Andy & Ari On3 - Is a college football super league closer than we think? | Caitlin Clark breaks the scoring record

Episode Date: March 4, 2024

How Different Could College Football Look? ESPN's Cole Cubelic Joins. We also discuss Caitlin Clark's record and recap a wild weekend with our own bracketologist, James Fletcher III(0:00-2:14) Intro(2:15-17:14) Cole Cubelic Joins(17:15-22:12) Would The SEC or Big Ten kick out teams?(22:13-32:54) Teams in a Super League? Cole and Andy Discuss(32:55-38:55) How Much are these programs worth?(38:56-44:09) Wrapping Up with Cole - What about the rest?(44:10-47:13) Caitlin Clark Breaks Pistol Pete's Division 1 Scoring Record(47:14-1:07:32) James Fletchers III joins to Recap a WILD Weekend in College Hoops(1:07:33-1:10:41) ConclusionCole Cubelic (ESPN, McElroy and Cubelic, Cube Show) joins Andy to talk about a very interesting nugget that UAB coach Trent Dilfer dropped on Cole's radio show. Dilfer thinks the schism between the Big Ten/SEC and the rest of the FBS is coming soon, perhaps within the next 18 months.That a sitting FBS coach would say this is interesting enough, but Dilfer spent enough time working at ESPN to know a lot of the people who move the levers that make these things happen. Plus, everything else has happened faster than expected, so perhaps things could move this fast.Andy and Cole discuss what such a league might look like. Would it be 50 or 60 teams or something smaller? Who could be included? What would happen to the rest of the FBS?With court cases still looming, schools exploring the idea of partnering with private equity firms and further realignment still on the horizon, could everything look different by 2026?Plus, Andy discusses Iowa star Caitlin Clark breaking the NCAA's all-time scoring record. Nike was ready with a congratulatory ad, and the Hawkeyes avenged an earlier loss to No. 2 Ohio State.Next, On3's James Fletcher III joins Andy to talk college basketball. Tennessee's win at Alabama on Saturday might be enough to move the Volunteers onto the NCAA Tournament selection committee's No. 1 seed line. Gonzaga won a critical game at St. Mary's.Also, can Ohio State interim coach Jake Diebler possibly get the Buckeyes into the NCAA Tournament.Plus, which low-major and mid-major conference tournament No. 1 seeds should be on upset watch this week?Want to watch the show instead? Join us LIVE on Youtube, M-F, at 8 am et! https://youtube.com/live/X_KXXhnFW78

Welcome to Andy Staples on three. We got a lot to talk about today, but we got to start with a very important conversation that I have with Cole Kubelik because I had a little rant on Friday. You remember Friday's show, I was talking about the 14 team playoff that is scheduled to replace the 12 team playoff

that has not even started yet. And I was like, why are the sec and the big 10 trying to guarantee themselves buys, guarantee their champs buys is to protect their conference championship games and blah, blah, blah. And Cole sent me a text on Friday because he had had Trent Dilfer on his show that morning. And it was a clip of Trent Dilfer saying, hey, guys, this all may change much sooner than you think.

And I started thinking about that. And I'm like, you know what? He's probably right. Because everything so far has happened faster than we thought it would. Whether it was NIL, whether it was the PAC-12 disintegrating, like all of that stuff has happened faster than we assumed it would initially. So why wouldn't this happen faster? There's stuff in motion right now. There's court cases in terms of people suing the NCAA. There is the dueling court cases between the ACC and Florida State. All of that stuff is going on

right now. So I called Cole. I was like, we got to talk about this. And so we have discussed a lot of this. And this is going to be a great conversation, I'm telling you right now, because it sort of reframes things for me. It helped me get in a different mindset as I think about all this stuff, because there is so much going on right now. This all could look really different in a few years. And it started with Cole having Trent Dilfer on his radio show and what Trent Dilfer said and the confidence with which he said it. It's very interesting. So let's talk to Cole about what this all could look like and how fast this all could happen. We welcome the great Cole Kubelik. You watch him on ESPN, on the SEC Network. You can listen to him on McElroy and Kubelik in the morning on JOX 94.5

in Birmingham. You can also listen to The Cube Show. I did an episode of The Cube Show about a month ago, Cole. It was fascinating. We talked about how to reorganize college sports, how to pay the players, all that good stuff. We're doing another big picture one today because you had a very interesting guest on your radio show on Friday. It was Trent Dilfer, the UAB coach, but he said some stuff that you don't usually hear a sitting FBS head coach say. No, and one of the reasons we love having him in studio, Andy, and you would too, is he loves just talking football. So, I mean, he'll go through formations and plays and why and situational downs and distances, and he loves nerding out on that stuff.

But we kind of asked him a little bit, hey, you know, you are now a, whatever we're going to call a group of four, whatever that the next level of college football, what does the future look like? What do you think? And you just don't expect somebody who is a current head coach to say well based on people i've it's it's fine to just give your thoughts and hypothesize but to say based on people you've spoken to inside college athletics and some outside college athletics that you feel like 50 60 teams are going to break away and that's going to be a totally different league or division or subsidiary of college football than we have right now and then in a different portion of that interview also say i think this is going to happen a lot faster than a lot of you people believe

most people say three to five years i think it's probably in the next 18 months that this takes place and i guess i mean we posted a clip on for my show two weeks ago and it was basically me saying nothing in college sports surprises me anymore because we've just it completely continues to get more bananas and more bonkers but I don't even think you and I with all the change we've seen thought that it would come this quickly and this is something that I said in 2013, when we left the BCS and went to a playoff era, I said, all right, it is now a sprint to separate. It might be 50 years. It might be 15 years. I don't know when that's going to be, but this revenue wheel is

going to get broken up and they're going to continue to squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, because a lot of people would hear, let's use rough numbers, a billion dollars, 20% of that. And they would say, man, that's a large sum. But then the other people would say, yeah, it's a large sum, but it's also 20% to people that have no bearing over who wins our title really. And truly how many eyeballs come to our portion of the sport. Why are we sharing with them? And it's unfortunate because you could roll this into march madness in the ncaa tournament there are people like me that don't want to see the southern conference or the swag or the sunbelt not get that aq that automatic qualifier we want them to be able to get in because we feel like it's just it's big enough it's grand enough there's enough room

like right mark rick said this years ago there's enough to go around we can share and you that's a very mark rick thing to say by the way absolutely i don't know that kirby smart would say the same thing probably not he wants it all um but it's you know we're getting further away from that and like we had jay billis on our show last week and i asked him about those you you know, the smaller automatic qualifiers. And I was really surprised and I'm paraphrasing, but he basically said, why do you watch for them? Do you watch for Mercer? Do you watch for Florida Gulf Coast? Do you watch for, you know, Sanford? And no, but when they win, I do think it draws more people in and I do think it makes it more appealing. And I think we watch because Kansas or North Carolina or Auburn might lose to those teams and it makes it more appealing.

