Andy & Ari On3 - Can any second-year transfer QB make the Burrow-Daniels leap? | Nico Iamaleava is READY

Episode Date: August 1, 2024

It’s a Dear Andy show. Andy answers your questions, but first…(0:00-4:33) Introduction(4:34-23:39) Nico Iamaleava speaks at Tennessee(23:40-29:06) "We're in LA!" - DeShaun Foster(29:07-33:48) Former Head Coaches joining TCU's Staff(33:49-38:58) Transfer QBs making a Jump in Year 2, Kyron Drones(38:59-41:32) Shedeur Sanders at Colorado(41:33-44:57) Haynes King at Georgia Tech(44:58-46:50) Graham Mertz at Florida(46:51-48:25) Payton Thorne at Auburn(48:26-49:52) Alan Bowman at Oklahoma State(49:53-51:22) Cade McNamara at Iowa(51:23-55:30) Kalen DeBoer still at Alabama if Washington won Championship?(55:31-1:00:28) The Effect of 105 Scholarships(1:00:29-1:03:03) Iowa Averaging... 24 points a game?(1:03:04-1:12:19) The Future of the ACC(1:12:20-1:14:27) CFP Scenarios(1:14:28-1:15:17) Conclusion - have more questions? Send them to [e-mail] quarterback Nico Iamaleava spoke ahead of camp opening, and Andy breaks down the utterances of a QB that has been generating buzz since before he committed. Now, Nico is QB1 and headed into his first season as a starter.UCLA coach DeShaun Foster froze during his opening statement at Big Ten media days, and he’s now turned the best line of that opening statement into a T-shirt that doubles as a recruiting tool.TCU has added two former head coaches to its staff.Now it’s time for Dear Andy, and you have some great questions.What second-year transfer quarterback might make a Joe Burrow-Jayden Daniels leap?What would Kalen DeBoer have done if Washington had won the national title?What happens if Iowa’s offense is… average to above-average?Host: Andy StaplesProducer: River Bailey

Welcome to Andy Staples on three. Happy August. That's right. It's August. We made it to the month where we get actual college football games. Week zero coming right up three weeks from Saturday. It's so exciting. So exciting.

The folks in the chat, they're having a good morning. Christopher Jordan about to cook some bacon. That's how you start the morning. That is how you start the morning. We got a Dear Andy show for you. Great questions from you. By the way, today also the return of the written Dear Andy column. There'll be some of the questions that I answer in both formats. Some of the questions that I only answer here, some that I only answer in the written Dear Andy column. There'll be some of the questions that I answer in both formats. Some of the questions that I only answer here, some that I only answer in the written version. So I'm just trying to keep you on your toes.

No, I understand that you guys like to watch these things on video, like to hear them in podcast form. There are other folks who want the written version, but there may be a time when you can't get to the video. You're in a pinch and you need the written version. Plus there will be a random ranking every week in the written version. So on3.com is where to find that. Got some exciting stuff happening on the on3 YouTube channel today, by the way.

So JD Piquel is going to release his playoff picks, his national championship prediction. That's on the hard count. That's at 11 o'clock Eastern time right here on the on three sports channel. So, uh, yell at JD and not me. Cause I've already released my playoff picks. I don't know how similar we are. He says he's got five SEC teams in two. That's what I had. I'm hoping they're not the same five or people are going to think we're colluding because we're definitely not. We're definitely coming at this from a different angle. And I, yeah, I very curious to see what JD comes up with, but yes, yell at JD today. Don't yell at me. I'll come back probably next week

with some stuff you can yell at me for. But this time, we're pushing all of the heat onto JD. And that's okay. He can take it. He's got that beautiful blonde hair. And we're going to have some fun with his picks, I think, too. We may have to have him on next week. And we can argue. we can argue about these

we're in the middle of retraining our brains anyway because going on dan patrick later today and they always ask you you know send a couple notes about the stuff you've been working on uh send some recent work uh so dan can get get get the lay of the land and figure it out. And I'm thinking, oh, man, I wonder how much college football they've taught. Because I haven't listened every day to them. But there's been so much going on with the Olympics and the NFL. And I don't know that they've talked a lot of college football. This, this may be an opportunity to help everybody retrain their brains. Now you guys have been

great helping me retrain my brain. Hopefully I've helped you retrain your brains because this is going to be a wild, wild season. We got all kinds of stuff coming up. So we're talking to Cody Blair, our national scout from on three about the most impactful transfers. That's going to be the show tomorrow. So we've talked about first year coaches this week. We're talking about second year coaches. We're talking about most impactful transfers today in dear Andy. We're going to talk about second year transfer quarterbacks. And I realized we're going to talk about second year transfer quarterbacks. And I realize we're going to keep putting these people in categories and buckets, but they're very interesting categories.

The second year transfer quarterback thing is wild. When you think about the fact that the top three Heisman vote getters last year were second year transfer quarterbacks. Jayden Daniels, Michael Penix Jr., Bo Nix. And then Dylan Gabriel, who put up great numbers at Oklahoma, also was a second-year transfer quarterback. Now he doesn't get to be a third-year transfer quarterback because he's transferred again, and he's at Oregon replacing Bo Nix, who was a second-year transfer quarterback.

Everybody got all that? That's what we're in right now. That is what we're dealing with. It is a very fluid situation in college football. One situation that seems very much set in stone, Nico Iamaliaba is the new starting quarterback at Tennessee. I don't remember this much buzz around a Tennessee starting quarterback at Tennessee. I don't remember this much buzz around a Tennessee starting quarterback since a certain freshman took over during the 1994 season. Now,

Peyton Manning's situation was a little bit different because he actually didn't start that season. I believe it was Brandon Stewart who started that season. Todd Helton was also on that team. Yes, the Baseball Hall of Famer, Todd. Todd Helton was also on that team. Yes, the Baseball Hall of Famer, Todd Helton, was a quarterback on that team. That's the most excited the Tennessee folks have been about a quarterback until Nico. And Nico is such an interesting story because kind of the first big NIL deal, you know, when I was at the athletic, we reported on, on the contract that Nico got at Tennessee or with Tennessee's collective. And it was the first, first time you saw a collective step up at a school that had not been getting a certain kind

of recruit where they made a big deal to make sure they got that certain kind of recruit. And so there's been all this pressure on him from that standpoint. I think Tennessee's tried pretty, pretty hard to protect him. You haven't heard a lot of public comments from Nico. There doesn't do a ton of interviews. So we're going to play some clips because he did a press conference before they started camp. They started camp yesterday. He talked on Tuesday and this is a guy we've been waiting to hear from. We've been waiting to see what he is as the starter. Now, remember he did start the bowl game against Iowa last year and was very good in that game against a very good defense, but Iowa's offense was basically non-functional. So it's a little bit hard to tell

exactly how well he did because as good as Iowa's defense was, remember Cooper Jean was hurt. And also they just kept getting put in horrific positions by the offense, but Nico was efficient in that game. He didn't light the world on fire with his passing numbers. Ran when he needed to run. Scored touchdowns on the ground. Can he be the difference maker for Tennessee this year? I'm seeing the tweets at a Patriots camp, and they are very funny. Now, look, Drake May is going to wind up the starter in New England. Joe Milton is trying to make the team.

