has to understand

is a signing fee? Because we talked about like- Here's the way I look at it. I think, and Kirby Smart is probably the best example to use here because I think Kirby Smart is the best evaluator too. Like you look through his history, look at Jordan Davis, look at Lad McConkie. Like it's not just, he doesn't just go select the best five stars. Like sometimes they go into the weeds and find people that nobody else realizes are going to be great.

So now obviously Jordan Davis was committed to South Carolina. So other people knew he was good, but Ladnick Conkey was not. So like he's a really good evaluator. I think if you think a player, a freshman, a signee, if you think that person. player, a freshman, a signee, if you think that person is a can't miss, like a Judeavian clowny coming out of high school kind of situation, then you back up the brinkstruck. Because once that person gets on campus, the other players will be like, I get it, totally understand. But if you think that player is going to need some maturation time or going

to need something else, you can't do it. Because the players get it more than we give them credit for. Players understand when a dude walks in. But if the guy you brought in and I'm the All America Junior, if I can just dominate him, I'm like, no, no, no, that dude's not making more than me. Yeah. Cody Blair, our national scout in the chat, even if Cantwell's a dude, is that the best use of finances in order to build out the rest of the roster? Again, there's no salary cap. You're not necessarily taking from one to give to the other. You can just pay more for the rest of them too, if you want. Well, the question too.

But there is a, before I gotta get this out, while there's not a salary cap, to Cody's point, there is a finite amount of money everywhere. Every program has a top end of what it's gonna pay. So you do have to make that decision, but at Miami, it does seem like they've been given the flexibility if they wanna go up in dollar amount

to get a guy they really want that they can. It's so fun to be able to have this conversation out in the open, because two weeks ago or a week ago when it happened, Miami fans were freaking out But like now like the context is kind of you know clear and then the question that I have More than anything is is that like if you kind of just do it as pay the best players the most money regardless of age Which I think happens in pro sports too. It's not rookies in the NFL because there's a cap on that

Yeah, once you hit in the second contract Or you know not everybody makes the same the best players do at a place on that. Yeah. Once you hit the second contract, you know, not everybody makes the same. The best players do at a place like Miami. It's more likely that Jackson can't, well, we'll be in the top 5% of good players on the roster right away. Then it would be at a place like Georgia, which also makes it a little bit more difficult. So like, yeah, I, and also too, if you're a place that doesn't typically get five star offensive

lineman, I'm not even talking about Miami, I'm just talking about in general. If you're just a place that's less likely to get a really good player of this caliber, then part of the expense of getting that player to your school is overpaying him. Like that's what, so like, like part of it too is like assigning bonus thought process to me of like, okay, we're not just paying you because of how good you are at the moment, we're literally paying you all this money just to get here, you know? Like there's a luring factor here.

Well, and also having someone like that, let's say he pans out completely is as advertised. He's going to, he's lost. Yeah, that in and of itself is a recruiting tool. Yeah, but the scenario of Jackson Cantwell three years from now in new Jackson Cantwell is fascinating because if Miami wants Jackson Cantwell again. Right, and then maybe that next one goes to Ole Miss

or goes to Auburn or goes to South Carolina or goes to Michigan State. What's the play there? If Miami wants him again Michigan State like what's the what's the play there if Miami wants him again and The asking price for a five-star prospect exceeds what Jackson Cantwell is making Don't you just boost both? If you have the money if you have the money well places like Miami's right now seem to have them here Here's here's the other piece. I will add to this because I think

This offseason in particular is different than every other offseason to have the money. Here's the other piece I will add to this because I think this off season in particular is different than every other off season we've seen and probably will be different than the ones coming up. This is the off season where everybody was prepared to start the revenue sharing. So everybody who maybe only had like a $2 million NIL budget or had a $3 million, $4 million NIL budget now has a $13 million NIL budget because they are planning to be part of that revenue share once the house settlement goes through and it's $20.5 million per school and football is getting the lion's share of that.

