Andy & Ari On3 - Could the Big 12 SELL its name? | More EA Sports College Football 25 Intel

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

Should the Big 12 sell its name? Or should it sell a piece of itself? Or both? Those are the questions Andy and On3’s Pete Nakos discuss after news that the league is considering selling its naming rights to Allstate and that the league is considering selling a piece of itself to a foreign private equity firm in exchange for a cash infusion.Pete also discusses the congressional bill that will attempt to declare college athletes aren’t employees. The bill passed through a House committee on Thursday and will reach the floor during this session. Does it have any chance of passing? Or will it languish like all the other bills drafted on this subject? Next, Andy digs into the EA Sports gameplay deep dive video to share more information from his visit to EA Sports last month to play the new college football video game. The deep dive revealed a little more of what game designers discussed in the abstract during Andy’s trip.Subscribe to On3! ⬇️ youtube.com/on3sports/?sub_confirmati...Welcome to On3 | The best of college football and recruiting https://www.on3.com/Follow Andy Staples on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Andy_StaplesFollow Andy Staples on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andy_staples Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/on3sportsFollow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/on3/Like/Follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/On3Sports/ 

Welcome to Andy Staples on three. At least that's the name for today. We might be changing it again. We don't know. We might sell the naming rights to this show. Who knows? Listen, there's always revenue streams out there. We are for sale here, people. You've seen us shill products on this thing. It's what we do. So are we any different than the Big 12? I don't think so. Let's talk about that because that was the headline on Thursday, even though it was maybe not the most interesting piece of Big 12 news on Thursday. The Big 12 may be selling its naming rights to all state. I know I'm in good hands when Pete Nacos comes on. So Pete,

we got, we got to talk about this. There, there are many, many different ways to handle this. There are many different ways to do this, but let's, let's just start with a couple of,

of potential names. like if you're gonna sell the name of the big 12 you're gonna call it the all-state 12 the all-state conference conference all-state the all-state league what do we do i like uh was it the all-state conference i'm a fan of that one all-state conference yeah all-state 12 you can't do they haven't had 12 schools since 2011 like that that would be silly yeah like the 12 means nothing not a fan of that one so i would be okay if they wanted to rebrand and just go like all-state is it 16 yeah i'll say 16 would be good like they wanted to rebrand and just go like Allstate. Is it 16? Yeah. Allstate 16 would be good. I remember one of the few things that Larry Scott probably got right as the commissioner of the Pac-12.

I remember sitting with him as they were going from the Pac-10 to the Pac-12, and he's like, of course we're going to change it to 12 because we have 12 schools now. Why wouldn't we do that? Yeah, and never even mind. We don't have to get into the Big Ten conversation. But anyways, so this Allstate news broke yesterday. Ross Dellinger first reported it.

I confirmed it with some sources later on about Allstate being the leading candidate right now to land the title sponsor rights to the Big 12. Andy, you and I have spent so much time on this show talking about how the TV revenue disparities when it comes to the Big Ten and the SEC against everyone else. Bright Uromark does not come from a college athletics background. He worked at the Barclays Center. He's really business thinking forward thinking about how to to get more revenue into the conference um he he did his own thing this last year where he launched his own nfl combine um and now he's going to try to go get some some naming rights

for his conference which could bring in it sounds about 30 million to 50 million a year give or take um and and those dollars will trickle down to schools. And when there's such a need for money right now, when it comes to the television revenue disparity, I mean, it's a really, really smart idea. Well, and so I do think this is a good idea. We got our jokes off yesterday and I had people say, well, this looks like a poverty conference doing this. And what's two or three million per school? Two or three million per school, I hate to say it and be simplistic about it like that, is two or three million per school. Like, Pete, if I could get you two million extra dollars a year

for something that isn't going to change your life very much, would you do it? Yes. I mean, that's the thing. And I think people don't understand that. Like, these schools need to find ways to make this money. They are not the SEC of the Big Ten. They do not have these massive TV deals pumping money this way. They are about to have to spend millions

more a year. If they want to opt into the house versus the NCAA settlement and pay up to 20, I think it's 21.6 million is the number right now. If they want to pay up to that, they are going to have to find ways to find that money. Now they're going to have to cut it out of their budgets in some ways. They're going to have to add revenue streams in other ways. And so here's my thing with the Big 12, with the name, the Big 12. This is not like the wire Marlo Stanfield, my name is my name. This is a name of a conference that when you think of that conference and the history of that conference to this point, all you think of is chaos. You think of strife of infighting, like when the conference was born, it was Nebraska against everybody. Then it was Texas against Texas, A&M, Nebraska and Colorado leave Texas,

A&M and Missouri leave. Uh, David Boren, the Oklahoma president says they're psychologically disadvantaged. They said the one true champion advertising campaign and then crown two football champions. That night ends with Bob Bowlesby on stage trying to hand a trophy to Art Browse, who is just yelling at him. The Big 12 name does not have a great storied history in the world of college football. It can go away and no one would care.

