Andy & Ari On3 - Dear Andy: Is Nick Saban making excuses? Can a Group of 5 team make the CFP in 2023? Do the Big Ten and the SEC need the other conferences in the 12-team playoff?

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

It's a Dear Andy episode, so we're answering your questions.But first, we discuss Georgia landing a commitment from Justin Williams, the No. 1 linebacker prospect in the class of 2024. (0:00-5:55).Then Jesse and Andy talk about a new lawsuit filed in the Northwestern situation. That lawsuit names former Northwestern AD Jim Phillips, who will be meeting the media Tuesday as the ACC commissioner kicking off ACC media days. (5:56-15:00).The ACC's media days also will feature football questions, and Andy and Jesse try to handicap who will face the toughest ones. Miami's Mario Cristobal? N.C. State's Dave Doeren? (15:01-20:15)Now on to your questions...-- A listener asks to keep score all season on Andy and Jesse's quarterback draft teams (and they heartily agree). (20:16-23:43)-- Is Nick Saban making more excuses than he did before? (23:44-30:15)-- Do the Big Ten and SEC need the other conferences once the 12-team playoff begins? (30:16-38:08)-- Can a Group of 5 team make the CFP this season? If not, which Group of 5 team will make a New Years Six bowl? (38:09-45:18)-- Who will be the first player to get audited by the IRS? (45:19-52:24)-- How long until we see a clear Cinderella winner in the 12-team CFP? (52:25-1:00:12)In Andy's Extra Point, he bids farewell to a college football institution that will be missing this season. (1:00:12-1:01:59)

Welcome to Andy Staples on three big day here in the on three world. I'm here with Jesse Simonson, national writer for on three. We just got done watching Justin Williams, the number one linebacker prospect in the country from Conroe, Texas. Commit to Georgia, Jesse. The rich get richer. They got the number one quarterback, the number one corner, and the number one linebacker now in the class of 2024. Yeah, I mean, these classes are getting assembled, you know, earlier and earlier these days in the new college football calendar.

But Georgia's got nine, according to On3's rankings, nine top 100 commitments and i think they still have like another five or six guys that they have realistic chances of getting kj bolding i know you know that news came out today that he's going to announce live on the on three platform first week of august so we're getting some lead-ins to this show just i mean and the thing is is that they're stacking up these same positions where they're So we're getting some lead ins to this show. Just, I mean, and the thing is is that they're stacking up these same positions where they're just, you know,

they've produced the Nikovi Deans and the Ropon Smiths. And now this is the highest ranked linebacker Kirby smarts ever signed at Georgia. Like you said, rich kitten richer. Yeah. And I mean, it's not like they haven't had good linebackers anyway. And here's the thing what makes how they just put two guys on the first all sec team right and what makes them so good is the level of competition they have at practice and this is what alabama was doing for a long the longest time this is what ohio state was doing george has been able to to cycle up to this

maybe even quicker than those two were under Nick Saban and Urban Meyer. It really feels like it is just good on good all the time. And, you know, you're seeing guys leave Georgia not because they're not good, but like Jermaine Johnson was a first round draft pick ACC defensive player of the year at Florida State. He just left because he wanted to be an every down player and he couldn't do it on that loaded defense at Georgia you can cite two guys this year you know what you teased it yesterday that we're going to have a fun game next week probably playing you know where are they now whose team is it anyway that's right whose team is it anyway for the all transfer portal team

two inside linebackers off last year's, you know, back-to-back national championship teams are now going to be starting linebackers at Power 5 programs for other schools. Ryan Davis at UCF is going to be starting for Gus and the Knights there. And then Tresmond Marshall left Georgia to go start at Alabama because he can't get on the field at Georgia, but there's an open spot with, you know, Henry Toa Toa and Christian Harris now gone. He can go play for the tide. I mean, if that doesn't,

if that's not indicative of kind of where Georgia is at that particular spot, I'm not sure what else is. Yeah. It sets off some alarms and this is, it was Georgia or Oregon, which is good that Oregon was in this mix. You've seen Oregon get some of these players that they had some five stars in the class of 2023. Dan Lanning, who was the defensive coordinator at Georgia prior to getting the Oregon job,

has been in on a lot of these guys. Tosh LaPoi, also fantastic recruiter. So I think, you know, Oregon's going to be in the mix for a lot of these guys. But to break Georgia's stranglehold, some of the non-Georgia, non-Alabama, non-Ohio State teams have to get these guys when it comes down to these two-team situations. particulars of this situation but based on recent history I think we can at least surmise this is another great example of kind of you again you said the rich getting richer but it's also like what one school's pitch is versus another whereas Oregon is seen as kind of being a real player in the NIL space obviously Phil Knight Nike that backing but but the the ironies that people I

don't think really understand is that the programs like Georgia Alabama Ohio State the teams that are recruiting better than anybody they're not actually having to be as aggressive with NIL up front because they're saying hey come here and we'll put you in the NFL draft where you can make you you know, life changing money instead of just money up front. Right. NIL money will not compare to first round money. Maybe it will at some point, but it will never compare to it right now. It's going to be a while. And Georgia can do the, we make first rounders thing better than anybody right now. It's what Ohio state was doing. It's what Alabama has been doing. And it's really, it's a prohibitive advantage because like you said, you don't have to do much NIL stuff on the front end

because they're willing to take that chance. Because first of all, all of these programs we're talking about, massive fan followings. If you get good there, you'll be taken care of from an il standpoint you will be a fit like bryce young is in nissan commercials when he's still at alabama so you'll get taken care of at places like that as long as you wind up playing and being good and the other part of as long as you wind up playing and being good is you could be drafted very, very high. And George's heater in the draft is pretty alarming if you're everybody else because what do you say to get somebody to go somewhere else? No, and again, that's why they are positioned so well because they can basically afford to backload the coffers for the

Jalen Carters and these guys. Once they're awesome, they're not having to pay up front for them. And obviously NIL is not supposed to be pay for play. We understand that. But it is. So we're going to live in the real world here. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah. So I, well, it was fascinating to watch, you know watch Georgia grab another one in this class. We talked about Alabama having historically the number one class of all time, just from a pure numbers standpoint, in the class of 2023. Georgia has a good chance of surpassing that.

