Andy & Ari On3 - Dear Andy: Should not taking a knee be fireable? | Should Oklahoma fans stay mad at Lincoln Riley?

Episode Date: October 10, 2023

Dear Andy: Should not taking a knee be fireable? | Should Oklahoma fans stay mad at Lincoln Riley?This episode is brought to you by Gametime. Want to see your favorite team play this weekend? How about your favorite artist coming to town for a show? Look no further than Gametime for all your last minute deals. Download the Gametime App and enter code: STAPLES for $20 off your first purchase, terms apply. Last Minute Tickets, Lowest Prices, Guaranteed.Want to watch the show instead? Head on over to YouTube and don't forget to subscribe!https://youtube.com/live/Pspl1XAQNV4It's a Dear Andy show, so your questions are the stars.But first, we take a look at how a 12-team College Football Playoff might look this season. (0:00-9:45)Next, Justin Hopkins of On3's Scoop Duck previews Oregon-Washington. (9:46-23:26)Then it's time for your questions. Among them...Should something as gallingly foolish as Mario Cristobal's refusal to take a knee be covered in the "for cause" section of a coach's contract? (23:27-31:10)If the ACC has an undefeated champ and every other Power 5 conference has a one-loss champ, who gets left out? (31:11-37:52)How much is the extra year of eligibility from 2020 impacting competitive balance? (37:53-43:49)What team could be this year's version of TCU? (43:50-48:30)What Will USC Look like next year without Caleb Williams (48:31-52:41)Would a Brian Ferentz Offense and an Alex Grinch Defense win any games? (52:42-55:45)Should Oklahoma fans stay mad at Lincoln Riley or let living well be the best revenge? (55:46-1:04:16)

Welcome to Andy Staples on three. It is a dear Andy show where, of course, your questions are the stars. We got great questions about the situation at Miami, the taking a knee or lack thereof at Miami. We got questions about Oklahoma. We got questions about the ACC title race. We got questions about the college football playoff and who gets left out. And there's a really good question that I'm going to answer where I'm presented with a scenario. And the question is who gets left out. And it got me thinking, this is why they're expanding the playoff.

This particular question right here, because if this were to happen, what they're going to do is screw somebody and go, well, we're starting a 12-team playoff anyway. And they're just going to be like, that's it, forget about it. So it is Monday night, which means this is when we reveal our 12-team hypothetical projected playoff as if they were doing it this year. So let's do that now. Let's open the show with that and just imagine the possibilities because this weekend opened up some possibilities for some other teams that we have not seen in this. And it also got me thinking about what games might matter this weekend for something like that. So before we get started, I'm going to talk about two teams that aren't in this week's hypothetical 12-team playoff but could be in next week's depending on what happens. So the Texas A&M at Tennessee game this year doesn't feel huge. It's big for Tennessee, obviously, because they've only got one loss. If they were to win out, they would make the college football playoff. But I don't think anybody expects them to win out. They've still

got to play Georgia. They've still got to play Alabama. If they were to beat both of those, they'd have to play somebody else in the SEC championship game, maybe Alabama again. So the thought is that they're probably not going to make it. Texas A&M just took its second loss. They're definitely not going to make it. But what if it were next year? What if it were next year? Because Texas A&M wouldn't be out either. Now, they would be close to out. This would probably be an elimination game for them in the 12-team playoff scenario. They would probably need to win this game to get in or to get in without tons and tons of help.

Tennessee, meanwhile, probably could lose it but wouldn't have any other margin for error, probably would need to win this one too so they could split Georgia and Alabama and have a chance to get in. That's a game that we're not even really thinking about right now, other than if you're a Tennessee fan, if you're a Texas A&M fan, they're both very big group, you know, big questions going on for both teams.

We're going to have Casey Smith from Barstool, Texas A&M grad, proud Aggie on tomorrow. She had an epic rant after the slew of Jimbo Fisher decisions in the Alabama game that he probably would have gotten a lot more heat if not for Mario Cristobal, to be perfectly honest. If Mario Cristobal had taken a knee, we'd have been just dissecting everything Jimbo Fisher did or didn't do in that Alabama game. So in next year's scenario, Texas A&M would not be out at this point and would have a chance to play its way back in. The thing is, if they beat Tennessee, there is a chance. I mean, A&M is talented enough to beat everybody else on the schedule. So they could be a 10-2 team that doesn't win the West, that doesn't play for the sec

championship. But in the 12 team playoff, they're going to be in there somewhere. And if they're hot, especially you think about it, they would be coming off a pretty big win streak to end the season. They'd be one of those teams you don't want to see in that scenario. So we will see what happens with that game, but it will not mean as much now as it would if there's a 12-team playoff because both teams still feel very much alive in that scenario, and they don't feel very much alive right now. Let us go to what we think it would look like. Now, remember, we're using the current conference alignments. So next year, Texas and Oklahoma will be in the SEC. Oregon, Washington, USC will be in the SEC. Oregon, Washington,

USC will be in the Big Ten. There will be no PAC-12 or there will be some other version of the PAC-12. We'll see. News today, Washington filed a motion to dismiss the Washington state and Oregon state lawsuit that is basically keeping the PAC-12 departing schools from making decisions for the PAC-12, which essentially is keeping them from looting the treasury, basically. But we're using this year's for this. And so we'll say six highest ranked conference champs, six at-larges, and the teams are in the leagues they're in. So what I have is basically a version of that projected college football playoff New Year's Six that we did for the actual playoff format this year.