It wouldn't affect UCF or Iowa State, like the current members of the Big 12. So you can sell that. Would you make it the Golden Flake SEC? No, of course you wouldn't. But in this case, the All-State-state something or other might be the way to go yeah and we get back to this idea too of this television revenue i mean that that has a lot to do with it beyond that too andy you and i were talking about this before the show these presidents

are gonna have to vote on it just like you do with like a television rights deal um these presidents are gonna want a very safe um brand yeah sponsor their conference all state makes a lot of sense um yes i was about to mention that willie thomas yes if they can't get southwest airlines to outbid them and name it the south i i saw that on twitter yesterday it was a guy named landon put this thing on twitter and it's tremendous he's got the southwest logo and the big 12 logo. And he's like, call it the Southwest conference.

It is. It would be so good. Now I do think like somebody probably still owns the Southwest conference marks. Probably. I think that, but it would be tremendous if they could do that. I would absolutely love that.

Ryan says it's disgusting. Is it though? But it's funny you mentioned that Brett Yoramark used to work at the Barclays Center. Barclays, which used to sponsor the Premier League. Now the Premier League in English soccer has not had a title sponsor, I think, for eight years. But originally, it was the Barclays Premier League and the bank, Barclays, paid them tons of money to have the name in front. Now, they don't do it anymore, probably because I don't think the companies that were putting their name in front got the bang for their buck because everybody just called it the

Premier League. Now, this, I think, would be, you're not calling this the big 12 presented by or some you know conference name right like you're putting the name in it just like when they made the chick-fil-a peach bowl the chick-fil-a bowl so you would say chick-fil-a like that's what they're going to do now it's funny it's probably the wrong insurance company because if you went nationwide like the nationwide conference would actually be a fairly accurate descriptor yeah i i like the idea of affleck so we can get a mascot on the field and the the synergies with coach prime would be tremendous you've already got your your number one pitch man working in the league exactly exactly it would be it'd be phenomenal ah so let's discuss why that particular piece

of news was floated because it was very in a very organized way floated on thursday you know it was a lot of sources but there's a lot of people getting their having their sources call them at the same time and uh the other thing that was interesting about the big 12 that was floated on thursday and this was a story that dennis dodd initially wrote oh hold on willie's willie's willie's cooking we're gonna let willie cook how about the good hands conference and hire all the air raid OCs to get out weekly bonuses for the highest scoring team each week. I like this. That's good. Willie. Listen, Willie, Willie is one of our best idea people like Willie. Willie has taken to asking dear Andy questions pretty much every day in the email. And so we're just corresponding back and forth now, but, and then Nathan has one.

The problem is what happens when the company stops supporting conference you need to change the name every 10 years like they do with pro savings yes possibly like that is a real possibility that is something you do have to worry about i i think it now i will say given the shifting nature of the big 12 throughout its history that's probably not a bad thing like maybe you need a refresh. But Pete, I was talking about this with somebody yesterday. I'm curious to get your thoughts on this. We're weird about this stuff. We're weird about names, weird about that. Remember when crypto.com bought the naming rights to the arena in Los Angeles that had a really cool name before?

It was a Staples Center yeah yeah and remember when Accresure bought the naming rights to the football stadium in Pittsburgh which was named after a catch-up company like yes people got mad about that how dare you not have an arena named after Andy Staples I didn't get mad but people got mad tons of people um tens there are tens of us but like seriously the ketchup but they forced them to keep the ketchup bottle on the stadium in pittsburgh yeah because people were that attached to the freaking ketchup bottle so like that everybody's like this is sacred you can't change your name you can't sell it listen you can't get attached to

whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, and it's really forward thinking. And as we transition, we're going to talk about private equity here in a minute. Um, the idea of giving away the title sponsor of conference makes a lot more sense to me than bringing in private equity and, and opening up to so many different, just so many different things can happen in that situation. Yeah. And that's the other piece of news that was floated. Dennis Dodd writes a column that basically the Big 12 is also exploring selling a 15 to 20% stake in the conference to a private equity firm in Luxembourg

that would then give them a cash infusion of $800 million to a billion dollars. But there's so many questions about that. I was talking to some people yesterday and one of the questions, one of the people asked me, and I don't have an answer for this. I imagine Larry Scott has an answer for this because he actually explored this with the PAC-12 years ago. But the conference is a not-for-profit organization that essentially exists as a revenue pass-through. So the TV rights money, the bowl money, all that money, or the NCAA tournament money comes through the conference and is passed along to the school. So in the case of the Big 12, 16 schools, 13 of them are public schools.

Like, can you sell a piece of that? Are you even allowed to sell a piece of that? And yet again, we talk about this, and there are going to be a lot of hoops to jump through for this to happen. This is not going to be, I don't, yet again, presidents are going to have to sign off. I've talked to some sources, and I'm sure you have too. There are some presidents who have really held up about the idea of getting into private equity. And then it brings on this conversation. Is it private equity where these firms get a piece of a school or is it private capital, which is what former Florida State Court of Major Weatherford is doing with the redstone firm um and they're saying that they want to put capital into a institution um and they don't want to own a piece of it but they want to try to make their money

back over a set period of time um hold on and and i say this is someone who covered drew as a great high school quarterback at landa lakes high in uh in pasco county florida right like all of these people want to make their money back they're not yeah this is not a charity like none of this imagine getting a billion dollars and i was thinking about this because now if you like if you buy a car if you buy a house the paperwork is such that the chain they made laws laws that the paperwork has to show you exactly how much you're paying with interest over the life of the loan. So if you buy a house for $300,000 and you finance like 80% of that, you'll see that you're paying probably, depending on the interest rate, over a million dollars by the time you've paid for 30 years. What does that look like for a billion dollars?