Yeah, no, and again, I think they're going to have to land some of these five stars that are still on the board but you know if you according to chad simmons and some you know some of our other insiders sam spiegel and some of our other insiders it seems like they have you know at least a 50 50 chance for several for several of these prospects matthew in the chat who is a georgia fan i see your automatic for the people avatar athens band rem automatic for the people avatar Athens band REM automatic for the people, of course, named after the sign at Weaver D's fried chicken. Matthew says, guys also don't forget Georgia.

Georgia can say, come play and get seen on ABC and ESPN and games that have national implications. Oregon has, um, come play in the PAC 12 North and maybe the CW. We hope there is no PAC 12 North anymore. Let's, let's get our facts straight. I think we don and maybe the CW, we hope there is no Pac-12 North anymore. Let's get our facts straight.

We don't know if it's going to be the CW either. And I think Oregon was actually featured on ABC in the opener last year. Unfortunately, it was a splattering against Georgia. I don't want to remember that. We're not talking about that game anymore. Yeah, it is interesting. I am curious to see what Dan Lanning, who has brought that same Kirby Smart type mentality to Oregon,

can he keep doing that as that league adjusts and changes? Because honestly, if he can, like if Dan Lanning were to sign four more classes, like the class of 2023, that's going to be the dominant program in the new pack 12 right for sure for sure now and and i will say i i think one of the outliers a year ago they were able to kind of really uh because they had such a boon season you know washington i didn't know how they were going to recruit under caitlin of war and he just signed a top 25 class so

i can't speak right now to where exactly they are in the 24 rankings but you're right i mean oregon if landing can stack a couple of these classes like you just signed on top of one another they will have by far the deepest and most talented roster in an ever-changing pack 12 so we've got another little bit of news we've got to get through before we get to your questions, because there is news coming fast and furious. And remember, we've got Big Ten media days later this week. That starts Wednesday.

ACC media days and Sunbelt media days start Tuesday. And the first bit of news has to do with ACC media days, even though it has to do with a Big Ten school. More lawsuits in the Northwestern situation. You had a volleyball player, former volleyball players filing a lawsuit, and then former quarterback Lloyd Yates, who was one of those guys who got up at the press conference the other day with his attorneys, but did not immediately file. That lawsuit has been filed. Some of the details from this are pretty, you know, like you can argue about the hazing part of it and you can argue about how serious it is. There's a detail in this one, an accusation. And again, it's just an accusation. We'll start there.

But if it's true, it's real bad because basically we've talked about the concept of quote unquote running, which is essentially, I guess, older players, dry humping younger players. So in this particular case, there were some tubs, makeshift ice baths that had been placed in trash cans after a home game because the team's ice baths were broken. And so these ice baths, I guess, were they'd warmed up. The water warmed up. They weren't icy anymore. They were just warm, nasty water that had been sitting there for a while. And apparently a young player was supposed to be, quote unquote, run because he was perceived

as overly confident by the upperclassmen. And multiple players saw this. This is I'm reading from the lawsuit here. Multiple players saw this player being carried into the shower by 10 to 15 teammates naked the teammates dunked him upside down in the ice bath and ran him while he was naked upside down with his head underwater i mean that's veering more toward like cia torture memo stuff and not good old fashioned hazing. Yeah. I mean, that's the kind of stuff that, that was featured in the nine 11 Jennifer Chastain or Jessica Chastain movie.

I mean, it's, it's, it's ugly. And, and he came out, the quarterback Lloyd Yates came out and called it like a, I think a brainwashing culture. One of the former Northwestern football coach, secondaries coach was named in the lawsuit as having knowledge of the hazing. Probably the most interesting thing, Andy, honestly, I mean, other than just the horrific details that were in the lawsuit itself

is that we had mentioned last week that we thought this was gonna be kind of a drip by drip case. Well, it may be dripping for a while because one of the attorneys who spoke, I think the ESPN teased that there could be as many as 30 lawsuits from various sports at Northwestern on the docket here in the near future. So Pat Fitzgerald, Pat Fitzgerald, I will say we've continued to note his attorney has been steadfast that Pat Fitzgerald has no knowledge in any of this. He was not named in this lawsuit, which is notable. Yeah. But who was named in several of the lawsuits? Jim Phillips, who is the former Northwestern Athletic Director, the current ACC Commissioner.

He'll be getting up at ACC kickoff on Tuesday and I guess answer questions. Now, I suspect it won't be, there'll be a canned answer that he gives. He's going to get Northwestern questions. I suspect he's going to say I can't comment because I'm in an active investigation and my attorneys tell me that no comment.