But what makes it interesting is you have to move some stuff around. In that one, I had Michigan also making the playoff, along with Penn State in the four-team playoff. Obviously, they both make the 12-team playoff, but Michigan couldn't be the four seed in that situation. So this is me saying Penn State wins the big 10, that they're undefeated, that they beat Michigan and they beat Ohio State and they're in,

but Michigan beats Ohio State and Ohio State only loses to Michigan from here on out and, or only lose to Michigan and Penn State. So they both get in, but Michigan, even if we thought they were the fourth best team in the country, cannot be the fourth seed because remember, the top four seeds are reserved for conference champions. So Michigan would not get a bye, would have to play that first round game,

but would get a home game. So we got Georgia number one as the SEC champ. Penn State number two as the Big Ten champ. Oklahoma, the Big 12 champ at three. Florida State, your ACC champ at four. Michigan at five. Your Pac-12 champ, Oregon, at six. Now, again, in real life and in this,

if Oregon is undefeated, they're going to be in the top four. If Oregon is 12-1 as the Pac-12 champ, they're going to be in the top four because the league is so deep this year. So this is me saying I think the Pac-12 cannibalizes itself a bit and the champ comes out with two losses. Number seven, Ohio State. Number eight, Washington. Number nine, Texas. Number 10, Louisville. Number eight, Washington. Number nine, Texas. Number 10, Louisville. Number 11, North Carolina. And number 12, I've got Wyoming there predicting they win the Mountain West, predicting they're the highest ranked group of five champ. Now, they may not hold onto that spot any longer than this week because they got to go play Air Force.

So how does that match up? What does that look like? It means Wyoming's headed to Ann Arbor. It means Michigan gets a game that it probably should win. And the winner of that would play Florida state and the sugar bowl. Meanwhile, next game, North Carolina, Oregon. This one would be a lot of fun. Drake May against Bo Nix in Eugene. Austin Stadium is a very tough place to play. It's not huge. It doesn't hold a ton of people, but the acoustics of that place and the passion of that fan base make it a very loud place to play. So that would be a very fun game. The winner of that one would play number three, Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.

Louisville, our darling, that just beat Notre Dame, that if you look at the rest of the schedule, you go, hmm, if they get past Duke, it is really, really Kentucky standing in the way of them going undefeated. So they have a chance. In the 12-team scenario, even if they dropped one, I think there's a good chance they would end up in the playoff. So I got them playing Ohio State, winner playing number two Penn State in the Rose Bowl. And then number nine, Texas at number eight, Washington. This sort of seeding would really matter because these two probably would have

pretty similar resumes. This predicts that Texas loses again to Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship game. Neither one loses another game, or Oklahoma maybe drops one along the way but beats Texas in the rematch, but probably undefeated Oklahoma in this scenario. The winner would play Georgia in the Peach Bowl, but I'm sure if you're Texas, you'd rather play that game in Austin than Seattle. So that's where seeding will matter. These things truly, truly matter. So that is your 12 team projected playoff right now, subject to change. And that's one thing I want to do as we go through this. One of the reasons we're doing this is kind of train our brains for when this is the real thing, because I think we're going to have to really change the way we

think about success and what matters. I'm going to try to make notes of games like the one we just talked about, the Texas A&M-Tennessee game, that maybe wouldn't matter. So we'll see what happens from here on out, but this is going to be a very interesting situation going forward. Tony Ayo, Bama doesn't even make a 12-team playoff. Well, I think they, maybe they would. Maybe I messed that up. Maybe we got to reshape some things,

but for now we'll go with this. We'll do another one next week. Let us move on to this year's playoff to a game that will shape the race for this year's playoff that will shape the race for the last pac-12 title as we know it oregon and washington this is a very interesting situation where both teams had the week off before they play each other. And well, that means just more time to hate because this is a very intense rivalry. I think people who have not experienced it think, oh, it's not that big of a deal. They have their in-state rivals. No, no, no. This one is full of hatred, and they got two weeks to ramp it up. We were joined by Justin Hopkins of ScoopDuck to help us get the Oregon side of things for the Oregon-Washington rivalry.

They're playing on Saturday. They're going to Seattle. Oregon's trying to avenge a loss from last year. Here is Justin Hopkins. We are joined now by Justin Hopkins of ScoopDuck.com on Three's Oregon site. And guess what? Oregon was off last week. Washington was off that last week. Collision course for these two teams in Seattle for the top of the Pac-12 at the moment. Justin, how much buzz is there in Eugene about this game? Yeah, you know, it's been really tough to kind of keep things wrangled in because the minute Oregon was done with its last game, which was a win over Stanford,

it was immediately, here we are, it's into hate week. It's double hate week, which is what it's called. It's always been called hate week, but now you get two weeks of it. And fans have wanted to talk about it all week. And it's just there's so much buildup and excitement for this game. Just because of how good the two teams are, but also because you get to do two weeks of it as well. Well, and the way, especially for Oregon fans, I imagine, and Oregon players and coaches, the way last year's game went, where Bo Nix gets hurt at the end, where it looked like Oregon had the momentum, was going to be able to win the game. And then he gets hurt. Washington

kicks a field goal, goes up and winds up winning the game. And ultimately that, that keeps Oregon out of the PAC 12 championship game. How, how much has this burned in this off season for, for the ducks? Yeah, I, I think, you know, the way Oregon lost Oregon state was tough and there's no doubt that that burn, but when you lose to your rival, when you lose to Washington, when you have, when you, when you had the game basically in your hands, you know, for the most part, and unfortunately just kind of let it slip away because of circumstance. And, you know, the hard part was it's Dan Lanning's first year, and maybe there's some learning curve there for Dan Lanning as well,

which I think he's learned from this year. Yeah, it's a tough way to lose. You never want to lose to your rival. You know, I know one of the proudest moments in Oregon history is going 12 and 0 against the Huskies, you know, 12 seasons in a row with wins. So yeah, that was tough for Oregon. And, you know, I think if anything else, perhaps that's the motivator for Dan Lanning this week heading into this game is, hey, let's not repeat last year. Let's leave no doubt. Well, and I imagine it was fun beating Washington all these years but with Chris Peterson getting that program back up and then and now Kalen DeBoer taking over

and doing really well how much more fun is it when both teams are good to play that game because the hate level is off the charts in this thing it's not you know Washington has Washington State Oregon has Oregon State but it's not the same as the hatred level between Oregon and Washington. No, the civil war and the apple cup are great rivalries, but this is an epic rivalry. If you were a casual and happened to be in Seattle that weekend and said, Hey, let's go, let's go watch the game. We're something neutral. So you don't get spit on or it's legit. I mean, I get it. It's, it's what makes football what it is. It's the passion. It's the rivalry. It's the pageantry. And this is, you know, at the top in terms of college football of that. So there's no problem