What is the expected return? How fast do they want it back? I'm not sure that these people are ready for this. What if the Big 12 doesn't exist in a decade? What if conference realignment comes when the Big 10 contracts are up with Fox and CBS and there's more conference realignment. Who's on the hook for that billion dollars?

These are great questions. These are all questions that have to be answered. And I will say, the other thing I don't think the athletic directors and the people who work in athletic departments are ready for is the style of management that comes in when you let private equity into your particular hen house. Because I say this as someone who worked at multiple newspapers, who's seen it happen. We've seen it happen in our industry up close and personal. They do not care. Like I said, it's not a charity. They are there to make money. And I wrote this in a column yesterday. Most athletic departments are pretty bloated in terms of staff.

They're run like the neighborhood lemonade stand. That is not how these guys operate. They will slash. They will burn. You will not like it. It will be very unpleasant. And I think that it's interesting because that is what these people are trying to avoid by trying to get all this cash they're trying to avoid having to downsize or

right size or whatever you want to call it because they've got to pay all this money the players they're going to have to cut from the athletic department budget they're going to have to cut staff they know that and they don't want to do it but the problem is all you're doing is kicking the can down the road if you take this money now because you're somebody's going to come in and tell you to do it after that yeah so i went to nacta this week i was there tuesday and yeah then talked to some administrators talked to some industry sources and um athletic directors right now are talking about the idea of like okay with revenue sharing are we going to have to cut sports um that seems more of a threat at the moment than a reality but it could be a reality in the next 12 to 18 months if you bring private equity in

as andy just outlined they are going to boss around they are going to tell you what to do and there's probably a higher percentage that they tell you to cut sports than if you don't go into private equity yeah because they'll be like which of these sports make money and they'll be like football and men's basketball and they'll go cut everything else and you'll go well uh no we there's this thing called title nine and they'll go cut exactly what you need to comply with title nine and and have nothing more than that like that's what they're all about the bottom line yeah all about the bottom line yeah so it is it is a pretty dangerous situation it's a dangerous path to go down and so this is my because you know how my mind works pete anytime somebody floats stuff i'm like okay what is the underlying reason for this happening now? And the fact that both of

these things were floated on the same day, my initial thought was, oh, they're trying to show this, the shiny object, which is selling the conference naming rights to all state. And then they're going to okie doke with the private equity. And then I talked to somebody else who is much smarter than me and has been in the business a lot longer than me in college sports. And this person said, no, no, no, no. It's the other way around. The naming rights thing probably feels like sacrilege to all these presidents. But then when you put it next to the private equity thing where you're basically selling a piece of yourself. And then you're going to let all these people come in and boss you around.

That doesn't seem so bad for 3 million bucks a year. So that, and that made more sense to me when I thought about it that way. Yeah, no, it makes a lot of sense. And, um,

had some conversations, people, people think these conversations with all state are like pretty, they've been going on. This did not start on Monday and then it got leaked on leaked on on thursday um so we'll be interesting and the other really interesting thing too andy uh we don't have to dive into this too much but conference usa is also exploring this i believe with global health it's called um does every low group of five does every group of five conference get into this right um yeah i mean

those schools are badly going to need that if they can get another mill or two a year um and a lot of them are grappling with the idea right now are they even going to revenue share so um don't be stunned if in the next year the mac the cusa sunbelt all all have title sponsors i'm thinking of the sunbelt right now can we call it the golden like with golden corral by it the ultimate football buffet come on tell me that doesn't work there's got to be like i guarantee there's a golden corral in every sunbelt town guarantee i can tell you there's a Tim Hortons all across the MAC. That's true. Tim Hortons would be a great MAC sponsor.

You know, everybody goes with Rotel. I think that they initially like that. But Tim Hortons is good. Culver's a little too Indiana based because the MAC's a little more Ohio and Michigan. Ball State on-field sponsor, though. Could be important. True. True. Yeah. We got the on got the on field logos got the jersey like and here's what i said in my column about this because

i know everybody gets upset about this i think it's i think you just go case by case like there are certain schools and uniforms and fields where you should not sully them with branding like penn state's uniform needs to be penn state's uniform the way it looks auburn's uniform alabama's uniform well look if you're oklahoma state you have 30 different uniforms and who cares like have pistol pete holding a sign on your helmet it doesn't matter i mean oregon's got it really easy they just need the night yeah but we already know what the brand is and by the way all these other schools including the penn state uniform and the alabama uniform also advertising that brand yes very much very much so so parlay joe bucky's sec i mean sec is is a texas conference now because it's got A&M and Texas.

Buc-ee's has expanded into Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia. Boy, what a blow to the Big 12 that would be. I did see an SEC logo floated on social media last night. They had it on waffles, and that gave me a good laugh. Yeah. Waffle House SEC would be tremendous. Uh, I, somebody in the SEC texted me and said the, the old line, cause I had said, you know, golden flake, Texas Pete, those are the old line SEC sponsors.