I think that's all you can say at this point. But if you're the ACC, if you're the presidents in the ACC, you got to start talking to one another and say, how bad is this? And you probably bring Jim Phillips in and say, listen, you're not under oath here, but how bad is this? Because if this is going to get much worse, if this stuff can be proven or corroborated by multiple witnesses and it's systemic and pervasive and took place over much of the time that Jim Phillips was the AD and it's happening in multiple sports, I don't know how he survives. Yeah, I mean, there's no way. You can't justify that, especially for as long as he was there. And this is not something that seems isolated to a single football team,

even on like a three-year span or whatever. This is something that, as you noted, the athletic story, this is something that's been going on across the athletic, various athletic department programs for 20 years. So it allegedly we should say. Yeah. And we'll see what happens. But the more that comes out, these are people independent of one another and i know i know you're saying okay these attorneys want to make a payday they're trying to gin up a class but if all these people

are going to go under oath and say this happened there's a real good chance everybody's getting wiped out who was at northwestern at that time whether they're at northwestern right now or not yeah and then like you said in big 10 media days is in two days and a guy who wasn't there is going to have to answer a bunch of questions that he really wasn't didn't have a purview to so that's also probably like david boss situation he's the interim coach at northwestern he was at north dakota state last year he's probably in the best situation to answer stuff because all he can say is I wasn't there. Well, yes,

but he's also going to have to answer questions about the fact that the team seemed to so, you know, rally immediately behind Pat Fitzgerald. Yeah. And is there going to be a potential mutiny, you know, that happens with a bunch of dudes who transfer, you know, come training camp. So, well, I don't know how much worse you can be than 1 and 11 i guess 0 and 12 so i mean that's maybe what could happen it won't be much worse than last season they were terrible last year so i'm not i'm not sure exactly how much that changes anything but we'll have to see it. It is that situation isn't changing

anytime soon. It's going to be more and more and more and more and more. And Jim Phillips is, is got to answer for this stuff at some point, whether he's got to do it in front of the people at ACC kickoff, which I doubt he's going to be doing or in depositions, he's going to have to answer these questions. So let's talk about football. I'm sure Jim Phillips will say, Oh, we want you. We want the focus to be on football. So let's focus on ACC football a little bit before we start answering your, your questions.

No divisions. No divisions. That's right. I asked Joe obvious when, when he was on yesterday about can anyone other than Florida State or Clemson win the league. I think there's a lot of pressure on Mario Cristobal this year. They've got to be better than they were in year one.

That was a disaster of year one. I think they lost five games by two touchdowns. That includes, you know, they got throttled at home by a middling to bad MTSU team. Yeah. Obviously, you know, he played not to lose, so to speak, in kind of an ugly close loss against a bad Texas A&M team. And then ACC play was just a disaster. You know, they got their teeth kicked in against Clemson, Florida State.

You know, defensively, they were terrible. Kevin Steele just didn't seem to be the right fit. Josh Gattis on offense. I mean, the program legitimately regressed, and I think every facet from the Manny Diaz last season to Cristobal's five and seven year one. Cristobal does what he does best. He's reloaded the roster.

He recruited a top-gen recruiting class, signed two five-star tackles. Now it's about coaching and developing. And I think he probably faces as much pressure. I did a story on three earlier this spring, not necessarily looking at hot seats, but just coaches facing pressure. The cooker is turned up. Right, because he's not on the hot seat.

They can't afford to fire him or anything. He's there. The pressure, and he's a beloved son, alma mater, coming home. But the pressure is on for him to turn this thing around, and yet you look at it, Andy, I think their win total is 7.5. It's not like they are expected to compete for the ACC this year. Yeah, it's modest expectations. NC State probably has higher expectations in terms of win total,

but it still never feels like they're going to get over the hump. North Carolina, they've got Drake May. We're all very excited about Drake May. I think the NFL draft picks are even more excited about Drake May. But unless their defense gets better, they're not going to be a factor in the conference title race. Well, Dave Norton's got the whole, like, Steve Sarkeesian bumps his head on nine wins thing.

You know, maybe eventually he'll fall forward into ten wins. He did bring in, and your guest yesterday, you know, was curious about kind of that relationship between Brennan Armstrong, former Virginia quarterback, Robert and I, new Wolfpack OC, how that pairing's going to, you know, marry itself out under Dave Doran. North Carolina, it's so hard to buy that the Heels are actually going to be better defensively when they've been they were like 115th two years ago and they improved all the way to like 105th last year right and it I mean it just you're squandering you know potential generational quarterback like

Drake May yeah that's the part I worry about is and that defense was bad. And I know it got better as the season went on, but then the offense was regressing when the defense was improving. So they've got to put it all together. If they can, maybe they can compete with those two. It feels like Clemson and Florida State, though, have distanced themselves from the field. So we'll see. I'll be curious to hear what Mario Cristobal has to say about his team,

the new look, new coordinator, Shannon Dawson running the offense now. Perhaps there's reason for optimism in Miami, but that's one of those I kind of need to see. In fact, we should probably make that week two Texas A&M at Miami game the I kind of need to see it bowl. Well, I was going to say, I mean, three of the four teams you just mentioned there all have monster non-conference games against SEC programs early in the season. Florida State, LSU, Texas A&M going to Miami, North Carolina, South Carolina. Game day game.

Game day gets announced. Yeah, that just news dropped today. I mean, that's a three-monster non-conference games where all three of those programs are going to get to kind of, you know, match up against, you know, what is perceived, you know, not perceived. I mean, SEC is the best conference. And Clemson does play Notre Dame later in the year. So. Yeah, it is going to be fascinating to see how that plays out because a lot of those times, those early season games, the results kind of pierce our preseason assumptions, which I'm, I'm ready for that.

And that's something we'll do as we get closer to week one, we'll find those games that are going to change our assumptions very quickly. Was it the year that Will won eight or nine games in his one outlier season at South Carolina? They played that horrifically ugly game against North Carolina in the opener. Yeah, but Debo Samuel had, I believe, two kick returns to touchdown. He basically won the game by himself. Yeah, I knew it was something

that was a pain. It was like a... Okay, okay. This was like a Thursday. I think it was like the Thursday before Labor Day weekend. That was Clowney's junior year I was at that game. That was horrific. Okay, okay, yeah. I'm meddling the two then.