Like people are still talking about what happened to Purdue last year and fairly Dickinson. Yeah. Because it's Purdue, but also because fairly Dickinson did that to produce. So it's a little bit of a scary place that we're going into here. A guy like Trent Dilfer, who's not afraid to speak his mind and I think you also have to think about all right where do where do his roots go back to he played in the NFL so he knows a lot of people that know a lot of things there he worked for ESPN so he knows a lot of things there and he's got that golf background where he's got a place in Tahoe where a lot of the Silicon Valley folks

either live because of tax reasons. Trust me, I have my best friend. I know this. You don't want to live in California. You want to live in Nevada. So you come to Lake Tahoe and that's your primary residence and you just find a way to get over to Silicon Valley. So he's also in with a lot of those people because of sort of his golf background and geographically where he spent a lot of time living. So he's got some good resources. He threw out a couple of names during breaks and asked me not to share them. So I know he knows people that are digging about this. One thing that he did say, Andy, and I'll kind of share this with you was he had one individual reach out to him and say how much would team x cost to be the owner of like to be the jerry jones of this team and like you heard him say at the end of one of the quotes on our show the other day he said a lot of these guys want to do this because

they could not become nfl owners and this would be the next best thing and he said that i don't even know where to go with this i've talked to my buddy about it like how do you even evaluate the the price or right the true valuation of some of these programs i i don't know but the fact that and this is a team that you and i specifically the last three years and all of us that cover college football have spent a ton of time talking about oh good lord all right let's hear let's hear trent dilfer's answer on this because it starts with greg mcelroy asking him a question about a dedicated group of five playoff versus the the playoff system they're talking about now and he takes it into the direction that we've been

talking about and it was like you could hear the wheels turning in your head and greg said like whoa holy cow so here here's trent talking about that now i happen to think coach that it's asking an awful lot for a program with uab's resources to take on tennessee and and georgia and florida i happen to think that it would be best for the g5 to separate and ultimately crown their own champion and to have something to play for. Now, access to the playoff is great. That's a terrific opportunity, but it's one out of 65,

and it seems slim, it seems unlikely, it seems challenging to think that with the roster and the NIL support that those schools have, that it would be an even playing field. How would you welcome or would you be against a G5 playoff at some point in the near future? I wouldn't be opposed. Listen, I want to know what the rules are in the beginning of the season and then go try to win whatever format there is.

I don't really – my ego isn't invested in what level we win at. I want to win every game we play and win the championship that we're asked to win. I think what your logic is there, I would add one more thing to that, Greg, is I don't think it's all power fives. I think the Big Ten and the SEC have clearly separated themselves. Big 12 is a basketball conference with good football teams. The ACC, I think you have your top people in the ACC that should go into that mix that you're talking about.

And then the middling to lower ACC's should go with the G5's. I think what's coming, I'm pretty confident in this, talking to people far more powerful than me. These are billionaires in the Bay Area. And there's going to be a break off of about 50 to 60 teams. And they're going to be professional football. And then everybody else is going to be what you're saying. Is this call it G5, call it college football, call it whatever you want.

We're going to be competing on hopefully a more level playing field. That's coming way faster than anybody can anticipate. And there's people active, there's venture capitalists right now actively looking to buy college franchises because they couldn't buy professional franchises. They're looking to buy college franchises and what that looks like with antitrust, with Title IX, with equitable resources through athletic programs because these kids still have to go to school. How do kids have to maintain progress to a degree in order to be part of this? Are they employees?

There's a million things that I don't even begin to know the answers to. But I know it's going on because my previous life exposed me to these people and their friends, and I know what they're thinking I mean that was as as bold as you're gonna get where he's like the top ACC teams need to go with the Big Ten and the SEC and the the other ones need to come to the group of and you're like okay this is a sitting FBS head coach saying this yes wild to hear that part of it in and of itself and start to think about, okay, where would we go? Who would those teams be? How many would there be if we got to get to 50, 60?

I mean, we can do more than just cherry pick. That's another large group of teams that we're going to bring with us if that's the case and that's how it's going. Then fast forward to the portion of all the other things surrounding employment attending school actually being a student or not um you know are you 1099 in these guys is there a trust that this money's going in we saw what tennessee did on friday to start to prepare for some of these things financially and we know that these are these are steps that are being taken by a lot of these schools but i the which

schools would go is very interesting the second portion of that though andy is when it just becomes so convoluted and so just flat out confusing as to how it would look what it would be how you make it up who governs it and then on top of that um just if there is this large investment that takes place, how does that even work? Right. If you're investing in something that belongs to a public university, how do you get your return on that investment? How does that part work? got the emails from Florida State with various people looking to potentially invest, where they're looking for money, which we think is to buy them out of the ACC essentially, but it would essentially be like venture capital. It would be like you'd be buying a stake in the

program essentially. It's crazy. And what makes it crazier and what you're talking about with the the convoluted part of how does it how would this all work is the timing aspect of it because i think like you said earlier we've always thought this is something that's off in the distance yep 10 20 years whatever they'll figure it out well earlier in that interview you had asked trent dilfer about when he thought this break was going to happen and here's his answer so the guys are going to thrive excuse me thrive over the next i think it's faster than everybody's saying two to five years that this thing gets turned upside down i think it's in the next 18 months this gets completely dumped upside down two to five years is short 18 months is incredibly short so basically we're talking

about this being settled before the 25 season essentially is what he's saying which would make sense because the 25 season is the last season of this current college football playoff contract so the thing we've been hearing everybody argue about over the last few weeks is that next college football playoff contract. And Cole, I went on a long rant on Friday's show about, because I thought it was crazy that the SEC and the Big Ten are floating this idea of they're going to do a 14 team playoff. There'd be two buys. They would be guaranteed to the Big Ten and the SEC champ which it's very transparent it's them trying to protect their conference championship games obviously in the the economic you know piece of that and because those are cash cows yep but now i'm like why did i waste my breath on that

because i don't even know if they're gonna get to that with this format it almost feels like a little bit of um a phrase that you and i were made well aware of in our playing days, playing offensive line. You have to work as a group. You have to work as a unit. You have to be in sync, but CYA at the end of the day. Yes. Like always make sure you know what you're doing and you're taking care of your assignment first. And I feel like there's a little bit of let's just get this out there so people have an understanding of we did our best to make this

thing go the way that it should have we did our best to keep everything together and we know good and well that the group of five and these other schools you know they want to hold on to that revenue stream even though it's just this this tiny little thread that's still left they're going to grapple to that thing for as long as humanly possible before they fall off the cliff of financial haven that they have coming from whatever postseason they get right now, and they don't want to walk away from it. They're terrified of that, and I don't blame them, but I think that's kind of what they want out there.