Let's be real here. Joe Milton is just trying to make the team. But you're getting tweets from NFL reporters that are like, look at what Joe Milton's doing. He's showing just as much as Drake May in camp. Guys, we know how this story ends. Just ask the folks who follow college football how this story ends. Just ask the folks who who follow college football how this story ends. We know. We know. Steve Wilson in the chat correcting me. Jimmy, Jerry Colquitt, the starter against UCLA, I believe in 1994 for Tennessee. Then Todd, then Peyton. That's right. My bad. Brandon Stewart ended up going to Texas A&M, if I'm not mistaken, but he was also in the mix there. So with Nico, it's an interesting question. We got a deer ante question last week

about if Caden Salter had not gotten dismissed at Tennessee, would he have been Tennessee starting quarterback last year? And I don't think that's what would have happened. Caden Salter ended up going to Liberty. He's very good there. He was great in Jamie Chadwell's offense in his first year. I expect big things out of him this year, but I don't think that would happen. I think Nico's arrival might've chased him off anyway, even if he hadn't been dismissed, Nico clearly was the future for Tennessee, but this is a case where you've got a class of 2023 quarterback who's ready to ascend. And we were seeing this in a couple places obviously Oklahoma with Jackson Arnold Kansas State with Avery Johnson those are getting probably as much buzz as this one because their

quarterbacks went to national title contenders like Dylan Gabriel is now starting at Oregon Will Howard's now starting at Ohio State those two might wind up facing off for the Big Ten title might wind up in the playoff because their old school was more excited about a young 2023 QB. Tennessee is a little bit different story because Joe Milton had exhausted his eligibility. But Nico's the guy that they've all been waiting for at Tennessee. And came out of the box with some interesting takes. Like, he likes playing on the road even better than playing at home. What are your thoughts on road games, interstate games?

Do you enjoy going into somebody else's house versus, you know, being at home? I definitely love road games more than home games. I don't want to upset, you know, our Neyland fans. I love playing in Neyland Stadium, but I feel like away games, I just feel like all the odds are against you. It gives you a little more that feeling that you get. You could say focus. I think there's plenty of other words that you can use.

But going on the road is something I've always loved to do since a young age. So how excited are you for Oklahoma then to open half the play? Yeah, I'm excited. Yes, ma'am, I'm excited. Good news, Nico. You get to play at Oklahoma this year in Oklahoma's first SDC game. And you get to play at Georgia. So you're going to get your wish.

But I like that answer. I like that answer. I like the idea of the dude who wants to play at Georgia. So you're going to get your wish. But I like that answer. I like that answer. I like the idea of the dude who wants to quiet the crowd. It's great when your home fans are behind you. But I heard John Elway talking about this too, where he was on Pardon My Take, and he was talking about how it was actually more fun for him in his career to get the crowd quieted down,

to hear the the energy get sucked out of a stadium when you're on the road that Tennessee Oklahoma game is going to be bananas by the way bananas it is Josh Heupel returning to tennis or to Oklahoma where he obviously played led them to a national title, was the offensive coordinator for a while and then got fired by Bob Stoops, who then hired Lincoln Riley. Josh Heupel ends up going on a vision quest where he discovers some things about what offense he wants to run. He goes to Utah State, then he goes to Missouri, then he becomes the head coach at UCF. I don't know that Josh Heupel is the head coach he is today if he doesn't get

fired at Oklahoma when he does, but that is a major, major storyline. And then you have Nico going into his first true road game, his first true road start at Oklahoma. Holy crap. By the way, good practice for that. Tennessee is playing NC State in Charlotte in week two. That's going to be a great game. That's a good litmus test game for both of those teams because I think NC State could be one of the best teams in the ACC. In Charlotte, I would imagine that's a pretty split crowd. It's an easy drive for the Vols fans and obviously very easy drive for the NC State fans. And a lot of them probably live in Charlotte. So that is going to be a lot of fun, but he's going to kind of get the practice. He's going to get that 50-50 split situation. And then a couple of weeks later, he's going to be off the chain for that first SEC game for Oklahoma.

Now, the Niko question, and this is something that the Tennessee fans have been asking a lot. A lot of bar stools in Tennessee have had people sitting on them asking this question. Should Niko have taken over for Joe Milton at the end of last season you know in the tail end of last season would Tennessee have had a better year had they put Nico in and I think it's an interesting question because if you're Josh Heupel you've got to be careful you have this freshman quarterback you think can be great he's a little bit his frame's a little bit light. And obviously getting thrown in the middle of SEC play is not the easiest thing in the world for a freshman. So do you risk hurting his confidence, not having him in the ideal situation, or do you wait to make him the starter when they did?

And Nico said he always expected it to go this way what's it like you know going from you know a freshman here and learning from Joe and now kind of right away stepping into that leadership role yourself well yeah I think that was always my vision um you know come in early uh learn from a guy like Joe learn from Hendo when you know he was still here during that bro prep and uh yeah man, man, I think it was great for me. And it's really, you know, what I envisioned, you know, sit the first year, soak up as much as I can soak up. And, you know, year two was go time for me.

So that was the plan all along. And it looked like the plan. And I think, you know, Tennessee also probably wanted to reward Joe Milton. Josh Heupel wanted to reward Joe Milton, who was the starting quarterback in 2021, got basically benched for Hendon Hooker, and then Hooker's the guy in all of 2022. And Milton waited his turn, waited patiently. And so it made sense, but last year certainly did feel more like a bridge year to what was next for Tennessee. Guys in the chat also

pointing out after that Oklahoma game, Tennessee's got an open date and then they head to Arkansas, which as Steven Wilson points out, Tennessee always plays on a razor's edge in Fayetteville. Yes. Let's not remind Clint Sterner and company about what happened in 1998 there, because that's about as razors as it got for that Tennessee national title team. But Clint Sterner fumble bailed the balls out of that one. But this is just an interesting situation here. The one thing with Nico, I mentioned the frame. So six foot five, when you saw him in high school, he was pretty skinny. And I've said this over and over again. I was like, remember, this guy's dad is huge. This guy's dad is like six, six, over 300 pounds. I suspect as Nico gets older,

gets into his 20s, that you're going to see him fill out and you could have a pretty big dude playing quarterback by the end of all of this. So he got asked about his weight going into this season and it is definitely up probably about 20 pounds from when he arrived on campus. You guys are at 215 now. Is that pretty accurate? Yeah, pretty accurate. I'm around that range, 213, 214. Still trying to be more consistent with getting up to 220.

But, yeah, that's somewhere I'm at right now. Has it been a hard process to put on and maintain? Yeah, I'd say for me, definitely, I burned a lot of calories easy when I first got here. You know, I was pretty light my senior year. So being able to put on, you know, as much weight as I can this offseason, you know, I've gotten great help with our nutrition staff, our strength program. So, yeah, they've been helping me out pretty well. What have the nutrition plans made?