calling it a hate week and calling it what it is. These two teams flat out just don't like each other and to have, you know, this kind of, of, of standing with it for it to be a top 10 matchup playoff implications, you know, both teams are really good on offense. Both teams are, are pretty good on defense. Oregon has the advantage there a little bit, but I mean, you're looking at two very quality teams and you know that this is quote unquote, your, your mid year Superbowl, if you will, for both teams. And the thing is, it's like, this is the best quarterback matchup in the year so far, Bo Nix versus Michael Penix Jr. It'll kind of be a round robin because both these teams have

to play Caleb Williams and USC later in the year. But it is just so much fun to see quarterbacks playing at this level. And Penix throws the prettiest deep ball in America he's got those great receivers but let's talk about Nick's he's gonna play 80 of his passes this year that's insane it is yeah it's Oregon's offense they're two different completely different offenses Oregon does put up the passing numbers but it's more of an efficiency right it's a lot shorter uh you know screens and and just simple patterns that keep the offense moving down the field, whereas, you know, Washington can break your back on a single play. You know, they can chuck a 70-yarder, you know, on first down if they want to.

So it's a different way of going about it. But, I mean, when you have a general out there like Bo Nix with his experience, with his understanding of the offense, of his ability to read the defense, as you'll recall, just two years ago, we were all, you know, hey, is Bo Nix ever going to get it? He's kind of an interception machine. He struggles there. And now he's one of the most efficient quarterbacks in America.

I believe Oregon's first turnover was last week against Stanford. That's pretty remarkable. So now that you've seen almost half a season of Will Stein, what are the differences between his offense and the one Kenny Dillingham ran? Not a lot, really. I think they tend to lean on the run game a little bit less than Dillingham did. And I don't know that it's lean. I think they're just kind of saving that saying, okay, well, if you're not going to stop what we're doing, we're having success here with the, with the short intermediate throws. I think we're going to keep doing that. And then once you decide that

that's what you're going to do and we spread you wide, you know, we're going to send Bucky Irving right up the gut or, you know, whoever the running back is back there, they're, they're three or four deep in the backfield without Noah Whittington, who's a tremendous player, but done for the year. It's just the ability to have that balance. And it's, you know, as we know, if you're an offensive coordinator, you're looking at matchups, you're looking at numbers, you're looking at where you can take advantage of the defense. And I think Will Stein does that almost underappreciated to an underappreciated level is just that

it's so, it's so small and you don't really notice until after the game. You're like, that was really good. Well, and it helps having that offensive line. And I think about one of Dan Lanning's first big gets was getting Josh Connerly to commit. It was an Oregon-USC recruiting matchup. He's a five-star. He's one of those.

He waited until February. And that felt like the first sign, okay, he's going to keep doing on the line of scrimmage what Mario Cristobal was, but he's also a defensive guy who's going to bring in these guys on the other side of the ball too. And Connerly, after a season to kind of get used to things, seems to be as advertised. Yeah yeah he's having a tremendous second season last year he was a real bright spot on that offensive line i know that when he came in you know he kind of came in late because of when he signed and and enrolled and it was after april he didn't get the benefit of spring ball and next thing you know in fall ball a couple weeks you know it's like ah

he's pretty good but it's not there yet and then it was like two games in it's like, ah, he's pretty good, but it's not there yet. And then it was like two games in. It's like, yeah, this guy's he's a real deal. And this year he's just capitalized on that. And I, I think because like you said, that offensive line is very complete all the way across, you know, they give up very few pressures, uh, virtually no sacks on Bo Nix this year. You almost don't talk about Connerly enough because they're all really good, but he's exceptional as he's just a very gifted player and I don't think he's getting the National recognition now defensively they did add some pieces through the portal they lost Christian Gonzalez first round Corner but it

like you said earlier it does feel like a more complete defense why is that yeah I think it was those portal additions if you look at what Oregon did this offseason, and again, ahead of this matchup, Washington's very pass-happy attack. I think you knew if you're Dan Lanning, you're looking at USC and what Lincoln Riley's always done, and he throws the football, he's got Caleb Williams. They bolstered up in that secondary. So a lot of their key contributors in the secondary this year were through the transfer portal. Tysheem Johnson from Ole Miss, starter in the secondary. Kyrie Jackson, starter at corner from Alabama.

Evan Williams from Fresno State. His brother Bennett played at Oregon last year, starter at safety. So that's where they really bolstered up. Now, you went and got Jordan Burch up front, which has been a tremendous get. We have yet to see Justin Jacobs from Iowa. I know everybody's just kind of waiting for his debut, and I think we're going to finally see it in Seattle this week. But yeah, I mean, yeah, I think that's going to happen. And you kind of wonder what Oregon's defense will look like with him potentially out there healthy at linebackers. So again, I think that's what Dan Lanning saw, It's like, hey, our defense has to get better.

It has to be better. And that's what he prioritized in the transfer portal this year. Yeah, it is going to be a fun, fun game. And that defense is going to be challenged. How do you think this game plays out? Well, you know, I think if you're Oregon, you're going to really try to limit those explosive plays, right? You're going to give up some yards.

I think you're going to do a lot of bend, but don't break on defense. You're going to get down on the red zone and then tighten down and hope you can get them to kick field goals. Instead of those, like we said earlier, Phoenix has a beautiful deep ball. If he wants to throw a 75 yard or he absolutely can, and you don't want to give those up. So very much is feels like because it's in Seattle, because they're the home team. I think Oregon has the more complete defense, but I think that home field advantage is going to play into it.

And it just really looks like this is going to be the last team with the football ends up winning this game. Field goal, you know, just something dramatic from a touchdown. I don't know. It just certainly has the makings of that kind of game. Well, it's so interesting after watching Texas and Oklahoma on Saturday, two teams that are the best in their conference going at it. Great game, classic finish. And then you're like, Oh, well, they're probably going to play again, like 20 miles from here in December. It doesn't feel that way with this game,

even though they might end up playing again later in the year but the problem is if you lose you still got to deal with USC you may have to deal with a potentially full strength Utah if you catch Oregon State in the wrong place you're you're gonna lose catch UCLA in the wrong place you're gonna lose so for both these teams it feels like you gotta win this to give yourself a chance to to play in the Pac-12 championship game. Yeah, I agree. If you want to cement your spot, if you will, in playing in that Pac-12 championship game, you've got to win. Because then you control your own destiny, and all you have to do moving forward is win the rest of your games.