I keep waiting for the West Coast Conference models to come out and basketball to come out with the Big Ten and the SEC, get the quadruple buy like Gonzaga's had for the last however many years years we just plug them into the semi-finals and then we go from there but yeah i think this is just kind of for show a little bit to say we wanted to play ball we wanted to include everybody let's be real this doesn't work for us it wasn't really going to work for them it's not fair to them we're just going to move on and you guys can figure it out because we tried and you know our top two guys came together couldn't really come up with something that everybody liked so

good luck figuring it out we know you guys have the brain capacity to do that we'll be over here playing our game so yes talk to you later and then maybe they feel like people couldn't really be mad at them or people wouldn't be upset about it or it would look better. I don't know. But I think maybe while we kick this can down the road for another, as Trent said, 18 months, you kind of put a few of those things out there to satisfy what everybody sort of wants to hear. Yeah. Well, and then they have to make a contract because ESPN needs a contract signed, you know, within about two years of the thing starting and stuff has to

get booked and all that. But I do think if this is all true, they're going to have to change it on the fly anyway. And I do think there's another round of realignment coming because, you know, I've had the Florida state people on, and I think that something will happen with the ACC. I think what, what Trent Dilfer is referring to specifically is whatever's going to happen with the ACC. I think what Trent Dilfer is referring to specifically is whatever's going to happen with the ACC is going to happen in the next 18 months or so. And that could upset some things, but let's throw some red meat out there, Cole, because when people talk about this, all they want, okay, is my team going to be in there? Who are the teams? And I don't't know because we don't even know the number but my question to you is this because we always get asked this i guarantee you you get asked this like 10 times a day

when are the sec and the big 10 going to cut the ones at the bottom and i think the answer is never like their conference yeah the big time never going to cut northwestern like everybody needs bottom feeders and people forget that and it's one of the smartest things Greg McElroy's ever said he said it on our show a long time ago when I first heard it I kind of laughed at him and in my brain thought what a and the more I thought about it I was like no he's absolutely right like every team and it's it's really cool when the Pirates compete for a division title every now and then. It's really cool when teams that have the Oakland A's, even though people know they're going to move and they know they're playing money ball,

and their payroll is $10 million less a year than what the Yankees' starting rotation is. And they're competing for this mythical division title, and oh, they're going to be able to go in. It's always cool to hear that. Baseball doesn't want all the franchises to be the Yankees they don't want all the franchises to be the Dodgers because those teams that everybody wants to watch and wants to watch win they have to have people to feed on so Vanderbilt's not going anywhere Northwestern's not going anywhere you just explained the concept of the washington generals by the way there you go the team that always plays the globetrotters every every league division whatever it is needs bottom feeders because otherwise you're just gonna have a bunch of 500 teams and it's not what everybody wants to see

and it's not going to help you grow your product so nobody nobody's getting kicked out nobody's getting thrown out um i do think that a little bit of the chatter about maybe one school going from one of those conferences to the other is kind of interesting because it's just something that i don't think we would ever look at and say oh i could see why they would want to do that because i just think the advantages or disadvantages would be minute in the grand scheme of things but just to make that move for whatever reasons feelings hurt whatever it is would be very interesting but i don't think there's a school that's in the sec or the big

10 right now if we had this big you know tectonic shift and when it takes place i don't think there's a school that's in those two conferences now that would not be included i just don't think that that's right and and i'm just trying to figure out what the number is because we haven't we've never seen the SEC operate with 16 schools we've not seen the big the Big Ten operate with 18 schools yet we don't know how that works is that unwieldy and we like I'm sitting here arguing about eight or nine conference games in the SEC like that matters because it might not be 16 teams. Like the eight or nine argument is based on these two very distinct models that require 16 teams to mathematically work. That may not be an issue in two years.

No. And by the way, like you're saying, we have not played a regular season game in a season in which we have a 12 team playoff right yeah we've already been introduced to four different 14 team playoffs it's unbelievable it gives you an idea of where we're headed and i think you were right earlier when you just said that a lot of this stuff is being floated for reasons that we might not be aware of and that we're not even thinking about i i'll tell you here i'll dirty this water a little bit more since you wanted to throw the red meat out what if we're just talking about football right I I think that we might just be talking about football I think I think you I think it

makes more sense if we are and a lot of us would have said oh well where's Kansas fall in that where's North Carolina in that where's Duke in that and that's where a lot of those schools all of a sudden well you got to bring you gotta to bring north carolina for basketball right oh duke's in there because you want them for basketball well what if basketball's staying right then i i don't i mean it's it totally changes everything that we're talking about and like you heard trent say it the title nine thing i'm not smart enough to know exactly how that works when we take this step or where it goes because if your football team does leave and do something else how does that impact the other sports and i i just i don't

know those things either and so yeah there's just so much to it yeah and it is going to be a lot to digest figure out because it all of these things are hinging on this court decision over here, this national labor relations board decision over here, this thing here, this thing here, none of these things have actually happened, but all of them could come to a head in the next two years. And that's, I think it's probably why Greg Sankey and Tony Petitti decided to form the advisory group. And so my question, like, all right, I'm going to throw this to you, Cole. You've got to form a Super League. Like Greg Sankey and Tony Petitti called you and said, Cole, we're getting this done.

We'll go get the teams that you say we need to go get. You've got to form the Super League. How many teams and how are you doing it? Is it a Super League or is it two that are going to play nice together? Right. Is it like Big Ten's the AFC and the SEC's the NFC? That's another good question. Do they have to have an equal number of teams?

Do they only play each other? There are a lot of people that will tell you when Greg Sankey floated the, we'll have our own playoff at SEC Media Days, that this was kind of the reason why. That if we were to go far enough down this road that we can have our own playoff, they can have their playoff. He just didn't say that part out loud. And then we'll play each other for a national championship. It's just that easy. And we get the rights to all of our playoff games. They get the rights to all their playoff games. So if they don't want to all be on Fox, have fun with it. Good luck. We'll be all on ESPN. And then every other year,

the national championship game will rotate and we'll have a way to get a handshake agreement on the sites and where it is. We'll split that right down the middle and everybody will be happy, which I do think you have to, at least in the back of your brain have a little bit of a conversation with yourself of so how long is that playing nice on the playground going to last because the afl and the nfl i think played that game for what three years before they decided why don't we just merge this whole thing so there's that all right so where are we right now 32 teams 34 teams so we would have to get to maybe 50 i don't i think 50 and 60 might be too big to be perfect 48 would allow you to have i'm thinking evenly divisible numbers numbers with a lot of factorials so like 48 to me if you wanted to have

eight six team divisions across would be 24 each conference if you wanted to do it that way however you wanted to do that but then you could distribute it geographically you could distribute competitive you could even have and this is the part that i'm not sure college football fan if college football fans want this or don't like i I get comments either way I'll have people say how do you take the subjectivity out of who makes the playoff well the way you do it is you have evenly balanced competitive divisions right and you just make rules like the NFL does these teams get in the playoff based on a record and you could conceivably do that but like getting to the 48 which means you get you would be able to add 14 teams from outside the sec in the big 10

it would be the freaking hunger games oh are you kidding to figure out who those teams are like we know clemson and florida state would be them, but like, I don't think you can have major, like I want to see Kansas State and Utah as part of major college football. Like I want the schools that have these massive, these rabid fan bases, not the biggest fan base in the world, but super rabid.