Yeah, more meals. Yeah, yeah, yeah, more meals um showing up to breakfast more breakfast for me i think breakfast meals are you know the hardest for me um but yeah getting getting breakfast in for me and you know all four meals throughout the day what's been your breakfast go-to now you develop one breakfast uh yeah i've been sticking with the french toast eggs and you know sausage uh that's pretty much what i've been sticking with. French toast may be the most popular dish in Knoxville if this season goes well. You go to Scramble Jake's, great brunch place in Knoxville. I guarantee they're going to have a French toast special

if Nico just takes off and leads his team to the playoff. That's the thing. When you watch him play against Iowa, he was very judicious when he chose to run the ball I don't think he was putting himself in harm's way necessarily but he he does run the ball when he needs to run the ball I Dan Dan Mullen who used to coach in Florida used to call it a willing runner and that's what you want in your quarterback and that's a big difference between Nico and Joe Milton, where Joe Milton didn't necessarily make the best decisions or didn't have the natural instincts in that read option game like Hennon Hooker did. Hennon Hooker had great instincts in the read option game. We'll see if Nico can get to that point, but that was very helpful. And remember, Tennessee ran the ball really well last year. Jalen Wright

was awesome. So, you know, Dylan Sampson, possibly with Nico, that read option mesh, if Nico's making the right choices, he reads that unblocked defender. You're going to see him take off a few times. Is he big enough to handle it at two 15? You know, maybe that's still, that's still not a huge frame. Like I would imagine that at some point, uh, Nico is a senior in college. If he, if he stayed four years in college or if he winds up going to the NFL and he's been in the NFL a couple of years, you're probably dealing with like a six'5", 235-pound quarterback, which that's a very scary running threat. Right now, we'll see where he's at, but at 215,

a lot better than, say, 195, and that probably factors into the decisions we were talking about earlier. Like, do you do this? Do you not do this with Josh Heupel and Joe Milton now, probably big enough to hold up, but you got to be careful still, because think about some of the monsters they're going to be playing against. They got some dudes on that roster that you make the wrong pull and you keep, and you get splattered. It's a very different season. So Nico will have to be careful about that, but I am, I am intrigued by what he can do in the quarterback run game and how that sort of opens some things up in the pass game. And, of course, like every other question

or every other person we've talked to in the past month, he got asked about the video game. Dynasty, shoot. I haven't even loaded up Dynasty yet. I've been on the road to the college football playoffs. I've been playing a couple seasons, got a couple natties under my belt. I think Dynasty I might go with, when I do make one, I might be Samp. I don't know, D-Samp, he got a little wiggly out the backfield.

But yeah, I haven't loaded up Dynasty yet. Since we're on that topic, got your name pronunciation slightly wrong. Yeah. Trying to make some calls to EA. Yeah, shoot, man. I feel like they've watched a couple game copies. I mean, shoot, our announcers kind of messed it up, too. So, I mean, I can't blame them, but yeah, we'll hopefully get it right after I play

a couple games this year. All right, Tennessee fans, that answer should make you very happy because here's how little Nico's been playing the video game. He's mixing up Dynasty Mode with Road to Glory Mode. He got asked about Road to Glory, not Dynasty Mode. And he's like, I'll use Dylan Sampson in Dynasty Mode. No, that's Road to Glory. That's a good sign. That means your QB hadn't been playing video games for the past three weeks straight.

Like, I don't know. Everybody else I know, including my own son who doesn't let me play most of the time. Because he's busy like beating random dudes with South Carolina. So, I just, I need to, I need to see this, but I'm, I like the answers. I like the answers from Nico. And yes, the pronunciation thing, Iyamaliaba, Iyamaliaba, Iyamaliaba, Iyamaliaba, Iyamaliaba. Hold on one more time. Iyamaliaba. For anybody else who needs to hear it, Iyam Ali Ava. It's just, we're going to have to know that name. I feel like that is a team we got to know, or a name we got to know in college

football. Just like we've needed to know Uwe Ungerle for the last few years, not just for DJ, who's going to be the starting quarterback at Florida State, but also his brother Mateo, probably going to be a very good edge rusher for Oregon. So Uyungle Iyamaliaba, Uyungle Iyamaliaba. That also may be a matchup in the playoff, if all goes well for Tennessee and Florida State. Can you imagine? Can you imagine?

Okay, we just heard Nico talk about his love for road games. Just imagine in December in Tallahassee, Dope Campbell Stadium, the marching chiefs blasting out the war chant, everyone shopping, and Nico comes out of the visitor's tunnel. Iyamaliyala versus Ue angela who knows it might happen it also be a rematch of the uh the 1998 national championship game in the fiesta bowl which unfortunately did not feature future heisman trophy winner chris winky uh that That was Marcus Rooster-Outzen starting for Florida State against T. Martin and company and the Vols. And that is your Andy's old segment for today. But I just, I'm fascinated by Nico. He's been under all this pressure. There's a lot of people who look at him

and say, oh, giant NIL deal, not ready for it. It's just too much too soon. I just remember going to see him when he was still in high school. He was visiting Knoxville, getting just mobbed. This is right after he committed. And I thought to myself, just watching him handle all that, if there's a person who can deal with this part of it. He seems like he's wired to deal with it. And we'll see, because it's different when you become the starter. But he does seem wired for it. And watching him talk, take questions, give fairly expansive expansive answers. I'm really, really excited to see what he could be. You know, this is kind of the poster child of the NIL era, and we've not really seen him but for the one bowl game. So we'll find out. But elsewhere in the world of college football. Now, last week, we were in Indianapolis for Big Ten

media days. Deshaun Foster, the UCLA coach, had the moment on stage where it looked like he froze. Now, what kind of happened, because he didn't really have an opening statement. He had an opening statement, but he kind of froze on it. And then he was looking over at the moderator like, hey, are you going to ask if anybody has any questions? And the moderator just sat there and it just bled out into a very uncomfortable pause. But the best line of the opening statement was, we're in LA. like we know that but actually when you think about it as a recruiting pitch for ucla excellent school excellent athletic history amazing amount of stars that have come through that athletic program like program like we're in la is like the simplest but most effective recruiting pitch for ucla you might even say like we're in westwood you could live next to beverly hills basically

and so the sean foster instead of letting that moment take him under, it went viral. It was bad. It was embarrassing. You saw him on the show. Like, he's great when you're just talking to him one-on-one. But instead of letting that become a thing, he took ownership. They made the shirts. Who doesn't want a weird're in LA UCLA shirt?

Like those should sell like hotcakes. It's beautiful. You got the state of California in outline and then the UCLA logo right there in Westwood. And it says we're in LA. It is a tremendous, tremendous way to take ownership of that moment that could have been so bad. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. That makes me more excited for Deshaun Foster's tenure.

Look, there's a strange transfer of power. We don't know how that's going to go. Chip Kelly left that job for a coordinator job in the same league. And if you were following the show at the end of last season, you know there was a lot of weird stuff around the UCLA job. It looked like Chip Kelly might get fired for a minute. Then all of a sudden, everything calmed down. But then it was clear he was looking for NFL coordinator jobs and he wanted out. So I think it was a case where he probably had figured

out, all right, they may not either want to fire me right now, or they may not have the money to fire me right now, but they're going to fire me after next season. I don't like doing a lot of this stuff that the head coach has to do in today's college football. Chip Kelly definitely did not like doing a lot of the head coach stuff. So I'm going to go coach ball somewhere. And when the NFL coordinator jobs got filled, luckily for, for Chip Kelly, the Ohio state coordinator job opened because Bill O'Brien got the head coaching job at Boston College because Jeff Halfley took the defensive coordinator job with the Green Bay Packers.