They sponsored the SEC for years and years. And they said, they're just not big enough anymore. So like, unfortunately the SEC is, I, the SEC may be past waffle house. Like the SEC is into Delta and Coca-Cola. Like that's, that's where the SEC is, the SEC may be past Waffle House. Like the SEC is into Delta and Coca-Cola. Like that's where the SEC is. 100%, 100%. Yeah. So we gotta, before we let you go, Pete,

we do have to talk about something on Capitol Hill, actual action on Capitol Hill regarding a law or a proposed law regarding college sports. We saw a bill get out of committee. It's going to the house floor. It's called the protecting student athletes, something, something opportunity. Basically when they say protecting, they mean limiting the title of the bill is a complete lie. It's they would like to restrict athletes by not allowing them to ever become employees of the university. This is clear what the schools want.

This is not a bipartisan bill. It is the Republicans say yes. The Democrats say no. But Republican majority in the House. Yeah. Presumably it's going to pass the House. Yes. So it's actually called Andy, the Protecting Student Athletes Economic Freedom Act.

Very on point there uh how do you protect my freedom by limiting my options um yeah so it went through on a 2316 party line vote yesterday in the house uh committee for education in the workforce um so the very i feel like i'm about to like like I'm just a bill video. But so it now goes to the House for, and on the House for, it can be discussed, voted on, and amended. If it does get through the House, which there's actually a chance it does because it is a Republican- This is going to get tacked onto something else, right? Yeah.

It's going to be a rider on something else. It's called a rider bill, so it's's definitely gonna get tacked onto something else um but if it were to make it through the house which i don't want to say it's likely or not but it is republican controlled so that there could be another party line vote it then would go to the senate um we could see senator chris murphy filibuster it too in in the senate so we'll be interested to see how it plays out um people have already said that president Joe Biden would never, uh, would,

would veto it. I don't think it's going to go that far. Um, I think this election is coming. Um, everyone keeps emphasizing to me how everything slows down on the hill. Um, when we get to election season.

So this is running. Well, all the, all the house members are running for election. Yeah. And some of the senators, senators i will i will say this and then we can open it up a little bit more if the republicans take the white house the house and the senate which is on the table at the moment right we we could definitely see a piece of legislation like this get through and put in the law yeah and and here's the thing like just because congress passes the law doesn't necessarily mean that's what it's going to be but

i would say if it does pass the likelihood of athletes becoming employees becomes less likely for a time like this would get challenged it would wind up in the court system it would go to the Supreme court. Cause I know, you know, you you're thinking like, cause you may be thinking, okay, why would Republicans support this? Because aren't they for open markets? And you just have to remember where, where all the allegiances are because Republicans tend to not want to give organized labor what it wants. So this would be dealing a blow to organized labor and also it would be helping out your local state you that is asking you for help so that's why they are behind

this and then if that were to pass it would probably get in court and look the conservatives in the court don't quite they're not running for relection so they go more along like straight philosophical lines like go with brett kavanaugh's concurring opinion in the in the alston case where he's like the ncaa sucks you bring this to us we're gonna kill it like there's a good chance if that were to get that far that law would be struck down but that would take years and years and years and years. And another thing, Pete, you and I have talked about this a bunch of times. Right now, the situation for athletes is as good as it will ever be. Yes. If they are not, if they are not allowed to become employees, I do think that limits the capability of collected bargaining. Now, maybe, maybe there

can be some sort of carve out for that, but if you limit collected bargaining, if they can't ever collectively bargain with the schools, yeah, the schools can never actually cap what they make. Bingo. Yeah. So there is that now, if I were an athlete, if I were a person trying to organize the athletes into a bargaining block, I would not want this because I don't think it's a good precedent for the schools to just be able to tell Congress, here's what we want, and then it happens. Because then they'll just make more laws. The other thing, too, is this bill says in one of its first sentences how federal and state laws would supersede it, which is very fascinating. And the other thing, too, that this legislation doesn't include at the moment is any antitrust exemption. So we talk about further lawsuits and stuff. Right. It would open – yeah, it definitely um be brought back to court so if it does but if

it does get attached to a larger piece of legislation which we probably wouldn't see till january 2025 um we'll be fascinated to see how that plays out and does that bill include the antitrust exemption that the ncaa has long long sought my guess is no but we shall see and like you said probably nothing happens till after the election then we see what the makeup of the congress is we see who's in the white house it changes a lot of the dynamics of everything yes and so possibly the the you know the first wednesday in november we'll have a much better idea of what this is going to look like. So totally that's as much politics as we're going to get into. But Pete,

so what your vote let's, let's review. What are we voting? Cause we think all States, the brand we do. Yes. The big 12 rebrands. We call it the,

the all state conference, Conference Allstate. How are we doing this? I support Conference Allstate. Conference Allstate sounds good, especially if Conference USA changes its name. Yes, I agree. I agree. I would also support the Allstate 14 or 16.