Like I don't want a situation where Avery Johnson, who's going to be Kansas State's quarterback who I'm super excited about who's from Kansas I don't want him to have a situation where he feels like he has to leave his home state to go play big time football right so let me ask you this and it's I thought it was really interesting that if you go back to when the SEC added Missouri and Texas A&M that the footprint in the media markets and the market side like that was all people talked about that was it and i i feel like in this last round it was almost all brand recognition right brand recognition it's passion it's how many how

many people are gonna total watch we don't care where they are. And the reason for that was when Missouri and A&M went to the SEC, when Rutgers and Maryland went to the Big Ten, it was peak cable. Yep. Networks. each person in your footprint who has your network and so they were trying to collect footprint now it does that that's a money it's a way to make money but they're going to be selling it nationally it's not going to be done the same way so it is yeah who's going to watch these games so it's right this way what what's at the top of your list florida state clemson no i'm saying if you're checking boxes is it those rabid fan bases you mentioned is it just like overall popularity i yeah if i put their logo next to my good team's logos does everybody want to watch this game right the interest meter where does that where

does okay so like if i put that tiger that clemson tiger paw next to an ohio state logo do you want to watch that game if i put the tiger paw next to an a State logo, do you want to watch that game? If I put the Tiger paw next to an Auburn logo, do you want to watch that? And absolutely, you're watching that game. All right, so ACC, you mentioned it. Clemson, Florida State are in. I think Miami is 100% in. I think Virginia Tech is in.

I think they should be. I think NC State also should be. NC State was going to be next on my list, yes. North Carolina is a big brand. People love the blue and the Argyle. They are. I would... Not a great football program. I would have them in.

Correct. But like you said before, we don't necessarily need teams that are going to just go win national championships every year. For some reason, every time all this comes up, Virginia's thrown out in front of a lot of other teams, not by me, but by a lot of people smarter than I am.

So because the big 10 and the sec both covet the university of Virginia, like being associated with the university of Virginia, man, that's weird. I mean, nothing against Virginia. I mean, it's just,

but it's just, it doesn't feel like it belongs with a lot of these other things we're going to talk about, but that's okay. Go for it. Fine. Great. Have it.

I would think Pitt would have to be one of those schools that you're talking about i think so too as far as just recognition brand value what people want i think that would have to be there um and then man the big 12 gets byu's got to be in i i think i think byu's agreed and utah has to be in too i think ut I think BYU's agreed and Utah has to be in too. I think Utah's in. And I think if you're smart, you bring Oklahoma state back in. Absolutely. And Kansas state, like you said, because of the logos we can put next to one another and drive revenue and sell those in different ways and give the games different names, which gives us more licensing opportunities. That's a word that I think a lot of fans need to familiarize themselves with and maybe do a little extra research as to what licensing actually can be.

And it's not just, okay, we license our radio rights out to Learfield or Under Armour is able to license our logo on their apparel. It can go a lot further than that. And I think that's something that when we start talking about private equity is going to be a major part of it. Mark Leary, You're talking about finding ways to get even more corporate money into the sport. Correct. Basically, and that's and that is what these private

equity people will do. Yeah, so when I can sell bedlam to Exxon, let's just say, and it's the Exxon bedlam game, or bedlam by exxon even if there's another brand let's just hypothetically use you know baylor or byu that is a traditional better football brand it might not be as equitable as far as how we can license the game that we know we're going to have every year so we just got an extra 50 million a year because we know these two teams are going to play every year those those are the kind of things that i think people are going to have to start looking at that you're just going to have to it's crazy i don't i so we had we had 14 spots i think we filled most of them i think we got a

couple left but so tcu and baylor you're not you're not out of the out of the hunt yet no but they would be in the discussion i think west virginia has to be in the discussion. Yes. Absolutely. That's another one. Rabid fit. Like people, I do think, will you subscribe to this service? Cause like ESPN and Fox are getting together to form that streaming service and all that. Like, will you subscribe to this service to watch?

If you can say this, you're not asking me that. No, no, no. I'm saying, well, 2 million West Virginia fans pay us.

Yes. However many dollars a month yeah yes okay great you're in you're in 100 and then see this is what I think might be most interesting about it is I I go back to what SMU just did to get into the ACC and if you think back to what Fred Smith proposed for Memphis the last time not this last time but the previous time they wanted to get the FedEx CEO. Yeah. Right. When he basically said, how about we don't need any of your money for the next five years? I'll float us to which I still kind of can't believe nobody was taking

you up on that deal. And that, and that somebody actually posed that deal, but it kind of shows you what he's capable of doing. Um, I don't think that stuff's going to matter. I really don't. Cause I think there's gonna be so much money thrown at this and they know that there's gonna be so much money potentially made you almost don't want that guy it's like the skulls you're a stupid movie back today yeah with uh with pacey from dawson's creek you might be the coolest and the best looking or the best athlete but if your parents don't have x amount of dollars we really don't want you here that's not we're not looking for that so yeah i think it's kind of that situation where all these teams are

going to probably be trying to cut these deals to get in i'm not sure that's going to matter at all i think the most interesting part is either if we're talking about expanding or we're talking about this private equity portion of this is and and I have I had two really long conversations yesterday with people that are very familiar with things like this and know this how do you how do you place a value on a college football program and I you guys don't don't don't tweet me with your Texas made 182 million yeah that's not what we're talking about I'm not talking about that we're talking about why the Cowboys are worth the Cowboys are worth like 10 billion dollars right if you if you valued if you tried to buy them from Jerry Jones right now that evaluation for them how do you create

a valuation for Alabama football or Texas football or Clemson football and the main reason I think it's confusing is because a very large portion of what is equitable with them has been essentially given to them right the stadium the land the stadium sits on all of these things the brand name of the university let's go to Auburn's new facility that they have yeah or Clemson has a putting green in a slide. Well, people gave money for that. Not because you're worth a lot, not because they wanted to adjust your worth or value. They just like you. So they gave you that money. So are you technically worth, like, does that equate to part of what you're worth, what people have or will continue to give you? Like, I literally have no idea

how that portion of it would work and then like you said some of these are i mean some of these are are land-grant institutions yes i i i don't know how that goes and i think what you're going to see is things like stadiums and arenas that for about 320 days a year are vacant and being wasted that's going to go away they're going to find a ton of ways to start using those things um i think are you saying i might get taylor swift at the swamp five miles from my house let's let's make this happen my daughter would go crazy there you go i think that those kind of things i think like i know in alabama we rotate brian dinny and jordan here for the high school playoffs like things like that are just

going to continue to go up i think you could probably start outsourcing your stadium to other smaller colleges so they don't have to build a new stadium like why are our feelings hurt if alabama a m wants to come play in tuscaloosa, who cares? If we can make $180,000 when we're playing in College Station for that to happen, hi-oh, here we come. We'll go do it. Who cares? A lot of that stuff's going to start happening. And I think one thing that's actually really cool,

there's not a lot cool about this if it does happen in my opinion, but one thing that could be cool that happens is NIL, or what we deem it. You and I have talked about this. It's not what it is right now. I actually think you would start seeing that become very real. Yeah, like, Caitlin Clark has real NIL money. Like, Nike pays Caitlin Clark to endorse them. Like, that's real NIL.