So, the schools like Iowa State, Wake Forest, Boston College who were trying to make do with what they had, now they suddenly have a lot more that raised everyone's ask this year. So like these players and their agents next year are going to go in asking thinking it's going to go up like that again. It is not. Yeah, they are in for a shock if they think it's going to rise year over year the way it did from 24 to 25. It won't. Yeah. But there are certain places that I do believe will have the ability to raise all salaries, and there are certain places that don't have the money, and I think that's 1000% like what is scary to Georgia. Right? Like Georgia might not want to play that game. They don't want to play the game of where they have to, you know, boost the all American first round draft pick safety salary in order to sign the five star safety

that they would have otherwise gotten in the path. I don't think there's anybody rich enough to play that game to just write bigger checks for everybody. Yeah. Salary cap or no, like there's still a finite amount of money out there. So what do you think is going to happen? Is this going to be a musical chairs of teams that don't have good players losing out to team or beating out teams and recruiting for teams

that have great deep talented rosters? And it's just gonna be a merry-go-round of who gets those players? I think so. And it will lead to certain programs rising up and other programs falling back. The thing that I'm most interested in in this conversation is how do you remain a consistently good recruiter?

You don't. It's like you have to be a better evaluator. And that's where I, again, I don't worry about Kirby Smart because he's such a good evaluator. Do you think that the top five in the recruiting rankings and high school recruiting rankings is gonna vary greatly year over year now? Not that much.

They're still like because those schools are also still going to have more money. Than everybody else. So they'll be they'll be less. Prone to they might lose one or two. Well, they're not going to lose the they're not going to lose their top five targets. Do you think the top 50 players in the country and the schools

they pick is going to very greatly deep year over year? I think it will vary more. Than it did from 2010 to 2021. Yeah, I don't think it will. I don't think it'll suddenly shift to you'll have these wild swings where it just merry-go-round through the power conferences. But you think it will ever be a point in time where you're Georgia.

You have the pedigree of developing and winning national titles and you say we're not going to give you as much right now but look at what our seniors are making our juniors are making if you come here and you hit you'll make more money than if you take the bet and then people will take the boat on themselves. Oh I think there are recruits now who do that. And here's here's the dirty secret. There are not so dirty secret. Those are the players you want. Because they probably are going to the bet on themselves probably is more apt to work because.

They they're saying, you know what? I want to work for it. These people seem better at developing NFL talent. I wanna go where I can be developed better. Andy, if I said I'll give you a million dollars, or I'll just give you a duffel bag of clean bills that you can have right now for a million dollars, or you have to flip a coin,

and if it lands on heads, you get 10 million, or if it lands on tails, you get zero, what would you do? I might flip the coin and if it lands on heads you get 10 million or if it lands on tails you get zero what would you do I might flip the coin now what if you have no income or you come from a poverty stricken environment then I probably take the million but you're assuming all you're assuming all players do and they don't no no no I'm saying that there are a lot of really good players who don't come from comfortable backgrounds. Not all of them. It's true. It's true, but we're not talking

about zero or a million, but this is the way we're talking about a million or a million five, but this is the reason why I push back on the notion of, well, those are the players you want the ones who want to bet on themselves. Now some people just want like steady, like immediate, I get that, but the difference is, again, we're not talking about one is offering zero

and one is offering a million. Yeah. Both of them are offering money that will allow you to live comfortably. Yeah. One is offering significantly more though. I just know that if I had nothing, or I came from a family that had nothing and somebody wanted to give me a bunch more, I would probably take the bunch.

Well, even if you come from a family who has something. And someone wants to give you a bunch more. And this is the Jackson Cantwell situation, alright? Jackson Cantwellwell can go to Georgia where they have a proven track record of developing offensive lineman for the NFL. But guess who else has a proven track record of developing offensive lineman for the NFL? The coaching staff at Miami. Mario Cristobal, Alex Mirabal, they did it in Oregon. Mario did it at Alabama as the offensive line coach.