I need to go do some some quick counting and then i can it's 16 hold on i've got a look i've got it for you right here there they all are yeah see and you could just replace that big 12 logo and you could definitely do the all-state 16 well yeah yeah i i don't know i know there are people in the league who think that 12 is precious and that look, it does not mean anything. Sorry. Like the big 10, I realized that is numerically incorrect as well, but that brand means something. The big 12 brand means we're going to have a fist fight in one of our meetings. Like that's what it means to most people so yeah i think just you got you got to let that go yes 100 pete nicos thank you so much this is awesome love it and uh i'm gonna

miss you while i'm on vacation can i can i just text you every once in a while be like okay what's happening now please do and and i hope you also step away from your phone. Uh, I might for a few minutes, but here's the thing, Pete, I'd be talking about this stuff anyway. Yeah.

So what, you know, what's the difference? Exactly. Exactly. Well, I'll be your, I'll be your outlet.

Just let me know. I appreciate it, Pete. Thank you so much. Pete Nacos, the great Pete Nacos. And now it is time to talk. EA Sports College Football 25.

That's right. It is time for video game intel. Because here's the thing. You guys were so curious about every aspect of the game. When I got to go play it in Orlando. And I was, I was overwhelmed by the questions. And so we did a couple of shows where we, we, you know, I talked about everything and then I did one where I answered questions and you were bringing up things that I didn't even remember from when I went, uh, like, you know,

somebody asked me about the checkerboard Neeling. And I was like, oh, wait, yeah, there is checkerboard kneeling. I do need to tell everybody about that. So we got to figure that out. But there are so many different aspects to this. It's, it's amazing what they've been able to do here. And it's also amazing how many questions everybody has. And it's just, everybody's excited. It's been so long since we got to play the game. So let's talk about what happens in this game. And so what we're showing on the screen now, this is from the original trailer. It's a lot of the entrances, stuff like that. This is a lot of the pageantry piece of it. They, they released a video

last week with a little deeper dive into the gameplay. And so I wanted to talk about that because there are a lot of things that are new or different that we're going to have to get used to. Like I noticed in, in one clip here and I'll show it to you on the screen. Now you see the new kicking gauge. Like it's, it's, it's this thing that goes back and forth and then there's an arrow that you can then move. I'll show it again. This is very quick, but it's, you're going to have to get used to that because I'm sure if you've been playing Madden, you're used to the kind of half circle one where you got to get the thing up into the right zone and then bring it back. But this kicking gauge is new. That's something that's going to be different. And then the wear and tear thing, they explained

that to us. And I was trying to take as many notes as I could. They showed us slides, but it was, I wasn't quite sure exactly what everything was going to mean. They explained it a little better, I feel like in the video. So here, here's a little clip of what's going on. Now, this is basically they're saying every hit matters, the way every hit hits each player. And this is just a case of more computing power in the current systems. They've got different tackles, different hits affect players differently. And so they'll tell you, hey, this guy is on the verge of getting injured and prompt you on the screen. Do you want to substitute? By the way, poor Jackson Arnold taking a stray in the deep dive video there with him on the field at the Cotton Bowl but they will they will tell you hey you need to

substitute this guy can you just you know but here's the thing you're gonna see how different those uh those guys are because in college football the the player quality drops considerably from starter to backup for a lot of teams. And now I certainty like Georgia, Alabama, probably not as much, but that is one thing they talked about when I was there is they really want to make sure that you feel the difference in how good players are. So that that's one thing that is going to be pretty front and center. So like this wear and tear thing, if you've got a guy who's about to go out, you got to be very careful. And, you know, especially a back. It also is it's made to affect your play calling the guy that shows Phil Maffa, the Clemson back. And so if you run Phil Moffa a bunch of times and they say his, his injury risk

is very serious, you've got to decide, Hey, do I, do I sub him out? Or do I just call some different plays for a little while to try to get that back down? And then, but also it lasts through the season if you're in dynasty mode so you have to be very careful how you use these guys trying to make it you know more realistic now sometimes they do things that are realistic that just i i think they're just picking on people so i was watching the the gameplay deep dive and noticed this little clip what's that oh, that's Trevor Etienne about to score a touchdown against Florida for Georgia. Trevor Etienne transferred from Florida to Georgia this offseason. Like you don't have to include that in your gameplay deep dive unless you just want to twist the knife on some folks. Now I will georgia and florida appear pretty frequently in that video so it's not that but

kevin says i hope the wear and tear doesn't get overdone because players can take quite a bit of hits but i think that what this is is trying to encourage you to do is not have the same guy take like if you got a dominant running back they don't want you being able to hand it to him 35 times in a game with six minute quarters like that's just not realistic you wouldn't actually do that in real life and i it reminds me i don't know how many of you guys remember the sega genesis game cyberball it was one of my favorites. It's it's robot football essentially. And you would get, I can't, I think you've got a budget to build players. There, there was a way to build players and you had limited resources and you could decide how you wanted to allocate

them. But what everybody would always do is you'd build this great quarterback who is incredibly fast and he'd just be able to, you know, direct snap, just take off, score a touchdown. He'd be good for like two touchdowns and then he'd blow up. So if you wanted to win a game, you'd make your quarterback this way. You'd take your 14-0 lead with him and he would get hit on the third drive and explode. And then you would have this pedestrian offense that maybe you could score one touchdown, like you mount one touchdown drive the rest of the game, but you would hope that that got you through. Jeffrey says, the one thing I haven't seen with Florida state is there is no renegade and chief Osceola entrance now. Okay. Two things.