And I think it's going to work out great for Chip Kelly. I think it's going to work out great for Ohio State. We'll see what happens with UCLA because Deshaun Foster got thrown into a weird situation. He's been at UCLA for the past 10 years. He was actually going to be the running backs coach for the Raiders this year. He had left and now he's back as the head coach at his alma mater. I think this is going to take some time. I think it's going to take him reestablishing their recruiting roots in Southern California, going after those really good players in Southern California, which after those really good players in Southern California, which is what UCLA did when Jim Moore Jr. was the head coach. And they had good years

doing that. Chip Kelly did not want to recruit like that. It's a big reason why he didn't take the Florida job when he was offered both of those jobs, Florida and UCLA at the same time. Like UCLA was probably a better personality fit for him because you don't have to recruit in the SEC. But if you're going to the Big Ten, you're going to have to recruit really well. It's not that different. So I think this will work out better for Chip Kelly. But for Deshaun Foster, it's going to be about, can you get those guys to look at UCLA? Can you get them to think about UCLA in the context of these other big 10 powerhouses? Like, you know, look, Oregon is the hot program on the West coast. If Oregon goes into LA and offer somebody, Oregon probably instantly becomes the favorite over USC as well. So you've got to

find a way to tell those guys, hey, you can stay close to home and succeed. And oh, by the way, don't go to that one close to home, go to this one close to home. So Sean Foster has his work cut out for him, but I do appreciate the ownership of the viral moment. One more thing, just a little added brain power in Fort Worth, TCU adding two former head coaches to the staff. Todd Graham, longtime head coach, Tulsa, Pittsburgh, Hawaii, and Dana Holgerson, former West Virginia head coach, former Houston head coach. Now, Dana Holgerson's chief of staff, Ryan Dorchester, has been working at TCU. He's great, one of the best in his job in the country. So it makes sense that Sonny Dyches goes, you know what? There's a chance I could have some accumulated wisdom here.

Guy who's coached a bunch, guy who knows my league, knows the opponents, guy I worked with before at Texas Tech. I think they can have some fun together. TCU is a fascinating one. Doesn't it feel like a million years ago that TCU played for the national title? That was like, I'm bad at math, but it was basically like 21 months ago. 21 months ago. Steven in the chat says, don't forget when Todd Graham had Arizona State in the top 10. Oh, please, Steven. How could I forget Todd Graham's Britney Spears headset at Arizona State? That was the highlight of his tenure.

But Sonny Dykes taking on the accumulated wisdom of a couple head coaches, I think TCU could have a little bounce back this year. I'm not necessarily saying they're going to win the Big 12. I'm not saying that they are going to go to the playoff and go to the national title game again, but there's a solid chance that TCU has a bounce back this season. Last year was weird. They lost so much. And when you think about that, a program like TCU losing as much to the NFL as it did after that national title game run, it's very hard to bounce back from that. That's a lot of leadership, a lot of just, you know, star power that, yeah, if you're Georgia, if you're Alabama, if you're Ohio State, you replace something like that every year. TCU doesn't have to do that every year. TCU typically, you know, you had Gary Patterson forever and he was kind of building, building, building. He would go find guys that maybe didn't necessarily fit the profile and then turn them into something else. I think Tyler

Guyton, probably the most recent Gary Patterson success story where Tyler Guyton was at Oklahoma after transferring from TCU, but he was kind of a tweener defensive lineman out of high school winds up becoming a first round offensive tackle. And that was another case of Gary Patterson IDing somebody's athletic traits where, okay, this is somebody who given time with these traits can be something special. And that's what happened. So that, but that is done now. I mean, basically the Gary Patterson players have run through and now it's Sonny Dykes program and it's his job to make sure they get back to where they were. Again, you don't have to make the national title

game again, but that TCU was a consistently good program under Gary Patterson. You got to stay consistent. You got to stay consistent. So we will find out with TCU. I think they've got to, as big 12 schedules go, it's very hard to predict because everybody's kind of even there. But I think they have a fairly manageable one. They've got SMU in the Iron Skillet game. They beat them last year in the Iron Skillet game. Then SMU went on to win the American. Now they'll be playing an ACC team in SMU in that crosstown rivalry.

But this will be a very interesting year. They're at Utah. They get Oklahoma State and Arizona at home. But don't be shocked if the Frogs do play a role in the Big 12 race, either because they're in it or, again, they have Oklahoma State and Arizona late in the season because they are beating somebody and affecting that race. A Big 12 situation is going to be wild because I'm telling you, there's like 10 teams that you feel pretty confident that if things go right for them, they can win this thing. It's going to be good. It's going to be fun to watch. All right. You know what my fun is? The most fun I have all week, and that's Dear Andy. Your questions, and you guys sent some doozies this week. I love them. This first one from Travis in Houston is just a great thought starter and gets you thinking, oh, uh, this first one from Travis in Houston is just a great thought starter and gets you,

gets you thinking, Oh, wait, we look at these Heisman predictions. We look at who's, who's going to, who's going to have a big year. And it's like, we don't know anything. Now I think Jaden Daniels, I think folks understood that he was going to take a leap from year one to year two starting in lsu's offense i don't know that like joe burrow in 2019 i don't know that that was as big of a an expectation i think those of us who talked to folks at lsu like knew that we knew that the joe brady influence on the offense was going to make it better. I don't think anybody in their wildest dreams thought they would be as dominant as they were. So that jump is what Travis is asking about.

He says, in the past, we've seen transfer QBs make big jumps in their second season as a starter. Not asking for a Jaden Daniels-level leap, but do you see any QBs under the radar poised to lead their teams to jump in the win column? And Travis says his pick is Kyron Drones at Virginia Tech, which I think is a great choice. Because remember, I went to ACC spring meetings and everybody told me, watch out for Virginia Tech. Coaches, media who cover the league really closely. Everybody says, watch out for these guys. This could be a nine or nine or 10 win team this year. This is a team that could potentially insert itself into the ACC title race. And Kyron Jones is a big reason behind that. And I remember

seeing Kyron drones at a Baylor practice when he was younger and thinking this dude, this dude's got some, some arm talent. We know he's a good athlete. And I think with the Virginia Tech last year, you know, Brent Pry, he kind of figured some stuff out in terms of what he wants this team to be as the season went on. Tyler Bowen, their offensive coordinator, remember was a first-time play caller the season before, was working with Kyron Jones for the first time last season. It seemed like about midway through the season, they found their groove together. Now, Kyron Jones for the first time last season. It seemed like about midway