That was an awful, awful game. Yeah, and then there was another Spurrier game against North Carolina in Charlotte where both coaches seemed just embarrassed at the so they they don't always play the most pristine games when the game cocks and the Tar Heels get together I'm hoping this will be better at least for game day sake Jesse it's time to answer the people's questions though nobody bit on the video tease nobody's sending a video question but it's gonna happen when we back, we answer your questions.

And we're back. We got a lot of good questions, Jesse. I had people sending them in on Twitter. We've got some in the live chat. We've got a couple that I really like that we're going to get to. We got one that cleans up our QB draft and turns it into a season long competition. Let's start with that because this question was very easy to answer. We'll start with Cornwit. I'm not sure that's his real name, but he's a VolQuest member.

He says, we did the QB draft last episode. What good is a draft unless we score the results? I volunteer, this is the key, to be your weekly tracker. Are you in? So here's the scoring system. And I think, so it's passing TD, six points, 25 yards passing, one point.

Rushing TD is six points. He wrote 10 yards passing here, but I think that means 10 yards rushing equals one point and so those are the positive points you can get the penalties are a pick six is thrown you lose six points a pass is intercepted you lose two and you lose a fumble you lose two points jesse it's not just even more now oh it's not just rhetorical here here's the thing either i'm going to destroy you because all of my gambles on young quarterbacks are going to pay off or half my team's going to get benched and you're going to annihilate me no i think because i had some gambles too i mean i went with you know drew i got uh mccord i, honestly, you know where you could get stung a little bit

and where I may be the benefactor is that if Carson Beck and Georgia are as good as, you know, everyone says and you think, he may not be playing very much in the second half. Yeah, and Brock Vandergrift is going to be the one leading them towards the end zone, you know, for eight of the 12 games. So I made luck out there. I love my team, though. You know, there might be one pick that I would, you know, have a mulligan on.

But, I mean, Quinn Ewers is going to be throwing up hook them like crazy. Unless Arch comes in there. Unless something happens and then Arch comes in. We know Caleb Williams is going to kill it. Yeah, that's the one I'm sure about. Arch is not going to see the field really at all in 2023. Now, your guy Dylan Gabriel could get hurt and completely get replaced by Jackson Arnold there.

So we'll see. It'll be fun. I remain faithful. All right's let's move on matthew c this is a great question dear andy this is this is matthew our georgia fan in the chat by the way who tweeted this at me earlier well nick saban wants to use the media to send message about rules or to his players his tone has changed have you noticed the last two years he's made excuses for why Bama lost injuries or didn't make the playoff, but Vegas he never used to make excuses

why the change. I disagree. If you go back basically any year Alabama didn't win a national title he was politicking. He made excuses. He was politicking. Our guys wanted to play for the national title,

and that's why we weren't ready to play Utah on the Sugar Bowl. Let's see. What's the next one? 2010. Our leadership wasn't good enough. 2013. Well, that one, it's probably just I shouldn't have called that field goal. Should have just gone ot

when they didn't make the playoff because tua got hurt it was because tua got hurt yeah yep so he's always done this now you can call them excuses or you can call them reasons because a lot of times that's their reasons but he's always gotten he's gotten very political when he's trying to get his way into the playoff, like last year with the Vegas thing. Well, I think this is a very, this is, this is like the sister version of folks think that, you know, Saban's running scared because he's complained about NIL and the transfer portal and what have you. And we know that it's, that's not the case.

As you said, when we did the deep dive on Bama last week in Nashville no Nick Saban has a problem to solve he's asking open-ended questions as to how he can best solve this problem because he's we know damn well he's going to make it an advantage for him and so this is not this is very similar to that I mean he's he's gonna politic when he thinks he needs to politic and if he's gonna sit back he'll sit back it's just kind of it's a you know a timing thing another Alabama point that you pointed out in a text to me earlier today about our quarterback draft we did we we gambled on who we thought would be Georgia's starter we gambled on who we thought would be Ohio State's or neither one of us gambled on who we thought would be Georgia's starter. We gambled on who we thought would be Ohio State's starter. Neither one of us gambled on who we thought would be Alabama's starter.

And I find that interesting. Yeah. I mean, and simply because the Georgia and Ohio State things in particular, you're banking on infrastructure. It's the infrastructure around them. Now that also speaks to the fact that we know ohio state's got marvin harrison and a bunch of dudes at receiver georgia's got brock ballards and a bunch of dudes at receiver

we think alabama is going to be better at receiver this year but we don't know but we don't know so some of the like one of the guys i thought would would eventually grow into a good receiver at alabama was jojo earl where's he playing at TCU? Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, we've been waiting on Ja'Cory Brooks to pop. I think, I think they'd seem to like the Benson kid, uh, the number one Juco receiver, who's going to be a burner. You know, he's got some waddle to his game. Um, but I mean, this we're two years removed from Alabama signing all these four and five star receivers and now they're just four and five star former signees, you know, they're

what, like they haven't done anything yet. Yeah. So, and that's the thing. The other part of it is I could not tell you who I think will be Alabama's quarterback. I mean, I, I guess it's going to be Tyler Buckner because he's the newest to the competition. He's worked with Tommy Reese before, but would it surprise me one bit if Ty Simpson or Jalen Monroe started game one? Nope, not in the least. Over under one and a half play by the end of the Texas game. Over. I think two will play in the first game.

Okay. That's fair. Because I think they're going to try to get a look before Texas and try to have their best team on the field when Texas shows up because, obviously, Texas pushed them a little bit last year. That was a terrible question. That was a terrible question by me. Over, under, one-and- and a half play in the Texas game. I'm going to go under.