And I say all you have to do, which is not easy, but you can tell your own destiny. And if you're Washington or if you're Oregon and you lose this game, like you said, you've still got the gauntlet ahead of you. You've got to beat, you know, Utah. You've got to beat Washington State. You've got to watch out for USC. You know, there's some really good games out there. Wazoo is a team that nobody likes to play.

Oregon State, very similar, the team you don't want to play just because they're that tough. So you've still got to run the gauntlet and you might need a little help along the way if you're the loser of this game. So yeah, controlling your own destiny is always best. You could easily get back if you do lose this game, but you might need a little luck along the way in order to do that. So the restful hate week is over. The real hate week begins. Oregon, Washington in Seattle for the top of the Pac-12. Cannot wait. Justin Hopkins, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you.

Welcome back. So let's talk a little bit of Oregon, Washington. What if you wanted to go to that game? Well, GameTime has your tickets. If you use the code STAPLES, you get 20% off your first purchase. Download that GameTime app. And I'm on the GameTime app right now.

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And maybe you want to go to Tennessee and Texas A&M. That would be a little more expensive, but you could get a pretty nice seat at Neyland Stadium and you don't have to stress about it. You know exactly where you're going to sit. The tickets are downloaded right to your device. You can text them to your friends on game day. So download the game time app. The code is staples. It's $20 off your first person. I've said 20% of $20 off your first purchase terms apply.

Download the game time app. Last minute tickets, less stress guaranteed. It's game time. It's also time for dear Andy. It is time for your questions. It is time for you to become the stars of this show. And of course, we're starting off with a question based on the thing that nobody can stop talking about. I heard Dan Levitard, who's a Miami grad and very much aggrieved, but he was talking about

going down the dial on Sirius XM on Sunday morning for all the sports channels. You have ESPN radio, you got the college sports station, you have NBA radio. And he's like, it didn't matter where I went. They were talking about Mario Cristobal not taking a knee. He couldn't get away from it. He's like, I heard it on the NASCAR channel. So this was a huge story and continues to be a huge story. On Monday, Shannon Dawson, the offensive coordinator, said, hey, look, I called the play. I take responsibility for that. Mario Cristobal has said multiple times we should have taken a knee.

We've been reminded multiple times that Mario Cristobal had a very similar situation in the 2018 Oregon-Stan Stanford game that his Oregon team lost. Got a question from Craig on Twitter. Should 80s write contracts so that indefensible failures, like failing to kneel when a kneel would guarantee a win, be considered cause for termination? And question two, should kneel downs be illegal so to make the games more exciting?

Number one, I've always wondered about this. You could just write into a contract, we can fire you for cause if you lose too many games and set a number if you wanted to. Now, no respectable agent is going to let his client sign that contract. And if you're Mario Cristobal with a pretty good job at Oregon and no real reason to leave, if that sort of thing is in your contract, you are not going to sign that contract. So there is no chance that a coach with any other options is going to sign a contract like that. But yes, it would be nice if things like losing too many games

or doing something that guarantees you're going to lose a game when you could easily win a game, if that could be a for-cause fireable offense, because it would sort of take the BS out of it. But the reason they don't do that is because they want to stand up at the press conference and pretend they're not hiring somebody to win football games. They want to pretend they're hiring them to mold men.

Well, no, they're hiring you to win and they'll fire you if you lose. But the good news is, for you coaches, is you can't be fired for cause for losing, which that seems to be the thing that should be the reason you would get fired for cause. But what do I know? As for question number two, should kneel downs be illegal so as to make the game more exciting? No, because this is done within the clock rules. You're not changing anything. If you made kneel downs illegal, they would just do something else to kill a play. You wouldn't do a kneel down.

You'd do like a flop down. It's college football. Once you hit the ground, the play's over. Now, the NFL would be a little bit different. In the NFL, I guess if you did a flop down, you'd have to wait for somebody to touch you. And the defense could not touch you, but then that would keep the clock running.

So it doesn't make any sense to make a change like this. I do realize there are sports that have certain rules that don't make sense just for more competitive spice. The NBA is a good example. Remember in the NBA, if your other team, let's say the other team makes a basket toward the end of the game and you don't have time to throw it all the way down the court. If you have a timeout, you can call timeout on the baseline and get the ball at mid court on the sideline. It's magic. It's time travel, but you can do that. And it, they do that because it makes the games more interesting. It produces potentially more buzzer beaters. It forces that situation into happening. But in this situation,

there's nothing magical about it. There's no way you could ban it. It's sort of like everybody wants to ban the brotherly shove in the NFL. You could ban the brotherly shove. You could say that the Eagles players can't get behind Jalen Hurts and push him, but you can't ban the offensive line blocking and you can't ban the quarterback who deadlifts a million pounds from sneaking. If they ban that play, they would just tell the guys who are pushing Jalen Hurts, don't push Jalen Hurts. Instead, we're going to have you block. And he'd still convert most of those. In this situation, you're not taking advantage of anything. The clock is what it is.

If the play clock is dead following that play, if the game clock is under 40 seconds and the other team doesn't have a timeout, you can walk off the field without running on the play. So you can kneel before that. So in this situation in particular, I believe there were, I think there were 37 seconds left when they snapped the ball. Now there was, there was time on the, not enough time on the play clock to run all those 30 seconds, seven seconds out. But if they'd taken a knee, there would have been no way

for Georgia Tech to stop the clock. Perfectly fair. That it's the same rule for everybody. Nobody's taking advantage of that. So no, kneel down should not be illegal. We don't need to artificially create another miracle at the Meadowlands or whatever we're going to call.