through the season, they found their groove together. Now, Kyron Jones needs to be more efficient because he had games where he was remarkably efficient and games where you're averaging like 3.4 yards per attempt, which you cannot have. So it needs to be more consistent, more efficient. But I think with a whole off season where everybody kind of understands, here's what the offense is. Here's what Kyron does. Well, I think he could definitely be one of those guys, but I made a list. There's a lot of guys who fit this category. And like I said, earlier in the show, remember the top three Heisman vote getters last year were second year transfer quarterbacks. It's become, I don't know if it's the surest thing in college football, but let's let,

we can break down the why of it. I think because a lot of times a guy will transfer with eligibility remaining quarterback. He doesn't win the job. He transfers somewhere else. Okay. We usually don't hear from those people again, but usually when they win the job, he transfers somewhere else. Okay, we usually don't hear from those people again. But usually when they win the job and become beloved, like I'm thinking Hendon Hooker here,

who, by the way, didn't initially win the job at Tennessee, but was clearly the starter going into 2022. When they get that spot, they're not giving it up. They're old at that point, For the most part, they're, they're usually like a fourth year player by that point. So there's some leadership qualities that they've developed. They tend to appreciate where they are because they've been at a place where they weren't happy or where things weren't working out for them. Like it's a good situation to be that second year transfer starting quarterback. It means you found your spot. It means you landed in the right place. And, you

know, I look at this list of guys and you see some people who like, we're going to talk about Haynes King at Georgia tech and Graham Mertz at Florida. Those were guys who their first stop, it did not work out very well. They left, and the fan bases at those places are like, man, they just weren't as good as their recruiting hype suggested. And then both of them get to a new place and you see, oh, they are pretty good. Maybe it was just a bad fit. But this list is pretty interesting. I'll start with the guy who obviously has the highest draft hype right now the one who gets talked about the most probably and it's it's interesting because I'm not sure most people would put him on this list because he was following a coach

to where he went it's sort of like the Caleb Williams situation where he followed Lincoln Riley to USC so that when he was the first year starter at USC, it wasn't like being a first year starter. It was like being a second year starter in Lincoln Riley's offense, which is what he was. And he won the Heisman that year. But in this particular case, Shador Sanders definitely does belong on this list. Yes, he followed the coach, his dad, from Jackson State to Colorado, but Deion Sanders doesn't call offensive plays and they didn't run the same offense at Colorado that they ran at Jackson State. They hired Sean Lewis,

who'd been the head coach at Kent State, who runs the Viren shoot that came out of Baylor, that Tennessee runs now, that Ole Miss runs now, that Jeff Levy's going to run at Mississippi State. They ran that offense. And then Deion panicked late in the season, demoted Sean Lewis, who went on to become head coach at San Diego State this offseason. And Deion installed Pat Shermer, who called their offense for the rest of the year.

But then this offseason has revamped that offense into something that is closer to what he would like to run. And Pat Shermer, former NFL offensive coordinator. So it's going to look really different at Colorado this year. So Shadur was very accurate last year. He completed 69.3% of his passes. What can he do better? He can be more efficient. You know, he averaged seven and a half yards in attempt. The best quarterbacks in college football tend

to average over nine. And, you know, like Jaden Daniels last year averaged 11.7. Bo Nix, whoever he said was in a dink and dunk offense, he averaged 9.6 yards every time he threw the ball. You'll take that all day. So Shador needs to get more efficient. Now, part of the reason why he wasn't efficient is out of his control and needs to be fixed. We will find out. They've worked in the transfer portal to hopefully fix it, but Colorado gave up 56 sacks last year. You got to cut that number by about 25 to get down to the national average. So this is the guy who was just getting blasted on a lot of plays last year. He's got to get rid of the ball. That's one part of it, but his offensive line needs to do a better job. If they do, I think you're going to see those efficiency numbers rise and you could see a big year out of Shador Sanders.

You know, he's got talent on the outside. He's got Travis Hunter playing receiver, also corner. He's got Horn. He's got players he can throw to. So this will be this will be really interesting to watch because that offensive line is better. He could be one of the best quarterbacks in the country. Another guy just mentioned who basically reinvented himself, Haynes King at Georgia Tech. So Haynes King was a top 10 quarterback recruit in the class of 2020. Everybody at A&M just raved about his athletic ability, but he gets in, you know, gets in for Texas A&M and never really puts it all together.

I will go back to something Aaron Murray told me, the former Georgia quarterback, about what Jimbo Fisher required of his quarterbacks. It's something Aaron said. This was years before Jimbo got fired, but it always stuck with me, and I couldn't unsee it when I was watching Texas A&M games. Jimbo wanted his quarterbacks kind of holding the ball up by their ear when they were moving around in the pocket. And it's a very robotic kind of motion. It's something that the quarterbacks used to have to do in the nineties, in the early two thousands. But as the game evolved, as defensive linemen got faster as quarterbacks ran more as part of the offense

you saw that that that changed the ball security still matters and being in a good position to throw still matters but the way quarterbacks got taught changed to allow them to move a little more naturally well haynes king goes to georgia tech where he's working with chris winky who won the heisman trophy at florida state and b Faulkner, who's the offensive coordinator there. And it looks like they kind of let him be the athlete he is there. And that's important because it's why he looked like a different player last year than he looked like at Texas A&M. to say an M now King's rushing numbers make it where he doesn't have to just blow it out in the passing game. He ran for 737 yards. He has 6.1 per carry average. And remember they back out sacks from your, your per carry average in college. So he was, he was gaining a lot of yards when he ran

the ball. He had 10 rushing touchdowns. So he's right there with Shador Sanders in the average per attempt in the passing game. So he's at 7.7. If he can pop that up to like eight and a half, nine, with the same running ability, you're talking about a guy who's in the Heisman race. You're talking about a guy who's going to put up crazy numbers. Now, the one number he's got to change, he had 16 interceptions last year.

He's got to drop that number because you probably need to cut that in half. Single digit interceptions, the goal here. But if you can run the way he runs and get a little bit more efficient in the passing game, stop throwing the ball to the other team, it could be a big year for Haynes King. Now, we discussed Georgia Tech's schedule. It is brutal. Harder schedule in the ACC, plus in the non-conference, they have to play Georgia and they have to play Notre Dame. That said, I'm excited to see Haynes King. I'm excited to see what he can do. We're going to see him in Ireland against Florida State's defense right off the bat. That's a very good defense. The last time

we saw Florida State's defense as its full version, it was shutting Louisville down completely in the ACC title game. Now the names have changed somewhat, but I suspect it's still going to be very, very salty. So Haynes King has his work cut out for him at the beginning of the season. Graham Mertz, another guy I just mentioned, he's at Florida and completed 73% of his passes last year. Graham Mertz was not the problem at Florida last year. Florida's defense was the bigger problem. Mertz was, was excellent.

