Andy & Ari On3 - Is the ACC willing to negotiate with Florida State? | Bubble (and top seeds) Watch

Episode Date: February 19, 2024

This show is sponsored by Fanduel, America’s No. 1 sports book. Visit fanduel.com/Staples to sign up. And right now, NEW customers get $150 in BONUS BETS with any winning $5 bet! The college football win totals for the 2024 season dropped earlier this month, so sign up today.0:00 Intro - Steve Sarkisian's Contract Extension at Texas3:05 Florida State Willing to Negotiate with ACC?24:54 Checking in on Florida State's 2024 Season35:38 Bubble Watch and the Top Seeds in March Madness with James Fletcher III54:56 Conclusion, Preview of Tuesday's ShowJeff Cameron of On3's Warchant joins to discuss a very interesting nugget in the ACC's most recent court filing in its ongoing legal battle with Florida State.Jeff also chats about a Seminoles team that will look very different from the one that won the ACC last year. Florida State's 2024 win total is 9.5 games. Will the Seminoles have the firepower to go over?In other college football news, the commissioner of the MAC told his schools that despite reports saying a new TV deal for the College Football Playoff is done, commissioners haven't been presented with the particulars yet.Next, On3's James Fletcher III joins to break down a wild weekend in college basketball. Ohio State, which fired Chris Holtmann last week, shocked Purdue in Jake Diebler's first game as interim coach. Kentucky scored a big road win at Auburn. Also, the NCAA Tournament selection committee released its top 16 seeds if the season ended now.Want to watch the show as well? Head on over to YouTube and join us LIVE at 8 am et, M-F: https://youtube.com/live/QWtwA7pc3q8

Welcome to Andy Staples on three where we are still adjusting to being morning people we are in in week two of morning people and my producer River and I were discussing this earlier we've got some guests today coming on in the morning trying to to make sure that they are awake and alert and ready to ready to rock and roll and we have just been peppering them with text, not realizing that we were both doing it. So to our guests, Jeff Cameron from War Chant, who's coming on to talk Florida State. Something very interesting happened with Florida State on Friday

in its case against the ACC. Also, James Fletcher III, talk a little bubble watch. But we will get to the Florida State situation momentarily. But first, a little bit of news in college football. Steve Sarkeesian got paid. He got really paid. He got mega paid. And this is one of those, when the Alabama job was open, we were kind of wondering how much is Jimmy Sexton working behind the scenes to get everybody raises? Because this is one of those jobs that doesn't come open often. It's you're replacing the goat. And you do call people and say, maybe?

Like you do call Kirby Smart and he laughs at you. You do call Steve Sarkeesian, whose job at this point might be better now. And I don't know if this is a direct result of Nick Saban retiring. It's probably a bigger result of him making the playoff this year and going into the SEC with some good momentum.

But Steve Sarkeesian is going to make $10.3 million this year. That salary goes up to $10.9 million in 2030. Now, we all know it'll either be higher than that if they're really good by 2030, or they will have bought it out. Because that's how college football coaching works. But Steve Sarkeesian getting big, big money after the best season of his coaching career, the first double-digit win season of his coaching career. So now huge expectations for Texas coming in. We're going to talk later this week about the Longhorns, their expectations going into the SEC year one. Remember, there are only four teams in the country that have a 10.5 win total on FanDuel right now.

And Texas is one of them. Texas, Georgia, Oregon, and Ohio State have a 10.5 win total. That is the highest in the country. So I think some of these are pretty high, but that one feels okay. If you think that Texas is going to make the playoff, if you think Texas is going to be one of the best teams in the SEC, I'm okay with that. But as I was going through those, there's a lot of nine and a half, a lot of eight and a half. And you kind of wonder, can all these teams win all these games? And one of those teams that we're going to talk about is Florida State. They're in a nine and a half. We're going to talk about that with Jeff Cameron. But before we talk about the Seminoles

on the field with him, we got to talk about the Seminoles off the field because they affect pretty much everything. There is so much going on with Florida State and the ACC, and it has an effect on everything. There was a story that came out on Sunday. Ross Dellinger from Yahoo had a story about how John Steinbrecher, who's the commissioner of the MAC, had sent an email to his school saying, hey, I see all these reports that the college football playoff TV deal is agreed upon and done. It is not. We have not been presented with the particulars of the deal.