I think they're going to go figure out who they've got and then say this is our guy. And then if they don't like how that worked out in the Texas game, they got the USF game where they can try to work out any kinks before SEC play starts. Which for those that aren't obsessive about these sorts of details like and like it's any a nice job to be alabama going to you at us yes they're playing at ray j they're not playing the bucks which is hilarious because you know that you know what 25 000 alabama fans probably

brought probably bought south florida season tickets just to go to that game and they'll dump the rest of them. Yeah, there's going to be a lot of Alabama fans out on Dale Mabry. It'll be spectacular. The spaceship in 2001 Odyssey. They can go get some Cigar City at least. Well, yeah, get a little Highline IPA, get a little Maduro Brown Ale. Cigar City, if you want to sponsor us,

I'd be down for that. I could just stack up the product behind me. I'll put a mini fridge back here. We can make that happen. From top to bottom, their lineup might be one of the best in terms of just everything they

have is awesome. Oh, yeah. I mean, they've gone, I remember when that company first opened, and now they're kind of the big brother to Swamphead in Gainesville. So it certainly had, their influence in the Sunshine State beer scene has had a huge trip.

So if you hadn't had any Highlight IPA or Florida Man Double IPA, well, the USF fans have had plenty but they might need some more when bama comes to raymond james stadium but yes that's one of those when the schedule comes out you're just like is that real how did that how did that get scheduled you think it's a typo you think it's a typo you're like someone screwed up here now there's no way alabama's going to south florida but it is happening congratulations Alex Golish you got to take part in a win against Alabama last year now they're going to take it out on you this year so we got we had a question from

the chat from Chris Pugh dear Andy do you think the 12-team playoff model will stay as it is after 2025 I'm talking the 6-6 model with the SEC and the Big Ten growing. Will they use that power to destroy the 6-6 bids? For one, I hope not. Okay, so what Chris is talking about is the idea that the six highest ranked conference champions automatically get a bid to the CFP. I do not think they will change that.

I think that was in there for a specific reason. And basically it is so that college football is a national sport. This was, it's interesting because Greg Sankey was involved with this. Jack Swarbrick, at least from this perspective, like, yes, the SEC and the Big Ten could consume all the oxygen if they want to. That's probably not the best financial decision long-term because that pushes it into more of a regional sport. There's definitely going to be a team from the Pac-12 that can make it, and their champion is going to be one of the top six ranked champions most years. The Big 12, if you look at the numbers, even with Oklahoma and Texas leaving,

there'll be a lot of years where they get two in. So it makes those conferences viable. It makes them interesting. It makes them part of the national framework where the result of the Oklahoma State, Kansas State game matters to fans of Penn State and fans of Auburn and fans of USC and fans of Oregon. And that's good for the game in general, because one thing the NFL does so well is stay interconnected. And it would have been really bad for the sport as a national enterprise if it had just been top 12 ranked teams

because it eventually is going to be mostly Big Ten and SEC. You know what else the NFL does right? Is that they play all their playoff games until the Super Bowl at teams' home stadiums. Oh, yeah. And while I don't want college football to become the nfl i love the fact that there are separate sports the fact that the impending playoff is still beholden to these freaking bulls is just so frustrating now remember the contract's not

up for two more years that first contract right right i'm hoping that i know but the problem is is that you know the big 10 folks have been puffing their chest for years oh the sec come play up here when it's cold and then kevin warren's like well we may go play in the detroit lion state that was gene smith that was not kevin warren gene smith excuse me yes why are you saying that as the ohio state ad why is it that say that? I mean, that's my point. Yeah, it's just such malarkey. It does make me mad because who puts on college football games better than college football programs?

The on-campus game is so much better. I know that the TV people would rather have them on campus too. It's a better TV product when it emanates from on campus. The stadium's more exciting. People are going nuts. When you put it in an NFL stadium at a neutral site and you make people pay all this money to buy tickets and half the people in there are just corporate people from that town,

that's no fun. Let it be people who really root for these teams exactly you're sapping your sport of everything that makes it whether the pageantry the tradition the the just you know there's the fan zealots that go to these games I mean that's what it's all about and if you you just place these games and and yes it's fun to go to new orleans yes it's fun to go to los angeles but you are you are literally zapping your own energy um if you're not allowing these home teams and also rewarding these teams for winning and advancing yeah i i think i think that's the other part because they keep making up stuff like oh well how are they

going to figure it out with two weeks notice they'll figure it out because it's worth a lot of money to the town yeah how are they gonna how are they gonna put a hundred thousand people hotels or whatever it's like they do it every week they figure it out seven times a year already yeah yeah it is it is frustrating i remember when they announced it asking the question, I think Bob Bowlesby was the one. He was still commissioner of the Big 12, and he was the one who drew the short straw and had to answer all the questions.

And he had to pull it. Well, we believe in the bowl system, all that. No, you don't. Now, I realize the older generation of people in charge, they still think there's value in the bowl system. There is not. There's value in the Rose Bowl's location. That's it.

Otherwise, it's a bunch of antiseptic NFL stadiums. The coolest place to see a college football game is a college football stadium. It's not close. We will see, but they are not going to get rid of that top six conference champs thing. That thing is good for the game because that keeps everybody engaged. That makes everything more interesting.