And you know, it it's telling about how good Mertz was, how much he earned the respect of his teammates, coaches that is excited as everybody is for DJ Lagway. Nobody is saying start DJ Lagway now, except Shannon Crowder, who I think he's saying that for fun more than anything else. But Mertz feels like the guy you want if you're bringing DJ Lagway along. It's sort of the same situation like Nico was talking about earlier,

where he wants to kind of learn and sit for a year and then be ready to roll when he comes in. Mertz would be the guy to learn from. Now, remember Mertz's season last year ended at Missouri when he was dump trucking some dude, trying to get extra yards in a really tight game, broke his collarbone. So this is a guy who is not afraid to put his shoulder down. And if he does, you got to be a little bit careful because then you may have DJ Legway starting. But Mertz, what his job will be, develop new targets. Eugene Wilson III, obviously they're very excited about, they want to make sure he gets touches, but you lost a first rounder in Ricky Pearsall. Got to figure out that second option situation. Maybe it's Elijah Badger, who's another transfer from Arizona State like Ricky Pearsall was.

Also, Arliss Bordingham at tight end. Do you get him more involved? That's what Mertz has got to do. He can't control the floor's defenses any better, but my guess is he's going to be fine. So he's going to have potentially a good year. A guy who, if he makes this leap, his team's going to be... We talked about this yesterday. We talked about this with Philip Dukes, Dukes the Scoop, Peyton Thorne at Auburn. And Dukes thinks that if things go right for Auburn,

you're talking about maybe a nine-win team in Hugh Freeze's second year. That is going to take a big improvement from Peyton Thorne. Now, Peyton Thorne is a very good runner, and then when they utilized that last year, I feel like they were better offensively. But Peyton Thorne also had to deal with a lot of drops from his receivers. They should be better this year. The receiving court Auburn, you add Keiondre Lambert Lambert Smith from Penn State, Cam Coleman, the freshman, everybody's pumped about. I think the situation around Peyton Thorne

has gotten a lot better, which should allow him to make a big jump. Again, we've talked about this a bunch, but Hugh Freeze taking over the offensive play calling from Phillip Montgomery. Hugh Freeze had been the offensive coordinator, the play caller, wherever he'd been, even though he'd been the head coach last year, he gets to Auburn. He says, I want to deal with all the CEO stuff. I would like somebody else to run the offense. He hires Philip Montgomery halfway through the

season. Hugh Freeze is like, what have I done? I much more comfortable running my own offense. So I think Peyton Thorne could be better just because of all that stuff around him. So if he makes a jump, expect Auburn to make a jump. I got two more that you may not have thought about. One, because he's so freaking old. It's amazing that he's still in college. I actually think he could be in college next year too. Alan Bowman at Oklahoma State.

Alan Bowman, as a freshman, was the starting quarterback at Texas Tech for Coach Cliff Kingsbury. Who has since been the Arizona Cardinals head coach. A USC analyst and is now the Washington Commanders offensive coordinator. Alan Bowman played for him. Then he was at Michigan. He wins the job at Oklahoma State last year. Oklahoma State doesn't figure out really what it is offensively until they get Ollie Gordon going in like game four.

So now they know exactly what they are. They've got this old offensive line. Bowman's got to be more efficient. He only averaged 6.9 yards per attempt his touchdown interception ratio is 15 to 14 like we said with haynes king that's got to get better but if you know what you're doing if you know what you're up to i think that helps. They understand what their offense is. Ollie Gordon is going to be the cornerstone of that offense. Alan Bowman needs to win the boxes heavy, be able to just complete passes.

Hope for one-on-one stuff. Let the receivers work. If Alan Bowman makes a jump, you may be talking about the Big 12 champs at Oklahoma State. We now move to the Big 10. And this is another, I don't know, this guy, it's hard because all these other guys had basically a full season as the starter. This guy is not because he got hurt in camp.

He was slow. He wasn't really himself when he was playing. And then he tore his ACL in game five. That's Cade McNamara at Iowa. Remember, Cade McNamara was the starting quarterback for Michigan when they won the Big Ten in 2022. Took him to the playoff. Now, J.J. McCarthy took over for him last year and wound up becoming a first-rounder. But Cade McNamara is an effective quarterback, has proven to be

an effective quarterback in the Big Ten. So let's just imagine you get a fully healthy Cade McNamara, new offensive coordinator in Tim Lester. Luke Lachey is back healthy, your biggest weapon at tight end. Your offensive line's a little bit better. You see where I'm going with this? We may not be making the Iowa offense jokes. We might have to stop. For Cade McNamara's sake, I hope that's what happens. I think that would be quite a story for him to come roaring back from injury and be the guy who turns Iowa's offense around. We'll see what happens. But if that happens, well, we got another question later in Dear Andy,

and we'll talk about what might happen. But now we got one from Cody. Is Kalen DeBoer Alabama's head coach if Washington wins the national championship back in January? This is a great question. Like in this era of college football, if you get offered the Alabama job, can you turn it down even Even if you're the defending national champ. Now, that Washington team was about to lose a lot. Not as much as it ultimately wound up losing because a lot of the guys followed Kalen DeBoer. But that Washington team was about to lose 10 guys to the draft.

That's a big loss. So if you were Kalen to bore sitting in that situation, would you have taken the Alabama job where it's more likely that you can keep the talent level similar, where if you lose 10 guys to the draft, you just have people who can replace them where Washington, you can't necessarily replace them at that level year after year after year. I still think he would have taken it,

but it is a strange question to think about, especially in the light of the fact that the guy who did win the national title did leave, you know, Jim Harbaugh did leave, but extenuating circumstances there. You got the multiple NCAA investigations. Clearly, they were going after Harbaugh. Clearly, for Harbaugh, there's an itch that he still wanted to scratch where he got to a Super Bowl as an NFL head coach, lost it.

Let's be real. Harbaugh at the 49ers was a really good NFL head coach. You'd think if he has a quarterback, there's a good chance that he can get back to conference championship games, get back to the Super Bowl. So all of that made sense, but it's just, it's rare. We just don't see it. Like there's a chance that it might not have mattered who won that game. Both coaches were leaving leaving anyway which is just crazy because you think about we hadn't seen anything like that since Howard Schnellenberger left Miami after the 1983 national title and the reason he did is he got offered a job by by the USFL where the thought was they

were going to move their Washington team to Miami and Schnellenberg was going to be a part owner of that team. Now that it never ended up happening. He ends up sitting out the 1984 season and goes to coach Louisville in 1985. But I mean, we just haven't seen anything like that. And in other sports, it doesn't happen very often either. Like Phil Jackson left the Bulls after 1998, but everybody knew everything was going to be different after that. Michael Jordan had retired. They were going to break up the team. If you watched the last dance, they knew a year out that they were going to break up that team. So the Phil Jackson thing made sense. Also, everybody knew there was a lockout looming in the NBA. So he ended up sitting out the lockout shortened year,

and then he goes to the Lakers the following year. All of those made sense. The DeBoer choice, had he won the national title, would have been your more standard, like, here's just another job that you might think is better, but wait, you just won the national title. It would have been so weird. So, so strange.