What are we calling this by the way? The brain lock at Hard Rock? I think that'd be a good one. What else, what else could we call it? There, there, there, there has to be a fancy name. Brain lock at hard rock feels good to me because this fit. Well, do we do something to give Georgia tech credit? Because they did, they did get the ball down the field once they got it back. So maybe we need to do something that gives Georgia Tech a little credit. I'm trying to think of something Ramblin' Wreck related here, but the brain lock at Hard Rock is what I'm going to go with because it was one of the dumbest things you'll ever see on a football field.

And I don't know how else to say it. If that is Mario Cristobal's philosophy of not taking these, which his history suggests it is. And actually, if you look at Miami's wins earlier in the season, they were running plays right up until the end. I don't think it'll be his philosophy anymore. He came out three times after the game in a very short press conference and said, we should have taken a knee. So my guess is he will take knees from here on out. And yeah, I don't think there is any other way to handle that situation. Golly.

Now, Miami's not out of this thing. They can go to Chapel Hill if they win. Remember, they play everybody good in the ACC. They play all three currently undefeated ACC teams this season. So they've got North Carolina this week. They play Florida State. They also play Louisville.

They could still have a great season. They could still make the ACC championship game. But they'll have to come back from this. The brain lock at Hard Rock. Because that is what we're going to call it from now on. Moving on. But staying in the ACC for a bit. We have a question on video from Kevin.

Dear Andy, if every Power Five conference has a one loss champion except for the ACC and their champion is undefeated. Which team is getting left out? Or does it depend on the team that wins the conference? Thanks. That is a really good question. Very dark, very dark where Kevin was. So here is the scenario again. The ACC champion is undefeated, 13-0. Every other Power 5 champ is 12-1. So I think the way we look at this is in the Big 12, that means Texas comes back through, doesn't lose again, and beats Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship game.

Theoretically, you could have Oklahoma drop one along the way and then beat Texas again. I think probably the more likely scenario is the one I just said, where Texas wins out, beats Oklahoma. I would think Texas has to make it in that scenario, but I'm not sure. The Big Ten, you'll have a one-loss team. So that could be Michigan, Ohio State, or Penn State. It would mean you lost one of those, but it'd also mean you beat one of those. The question is, who else did you beat? Michigan would have more trouble with the who else did you beat. Ohio State's going to have the Notre Dame game.

Penn State will have the West Virginia game, which sounds crazy right now, but they're 4-1 and get in the season with a pretty good record. This is really, really hard because when we get to the Pac-12, whether it's Oregon, Washington, USC, Utah, Oregon State, I mean, it could be any of these teams. It could be Washington State. They've got one loss. The team that gets out of the Pac-12 at 12-1

is going to have gone through the ringer. They are going to have to have run a gauntlet. Part of me says you've got to put one of those teams in. You've got to put that team in. Georgia as a 12-1 SEC champ. How does that work? Okay, well, there's a couple ways that works. Texas A&M beats Tennessee this weekend, handing them their second conference loss. Tennessee beats Georgia in Knoxville, but Georgia doesn't lose again. And then Georgia goes on and wins the SEC. That's one way to do it.

Another way to have a one-loss conference champion in the SEC is Alabama just wins out, which we could see. They would have the loss to Texas, which in this scenario is going to put Texas ahead of them. The question is, would the committee members dare put a Pac-12 team above 12-1 Alabama, even in a down year for the SEC? My guess is no. My guess is the Pac-12 will still get left out in that situation. Too bad. That's why we're having a 12 team next year.

But yes, the ACC champ would make it. It does not matter who the ACC champ is in that scenario. 13-0 Power 5 champ is going to make the playoff. So whether that's Florida State, North Carolina, or Louisville, they're making the playoff. Obviously, Florida State probably would have the strongest case because of the LSU. Well, maybe.

Kind of depends what Notre Dame does the rest of the way because Louisville has the Notre Dame win. But that is such a tough question. I think they'd screw the Pac-12. Even though the Pac-12, that 12-1 Pac-12 champ would be as deserving as anybody. I think they'd screw them. Because I don't think they're leaving the Big Ten champ out. I don't think they're leaving the SEC champ out. And I don't think they're leaving Texas or Oklahoma out. I just don't.

They're going to say, well, we looked at it and we just, they're not going to say eye test. But that's what they'll mean. And they'll feel terrible about it. But they'll say, well, that's why we expanded the playoffs so this never happens again. I really hope this doesn't happen at the end of the year. I don't think it'll happen. The ACC, I think somebody's going to take some losses.

We haven't even talked about the ACC potential tiebreaker. Remember, the three currently undefeated teams in the ACC do not play one another. Don't play one another. Florida State, Louisville, North Carolina, don't play. What happens if they're all undefeated? Well, it goes to SportsSource Analytics. That's an analytics company based in Atlanta and Nashville. And they've done work with college football playoff. They actually were contracted by the ACC in 2016. Remember the Atlantic division had three really good teams,

Louisville, Clemson, and Florida State. They were going to have to break that tie if it came to that. So that is potentially what they would do what they would do is they're essentially going to use their advanced stats, probably some sort of predictive formula, similar to ESPN's S&P Plus, similar to any like a Vegas style power rating to basically pick the two teams that would give the ACC the best chance of winning playoff games if one of them goes to the playoff. So that's what they would do. It will probably mimic what a human poll would do, but that would probably favor Florida State and North Carolina based on their schedules. And we'll see. But that is a

great question. The 13-0 ACC champ would be in, and I don't think they're leaving out the Big Ten champ, and I don't think they're leaving out the SEC champ. And then you'd have essentially Texas and somebody from the Pac-12, which, again, it could be a lot of teams. There's a lot of good teams in the Pac-12. But, man, what a tough, tough decision that would be. And again, I think they just throw up their hands. Well, we messed this up. We messed it up when we did a 14 playoff and now we're doing a 12 team. We're sorry we screwed you. We're sorry Pac-12 that you got

screwed. We're sorry that you don't exist next year. We're just sorry. Jesse, in the immortal words of Bart Scott, can't wait in the chat. All right, let us move on to our next question. And it comes from Ian. A major story no one is talking about is the impact of the COVID year of eligibility and how it's affecting the national championship in Heisman picture.