That's not a salary. So now I can come to, if my private equity firm owns a portion of, or the majority of, or I think it's going to, it will probably end up being described as some sort of a revenue sharing model. It's not going to be ownership.

I don't even know if that's going to be allowed in a lot of these cases, but I'll be able to come in with my money that I've given you to do whatever you need to do with. And I'll own the licensing, but now I can take Andy Staples and utilize one of my companies because I don't have to go pay you extra to put the Florida logo on it. I've already got that. So now I can go to you and I don't have to overpay you by however X amount, because we're already paying you to be on the team. I'm like, Hey, we're going to throw you overpay you by however X amount because we're already paying you to be on the team. I'm like, hey, we're going to throw you an extra 10 grand. You know, we would like you to go do a Freddy's pizza commercial.

And you're actually going to see that be real. And it's not going to be overinflated numbers. It's not going to be enticement. It's going to be, hey, we can put you in a uniform in this commercial because this guy owns that company that technically owns three quarters of our football program so it's so it's it all sounds so insane but it's it's more real than than anybody believes and it's closer than anybody thinks and you know i i'm fascinated cole to see how this all all shakes out because

everybody's gonna have to figure it out on the fly the Greg Sankey's and the Tony patisa world obviously have a head start on the rest of us they know more than we do but they're the ones you're gonna have to be dealing with like this court case just came down this ruling just came down how do you adjust to that we think there's lawsuits now yeah wait till those two say we ain't playing with you anymore oh boy yeah that doesn't have enough cell phones like he's and the thing is like will you still will you still watch like i love watching college football yeah i love watching Maction I love you know it doesn't matter to me it obviously I want to see the bigger games but if it's on I'm watching it like the question is will there be enough of an audience for those will the I don't think that audience

necessarily changes no and I asked um we had them on the show earlier in the week and i asked him i said p i said i understand where this is going and where it looks like it's going to change a couple times i said have you heard anyone anywhere mention anything about a contingency plan for the rest of it just the rest of college football so if if these two say, we're out, and here are the other 20 teams coming with us, 18, whatever that is, is anyone even talking about that? Is there a preliminary discussion as to, okay, I got this guy, this guy, this guy that I think we can call that would at least put up a chunk of what we would need to kind of start us in the

direction of doing this and he said absolutely not not a single thing no one and i don't know who that person is okay who is the greg sankey of that well they can start having those conversations because somebody needs to andy honestly and i i think you and i would say this for the same reasons for the good of what would be left for them somebody's got to start having that real talk of hey guys there's a good chance we're going to get left behind here let's have a life raft like we're allowed to take life preservers on this cruise ship yeah let's let's go ahead and pack them all right let's we don't need to i think i think you'd ask the people at washington state and and Oregon State how that works because they've been having to do that for the last year now.

So they probably understand it better than everybody else. But you're right. Who is that? What umbrella would that person be under? Is that a Mark Cuban? Is that somebody formerly in college athletics? Right, because I think there's some money to be made. I think that's television inventory, especially in the age of legalized sports gambling like

action is still something people are going to want to watch and let's be let's be really real here if we're talking about 42 56 teams whatever the new whatever it would be it's not it sounds like a lot of inventory but that's not a ton of inventory every weekend because you're gonna have a couple off weeks you might get a non-con here and there whatever that we call that so that's not going to be 11 a.m saturday morning to 11 p.m saturday night a game thursday a game friday and throw in some other day what that's that's not all of that so yeah look what conference usa did on tuesday and wednesday nights this year it was awesome and more more conferences need to do that and so you've mentioned very handsome man by the way calling that fiu miami vice game there you go and so there will

be other windows to potentially, I don't want to say dominate, but own. And then there'll be a totally different style of playoff to potentially go on. And maybe, maybe the bowls fall out of whatever is new. And there's a portion of the old bowl system that can stay with the next college football, whatever that is. Hell, maybe you go grab the FCS and say, you guys might be able to financially keep up with what we're going to do now. And we can all play on the same level

and bring in North Dakota State and Samford and all the other schools. Now we can all have this giant group of college football. I have no idea, but I do want- I'm nominating you for commissioner of the new thing. I think you might have a shot. I know. I think I have phone numbers for enough people that are smarter than me

that could help me figure it out. And I'd probably make a bunch of drives down to Tuscaloosa and talk to a guy that has his own office in the stadium now, even though he wouldn't want to do it, and at least see if he would help me with it. But I just... And then I don't say this like being mean or anything but i honestly do worry about that like why is someone not stepping up saying i'm not saying this is where we have to go but there's a good chance we are going to have to

go here let's begin to figure this out yeah and and then there's a like how about this i'll just throw this out to you before we go what would it let's just use uab since trent dilfer kind of started this whole conversation yep it would probably take a private equity firm to own quote bama texas texas a m lsu tennessee florida state north of a billion what would it take to go own uab football right now and and i'm not saying push them to be auburn or georgia but to dominate what they do that's going to make them one of the best programs in whatever it is they're in probably a tenth if not less to go and be a a literal force at wherever else they're going next so i don't think the private equity thing is only going to be saved for you know these two mega

conferences that are going to leave and and play their own game because just like Trent said a lot of these people wanted to own NFL teams and for whatever reason couldn't there's also going to be people that wanted to own an SEC or a big ten team that couldn't and can go grab a Conference USA an American or a Sunbelt team and maybe go and do that. It is going to be absolutely fascinating. Cole, you and I will be talking about this a lot,

probably over the next two years. I ask that you release the unreleased Cube show. Well, legally, we can't do that yet. Okay, well, I'm going to keep pushing you on this because we're going to get that to the people. There's a, there's a Josh paid episode too. That's somewhere. Nobody's heard somewhere on a cloud. All the secrets are revealed. So Cole, appreciate it. And, uh, and we'll talk to you again soon. Thanks for having me. The great Cole Kubelik. And there's so much to unpack there.

And we will be unpacking it as the weeks and months go by, because one, it's a long off season two. This is coming faster than we think. And, you know, if we just said, if we just said last year,

we thought the PAC 12 was in trouble at this point, potentially, did we think it was going to disintegrate and be gone by 2024? Probably not. We probably didn't think it was going to be that drastic, but it was. And the next steps may be fairly drastic. And the thing about it is I don't know that the people in charge know what's going to happen with any level of certainty either, because it's all pegged on these various things, these court cases, NLRB, whatever happens with the ACC in Florida. All of that stuff affects everything else. So we don't really know what's going to happen yet. And I'm not sure the people in charge do either. And I think they're just trying to ride the wave right now and

figure it out. They know more than we do, obviously. But this is something that we've kind of, I don't know that I've taken it as seriously as I probably should, because everything has always felt like some sort of far off flying cars type thing. It's not where we're at. It's going to be real very, very soon. Very soon. But we still love the games. We still love the actual competition. We're going to talk about that too. We'll be taking deep dives into 2024 schedules.