We haven't seen any of that yet. And basically, there's a little semantics there because they have agreed in principle to something, but that could all change based on some of the rules, procedural changes that they want to vote through with the playoff, or if conference affiliation changes, which that's where Florida State and the ACC come in because, man, it's going to get very interesting, especially after what we saw Friday. Let us welcome our friend Jeff Cameron from War Chant. Hi, Jeff.

Hey, Andy. How are you, buddy? Oh, I am great. I was in your fair city last week. I headed back to your fair city this week for a lacrosse game, not for any sort of Florida State-related material, but talked to DJ. You got a chance to meet up with him and was very, very impressed. But we got to talk about what happened Friday, Jeff. Like, is it possible the ACC is willing to negotiate with Florida State?

Seems like it. You know, Andy, listen, I think you and I, since the beginning, have kind of felt like at some point that's what would happen. And I'm not a lawyer, and I try to read into page upon page upon page of the filings at this point. And you do get a sense that although it's vitriolic, although there's a ton of pettiness involved in all of it, you understand that that is the legal wrangling. That is the stuff that they have to do. And one side will submit their reasons for dismissal, and then the next will do that within the respective states.

But I do think that's where this is headed, and I think that's where Florida State always wanted it to head. There was no way they were going to fight to get out if they thought that they were going to fight to get out if they thought that they were going to legitimately have to pay $500 plus million to do so. I don't believe they ever intended to do that. I don't think that the courts would uphold that. They don't either. And I think at some point that leads to a negotiation. Yeah. So here's what it said in the filing. It's interesting because what the ACC was filing, and remember, there's two cases.

There's one in North Carolina that the ACC filed. There's one in Florida that Florida State filed. So this is in the one in Florida, and the ACC submitted this early Friday afternoon. And it's basically saying, here's why the case should not be tried in Florida. It should be tried in North Carolina. And then a couple of other arguments, which are actually kind of interesting and probably support the ACC's argument. Like they've spent a lot of time saying, well, Florida state took delivery on the deal. They took the money these past eight years from the contract. So therefore there, it's not the rotten deal that they say it is, but here's the little

nugget and shout out to Matt Baker from the Tampa Bay times who found this first and, and put a story out immediately and, and really good job alerting everybody to this. This is the, this is the clause in the, in that little, in that argument, there's 40 pages of filing. This is the paragraph that is the most meaningful. If Florida state wishes to regain control of the rights, this is the paragraph that is the most meaningful. If Florida State wishes to regain control of the rights, this is the TV rights, before the end of the term, it could attempt to repurchase them. But having to buy back a right which was assigned is not a penalty. It is simply a commercial possibility. What a turn of phrase, a commercial possibility. So if you were to have a commercial possibility,

then you could conceivably have this much money. And this is the amount we'll take. Now, you mentioned 500 plus million dollars, Jeff. When Florida State filed its initial complaint, its attorneys estimated it would cost $572 million, which is the exit fee from the ACC plus what they assume to be the cost of the TV rights through 2036. So where do you think Florida State's mind is at in terms of what a fair dollar figure would be to get out. Well, you know, it's interesting. To speculate, I have an idea based on conversations

that I've had with people behind the scenes in the past. But I will tell you this, even without speculation, they've thrown around numbers and open conversations and open dialogue. In fact, at one point, Peter Collins, department chair, said that basically if this were only $150 million, Florida State would have left already. We know they'd pay $150 million. He basically all but admitted that. Andy, I think somewhere in the neighborhood of $250 million.

I think if tomorrow they knew that was the number and they could be free to negotiate with either the Big Ten or the SEC and move on from the ACC, I think they would do it. Well, and I think this also sets up something else interesting because they didn't have to put this in to this filing this did not have to be submitted in a public document which is it's a public record and because if i'm clemson or if i'm north carolina and i have the same goals as florida state i've just gone about it a different way now i'm it like, okay, what do we have to do to negotiate this? And I would assume the ACC knows that. Yeah, and I think it's odd that if the ACC – listen, Andy, if Florida State leaves the ACC and it opens the door, as you're suggesting,

for North Carolina and Clemson to do the same, the conference is dead in the water. You know, there have been people that said the conference is dead, walking around just doesn't know it yet. I mean, this is a – I thought that this would go to the bitter end to some extent because I think that the ACC has hinted as much that losing FSU at this point, or North Carolina or Clemson if you'd like, it's just that Florida State's been the most aggressive, is akin to dissolving the contract with ESPN. Who's signing up for that television contract without your major players?