Jordan Travis, Bo Nix, Michael Pinnock, and others. Travis and Pinnock have been in college since 2018. It's quite an advantage to get two senior seasons. Plus, the NIL is a solid reason to come back for one more year. It's a massive advantage, and no one is talking about it. Counterpoint, Ian, lots of people are talking about it. Every coach in the world is talking about it. We're talking about it, too.

It's not the most interesting podcast topic, so that's why we don't spend a lot of time going, you know, it's the COVID year. But it is absolutely a reason why a lot of teams that were kind of that second tier below the elite teams are now better and closer to the elite teams or maybe are the elite teams. And it's also a reason why teams that typically lose a lot of draft picks and lose them early, they have kind of come down to the pack a little bit because they have to. They have to come down because they were losing everybody at the same rate and they're just younger. Meanwhile, these teams that don't lose juniors and seniors to the draft every single year,

well, they've got now super seniors. They've got sixth-year seniors. They've got fifth-year seniors who would not be playing otherwise. The class of 2018 thing is a great point. Jordan Travis, Bo Nix, Michael Penix Jr., all examples of that person. Bo Nix started as a freshman, and he's still playing. I believe he was a freshman in 2019, I believe, but he's played every single year. I'll give you another example of that. Jack Plummer. We were

just talking about Louisville. Louisville's undefeated right now. Louisville's a first year coach in Jeff Braum. They've done a lot of roster flipping, a lot of transfers. So Jack Plummer is a transfer to Louisville. He played with Jeff Braum at Purdue. Well, he's not that old. He didn't play with Jeff Brom, and Jeff Brom played at Louisville. But he played for Jeff Brom at Purdue. He then transferred to Cal and played there last year, and now he is playing for Jeff Brom again at Louisville. So he's the starting quarterback, knows the offense.

You heard Jeff Brom on the show last week. Having Jack Plummer has made his life considerably easier and has made the transition to Louisville considerably easier and made it just easier to start faster. Let me give you another example of Louisville. This was a crazy one. I saw this guy catch a pass the other day and thought, he's still in college and he's where Joey Gatewood is a tight end at Louisville now you remember Joey Gatewood he was the number five QB prospect in the class of 2018 he was behind Trevor Lawrence Justin Fields JT Daniels and Dorian Thompson Robinson he was 59 spots ahead of Brock Purdy, who is now in year two as the San Francisco 49ers starter. That's how long Joey Gatewood's been in college.

He has been at Auburn. He's been at Kentucky. He's been at UCF and he's now at Louisville. Here's another thing for Louisville. Nine starters on offense, five starters on defense are in at least their fourth year of college. They are old, old, old, old, old. That number, by the way, if you want to do the same thing for Georgia, they're starting 22. There are eight players in at least their

fourth year of college. That's all. Because Georgia loses, like Jalen Carter was going pro after his junior year. Trevon Walker was going pro after his junior year. Those players aren't going to be there as long. So yes, when the COVID guys cycle out, it is going to be a little bit different situation. It is going to be probably a little less parody than we're seeing this year because those teams that have lots of future NFL players, those players won't be playing against a bunch of grown ass men, 23 year olds in their sixth year of college anymore. That's the difference. So it is a very big deal.

And in the Heisman race, yeah. Jordan Travis, Bo Nix, and Michael Penix all competing for a spot in New York. It still may wind up going to Caleb Williams, who already won a Heisman. He's trying to be the second two-time Heisman winner. He's going to be the one of those guys who does go to the NFL after three years. But man, it has made a big, big difference along with the rule changes. And yes, the NIL does make a difference too, because let's say you do the extra year, but don't have NIL. I don't know that we see Bo Nix and Michael Penix back

at their schools this year. They could be making money in the NFL. They would not, would they have been super high draft picks? Probably not, but they'd be making money in the NFL. And now they can make roughly, you know, maybe not as much as they make, but, but close. In some cases, there are guys that can make more. I would think Sam Hartman is probably making a little more than he might have made as an NFL player this year. So that's why they're doing it. But it is absolutely a huge deal. Ian's right. And there are people talking about it because it is impossible to ignore. Impossible. Next, we have a question from Darren. What team do you think is this year's TCU? A team that is quietly undefeated,

that has a legit shot to grab a playoff spot. It's Louisville. It's the team we were just talking about. It's the team that beat Notre Dame this past weekend. Now, here's the thing. A lot of this is schedule-based. And that's what the talk was coming into the season. Because remember, I've been saying, I think Jeff Braum is going to get Louisville going and be a force in the ACC.

And the people who really cover the ACC were like, look at that schedule this year. It's pretty easy, but it gets harder next year. I think they'll be fine next year, but they're not wrong about this schedule. As I mentioned, they miss North Carolina and they miss Florida State. So their toughest remaining ACC games are Duke and Miami. Their toughest remaining game is probably Kentucky. There is a good chance that Louisville could end the season 11-1, lost to Kentucky, undefeated in conference play. Could they be 12-0? Yeah, they could. If they can beat Notre Dame,

they can beat the other teams on their schedule. So the other part of that is they don't have the back-to-back-to-back. It doesn't get rough. Miami's got to play North Carolina this weekend. Then they've got to turn around. It's going to be hard for them. Notre Dame had to play that kind of meat grinder three weeks where they had Ohio State, then they had Duke, then they had Louisville, and then USC. Notre Dame trying to make the playoff, awfully hard to go 11-1 or 12-0 when you have a stretch like that. Louisville doesn't really have a stretch like that. They

win the Notre Dame game, now they play Pitt. Now, look, if you look at Louisville's schedule this season, they've barely been in Indiana. They had to come back in week one and beat Georgia Tech. They've had moments where it looked like they might lose. So it's not guaranteed that they would just rip through this next set of teams. But Pittsburgh has not been good. Duke is good, but Riley Leonard is banged up with an ankle injury. Virginia Tech has been bad. Virginia has been bad. We don't know what Miami will be by

the season's end. They could be riding high or what happened this past weekend makes them fall apart. Kentucky, we know they're pretty good. What happened at Georgia happened at Georgia. But my guess is Kentucky is one of the better teams in the SEC East, and Louisville has struggled with them of late. So it is possible. But that's why what I just went over with the players

and the age of the players, 14 of 22 starters on offense and defense, fourth year or older. It's a big deal. It makes a big difference, especially when you're dealing with success like this. Older guys are not going to be as, oh, we're the best in the world. And then they fall asleep and they lose to Pitt. Maybe that happens, but my guess is they will come out of this game being just fine. That they will take it seriously and they will play

Pitt to the best of their ability and they will beat them. Now, the Duke game's another story. Duke's pretty good this year. Duke can beat them. But Louisville has a very good chance. Now, this is one of those things where if you're in a 12-team playoff scenario, I would not like Louisville's chances against most of the teams they would have to play in that 12-team playoff.