Don't worry, we're not going to become a full-time realignment podcast. That's not happening. We got to talk about all of it. We also need to talk about basketball because we're getting really close to selection Sunday. The big basketball news on Sunday was of course, Caitlin Clark breaking the NCAA scoring record against Ohio state against a

team that had beaten Iowa earlier in the season. This actually was a ranking upset. Iowa beats Ohio state. Caitlin Clark breaks the record on a couple of technical foul free throws at the end of the first half. She took a little, I hesitate to say she took a little elbow. It was a kind of a nudge and Kaitlyn Clark might've flopped a little bit to draw the tech, but she tried to break it with a logo three earlier and missed

and ends up hitting those two technical free throws. I think it's probably fun that there are people who are screaming about how she broke the record. You've got the Pete Maravich thing. It was Pete Maravich's NCAA record that she broke. We can get into how different these records are. Remember there was a player, a men's player at Detroit Mercy last year who probably would have broken Pete Maravich's record if they had gotten into some sort of post-season tournament. But let's put it this way. Two very different sports, two very different eras, whether we're talking men's basketball, it doesn't matter. Pete Maravich played when only sophomores, juniors, and seniors could play. Freshmen

couldn't play. So he only played three seasons at LSU. He averaged 44 points a game. He took like 38 shots a game. Also, he played from 67 to 70. And if you know your history, the SEC was not real quick on integration. So they were in the very early stages of integration when pete maravich was playing so all very different numbers that we're talking about so i think we can appreciate everybody for their own achievements and caitlin clark what she's done has been amazing you saw the nike ad on fox right after she broke the record uh maya moore was in the building who was caitlin clark's hero growing up the the scene of her in the morning seeing Maya Moore and realizing she was going to be at the game, she broke the record, was very cool. There is a letter to the editor in the Minneapolis Star Tribune from a doctor who has two daughters. And he's talking about how Caitlin Clark has helped him bond with one of his daughters and made him a better dad.

Like, go read that. It'll make you cry. It's really cool what Caitlin Clark has done. Clearly the Darren Revell tweet last week about her going pro is going to cost her a bunch of money. I don't think so. Nike's about to release her own shoe line. I think she's going to keep on making plenty of bank and all the season tickets she's selling for the Indiana Fever I think are are pretty much evidence of that but we also need to talk about the men's game because the tournament is coming up quick James Fletcher III from on three joins us James is there a new potential number one seed in the men's game after the Vols went to Tuscaloosa and won on Saturday night? Yeah, you just said it right there. I think that Tennessee has now surpassed Arizona as that final spot on the one line behind, of course, as we know, Purdue, UConn, Houston.

Those three aren't leaving. But that last spot was up for grabs. Arizona was just holding on to it, trying to get to the finish line. But Tennessee beating Auburn and Alabama in consecutive weeks, a pair of teams that are in the top four seed conversation themselves. And you look at it and the overall resumes are really similar. But I gave Tennessee that nod just for being in that stronger conference. And then a couple of the little data points here and there that you look at, it's really close, though. I think that Tennessee, of course, if they slip up the rest of the way, they open themselves up to letting Arizona pass them back by and get that one spot. But if they win out, I think they're for sure going to get that fourth one seed spot now. So there should, you know, there could be some, you mentioned Tennessee and Arizona with the two seeds. Is there anybody else that either,

I don't know about move up because it seems like the other ones are pretty solid, but any two seeds that should feel worried about somebody coming up and trying to get them from behind. Yeah. The teams that should be thinking about getting back up to the one seat it's pretty much arizona uh north carolina you could make the case depending on how the things shake out because they would play duke at least once potentially a second time in the acc tournament

so they they have a little bit more ammunition to move up with their resume but in terms of arizona and tennessee i don't think both of them are going to slip up enough that North Carolina is able to surpass them. But like you said, below them, Iowa State has just kind of moved up into this two seed conversation and solidified themselves there. So we talk about the Big 12, how tough things are. There's no guarantee that they're going to make a deep run in that conference tournament, regardless of how they played in the regular season. So they've got to be worried about someone catching them from behind. And then Marquette, they don't have an easy close to the regular season or an easy run through the Big East tournament.

So if you're either of those teams, Marquette, of course, just played against Creighton and Creighton is right there knocking at the door. They could move potentially up to a two seed, depending on the way things shake out. You've got Baylor right there knocking on the door. They could move potentially up to a two seed, depending on the way things shake out. You've got Baylor right there knocking on the door as well. And then Duke, who similar to North Carolina, they've got the ammunition left. They've got a game against North Carolina and then a potential another meeting in that conference tournament. So there's still enough teams out there who can shift things around at the top of this bracket. So this week starts all the conference tournaments that you've got your mid majors and low major conference tournaments.

A lot of them start this week. The high major conference tournaments are next week. Arch Madness is this week. The Missouri Valley Conference, that's going to be a fun one. I think we look at these things as opportunities, well, with our friends at FanDuel, opportunities to sprinkle some and have some action going in the middle of the day on a weekday, but also the excitement of the big upset of the one seed in these because the one seed is the team that

has been the best all season that's usually there's usually one and maybe sometimes it's kind of a collision course between two teams but the upset of the one seed that that probably cost them a spot in the NCAA tournament anybody who should be worried this week about an upset and and who should be most worried? Yeah. So I went through and I was kind of, we talked about this and I was looking, I was like, well, this team should be worried. This team should be worried. And I ended up having this big long list and I was like, well, okay, I can't just say every mid-major one seed should be worried. But at the end of the day, that's kind of where we're at with the NCAA tournament and how it's all bracketed.

But I've been able to narrow down this list for you. I think at the top of the list, the team that should be the most worried is Richmond in the A-10 because you look at that team, throughout the regular season, they have been the best team in that conference. However, you've got Dayton right there. They're probably an at-large team. And if you're the A-10, you kind of need someone other than Dayton to win this conference tournament because you want to get multiple bids

into the big dance, and you're not going to get that if Dayton wins this conference tournament because they have kind of slid back to the pack just enough that a win over them is really – it has lessened in its value. So you've got Richmond there. They're probably a 12 seed. If they are able to win the conference tournament, Loyola Chicago is also in that conference tournament. They have had a huge resurgence this year in their second year in that conference. So you've got three teams there that I think are real contenders to take home that conference title crown. And if you're Richmond, you won the regular season title. If you want to be in the NCAA

tournament and not the NIT, you got to get something going there. One of the other ones that I just think, I mean, it's been so much fun to watch back and forth is the Ivy league. I mean, Princeton right now is ahead and they've got another game, I believe, but I mean, you've got between Princeton, Cornell, and Yale. Those three teams have been in first place, in second place, in third place, back and forth and back and forth all regular season. And they've all got outstanding overall records. They're all playing really good basketball.