Jesse, I keep telling people the Big 12 is going to be the most fun league in America when all of the realignment settles here because there are going to be so many programs that can legitimately compete for the conference title. Like we just talked about the ACC. It feels like there's only two teams that can compete for the conference title this year in the SEC. It feels like it's three or maybe four. They're going to be years in that new big 12 where there are eight or nine teams that can legitimately compete for the conference title and a playoff berth

i i i agree with you on the big 12 there was one acc team that we made it slightly overlooked i don't think they're they're quite talented enough to win the league this year but jeff braum louisville he inherited the most cakewalk schedule that you can get in your schedule. I mean, he doesn't play Clemson, Florida State, North Carolina. I mean, he gets to avoid all the big dogs. And so I don't think Louisville is going to be able to pull it off, but they have overhauled that roster via the portal, brought in Plummer from Cal,

who he was previously connected with him at Purdue. So I don't think Louisville can win it, but they're at least a dark horse contender. Yeah. I'm with you on Jeff Brom, Louisville long-term. They're just not ready to do it right now. Even, even though the schedule does work out nicely for them. I have a feeling that within three or four years, it won't matter what the schedule is. They'll just be real good and they will be a conference title contender. I am very long on Jeff Brom at Louisville. The man took Purdue to the Big Ten championship game. He's home. He knows how to recruit that area. He knows what he needs to compete in that league. He's been competing in the Big Ten. I do think they could be very good. So I'm excited. They have an active nil collective too they do and so i am

very excited for what that larger playoff will do in terms of our engagement with all of the leagues as the season goes forward but for now it's still just four teams and that's okay we got one more year of that and we will see what happens. When we come back, more of your questions, including one about whether a group of five team, which definitely will make the first 2024 playoff, can they make the last four-team playoff? We'll be right back. All right, we are back. And here's the question.

It's from Gregors on Twitter. Is there any Group of Five team with a shot to make the CFP this season? And who will represent the Group of Five in the New Year's Six Bowls? These are two different questions. let's start with the second one Tulane I think has a as a shot to be that team again we saw them last year make the cotton bowl beat USC Boise State is another possibility now we have the new-look American. We have... I'm wondering at what point does the Sun Belt produce the highest-ranked champ out of this bunch?

Because it feels like the competition in the Sun Belt is getting pretty fierce. But, you know, Coastal Carolina, Appalachian State, Louisiana, could it be one of those teams this year? I think that... Actually, honestly honestly for both of these questions I think it kind of comes down to the same couple of teams you mentioned Tulane they bring back Michael Pratt my guy one of my 10 draftees uh they bring back a bunch of guys on defense they the receiving core. The key here, specifically in terms of the playoff, is that you're going to have to get a marquee win.

Tulane welcomes Ole Miss in week two. Ole Miss has to go to New Orleans to play the Green Wave in the Dome. And so they have both the chance, if they can repeat, as American champions. And then if you win that game and somehow manage to go undefeated, you would at least have a schedule that I think would be respectable enough. At the same time, that's UTSA's case as well. UTSA is now in the American. They're going to be boosted with a strength of schedule.

They have two non-conference games, one against Houston. Or last week, they got to go to Knoxville. But that's a big trap game for Tennessee because Tennessee is going to be coming off the Florida game. So those would be the two programs I would at least say in terms of – I don't think it's – I don't think either one of us thinks it's realistic that, you know, in a 14 field, we're going to have another Cinderella like Cincinnati. But it's at least plausible. So there's a formula to this,

which we won't have to worry about after this season, because it won't matter anymore. It'll be a 12 team playoff. But like you mentioned Tulane, one of the keys to Tulane having any chance beyond going undefeated and winning their conference, Ole Miss also has to be good. Yes. Like if Ole Miss isn't good, it doesn't matter. And so that's the tricky part.

You need Ole Miss to get in there and then win 9-10 games and be a good SEC team be in the mix for the SEC West title toward the end of the season that sort of thing like Cincinnati had the best situation where it was coming off a season where it had been the group of five representative in the near six it had played georgia tough in the peach bowl the next season they played indiana which wound up not being good but indiana had been decent the previous season which helped they played notre dame which had made the playoff and was good that season right and that is what put them in the playoff. The perfect storm for that before that situation was the 2016 Houston team.

Remember they beat Oklahoma in the season opener and they acted, they, they crushed Louisville, which was the Louisville team with Lamar Jackson winning the Heisman. That was very good at ACC that year. Yeah. Crushed them on a Thursday late in the season. But the problem is they lost the Navy and SMU in regular season play.

And SMU could be that team this year if Oklahoma is any good. Because they play Oklahoma. And I think they have one other semi-interesting. Well, they have TCU. TCU. Okay, there you go. So, boom. So, yeah.

Iron skillet game. So, that one's probably your best possibility. I'll give you a couple other ones from the West Coast. Boise State, you know, they had the formula for years, especially in the BCS era, was go win one of these games and then hold on for dear life, go undefeated in conference play they've got Washington early and then they've got UCF which is a we don't know big 12 team they played for the American Championship last year I would imagine that they have some fairly decent talent

at the top end that but they're probably not deep enough the way they're recruiting they're going to be competitive in the Big 12 pretty quick, but I don't know if they're there yet. But those are two good opponents for Boise State. San Diego State has UCLA and Oregon State. They're going to have to prove they can score 21 points first. That would help, but that Oregon State-San Diego State game is going to be a rock fight.

San Diego State plays so well. They can play some defense. They can play some defense. But, my lord, that's some eye-bleeding offense that they run out there. But that's the thing. Let's say for Boise State, you need Washington to either win the Pac-12 or go to the Pac-12 title game and UCF to be pretty good in its first year in the Big 12 for that to matter. Yeah, you probably need UCF to be like a guaranteed bowl team

or otherwise you're not going to get any credit because people are still going to see them as a former G5 program. Yeah, and that's the thing. I mean, there's got to be a better way. And we're not going to have to deal with this anymore. I'm very glad that this is not a situation that we are talking about going forward. Because here's the thing. One of those teams, the team that we're talking about is the New Year's Six Bowl representative.

Whether that's Tulane, Boise State, San Diego State. You mentioned SMU, which I think is a definite possibility. In 2024, that team's making the playoff. And they get to go get their teeth kicked in by, you know, going to Tuscaloosa when Alabama gets to be the, you know, number 18 because Saban's politicked his way. Well, number 12 plays the five, which is probably not a great situation either because the five is going to be some team

that is the second best team in its conference and probably the second best team in the country. So whether that team is Alabama or Ohio State or LSU. I was going to say, you get to go to Baton Rouge. Do a dance with Brian Kelly. So Matthew gives us another question here. And by the way, if you have any more questions, throw them in the chat because we love when you help us think of

new and interesting things to talk about. And this is one for Matthew. Again, I will remind you, Matthew, he's a Georgia fan. How long do you think before the first big-time college football player is audited by the IRS, and why will it be Nico Iyamamela? But listen, we don't need any Nico slander here. He can afford an accountant. So he's probably doing just fine on that.