Ferris in the chat says, Jim Harbaugh also got an 18 million plus a year control of an NFL team and a franchise QB. 99 out of 100 college coaches would take that job if offered. Chip Kelly wouldn't. I actually think Chip Kelly would. I think 100 out of 100 would have taken that job if offered. But I also think Jim Harbaugh would have taken another NFL job if offered

if the Chargers thing hadn't worked out because it was about to get a little hairy at Michigan. He could have stayed, and Michigan would have fought for him against the NCAA. But this is just easier. Plus, again, Jim Harbaugh, really good NFL coach, probably does want to scratch that itch. All right. Next question from Wiley E. Dogg. With the scholarship limit going up to 105, any thoughts on how teams will make that jump in one year? If even 40 teams do, is that 800 players,

more high school recruits converting existing walk-ons, even more transfer movement. So before I answer this question, let's issue a caveat. So the 105 roster limit, which is the new scholarship limit, according to the House versus the NCAA settlement, which would start for the 2025 season. Let's not assume that the house settlement is going to just sail through and be approved as currently written. We should not assume that there's a, there's a case involving the UFC right now where the judges kick back the settlement. Uh, Houston Christian continues to fight the house settlement. You just found out that the attorneys general in Montana and South Dakota have issues with the house settlement because they've got FCS teams in their, in their States that feel like they are being unfairly forced to pay more of the freight percentage wise than they should. It's a, it's no guarantee that this thing goes through there's other potential challenges to it too

but let's say it does let's say it does the roster cap changes where you go from having an 85 scholarship limit to a roster cap of 105 where you can fully scholarship everybody or you can issue partial scholarships or you can divvy it up however you want to but you can't go over 105 on your roster so your national title contender teams, they're going to go 105. They're going to fully fund that 105. They're going to scholarship 105 players for the most part. How are they going to do that? They're going to take transfers from your school. They're going to take more high school recruits. And this is a great year to be a high school recruit. Great year to be a high school recruit because you're going to see an opportunity

to go to Ohio State or to Texas or to Georgia where previous years you just would not have been able to do that. They would have said, ah, we think you're pretty good, but no, we're going to let you go to NC State or wherever. So that's what's going to happen at the top and i would imagine most or all of the big 10 in the sec are going to do that like in the acc and the big 12 there's no guarantee that they're going to go 105 full scholarships they may actually do 85 scholarships still and then divvy up the money between you know guy 75 and guy 105 on the roster. Because now you can do partial scholarships like you could as an FCS coach or a coach in what the NCAA calls equivalency sports. Like, so football was a headcount sport, which meant you had to give full scholarships.

Now you don't. So we'll see how they divvy those up, but it'll be really interesting because at first you're going to see the big dogs just hoover up all the talent. That's not going to last forever, but it's going to last a year or two if this all goes through. That's where if you're Joey McGuire at Texas Tech, if you're Gus Malzahn at UCF, you just sort of get ready. You put your catcher's mitt on because in a year or two, another number is going to become very important. Not 105, not 85, 22 is going to become very important. That's how many starting jobs there are on a normal college football team on offense and defense. You got to play if you want to go to the NFL. So if you've got a hundred plus scholarship players

at Alabama, Georgia, Ohio state, Michigan, Penn state, Oregon, they ain't all playing. They ain't all playing. So they will ultimately enter the transfer portal. And that is where your Texas Techs, your UCFs, I mentioned NC State, schools like that can say, we loved you out of high school. We got a place for you. Come play for us. So there's going to be a lot of movement, a lot of movement in the transfer portal. We'll see what happens. This is going to be a fascinating time. Also, if you add scholarships, let's say you go from 85 to 105, the 20 you added come out of your revenue share total of money you can give the players. So actually, you may not even see all the Big Ten and SEC schools fully fund that because they may say we want to just

give hard cash to the best players and make sure we keep them or make sure we get them it's the math and all of this is going to be interesting there's a reason you're seeing schools hire basically capologists because they've got to get this math figured out. Speaking of math, David's going to make me do math. Considering that Iowa averaged 14.7 points per game last year and still won 10 games and they miss all but Ohio State of the quote unquote favorites in the Big Ten this year, how likely is it that they make the playoff if they could average 24 points a game? Oh i'm bad at math by the way because we had the drive of 325 when they needed to average 25 points a game for brian ference to keep his job as the oc i think this would be the drive to 312 would that be right

it doesn't matter the math doesn't matter as we said talking about kate mcnamara earlier if iowa can be average to above average on offense and even average is probably good enough if the defense remains as consistent and let's be honest phil parker's defenses have been very consistent through the years yeah i think you are talking about a team that goes into that Nebraska game at the end of the season playing for a playoff berth. It is, it's going to be crazy

if Iowa has a functional offense. We're not going to know what to do. We're not going to know what to think. I saw somebody in the chat, oh, here, Goat Dog says, stop Iowa offense jokes? That's a tall task. We seriously might have to. What if they drop 30 on Iowa State?

What if they scored 28 against Minnesota and win? We just may have to. That defense is so good. Special teams have been sitting down. Torrey Taylor has got to be replaced. The punt god has to be replaced. But, yeah, if this offense is slightly average, what if it's above average?

You may be talking about a playoff team here. You very, very well may be talking about Ferris in the chat. Iowa's defense coupled with the USC offense could win the Big Ten. They should merge. Great idea. And listen, given all the changes in college sports, this would shock me one bit. If universities of Southern California and Iowa were like,

we merged our football programs. They do defense. Great. We do offense. Great. We can't figure out defense. They can't figure out offense. Let's just put our,

put our heads together and figure this out. Love it. Love the idea of Ferris. Next question from Sam. You make a great point about the ACC eventually settling in their lawsuits with FSU and Clemson because their worst case outcome, disillusion of the grant of rights if they lose in court, is so much worse than Clemson and Florida State's potential outcome, which would be membership in the ACC until 2036, which they're already facing as things stand anyway. But if we assume that a negotiated

exit cost would have to be low enough that over N years, the increased revenue of Big Ten membership would more than pay it off, the same would have to be true of SEC membership. Once the price is set, a path to withdrawal exists in precedent. Why wouldn't North Carolina and Virginia leverage their desirability into ride-along invites for their in-state brethren, leading UNC NC state, Virginia tech and UVA into the sec six of 17 members leaving with drop membership below the point at which ESPN is contractually entitled to renegotiate the rights contract. The new figure without those schools be worse than big 12 money.

Half the remaining schools will reject that and take a raft to the SS your mark. That would be the big 12 or your mark as the commissioner. And then you're at the ACC's worst case outcome anyway. So maybe both sides are locked in a game of chicken that has to go to trial after all. What say you? And Sam says,

got to get these realignment questions in now, because thank God there will be actual football soon. Agreed, Sam. Thank goodness for the actual football. But yes, this is a legitimate question. And here's,

here's the answer to that. The assumption that I keep making with Florida State and Clemson that the ACC eventually has to settle is when you decide to settle, which is not now, they are fighting as hard as they can. They have not taken any loss in court that would require them to say, you know what? We're done. We're going to settle. Anytime you set a price, yes, you open up the possibility of North Carolina also buying its way out. Virginia also buying its way out. Anybody who might have another conference home buying their way out. And North Carolina and Virginia would be very sought after.