It's just Osceola, not chief Osce osceola and yes osceola does ride in on a renegade and does plant the flaming spear i have seen that in the game when i was in orlando i played a game that started you know that was in dope campbell and it does begin with that so they absolutely have that nathan says will this end up taking away from the pure and simple playability? Making it more complicated can take away the magic. I do think there's going to be a way you can set it where you take some of the realism elements out so you can have an arcade style, let's just play.

Parley Joe says, the wear and tear is going to keep the Madden heads out. That's going to be interesting to see how the madden people react to this because they're not going to like that sam houston state cannot compete with alabama if you're on the right skill level like if you're if you're playing on the easy level you can play as sam houston state and probably score in alabama but if you're, if you're playing on the easy level, you can play a Sam Houston state and probably score in Alabama. But if you're playing at, at the level you should be playing, they've made it. So it'd be very difficult for you to be competitive in that game. Jonathan says, you said you played as Liberty. Can you elaborate on stadium jerseys, presentation, et cetera? I played as Liberty on the road.

So I didn't, I didn't get a look at their stadium and their entrance. Um, I was trying to look at as many kind of big, like a power five home field advantage atmospheres as I could. And so that that's why speaking of home field advantage, they they made a big deal out of it and they should. So here's what some of the home field advantage looks like. You see the squiggly lines and what it's going to mean when you're trying to play. Like the controller is very much shaking. Everything is, is, is harder. And so here's where the attributes of the player come in and they, they show this event, this example in the game. So they've got this, the field general is one of the things they have.

And you see Quinn Ewers, now he's at home. He can see things popping up. They had another thing with the home field advantage where they show the difference between a quarterback who doesn't necessarily have the traits to perform well on the road or is young and hasn't been in that situation before. And I think it's interesting. The example they use is going to make people mad. The example they use is the quarterback who doesn't necessarily have those traits yet is Nico. Yeah, Molly. See, I'm getting it right. Nico, yeah. Molly, I'm at Tennessee playing against Georgia. And so obviously that's a very hostile environment.

He's going to be in his first year as a, as a full-time starting quarterback. So they have Nico, you know, not being able to manage the road environment. And then they show Carson Beck against Alabama in Tuscaloosa. And he does have the ability to negotiate that environment. And I thought that was, that was pretty interesting. And I did play like I played at Penn state. I played at Iowa. I played at Florida. I played at Clemson. And most of those games I was playing as the road team. And it is different how the quarterback reacts. They give you more pre-snap information, basically the more veteran and cool and collected your quarterback is. So that's the trick there. Kieranieran says what are your top three schools for dynasty

so i i've said i declared when general booty went in the transfer portal from oklahoma that wherever he wound up was going to be my number one dynasty mode team so louisiana monroe is the one i want to start with but i kind of think like kenesaw state because they're the newest FBS team, so take them the farthest, I think would be good. Then I wouldn't mind just another Sunbelt team. I don't know if you guys have noticed from listening to the show, but I really, really enjoy Sunbelt football. I love the lineup that they've put together with a bunch of schools that care deeply about football, not necessarily worrying about what Metro market they're in,

because I think people in Statesboro, Georgia and people in Boone, North Carolina care deeply about college football. They care deeply about Georgia Southern and Appalachian state. James Madison fans are the same way. Marshall fans are the same way. So that's the one I think so i think maybe georgia southern i think georgia southern would be a lot of fun and maybe i go back into the triple option with georgia southern obviously clay helton's not running it in real life now but yeah it's it's going to be very

different uh dj senior asks we know we cannot edit real players' ratings. And that's true because it's funny because this is where reality collides with our virtual video game world. You can't edit real players' ratings because real players, they're protecting their name, image, and likeness. They have made a name, image, and likeness. Like they have made a name, image, likeness deal with EA sports. And so EA sports has to make their likeness as realistic as possible. So if you took, you know, the third string guard and made him a 99 overall, well, that's not realistic. But also if you took say like Will Campbell, the starting left tackle at LSU, who's going to have a very high rating, like he'll be in the high nineties. Uh, if you took say like will campbell the starting left tackle at lsu who's going to have a very high rating like he'll be in the high 90s uh if you took him and somehow made his rating 65

like that would not be right because that's not who he is but so can you edit game generated players ratings in dynasty mode i believe you can you can also create your own and load them in uh go go gadget said did you get a good look at Davis Wade Stadium? I actually did play about a quarter and a half at Mississippi State because one of the people at EA Sports said, hey, you're going to want to hear the cowbells. And you could hear them. It was real between plays. The cowbells are real.