Yeah, and the only thing I can think is they're looking at this as a potential cash infusion. Like if they could get $300 million from each school, which is a lot of money, but we'll talk about that in a second because it's not as much as you think in the grand scheme. Right. That's basically, if it's those three, that's basically almost a billion dollars cash, which time value of money, if you handle that properly, you can keep the corpse of that conference afloat for quite some time. But to what end? I mean, it's interesting. You're right. You could. It certainly does not become the viable asset to ESPN or to anybody else negotiating a long-term

television deal down the line without a Clemson, without a Florida State, or without a North Carolina. You're right. It just becomes an also ran conference, which is what I thought this was, this was about that we were going to get to a place where, um, I, I never, I said, we can go down this road. You and I talked about this a lot. I, Jim Phillips never, in my opinion, seemed to understand the way this was going to play out and how aggressive his competitors were. And that I think has, there was a little neat naivete there. He wanted to believe in the greater good.

And yet there was overwhelming evidence from his cohorts, like Greg Sankey, that they were out for blood. This was a race to see who wins the conference war. And, you know, to Sinkey's credit, he has lobbied on behalf of the SEC around every turn. He has struck the better deals, and he has taken the opportunities where PR advancements could be made to do so. And Jim Phillips kind of calmly told everybody things were going to be fine in the ACC. And we believe that where we stand is rock solid. I don't know that he believes that. I don't know that the

ACC believes that any longer. Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think you're putting that into that filing if you believe that. I think you're now preparing for the inevitable. And it's so interesting to me, Jeff, because you've dealt with this conference for a long time. Jim Phillips' successor, John Swofford, was perhaps the best at that clandestine cutthroat, go get what you got to get. Think about this. If John Swofford acts like Jim Phillips did and Mike Trangese acts like John Swofford did, the Big East would be a power conference in football and the ACC probably wouldn't even exist right now.

Like that was – the ACC exists because John Swofford recognized that football was going to drive the train and went and got what they needed to survive. Yeah, I'll tell you this, Andy, though. Where this thing turned for me, and we agree to some degree on that. That is a factual statement you just made. There are some other missteps along the way from John Swofford. Oh, yeah. Many who are the pro football people, and I'm not talking about professional football people, who saw that the ACC needed to hitch its wagon to football and

not basketball, wished that he had made prior. And there are some dubious deals that were made that were pointed out in the last countersuit by FSU, which, by the way, when they did that, the gloves were off in a way that the genie can never go back in the bottle. I mean, you attack the man's son and his legacy. At that point, we are done dealing here. There was never going to be a negotiation at that point, I wouldn't think. But these things get ugly, and it got really ugly

at that point. When I read through that and saw John Swofford's name mentioned, as opposed to the ACC, and when I saw his son's name brought up, I thought, oh, well, they're done. They have decided to go for broke here. Yeah. Well, and what's interesting about this, and I think the reason the negotiation part is brought in, although I still wonder why it was brought in now instead of much later in the process, but I don't know that they want to get too much further down the road with this thing. They probably don't want a lot of discovery

because that could be embarrassing for both parties. But if it were to go to trial, ultimately, the potential ending could be disastrous for both parties. Because if the court says, no, the grant of rights is completely enforceable. And if you want to get out of the ACC, you owe 500 something million dollars. Well, that's non-starter for Florida State. The other option is the court says the grant of rights is not enforceable at all. And Florida State, you can walk away for nothing, which is a disaster for the ACC. So neither party wants to risk going to trial here. But let's talk about the number, because 300 million is the one I keep coming back to because it feels like it's sort of the between point between the two polls.

But it's also, let's say, and this is a negotiated one because like if Florida State were to prevail at trial, then their withdrawal from the ACC would be retroactive to last year. They could conceivably be out in time for 2024. That doesn't logistically make a lot of sense. But let's say they negotiated an exit for 2025 and it costs $300 million. And they wound up in the Big Ten, let's just hypothetically. You're going to make probably $40 million more a year there than you would make in the ACC. And so you have 11 years to pay off this mortgage of $300 million.