He may be selling tons of pajama pants. You know that's his thing, right? Yeah. Has his own line. He and his brother work out in them. They do all their seven-on-sevens. Nico's got eight million reasons. I do think this will become an issue there there will be there will be different issues along the line with nil because you're gonna have guys that somebody's gonna run afoul of the irs

just like people in business run afoul of the irs yeah Snipes ran afoul of the IRS. Like you get a large enough population of people making money. Somebody's going to not pay their taxes. So that's going to happen. You're also going to have situations where the deals fall through. Maybe the deal is not what the person thought it was going to be. Not as much as it seems the conference commissioners would like you to believe, because I feel like that's what they keep feeding the legislators on Capitol Hill.

Like, hey, there's a lot of people out there trying to screw these kids. You got to quote unquote, I'm using air quotes here. If you're listening to the podcast, protect them. Yeah, I mean, come on. This is like you said, this is something that happens in everyday life for everyday businesses and everyday people. It's going to, you know, some small group of college football players will get caught up, uh, in some sort of IRS scandal, but it's not going to be, you know, some overwhelming majority of guys getting, you know, lucrative NIL deals. Yeah. Listen, please don't protect me from people throwing thousands of

dollars at me. If I can ask you one thing, just never protect me from that. I will figure the rest out. I will pay my taxes. I will do what I need to do, but please don't protect me from that. Anybody wants to sponsor this show, like, subscribe, and give us free money. We'll take it every time. And do not protect us from it. So, yeah, I think that's the biggest fallacy of all this. And I'll be very glad when this particular legislative session ends without a bill being passed. And that'll be much better. So, yeah, I think I'm going back to that Chris question, Jesse,

because it makes me more and more excited thinking about this. And I, I, I don't want to do this too much as we go on to the 2023 season, but it is going to be so much better with the system they're bringing in next year. See, I push back a little bit, though, because I am someone that does think the regular season is going to lose some of its majesty. And I think that, for instance, this is a hypothetical, but I think there's going to be, and I'm sure you've had this argument on previous podcasts, and so I'm sure you're going to push back on it, but there's going to be more instances than not where you're having Michigan and Ohio State play two straight times and those games other than seating just aren't going to carry the weight that they that they would have carried in an elimination game most years now you can throw back it wasn't an elimination game this year ohio state made it you know even though they lost the game um but if they're playing for in both the big house one week and then in the big 10 championship the next

and it's really just kind of, we're just washing our hands. All right. One of the one seat, you'll be the, whatever seat, it doesn't really matter. I do think that's going to lose some luster on some of these huge games.

It will, there will be less huge, but guess what? People will still watch them because they're on. They'll still be. The fans of the winning team will still make fun of the fans of the losing team. they'll still be that's true the fans of the winning team will still make fun of the fans of the losing team it's just that they'll get to do it again with even higher stakes later on so that that's i and i always argue with ari about this on the old show where he acted like it meant

that those games would not you wouldn't be able to derive any joy whatsoever from those games and that's just not true. Like, no, it's just going to be less joy from them, but it's just going to be less. Yeah. The emotional catharsis of the kick six is going to happen during the playoff. It's just not going to happen in a regular season game.

Probably unless it's a regular season game where a team gets itself into the playoff by winning. Now, what one, one point on this that I think you and I both agree on, that I think there is a massive misconception among a lot of folks that are in favor of the 12-team playoff, is that they believe this actually means more teams will win the championship. That is not going to be the case. The same three or five programs are going to win the national championship every year. And this 12 team playoff is only going to give those

programs even further rope because if Alabama goes nine and three, or if Texas finally gets its act together and goes nine and three, they'll get in, they'll get in. And then if they make a run, boom, they're going to be positioned to win. So this is not, yes, technically more teams are going to have an opportunity to win a national championship, but this is not going to change at all. The number of programs that actually can win a title. Catherine B, one of my favorite readers slash viewers, with an answer to the tax question. The folks paying the kids have a vested interest

in them not being sent to Leavenworth. That's right. That's the other part people forget. Like, and that's what I wonder. Like, I saw that Ted Cruz introduced an NIL bill recently. And I wanted to, i asked this on twitter like did he not even talk to his own state legislature like the state of texas the the local the state legislature has said no no we don't want a lot of nil rules we would like our schools to be able to do what they want and and yeah and ted cruz is like well i'm going to

come in here and just blow up the whole thing i'm not going to do it with with the state of what the what the administration down in austin is is looking to do i i don't know that's not the one that has the best chance of none of them really have a great chance but that one of would probably have the lower odds. Elias Gray with a question. How long until we actually see a clear Cinderella-type upset in the 12-team playoff? Now, here is where I think the deliberate misseating makes things interesting. Because I think 5-12 is going to be tough.

Because I just mentioned what 5 is going to be tough because I just mentioned what 5 is going to be. 5 is going to be an Alabama that doesn't make the SEC championship game or an Ohio State that loses the Big Ten championship game or a Michigan that loses the Big Ten championship game. It's going to be a really good team. So I don't know that 12-5, 11-6 those types of games 10-7 could get pretty interesting because then you've got teams maybe you have a big 10 team or an sec team that is very talented but stumbled a little along the way but kind of found itself at the end of the year

and they're sitting there at number 10 or number 11 you don't want to play that team now yeah you're talking you're talking usc from a couple years ago when they got now that's not really a cinderella the cinderella would be tcu from last year i mean i was going to say that they qualify the fact that you're four and eight and you went 13 games so yeah michigan i think i think tcu from last year was the cinderella now the question is how many games could that ccu team have won in a 12 team playoff the fact that they beat michigan in the semi tells me that there's a lot of teams they could have beaten like they could have they would have had a buy if there'd been a 12 team or No, they would not have had a bye. No, because they didn't win the Big 12.