And so Davis Wade Stadium, the home field advantage is a little more like, I think people who don't watch Mississippi state or have not, you know, followed the sec very closely may not understand that that stadium when the Cowbells are going is actually very difficult place to run your offense. And I think EA Sports actually did a good job of figuring that out. I was pretty pleased with the way that worked out. One other thing I want to show you guys. So here's the picture in picture. So when you're selecting plays, you're going to get to see what's going on on the screen. Now, the image they showed in that deep dive video is not really

representative of what it's going to look like during this was more like at the beginning of the game so they've got a shot a generic stadium shot but what you're going to see in there and you're going to have to be careful as you select plays because a lot of the the stuff going on because they've tried to make this as much like a college football broadcast as possible. So like you just, you just got a turnover. So now you're trying to select your next offensive play. Well, in that picture and picture, you're going to be like, if you've got a turnover prop, say your Oregon state, and you've got the turnover chainsaw, you're going to see the turnover chainsaw. So you might don't, don't get caught watching the turnover chainsaw

when you should be picking your play. That's also where you're going to see the turnover chainsaw. So you might don't, don't get caught watching the turnover chainsaw when you should be picking your play. That's also where you're going to get your crowd reaction shots, your surrender Cobras and all that stuff. Your coach shots. So, which not nearly as much fun, the coach shots until they actually get the coaches in the game, but that's going to happen. Willie with a really, this is come on, Willie, this is cold.

If you're the head coach for Colorado, do you have an option to do in-home visits with recruits? Yeah, unlike Coach Prime, you can do in-home visits with recruits. It is quite possible. That would be tremendous, tremendous if you couldn't. That would be very realistic. But again, they don't have the real coaches in the game. So the truth is, is recruiting the same as CFP 14 or you get to make home visits?

What about the coaching staff? They just randomly hire the guy. One is your OC to get to pick. You get to pick your coordinators and you also have to decide if you want to fire your coordinators. So that's an important thing every year. Yeah, you've got to manage that a little more. The recruiting, it seems like most of the decision-making and the resource allocation in recruiting is more toward how much do you allocate toward the transfer portal versus how much do you allocate for recruiting out of high school, which is a great real life situation. Touchdown TV says, did you play at Williams-Brice Stadium? If so, is 2001 in the game?

What about the Rooster Crow at that third down? I'm sure they've got the Rooster Crow. I didn't play in Williams-Brice. I would imagine that the theme from 2001 is in the game because that is a public domain song. So they don't have Inner sandman because it would be very expensive to license inner sandman just for that one virginia tech entrance and you're not using it anywhere else now they they use the uh kern craft 400 song by zombie nation because that's

so many different schools use that but like they didn't do so they didn't get seven nation army which i thought enough schools use seven nation army that you could probably get that but like they didn't do so they didn't get seven nation army which i thought enough schools use seven nation army that you could probably get that but apparently it's also a little bit different licensing if you wanted to actually play the white stripes version of seven nation army or have the crowd chanting seven nation army but the theme from 2001, which, by the way, I believe it's called Sprock Zarathustra is the real name for it. I believe that's public domain at this point, I think. I'll have to have an intellectual property attorney fact check me on that. So that's an interesting one because that is one of the more fun entrances in college football.

And I'm curious to see if they have that. So, all right. Are you able to switch the abilities up to and do all 11 guys have the same opportunity to get abilities, including a lot of jet life? I'm glad you asked this question. There's a lot of abilities in this game, a lot of new abilities that we're going to have to get used to. And yes, offensive linemen can get abilities. I don't know if you can switch them. I know with the actual players, you can't change the real life player stuff, but I put on screen a bunch of these abilities and it may be

too small for you to read some of these. There's a bunch of them. You've got aftershock, adrenaline, 50-50, 360. I don't know what a lot of these mean. They explained a few of them to us, but house call, that's somebody with breakaway speed. Blow up, I think that's somebody that can make good tackles in the backfield. Magician, that's probably a quarterback that has good escapability. Outside disruptor, that's probably a good that has good escapability outside disruptor. That's probably a good edge rusher, uh, option King. That's obviously going to be a quarterback who runs the option very well. Jammer would be a corner who jams receivers on the outside. Uh, best, best friend with a little three on it would be your third down best friend. You're,

you're very reliable possession receiver. Uh, robber would probably be a safety that's great at ball, jumping in front and grabbing an interception, playing the ball more than playing the guy or being able to bait quarterbacks into making interceptable throws. Mega leg, I would imagine is a punter situation. If Torrey Taylor were in the game, I'm sure he'd have one of those. Headstrong, we know what that is. Headstrong is this person is mentally unflappable. If your quarterback is headstrong, when you play in a tough road environment,

he's going to be more apt to handle the situation. You're gonna get more information pre-snap. Extender, that would be a quarterback who can extend plays. So there is a lot of attributes and players can have up to eight. So that's quite a bit. It's going to be a lot of fun. So I can't wait to see what you guys think i'm gonna show you a couple more clips uh the option was was fun for me and i told you guys the option's a little bit different in this game because it's not press x immediately to hand off to the dive back. It is the dive backs going to get the ball unless you press X to pull the ball. And that's, that's a, that's a bit of different situation than before.

So here we got air force and then you've got two other pitches. So you have, you can basically, it's, it's the same as when you're passing the length of your button press will determine how hard you pitch the ball. And determine how hard you pitch the ball. And then how hard you pitch the ball will determine how risky the pitch is as well. So it's still your L1, R1 buttons as you're pitching. But how deep you depress the button, how long you depress the button will determine how quick that pitch is or how risky that pitch is. But again, let me show you that again.