But here's the thing. If they make the ACC title game, they're going to have to play somebody good. It'll wind up being Florida State or North Carolina probably. So they would have to beat them to make the playoff anyway. I mean, that's as close to TCU as we're going to get. Now, TCU last year went 12-0, did not have to beat Kansas State in the Big 12 championship game, lost to them, and still made the playoff. I don't know if it's going to be that easy this season, because again, somebody in the Pac-12 could be pretty good. You're going to have Texas and Oklahoma in the Big 12.

One of those is probably a one-loss conference champ. So it's not exactly the same situation, but Louisville's the closest thing to it this year. All right, now we head to a series of questions about USC and Lincoln Riley. Man, you guys love you some Lincoln Riley, or at least love to ask about it. From Jay on Twitter,

the big question is, what does USC look like without Caleb Williams and in the Big Ten next year? Seven and five, question mark? That assumes that Alex Wrench remains USC's defensive coordinator, that nothing has changed defensively. And look, nothing did change this past year. And they are just as bad on defense.

They did improve the personnel, it seemed like, but they're just as bad, and they have not played anybody particularly good yet. Like, they're playing Notre Dame this week. They're going to have to play Oregon. They're going to have to play Washington. They're going to have to play Utah. They're going to play defenses that are much better

than what they've seen so far. And those defenses may be able to slow down Caleb Williams and company, but that defense does not seem capable of slowing down anybody. So how much are they going to give up to Notre Dame? How much are they going to give up to Oregon? How much are they going to give up to Washington? Now, as far as the no Caleb Williams thing in the Big Ten, I'm not worried about the offense. Here's the thing about Lincoln Riley and quarterbacks. Let's go down the list of his starting quarterbacks as a college head coach. Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, Jalen Hurts, Spencer Rattler, Caleb Williams.

Spencer Rattler is the only one of those who will have not gone to New York for the Heisman Trophy ceremony. Three of those have won the Heisman Trophy. Caleb Williams will be the number one pick in next year's NFL draft, so that'll be three of those. Three number one picks. Plus, Jalen Hurts is a quality NFL starter, maybe better than all of them in the NFL. So I don't worry about Lincoln Riley and the quarterback. He will either recruit a generational talent at quarterback or he will make a generational talent at quarterback because that is what he does.

The defense, that's another story entirely. You go against some of these teams that USC is going to have to play in the Big Ten and all of a sudden you're going to have problems if you are going to try to play the kind of defense you play now there will be teams that will absolutely abuse you so next year USC is going to have to play Michigan they also have to play Washington they also have to play Michigan. They also have to play Washington. They also have to play Penn state.

I think Wisconsin is going to be better under Luke fickle. These are defenses that are going to slow you down. But then if your defense is as Swiss cheesy as it has been, they're going to annihilate you. So that is what USC has got to get fixed before it goes into the big 10. Now look, this, the chance of making it to the Pac-12 title game, of making it to the college football playoffs still exists.

They have not lost yet. But none of us have any faith after watching the Colorado game and the Arizona game. We just don't have any faith in that defense to stop a good offense. And the problem is they're going to play defenses that are going to slow Caleb Williams down. It really, you know, it's funny because the people who, you could tell somebody didn't watch the USC Arizona game when they're saying that Caleb Williams should not, should have dropped in the Heisman race because of that game. Caleb Williams saved their asses in that game. If Caleb Williams is not playing for them, if even a slightly worse quarterback,

and by slightly worse, I mean not the number one pick in next year's NFL draft, had been playing for them in that game, they lose. And that's Arizona. So what happens when it's Notre Dame? What happens when it's Oregon? What happens when it's Washington? That's why we have no faith in them.

And that's why we get questions like this. It's a legit question. Now here's a, I don't know if it's a legitimate question, but it's a hilarious question. This one comes from Blaine. How many games does a Brian Ferentz offense paired with an Alex Grinch defense win? How many games?

The answer's zero. I don't even know if you beat an FCS team. If you take the worst, most dysfunctional offense in the country and pair it with a defense, USC's defense is not the worst, but it certainly does give up a lot of points and yards to opponents that probably don't deserve those. And here's the problem. If you don't have a Torrey Taylor type punter on this team, that Alice Gritch defense is going to be facing a ton of short fields.

A ton of short fields. So you're putting them at an even bigger disadvantage because that Brian Ferentz offense isn't going to move the ball at all. Not going to throw a single touchdown to a receiver. God forbid. God forbid you throw to wide receivers i can't even imagine that that is oh that is just a horrendous game another hypothetical i was i was given today that that i would really like to see is this year's lsu team against this year's usc team i think you might have to set this year's USC team. I think you might have to set the total at a hundred. I really do think you might have to have a triple digit total if those

two teams played each other. And look, if they play each other in a bowl, they're going to be too many opt-outs. It's not, I want the pure uncut version. And yes, I know they opened the season against each other in Vegas next year, but that's going to be different. Maybe, maybe dealing with two different defensive coordinators in that game. But I absolutely want to see that. Microsoft Arenas. What are we talking about on three?