It's not an apples to apples comparison because you can get the same end result you want. You can make the bet on yourself while still taking more money up front in this case. Maybe Willie T says betting on yourself as a five star is not flipping a coin. And I think I probably agree with that. Like you probably have a better than 50% chance if you're a five star prospect of hitting. But I just also mean like blown, you know, injuries, blown ACLs.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Things happen, car accidents. It just depends on the situation. Yeah. And like, you know, I would flip the coin, but I'd flip the coin right now based on how I currently live. I wouldn't flip the coin if I were a high school kid. I think it's, it's an interesting conversation to have, but I still like the players who take the long view are probably the ones I'd rather have on the team. Yeah, I just I just can't stand like I think

you're right. There are people who by the way, Ari, there are people who take the long view who did not grow up comfortably And there are also people who take the long view who aren't good and there are also people who grew up comfortably Who still go for the back like it sure no, I'm not saying it's not it's not the only Automatic brought up the the lack of income or you know coming from a place of not a lot of money is that I don't like the blanket statement of if you go for the person who wants to get the money later and bets on themselves that they're always the better situation because people's situations are different.

It's not always, but I think over time, if you study it, I bet that that group of people probably has better long-term results. Look at Cody Belair with the stats over here. Odds of being drafted as a first-rounder as a five star out of high school is 34%. That's insane. By the way, if you don't think recruiting rankings matter, like just pat two on your forearm. Yeah, if you one in three shot, that's wild. Did you know I wouldn't have thought it was that high? I didn't realize it was that high knew I knew it was. I knew it was fairly reliable, but. That's pretty good because like in the actual NFL, if we were to say you know what percentage of first rounders pan out.

Was it is it 5060 with quarterbacks? It's obviously much lower, but so what's the actual percentage of just getting drafted? Probably 80% if you're five star, probably. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so very interesting question, JJ, and thank you for that. Samuel. Gives us our next question with regard to Ohio State in Texas, Ohio stated 14 draft picks and it's sort of retooling year, rightly so. But

Texas also had 12 draft picks and they're the clear team to beat this upcoming season according to most media. Is it just simply trusting Arch Manning over Julian Sayen? This is a really good question because Samuel is right that Texas lost a lot. Now here's what's interesting, and we'll talk about this with Clark Brooks tomorrow. Texas has seven players on Clark's top 100 returning impact players list. That's the most of any team in the country. Ohio State only has three. Now Jeremiah Smith is number one and Caleb Downs is number three overall. So that's that's pretty a place to start but

The difference is Ohio State Besides the fact that we've seen a little bit of the Texas quarterback and haven't seen any of the Ohio State one is that? Texas has more guys coming back who had to play big roles last year That's right. Ohio State has to replace more back who had to play big roles last year. That's right. Ohio state has to replace more people who played big roles. Yeah. Texas just seems to have more impact players that are sure things at the moment, but Ohio state most assuredly will have those players.

But yes, it's not like, it's not like we think Ohio state's going to stink. It's that we just don't know who's going to pop. The difference between one and four is not as big as you think it is. Like I was like I had Ohio State like four or five and my in my top 25. It's like, yeah, I think Texas is going to win the national title. But I also like would not be shocked if Ohio State did. Like it's not a zero sum game here. Like I think that I can just like look at what Texas has from one through seven,

those seven players on Clark's list, and I'll be like, okay, that's four more than what Ohio State has. But also too, I think it's probably easier to envision a scenario where Arch Manning is really, really good than it is with Julian Sand because we've seen it and we're more familiar with him. But I will say- Julian Sand was a five-star recruit, was going to Alabama, Saban retires. And I saw him at the Elite 11. I was throwing absolute dimes the entire time. I think he won the Elite 11 the year that I went and saw him. So like, this was when he was going to Bama.