So you've got the Air Force one. And then here's a Michigan read option play. So you see the back is getting the ball there. If you pressed X in that situation, you would pull that ball and the quarterback. But in the play that it shows, and here's the Air Force play again, we'll get to the Michigan play.

In the play that it shows, and here's the air force play again, we'll get to the Michigan play and the play that it shows the quarterback makes the right choice. The back has like five yards of green in front of him. But if that defensive end was crashing hard on the back, the quarterback could pull it and he'd have the green space. The other thing, and I don't think I've mentioned this in any of the other videos. And I wanted to point this out because this is a very popular play and so many teams have this play in now. And I was to point this out because this is a very popular play. And so many teams have this play in now. And I was actually a little concerned when I saw it, like, how does it work? So, you know, the, the jet motion play where you have the, the, the receiver coming across the formation and as he's getting to the quarterback, they snap the ball and the quarterback kind of pops it to him.

So that is statistically a pass that is always caught. Like you, you have to count that in receiving yards. You count that as a completion because it is a forward pass. Like it's, it's sort of offensive coordinators found a little, little hack where if you mess up that play, it's just an incomplete pass instead of a fumble. So that's why they do it that way. They want it to be a officially a forward pass because you benefit from not losing yardage if you drop it. So this play is in a lot of playbooks. My concern was, okay, how do you get the timing of this right? Because is that receiver, does that receiver have a button press affiliated with him? Like, is he the X or is he the circle

right? I mean the triangle running across the screen and I've got to hit him or is the R1? No, you don't have to worry about that on that particular play, which does count as a pass. You don't have to do anything. It will just give him the ball and then he takes off running. So I was concerned about that because I was like, I'm going to mess up the timing of this. Like if I'm playing as a worst team, there is no way I'm going to be able to get this right. But it was actually pretty easy. So I was, I was surprised by that. One other thing before we go, I've talked about this a couple of times. Now I'm going to show it to you, the pass meter. So in the game, while you are throwing, you get a meter, much like your kicking meter, that will show you the gauge of how hard you're throwing the ball. Like you can throw,

you know, if you want to go light, you can throw it up over the top of the defense. If you want to throw a laser beam, you're going to hit the button hard, but you'll, you'll now see it in graphic form on the screen when you're making that decision. And I think that's helpful. I know some people have said, well, how do I turn that off? I actually think it's pretty helpful. I liked using it when I was playing. It did help me kind of figure out how to feather the ball a little bit more, because they're going to be situations where you do want to layer it and throw it up over the defense and let it drop into the receiver's hands. And there's other ones where he's wide open down the field and you just want to fire a laser beam. So you've got a you've got that option.

And I do feel like it's easier to see now, but it's going to be interesting. I'm sure there will be things that people love that people hate, but there's a lot going on in this game. And, uh, let's see, it's June 14th, depending on what version you ordered two days, two days from now, you'd be a month away from having it in your hot little hands. But june 19th july 19th excuse me i believe is the the regular release date july 16th if you bought the deluxe edition or the bundle with madden i am i am very curious now i i'm a little mad little mad at the sec because sec media days happening right when the thing comes out like i I can't, I can't steal my son's

PlayStation and take it to Dallas for sec media days because, uh, he would kill me because he couldn't play the game right away. So yeah, it's going to be a couple of days for me before you get your full on review of the game, because I will be at sec media day. So I'm sorry about that, but let's just plan better next year. Sec. How's that sound? Thank you guys for watching. Thank you for listening in podcast form. Thank you for being here. Like, and subscribe. If you like the show, please tell a friend. If you like the show, I'm on vacation next week, but that doesn't mean you're not getting shows Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We will have shows. So Monday, Clark Brooks and I talking all the big returning quarterbacks in college

football this year. Clark is the SEC stat cat. He did a deep dive video and advanced stats into pretty much every major starting returning quarterback. And it is fascinating stuff. Some, a lot of things that you probably weren't thinking about when we're talking about all these quarterbacks, we'll talk to Clark about that on Wednesday, we start the, my favorite games series.

And boy, is this going to be fun? Uh, Brent hubs of Volquist. We'll talk about his favorite Tennessee game. Chris ballast, the Wolverine. We'll talk about his favorite Tennessee game. Chris Ballas of the Wolverine will talk about his favorite Michigan game. On Friday, more My Favorite Games. We've got Jake Rowe from Dogs HQ talking about his favorite Georgia game, and Spencer Holbrook from Letterman Rowe talking about his favorite Ohio State game. So lots of fun. Those shows were so much fun to record those My Favorite Games. So if you have not, if you listen and you're like, well, you didn't do my favorite team. Don't worry. We're going to do a couple more throughout the course of the summer because I had such a good time reliving those games, rewatching those games.

We've got to do more just because it's so much fun. And I think you guys are going to really enjoy it too. Even if it's not your favorite team. Now, Alabama and Ohio state, I will say you catch some strays losing in some of these games because when you lose, it's a big deal, but don't worry. We've got it. The Ohio State favorite game. We will get to the Crimson Tide favorite game where Alabama wins. Don't worry. We'll get to it, but thanks so much. And I'll talk to you live again a week from Monday.