Caleb hasn't even made a decision. If Chicago keeps losing, he's probably going to stay his senior year. I did not get the vibe from Caleb's dad when he was talking about he might stay another year that he was trying to get away from the Bears I think he was trying to get away from the Cardinals who were clearly tanking and who have just announced essentially that they're going to bail on a second consecutive first round draft pick at quarterback I I don't I don't think the the vibe was about the Bears now

maybe maybe that's wise because the Bears have not been particularly good at developing quarterbacks, but that's not what I'm thinking. I'm betting Caleb goes this year. Though, again, it's not that far-fetched that he stays. There's plenty of NIL money for him to be had. He'd go play in the Big Ten, and then maybe somebody not as bad gets the number one pick. But yeah, the Bears, because they own the Panthers pick,

look like between how bad the Bears are and between how bad the Panthers are, it's probably the Bears. But we'll see. Stranger things have happened. Remember, the Jets had that two-game winning streak and Trevor Lawrence ended up a Jacksonville Jaguar. We never know. Back to our series of Lincoln Riley

questions. We're going to close out with this one from JB. His handle on Twitter is at Sooner Magic. JB is a dedicated listener slash viewer of this program. Dedicated listener slash viewer of my old program with one Ari Wasserman. This question is a reference to something Ari said and wrote. Please explain why it's okay for us OU fans to still despise Tebow. We will not let it go and that's just fine with me. Now, if you don't know, he spelled Tebow T-B-O-W he's not talking about Tim Tebow the former Florida quarterback who now is on ESPN it is those are those letters stand for something and I will let you look it up on Urban Dictionary if you don't know what it means but it is a reference to Lincoln Riley

and what he's saying basically is aren't we still allowed to hate Lincoln Riley? Because this is a reference to my friend Ari, who said in the wake of the Red River game, hey, Oklahoma fans, you don't have to worry about Lincoln Riley anymore. You won the divorce. Living well is the best revenge. To which I say, nonsense.

Utter nonsense. You can hate as much as you want, Oklahoma fans. Don't feel the least bit bad about it because here's the thing that separates fandom and coachdom. For a coach, in most cases, even if it's that person's alma mater, which it was not in Lincoln Riley's case, it's a job.

It's the same stresses, in fact, probably more stress than all of our jobs with a lot of the same factors. Does your family like living here? Are people planning for sale signs in your yard? Do people get mad every time you lose? These are all things that you've got to think about. Are you recruiting well enough to have a roster that will be good in the league you're going into, which at Oklahoma was going to be the SEC? All things you've got to consider. And so you look at it like any of us would look at changing our jobs. But the thing is, fans don't look at it that way when you leave one school to go to another school you are saying that that school that you love that is a giant piece of your personal identity is lesser is not as good as this other school that i'm going to

i don't like you and i like these people better. That's what that means to the fan. And that's okay. That's why the coaches get paid so much. That's why there's so many people in the stands. That's why there's so many people watching at home. It's okay to feel that way. And I don't think Oklahoma fans are ever going to let it go because to an Oklahoma fan, the University of Oklahoma is the greatest place on God's green earth. And why anybody would ever want to leave is mystifying. Those of us who don't have a dog in the hunt would say, okay, being a millionaire in Los Angeles, probably a lot more to do than being a millionaire in Norman, Oklahoma.

But we're not them. The fans are not them. They're not thinking about it that way. An Oklahoma fan can't imagine why anybody would ever not want to be the Sooners head coach. Why would you be somebody else's head coach when you could be Oklahoma's head coach? And we can replace Oklahoma with pretty much any other big-time football school. Florida, Auburn, Michigan, Penn State, Ohio State, Texas.

They all feel that way. But Ari is right that you could just live your lives and enjoy this. But I'm going to tell you, if you want to watch your team beat Texas and then flip on ESPN late at night and watch a Lincoln Riley team's defense struggle against Arizona and laugh your asses off, I think you're perfectly within your rights to do that. Should anybody say terrible things about Lincoln Riley or have any contact with him?

No, absolutely not. But should you enjoy when he struggles in the same way that he struggled at Oklahoma while your team, which is now led by a guy with a little more defensive mindset, just had its biggest win? No, there's nothing wrong with that. That's perfectly fine. Ari wants you to leave it alone. Ari doesn't understand you. I do. You won the divorce, but that doesn't mean you can't laugh about it. Because this is what we're talking about. This is winning the divorce. You got the couple, they split up. The person who left the other one, just left the other one heartbroken,

well, now the heartbroken one is killing it as a single person. And the person who left, it's not working out the way they'd hoped. And think about it with Lincoln Riley. I do believe the SEC move had something to do with this. I believe wanting to coach at USC had something to do with it. I'm not sure the Big Ten move was something that he bargained for. It was somewhat in the works, but not that far down the road. So I don't know if he really liked it, because if he wasn't going to enjoy being in the SEC at Oklahoma, being in a Big Ten that is similarly competitive once these new teams show up,

that's not going to be much easier. You're still going to have to recruit the same way you were going to have to recruit at Oklahoma. You were going to have to recruit at Oklahoma. You're going to have to recruit those same kind of players. So really, he didn't get what he wanted out of that divorce. Oklahoma didn't want the divorce, but I think they wound up on the right side of it. We'll see. Could be wrong. Maybe USC fixes its defense magically.

They go to the playoff this year. Oklahoma's in a better spot right now. You won the divorce. Do you have to just live well and forget it? Nah. Nah. You go ahead and laugh as much as you want. Thank you so much. Thank you for all the great questions. I do love a Dear Andy show. Some of my favorite nights. We got a big show

coming for you on Tuesday. We're going to talk Texas A&M with Casey Smith because I don't think we're talking enough about the Aggies and how that game went against Alabama and where they're at because this could go a couple different ways. They are still good enough to have a very good season. They're talented enough to have a very good season. It doesn't have to go completely downhill for Jimbo Fisher after this, but it may if they let it go. And this trip to Tennessee is a very big challenge for them. We're going to have North Carolina edge rusher Kamen Rucker on. We're going to talk Tar Heels defense. This was a group that really struggled last year.

They have been a strength of the team this year. They're going against that Miami offense. Is it the Miami offense that played against Georgia Tech or the one that we saw earlier in the season? If it's the one earlier in the season, they have got the work cut out for them. But Kamen Rucker's had a really good year so far. We'll talk to him about that.

Plus Chris Ballas with an update on Michigan, which just keeps smashing everybody. We'll talk to you tomorrow.