They would have been behind Ohio State. I bet they would have been. Would they have been behind Ohio State and Alabama? Because they weren't. Yes. They weren't in this situation. They weren't in this situation because they didn't want to have the rematch, I think, against Ohio State and Michigan.

I mean, I believe that the playoff – you've been in those – Yeah, the mock session, yeah. The mock sessions. You know, they say that they don't pay – I'm skeptical to believe that to be true. So I think they didn't want to rematch and so i think ordinarily they power rank these teams um and so tcu would have been ranked lower in my opinion this is obviously a hypothetical yeah i mean and that's the question

who would they have played so they would have played if they're six they wind up playing 11 in that case if they're if they're seven which we think probably would have been seven who would they have played let's let's look up the final cfp rankings and just guess well and what i'll i'll vamp while you're looking that up because the other problem here is that maybe a tcu or whoever in this situation can win one game. The difficulty is stacking up wins because you just don't have the depth. And so they suffered an injury in that Michigan game where they, you know, it did not matter. They were never, they wouldn't beat Georgia. You know, if they played a hundred times, maybe they win once.

I don't know. You know, I't know. But they lose their running back. Miller gets hurt, and they're able to withstand that injury and hold on for dear life and beat the Wolverines and record this monumental program victory. But then you lose your star running back. Oh, and maybe that's just 11 versus 6 or whatever we're saying. Can you really turn around and then go win another game? That that's where it's like, probably not.

So I think they would have played USC first. They could have beaten USC. Yeah. They could have beaten USC and then that would have put them, that would have put them against the, whatever the three seed would have been, which would have been Clemson or utah they could have beaten them too like they could have wound up in the semi-finals again against maybe a michigan maybe it just it just depends on you know were they able to avoid some sort of cataclysmic injury because i would say losing yeah i get against most other teams losing kendra

miller losing kendra miller would have been that injury yeah it's it's a fascinating question i i really do think i i want to see it because i do think we're going to see just an absolutely excited just pumped group of fans when you get that first real upset that's where that the popularity of that event will instantly take hold people are going to be like oh i don't know about this and then the second a 12 beats a five or an 11 beats a six and it's you know like a group of five champ or a champion of the the pack 12 or the the big 12 or even a runner-up of the big 12 like we saw with tcu last year they beat a team that's considered you know wealthier and and has big recruiting advantages that's when everybody's like i love this so much even

well people are also i i don't want to see this they're gonna are gonna love it well people are also – I don't want to see this. They're going to love it. Well, people are also just – they're going to be obsessed with helmet games. And this playoff format is likely to provide some just awesome helmet games where you have USC playing Georgia or you have Ohio State playing Oregon. And it's just those sorts of matchups that you don't ordinarily get on the schedule. Georgia, or you have Ohio State playing Oregon, you know, and it's just those sorts of matchups that you don't ordinarily get on the schedule. So Catherine, one more question.

She says, apologies if I miss it, but have you all talked about Mike Elko's contract extension? We have not, but congrats for the money. Mike Elko now under contract at Duke through 2029, which good to do it now because as Joe Ovias pointed out when he was on the show yesterday, we talked about how Louisville's schedule is not so great. Duke is pretty rough. So they open with Clemson. Notre Dame comes to them. They've got NC State. They're at Florida State.

They're at Louisville. They get Wake. They're at North Carolina. They close the year with Pitt. That's a pretty rough go of it, even if you did win nine games last year. Yeah, I had a piece earlier about teams I expected to regress, and they were one of my top candidates. and it's not that i don't think very highly of elko i think what he did you know taking cutcliffe's guys and turning it into a you

know just an outlier historical program uh in their 130 something year history the other cause for concern andy duke last year i think led the nation in fumble recoveries and had the fewest fumbles in the nation that is a deathly combination when you're when the regression monster is going to come bite you uh you have some control over most recovered you have some but not nearly as much control over. I mean, that's, yeah. You're going to be fighting an uphill battle to replicate that. All right. Well, Jesse, it's been fun.

Folks, thank you so much for your great questions. We'll be doing this probably about once a week here on Andy Staples on 3. We love your questions. Hopefully, we have good answers for them. Right now, my extra point on something that we're missing when ACC Media Days kicks off tomorrow. The loss of a college football institution this year. It was a fairly young institution. It was born in 2005. It only lasted until 2022. But it gave us so much joy over the years. Yes, of course, I speak of the ACC Coastal Division. This year will be the first divisionless year in the ACC since 2004. And well, there were two divisions in the ACC. One of them had Clemson and Florida State, and the other one didn't. That was the Coastal.

The Coastal was a great, amazing place where anything could happen. In fact, at one point, seven different teams won the Coastal in seven different years. We never got the perfect Coastal season. That would have been a season in which every member of the division finished four and four in conference play. But we came close a few times. We had mathematical possibilities going into the last couple of weeks of the season a couple of times. It was the greatest, most mediocre division in the history of college football, at least until the Big Ten West dies following this year. But I'm going to miss it.

I'm going to miss not knowing whether Virginia Tech or Virginia or Georgia Tech or Duke or whoever else was in, oh, Miami was in the Coastal. See, I can't even remember anymore. It didn't take long to forget. But as we celebrate ACC kickoff, let's just remember the Coastal, the most meh division in college football history. May it rest in peace.