So like, if he turns out to be better than Arch, like it's not like some lovable underdog story. I'm just saying we're more familiar and more certain of the way that things have gone in Arch Manning's career that he's going to be an impactful player. Julian Sand hasn't been the heir apparent or the, people are still playing the bull crap game of whether or not Lincoln Kynholtz is going to win the job there, aren't they? I mean, I just think it's a little bit more cut and

dry with the quarterback position at Texas too, which is part of it. But Julian Sand could come out and be a Heisman finalist and lead them to the national title. Just because you think Texas is more likely at the moment doesn't mean Ohio State's cooked. Yeah, I think this is gonna be fascinating to watch, but it's Colin Simmons and Ant Hill and Ryan Wingo.

Those are the types of players that are having Texas be where we think they're going to be. C.J. Baxter, a guy that got, like, there's guys all over the field. And C.J. Baxter. We just, like with the Ohio State ones, we know how highly these players were rated as recruits. We just had not gotten to see them against college competition. We've gotten to see some of these Texas guys already and we like what we've seen.

Yep. So great question. Great question. Here comes another one. This is from Eli. I love this one. On the March 20th show, keeping receipts Eli, This is the best part. Ari Wasserman said either Bama or Georgia would miss the 2025 playoff. Then in May he drops a mock bracket and of course they're both in. I get changing your mind with more info but my question is which take is he allowed to get credit for if it comes true? Oh Ari, you are not allowed to take credit for either one of these. All Ari. Yeah, you are not allowed to take credit for either one of these. I'm very, very conflicted with these two. I'm very conflicted.

I don't want to take any credit. I don't know anything about either of them. You can't take credit. I wouldn't want to take credit. I don't know what's coming here. Here's the clip. Producer Rivers got the clip. Yeah, one of Alabama or Georgia will miss the playoff next year.

I mean, one of them missed the playoff this year. I don't think that's that hot of a take. One of them will reach the regression thing that we're talking about this year. They're both not going to be great. Okay. You should have planted your flag there. are both not going to be great. OK. You should have planted your flag there and left one of them out of the CFP projection. Then I went through the schedule, Andy, because I did the schedule.

You just couldn't. And I was just like, do I really think that Bama is going to lose four times? Like, would I be surprised if it actually happened? No, but like, when push comes to shove and I'm putting a graphic out there, that people are going to throw trash cans at me that am I actually going to do it? Like I tried my best and like Alabama is 11. It's not like I have them like five and six, you know, like it's.

And I would say that just in terms of roster, like Alabama is probably a more proven roster than Georgia right now. We just don't know who the quarterback is going to be. Georgia, we know it's Gunnar Stockton. We think it's Tia Simpson at Alabama. Yeah. So I don't want to take any credit because I look at Alabama's roster and they're they're loaded. So I don't know. I'm happy he called me out on it and I will frankly tell you on the podcast. I don't know what to think. That would have been a hell of a flag to plant though, cuz if you if you had been right You could have held that over our heads for centuries Too is that if you say one of them will miss it

How do you choose which one it's gonna be you gotta pick the correct one to miss? I'm gonna miss it if I put Georgia and leave Alabama out and then Georgia loses four times then I look like an idiot twice You know like it doesn't it's listen you got to bet big to win big. Ari, that's the thing. I know, but I bet big and one big on Notre Dame. And I think I'm going to bet big and win big on on teams like Clemson and maybe even like Oklahoma or Florida. Like those two teams.

I don't you know me as a human being. I don't love betting against teams that are loaded as as producer River says, a true vault Twitter guy would never include Bama or Georgia. So yeah, he's the guy I think I think Rivers like, kind of like wanting me to lose the vault Twitter people. Like I think it kind of like he's just trying to rip me a little bit. But, uh, look, look, you have it. You'll have your back right now.

You'll just inevitably lose them yourself naturally. You're gonna write something about Josh Hyple and you and Josh Hyple will have a nice conversation about it but you'll have lost balls forever. I told Luke I don't write about Tennessee anymore. I'm going out on top. Fair enough. Oh my goodness. All right one more thing before we go, Tony wrote this into us and I was very intrigued. Labor Day 2026 at Lambeau Field, Notre Dame, Wisconsin on a Sunday. Tailgate space reserved.