The SEC would love to have both of them. The Big Ten would probably love to have both of them. And yes, the other in-state schools might get tethered. You could see, theoretically, the Big Ten going to 20 by adding Florida State and Clemson because they need better football product, and the SEC deciding it wants to expand its footprint to two very heavily populated states that are contiguous with the SEC footprint already by taking those teams. And they could go to 20 as well by adding those four. Now, I think that dilutes the football product. I wouldn't do that. But it is something like

over the years, like you talk to people in the SEC, North Carolina is the one they'd really want. Now, the Big Ten would want North Carolina too. So I think you're right about this, Sam. And that's always been my assumption. If you say here you can buy your way out, then yeah, everybody who can buy their way out is going to buy their way out. So the scenario you described is six. Miami might try to do it too. It could be seven. I am fairly certain the reason the ACC took Cal

Stanford and SMU is to backfill in case they lost Florida State Clemson and UNC. Now, if they think they're going to lose more, they're going to have to backfill more. So maybe they have to search for new members, but that could be done. You can raid the American if you wanted to do that. I said a few months ago on the show, if all this went down, could the ACC and the Big 12 merge? What's left of the ACC and the Big 12 merge and just create this big middle class. That's not what the Big 12 wants. The Big 12, you've heard their behind the scenes saber rattling where they want to try to get Florida State and Clemson. But I keep thinking, unless there is a pile of private equity money that makes that financially right for Florida State and Clemson, I don't think that makes sense. Now, the reason you do this if you're the remaining ACC teams, yes, if you're Boston College, Syracuse, Wake Forest, you're going to fight like hell

to make sure the ACC stays together. You should, that's the smart move. If it comes to the nuclear option and you know, you can't risk going to trial and you decide on a number. The only saving grace there doing it this way, rather than playing chicken in a trial is there will be a large pile of cash to help you soften your landing and figure out what's next and give you some leverage. So let's say six teams left and you set the buyout at $300 million, that's $1.8 billion in cash that everybody who's left is splitting. And I think that probably makes it a little easier to figure out what happens next. Again,

that's not what you want. The ideal scenario for the teams we're talking about or the schools we're talking about for Syracuse, for BC, we'll see what happens in Louis we're talking about for Syracuse for BC we'll see what happens Louisville because I think Louisville would fit fine in new big 12 as well but Georgia Tech Duke the best case scenario for them is the ACC just stays together that they keep Florida State and Clemson but I think we've gone probably too far down the road for that to happen. So what do you do? You just,

you come up with that number, get the highest number you can and deal with a pile of cash. All right. Next question comes from Daniel. I enjoyed your answer last week on whether a team is better off being the two seed rather than the one seed based on potential quarterfinal and semifinal opponents. It led me to think if being the sixth seed is actually a sneaky position from which a team can make a deep run in the college football playoff. As you've mentioned before, the five seed could be the second best team in the country. So it isn't too much of a stretch to think that the six could be the third or fourth best under certain scenarios.

It's very possible a five, six seeds would be two of the SEC and Big Ten championship game losers or Notre Dame. If we expect the group of five auto bid to give you the 12 seed, the six seeds opponent, number 11, will be the last at-large team selected, which figures to be a good team, but not nearly as strong as the other teams playing the first round. Should the six seed beat that 11 with the advantage of a wild home crowd, the reward is a neutral site matchup against the three seed, probably either the ACC or Big Ten champ. Again, a good team, but not nearly as good as the one and two seeds that we expect would be the SEC and Big Ten champs. However, the sixth seed has a slight advantage over the five seed in that there isn't a matchup against the one seed looming in the semifinals. Win that game

and maybe you get a rematch in the semis against the two seed against the team that beat you one month prior in your conference championship game for the right to play in the title game. Please let me know your thoughts. That is a great question, Dan, and way to break that down. Way to break that down. Yeah, six seeds in a good situation too. Here's what I will push back on. The 11 seed versus the 12. The reason I say the five seeds are great is because you get to play the 12 seed. The 12 seed might be the 24th ranked team because it's probably that group of five champ. The 11 seed is probably not going to be that different from the eight or the nine seed. That's a look at last year and the teams that were kind of clumped in that group from eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. They're all pretty similar.

So I don't know that getting the 11 seed is appreciably easier than being the eight and playing the nine. Because you still get a home game. If you're the eight, I don't think that's that different. I think those teams are gonna be very similar. I think the 12 seat is going to be very different than the other teams in the playoff. So that's why I think that the five seat is a lot more advantageous than,

than the six. But yeah, I do think the six has a decent spot, but the thing is like, if you're the six, it means you're going to play probably the two in the semifinals. If you get there, the two of the one are both going to be really good. Like, you're still going to run into a monster at some point. And also, I will say the number three team, whether that's the ACC champ or the Big 12 champ, could be just a really good team.

Let's say a full-strength Florida State from last year. Jordan Travis never got hurt. Let's say you saw that team as the number three. You don't want any part of that team. That team's going to be very tough to beat. Even if you're the second-best team in the SEC of the Big Ten, you're going to struggle playing against that team's going to be very tough to beat. Even if you're the second best team in the SEC, the Big Ten, you're going to struggle playing against that team. Like if you go undefeated through the ACC or the Big 12, you're probably good enough to hang with any of those. So I just don't know that it's going to be. There's no easy path is probably what I'm saying here.

Eventually, you run into some sort of absolute monster. It's coming. And that's the point of this thing, is eventually we want all the good teams to have to play each other. And they're going to play each other more often now. That brings us to Crawford's question. This is the last one for today.

I'm super excited about the upcoming college finals playoffs. Here's a scenario for you. More scenarios. Suppose a team, say Georgia, goes undefeated into the championship game and loses. To make it worse, let's say the victor is a 10-2 Ohio State team with losses to Michigan and a loss in the victory championship game. Will the world end? I sense a little bit of sarcasm, Crawford. Sense some sarcasm there.

No, the world will not end. Yes, we will view the team that wins the championship as the champion, even if they lost earlier. We'll just go. Let's look at another league that has a tournament at the end of the year, like all of them do. Remember when the Patriots went undefeated in the regular season? Are they the, were they the champions of the NFL that year? No, they lost to the Giants. David Tyree, helmet catch, everybody remembers that. Were they the best team in the NFL?

Maybe, but they didn't win when it mattered, so it doesn't matter. We remember the helmet catch. We don't remember Randy Moss, Super Bowl champion, because it didn't happen. So we'll just recognize the champion who wins the championship. And yeah, the world will not end if a two or three loss team wins the national title there will be people who will bemoan it but i won't be one of them because i don't care if you scheduled well so you could be undefeated. I care did you beat the best teams in the highest stakes games. We're going to get the best teams playing each other

in the highest stakes games. Now, as we pointed out earlier, they're deliberately misseated. That's going to be weird. But you're still going to see the best teams running into each other. That's what I want to see. Guys, great questions.

Great questions. Get them in for next week. Get them in early. Andy underscore Staples on X on Instagram. Andy Staples on three at gmail.com. If you have an epic longer than 240 characters question. And tomorrow, Cody Belair on three's National Scout will help us break down the highest impact transfers. We've been trading lists already.

Guys, this is going to be fun because there'll be some players that you knew they transferred. You knew they were in a new place, but maybe you hadn't thought about how they fit in that new place. There's some guys that are going to blow up in their new places.

I can't wait. We'll talk to you tomorrow.