And so you're not going to want to face whoever wins the ivy league uh as a five seed or a potential four seed when we get to the ncaa tournament for sure that's what i've seen a couple of of columns suggesting that the ivy should be a two-bid league this year which you know doesn't happen very often and and probably won't happen but uh the valley is interesting to me just because it's got the player that i think america will fall in love with if he plays in the big dance but he's got to get there so indiana state is the number one seed uh robbie avila who there was a clip floating around on the internet the other day i think our friend matt jones from kentucky sports radio called him cream abdul-jabbar c-r-e-a-m uh so for those who haven't seen robbie avila

he's a 610 post player um to to say he is not built like a greek god would be putting it nicely uh he wears the rec specs and like i don't know about you james these look like it looks like he deliberately found rec specs from the eighties. I'm sure Rex spec technology has improved, but somehow he found some James worthy goggles. Yeah, I don't, I've seen, it's definitely part of the brand because it is, it all comes together from head to toe. I know you tweeted about his Navy shoes, really just making the outfit. You have retro jerseys that they've been wearing, the navy blue shoes, the rec specs. I mean, he has put it all together.

He's got a very unique look, and he is, like you said, going to become one of the fan favorites in March Madness. I just moved Indiana State back onto that 10 line. They've been in that kind of conversation as 11 seed, 10 seed. What are they going to be? So I think right now they're safe. They're in the field for now, the way their resume looks today, regardless of whether they win or lose the conference tournament.

But I think that comes with an asterisk with it. Because the only team that I think that they can lose to in the conference tournament that doesn't bring them back towards that bubble conversation and make you really take a long look is Drake, who we know has Darian DeVries, his son Tucker, their star player. They've got some past history over the last few years in the NCAA tournament, what they've been able to do in March. And so that's going to be a really interesting storyline. Can the Valley become a two bid league this year as well? Can Drake kind of solidify their resume over these

last a couple weeks here yeah and and robbie i listen that that guy will take over the discourse if indiana state wins a game in the ncaa tournament like he will be the most famous person in america for a weekend and it's interesting because i do wonder if you like, you take away the rec specs and put them in some faster looking shoes. He's probably Cameron Crutwick who played for, for Loyola Chicago, like a big post play, like old school post guy, like back to the basket post moves. There aren't a lot of them in the world anymore, but he does that really well. It's just, the look is incredible. Yeah. And I've seen, I've seen quite a few people, at least in the comment section, when you see the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar trending on Twitter stuff, all that, that came with his big performances on a, on a bigger stage over the last couple of weeks. And the, the interesting

thing to me is people starting to cite his NIL value and all the things that come with the modern college basketball game and starting to talk about, well, he's definitely entering the transfer portal. Let's pump the brakes on that because I don't think, A, I don't think his game just immediately translates to the SEC or the Big Ten. I think what he does is a very unique skill set, which plays incredibly well in a mid-major conference so i think that he is uniquely positioned to succeed where he is in the offense that he's in and then i also think that if you're him who's to say you can't make more nil money being the mid-major guy

with the rec specs with the navy shoe with the whole get up, the whole look, I think that that sells better than being in the backup center or maybe the starter on a low-level team that's definitely not making March Madness next season. Yeah, and we saw them play Alabama earlier this season. There's no position in Nato's scheme for that guy. It doesn't exist. So, yeah, the world has changed.

Although I will say, like, Indiana State, the way they play is very fun to watch. And I'm guessing that they may have to have a new coach next year because if they have a nice – even if they get into the tournament and win a game, I think we're probably talking about that being their next step. Yeah, Schertz's name has been floating around college basketball for quite a while. I mean, he was one of those early names that you saw pop up for DePaul when that one opened, Ohio State when that opened. You see all these jobs as they start to open.

His name has come up quite a few times already as one of the early candidates that at least the school should call yeah yeah and that's that always fascinates me james like and now in this case he's put together a very good program there uh this would not be a case of of somebody gets hot we've seen it happen where coaches and we're gonna i bet we see it happen this year where some guy has a really good weekend and ends up becoming a high major head coach. And, and, and then the high major school regrets that within a year. Yeah. And I think that maybe it's the amount of money that's being thrown around, or maybe it's the just schools finally figuring out, Hey, maybe that's not the best idea, but I think back to last year, and I agree with that. That definitely has been a trend.

We've seen it over and over and over again. I don't even know if it's a recent trend. I mean, that's been happening as long as I've been watching college basketball. Right, and you become a victim of the moment. You feel like what they accomplished was maybe bigger than what it was. I do feel like, though, maybe in the last few years, and I can't confirm this, but it's just felt a little bit more like schools are being a little more careful. Like Dusty May last year, how does he not get a high major job right away? He had to come back and do

this and maybe he just chose to, maybe he had the offers on the table, but he chooses to come back to FAU this year, run it back. And now it looks like he's going to take one of these jobs. Now that he's kind of proven it for a second straight year that he's able to do it. So I don't know. Maybe you have to prove it twice now in this modern era, or maybe it's just fallen that way where the coaches or the schools knew that the opportunities were going to be better the next year. Yeah. I mean, I'll put it this way. If I'm an ad, I'm more apt to hire the coach who got his T who had his team number one in the regular season, two or three

seasons in a row. And maybe they did get upset in the conference tournament, or maybe they just got a bad draw and didn't win a game in the NCAA tournament. But I want the one who's going to consistently win over and over versus the one who caught lightning in a bottle or maybe had one or two good players. And that's why they, they did what they did. Yeah. And I think honestly, the one thing that we overlook when we talk about these coaching searches and it's, it's easy to overlook, especially when we're not on the inside, uh, working all the sources that these athletic directors have is perhaps the most important thing. If you're going to hire a high major coach is you better make sure that he's going to bring an assistant with him who is able to recruit at a high major level. I mean, I was there in Alabama when Nate Oates arrived.

If he doesn't bring Brian Hodgson, who knows how that thing turns out. But Brian Hodgson comes in there from Buffalo with him. He was on the plane ride down. And suddenly you look around and they're involved with this five star. They're involved with this five star. And they are bringing together just a talent level that wasn't there previously yeah it is it is amazing and because in basketball you have to do it immediately and especially in this era you you've got to be able to build a a complete new roster as as a new coach the second

you walk in the door it's kind of getting that way in football now too but basketball is is even like you are changing your team completely the second you walk in the door, it's kind of getting that way in football now too. But basketball is even like you are changing your team completely the second you walk in. You've got just a couple handfuls of roster spots and you can flip those pretty quickly. You bring in a couple of recruits, you bring in a couple of transfers and boom, like this is your team. There is no waiting period. We hear these coaches say, oh, well, I got to get my system in place. No, like you get the players that you get and you better be able to start producing with them within one or two years because with the transfer portal, it's your roster.