Yes, we're in. Dear Culvers, dear Culvers, let's get our deal going again. Let's have the set in the same place we had it at the draft at Lambeau Field. Let's just, we'll be given out frozen custard. Me and Ari just eating frozen custard with everybody. We'll bring a cooler. If you're over 21, enjoy some adult beverages with us.

Ari, that sounds like pretty much heaven right there. I was very into Wisconsin, by the way. Like I've been there to Madison a bunch I was very into Wisconsin by the way. Like I've been there to Madison a bunch, but like that side of Green Bay was awesome. Green Bay was so freaking cool. It was beautiful. It was like 55 degrees crisp,

clean air. We stayed in a mansion on the. That grand Green Bay. Yeah, it was amazing. It was there and it was just a beautiful day. I'm in yeah, it's like it's like Green Bay is like a college town with an NFL stadium in the middle of it. Is that like if you were a fan of the NFL who grew up in a city or an area of the country that didn't have an NFL team or you just wanted to be a front runner. I 1000% getting, picking the Packers because the Packers just seem like a

different type of deal. It's a, it's an NFL team, but it feels more like a community and it feels less corporate to me. And I don't know if that's just an illusion based on the, on the geography, um, or the scam that they have people, uh, pay money to be owners of the team. Uh, I don't know which one it is, But I, I've found myself romanticizing a little bit about like, wow, this is like what the NFL used to be like, and this is what the NFL represents. And this is what I would like I could see rooting for the

Packers, just because of how cool that setting is. And I would love this so much. We went to a place and it was I had samples out and I ate like 800 calories of just cheese samples and they were all so much. We went to a little cheese place and it was, I had samples out and I ate like 800 calories of just cheese samples and they were all so good. Yeah we had to go on a cheese run, it was it was pretty spectacular. Like I've never gone on a cheese run before to a place that you know is is the greatest of the greatest cheese in the universe, apparently, according to our friend, Dan Rubinstein. So it was amazing. Yeah. So I was asked when we have spotted cow on tap spotted cows. Good of the new glare, a Spears new glare is the, uh, the famous brewing brewery in Wisconsin. Uh, the gyrator is really, really freaking good. It's a Doppelbach, the fat squirrel nut brown ale as well.

So maybe not just the spotted cow. Spotted cow is the farmhouse ale. I know there's a lot of you like the moon man. That's the IPA, but I might go gyrator or fat squirrel. Just saying. Have you seen the meme of dude who walks into bar and they say, welcome to the bar sir we've got 600 beers on tap today what would you like? I'll take a Miller Lite thanks that's me. That's not your favorite beer though.

No but they don't like yeah Bud Light Lime is just not flowing the way it used to it's hard to find in bars now especially they don't they used to be on like there were a few bars that used to have it on draft. It's hard to find in bars now, especially they don't. They used to be on like there were a few bars that used to have it on draft. Uh, it's hard to. Florida Avenue Brewery in Florida just came out with dead parrot, which is their version of the blime. So I don't understand how you could. Taste but let lime not be like, yeah, this is it.

Like that's the best beer companies. I, I am. I like all kinds of beer. And if you want to sponsor us, I'll just like your beer. I like your beer. Yeah, I mean, I don't dislike it. I'm just not a connoisseur of beer. Connoisseur of beer. I will like your beer. New Glarus. Come on. They don't really do much business outside of Wisconsin, so I don't know. I don't know that our show is the target audience for them, but yeah, your companies. Come on. We are ready. You can buy my love. I promise. Everybody. Great show coming Friday. Clark Brooks from On3 joins us.

He's got his list of the top 100 returning impact players in college football. We do a little breakdown of some of the more controversial choices and what it means for some of the teams that have a lot of these guys on them. Talk about it tomorrow.