You have built what this is. You're not waiting three, four years for that thing to flip over now. So this is a bit of a long shot here, but I'm curious because just it's, it's one of the better interim performances we've seen probably the, maybe the best since Ed Orgeron at LSU, uh, Jake Diebler since taking over at Ohio state. Now they did lose to Minnesota, but they are four and one. They, they, they closed with Rutgers, which would get them closer to 500 and big 10 play. And I realized it's not the big 12, like a game or 200, 500,

it's not going to get you in the tournament. Is there a, is there a possibility? Is there a world where Jake Diebler could get Ohio state into the NCAA tournament without winning the big 10 tournament? Without winning the big 10 tournament, it's going to be the key there. They've got a path, I think. And I looked real hard at this when I started to think about, well, he's four and one now. I looked at it actually last week when he got to two and one, I think, when he got the upset win and we started to kind of talk about he's performing really well in his interim role. And I think he's definitely gotten his name in the mix for that job. If nothing else, they're going to have to interview him and talk to him about what his vision would be for the

program. I look at though, when we talk about getting into the NCAA tournament, especially when you're not in that immediate bubble picture, that last four in, the next four out, or that next four after that. Once we get beyond those, you've got to start looking at the numbers and how they compare to, in many cases, the last team in the field. So right now, I've got that Virginia, I believe cases, the last team in the field. So right now I've got that Virginia, I believe is the last team in my field. So I went and I pulled the numbers. Ohio State currently 10 spots lower in the net rankings. So they're a little bit further behind there, but they are 18 and 12 overall, Virginia 21 and nine. Now those resumes, they look different because they're in different conferences. So then you go down to the quadrant system. Ohio state actually has more

quad one wins than Virginia right now. They're three and six. Virginia is two and six in those games. Ohio state does have a loss outside of quad one or two. That one's going to hurt them. And then Virginia has more quad two wins as well. So right now they're a little bit behind. And then I look at strength of record. That's the one that I'm going to have to use here to determine how I feel overall. Well, Virginia 34th, Ohio state, unfortunately 67th. Like that's what's killing them right now. And that's how the average team would perform against your schedule basically is correct. And that has to do, it takes a lot more into account. People talk about strength of schedule.

That analytic in college basketball is, is almost useless using strength of schedule because strength of record is much better at taking into account. Okay. You built this schedule. Who did you actually beat on the schedule? Did you lose to every good team that you played and you just beat all of the bad teams or did you get wins over the teams that you should have? And then also beaten a couple of teams that you weren't supposed to be along the way. So that's where Ohio state currently has work to do, but I'm not going to say they're completely out

of rope because of course, if Virginia slips up early in their conference tournament, if Ohio state makes a deep run, because we, we, we talk about conference tournaments as if it is like, OK, now the resume is built. Now you either win or lose. No, you can build your resume up in those games leading up to the conference championship game. So say they make a semifinal run, even a run to the finals, depending on how that bracket falls and the teams they would have to beat along the way, they can still add one, one two maybe even three wins in those first two quadrants and really continue building that resume buzz williams will tell you that that doesn't matter though because uh didn't help him yeah it's funny because i i do i do assume that the committee when you get to sunday especially the the tournaments that have a sunday final that they're just like, we're tired. We don't want to read to the bracket now.

What are we doing here? So I think there's definitely a case to be made that sometimes those Sunday games, they don't get overlooked by any means, but they kind of look at you and they say, okay, like we're just going to create two brackets. Like if you win and if you lose, and then we're just going to kind of like, like we're going to be ready for whichever one happens. And sometimes I think that definitely comes into play when you look at the bubble, because maybe a, maybe a team that's on the bubble. Well, now that quad two game is actually quad one because this team won the conference tournament and that team lost this conference tournament. And so now the resume looks a little, but we're not, we're not going to go through and look at how every team was impacted by the last game

that finished 30 minutes before we revealed this bracket. Yeah, I've done the mock selection for basketball and for football, and the basketball one, like, you understand once you've gotten through a whole bracket, you do not want to have to change everything again. No, that's my – Arizona has frustrated me a couple times this season. I get the whole bracket ready to go. Well, they're playing like a 10 p.m. tip off out on the West Coast. And I look up at 12.05 a.m. and, oh, they lost.

Now I got to, from the top down, got to redo this whole thing. It's a big sigh whenever that happens. Exactly. Now imagine you've got a bunch of people in a room that all have to agree on it. But we will find out what they want to do, and they will get some help because the automatic bids start flowing in in the next week or so with the conference tournament finals. James, happy watching. This is the buffet opens this week, so enjoy. Yeah, it's going to be a great week.

We got plenty of big games. Like you said, conference tournaments are getting started. We will have teams locked in to the NCAA tournament a week from today. So it's going to be a fun time. And we'll have a more clear picture of those bid stealers and those teams on the bubble, what they need to do here in the next week. All right, James Fletcher III, we will talk to you again later this week.

Thank you, sir. All right, appreciate it. We do have a lot to watch this week in men's basketball as the conference tournaments get fired up. There will be one buzzer beater upset, one number one seed falling probably before next Saturday, before Saturday. So that's not really a bold prediction. I think that's just math at this point. We're going to see in some mid-major tournament, we will see a buzzer beater that knocks the number one seed out.

And by the end of the weekend, there will be bid thieves. And then it really starts. Now, we'll talk a lot more about what Cole and I talked about for most of the show as the off-season goes on, because we're going to learn more about this stuff. The information is going to come out in drips and drabs, but I do think it's something we need to have more in the front of our minds. And probably I should be thinking about it as I, as I break down every little machination, as they try to come up with a new playoff plan for 2026, like they've got to do a deal so that ESPN can sign a deal so that people can start scheduling sites. But we probably should understand that that may get ripped up if stuff changes because stuff is always changing. We've also got more current things to talk about, more immediate things to talk about. The combine

wrapped up. You saw Xavier Worthy from Texas break the combine record in the 44.21. You heard our guy Dukes last week say Nate Wiggins was going to run a blazing time. He did 4.28. Probably ran his way into the first round with that one. You saw Isaac Garendo from Louisville have a tremendous Combine performance. You know, Amarius Mims from Georgia is like the ultimate freak after seeing his measurements. We learned a lot. We'll go even deeper into the combine and into those results and into the pre-draft process when we talk to Jim Nagy from the Senior Bowl on Tuesday's show. So we got a lot to talk about.

We got some deep dives into 2024 schedules. I've talked to Shea Dixon from the Bengal Tiger. We're going to do LSU this week. We've got quite a few more that we need to get to because I'd like to get these done as schools are starting spring practice because coming out of spring practice, things may look different. And there's some that we haven't done yet. Like Auburn, we haven't done yet. I would like to wait to see what happens in Auburn spring practice before we start talking about what Auburn's record might be during the season. Cause I'm not entirely sure that's exactly what it's going to look like. Plus there is that spring portal window coming up. We're only about

a month away from that. Pete Nacos has told us it is going to be wild. So there is a lot to talk about here in the next month or so. Strap in everybody. No off season. We'll talk to you tomorrow.