Right. Here you go. Right? Yeah. You're probably going to make a little bit of a profit, like a little tiny bit more once, because there will be interest and maybe it's private equity paying the, paying the freight up front. We'll see, but you're probably going to make a little more if you did that. I think, yes, there is a magic number, Andy. And I don't know if it's 300 million on the nose, but I think it's fair to speculate on that number for the reasons that you just laid out. I, it is fascinating to watch, uh, this. I have learned over time, you have to, from watching the ugliness of lawsuits and parties who have a lot to gain and a lot to lose,

they will say and do almost anything within reason. But I also know that the start of these negotiations eventually are all on behalf of what they know, what's at risk. Like you're saying, the idea that Florida State could walk for nothing is a very real thing. The idea that Florida State could lose and have to pay $500-plus million is a very real thing. It's percentages. And I think for Florida State, they've never believed that a court would believe that $500 plus million to exit was fair. They would view that as being overly penal. And I think they have evidence to that end. I mean, I think you've watched courts have a hard time with what would be deemed egregious penalties financially for,

for an enforcement of grant of rights in the past. So I think they knew that we would be entering a stage similar to the one we're discussing right now. The second they filed the lawsuit, I wonder, I thought the key play long ago was the open board of trustees meeting in which they began to discuss a path to leave the ACC, and they noted that it was untenable to stay. The second they said that, you knew what their strategy was, what their efforts were going or headed towards, and this was all inevitable. And I just never thought that they would pull the trigger as quickly as they did. But once they did, I thought they knew they must have a path to negotiation or an outright exit.

Yeah. And the other thing is people keep asking about, do they have a landing spot? I find it very hard to believe that they would do all of this without some idea that there's a landing spot. I tend to think the Big Ten is the spot if it because because the big 10 would want to move into that territory yeah because i want your opinion on this it's an interesting discussion the big 10 would want to plant a flag in the sec's backyard they would want to grab it could if it would make sense if it's all out war and it's fox versus espn let's say would you not at that point you'd'd have a countrywide conference, obviously,

as opposed to a regional conference in the SEC. So you would have Florida State, North Carolina, Clemson, potentially Miami. I don't know if they'd go that route or not, but for the Big Ten. So now we're going coast to coast and you got all the Midwest to boot. I would think the counter to that is with the ACC on the verge of dissolving, that ESPN doesn't re-up and we have to know that by 2026 right 2025 um so I would think at that point again SEC ESPN Big Ten Fox no matter others feelings commissioners feelings athletic directors feelings at some

point you would want to counter that move by Fox and the Big Ten if you were ESPN, especially since the ACC will no longer be an asset. And wouldn't you say, you know what, guys? Look, this isn't going to, you can be mad if you want to be, if you're Florida or anybody else. We're taking Florida State so that the Big Ten doesn't get them. Yeah, that's the one thing I would think is the encroachment on the territory piece like that's where clemson would probably find a home in in that situation and florida state would be the same thing and i think i think the part of the part that makes this more interesting is espn and fox are about to go into business together with a streaming service like that that's where you wonder and oh by the way greg sankey and tony patiti the two commissioners just formed an advisory group so all of this is all happening at once on mine andy you know they

do yeah well and that's the thing like i feel like i feel like all of this is related and like i i don't think you can make a deal for the car because they want to make a deal for the college football playoff like a new TV deal that extends beyond the 2025 season. I'm not sure they can yet. Cause I don't think they know what these conferences are going to look like. Correct. Correct. I you're,

you're right. I think, and you were just talking about it before I came in and joined you. I think that's right. I continue to hear rumblings from, from teams, from other conferences saying, well,

or commissioners of other conferences saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, we can't have a deal? We don't know who the players are just yet. We can't have a deal if we don't know who's where. Yeah, it's fascinating. And I do think this is all related and connected. And, you know, once these moves have begun to fall like dominoes, Andy, go back to the lawsuit and then watch what's happened since then.

And I'm not saying solely because of the lawsuit. I think we were moving inexorably towards this. But I mean, this is where we were going. And right now it's about divvying up the assets and deciding who's going to play ball and who's not, who wants to be part of this and who wants to go somewhere else and maybe play for lack of a better term, a lesser brand of football. I mean, the pieces are on the board. There are a lot of assets still to be claimed and fought over here.

Once that's done, I think we know it's not like relegation, but I think we're going to find some teams don't want to play big boy football or this brand of football. They don't have the investment or they don't see that as their future. And others still do. And clearly, Florida State, along with North Carolina and Clemson are huge assets to any television deal that you're going to make long-term involving playoff and or super leagues. Well,

especially if you're going to a giant league where most of your games are going to be in that league, most, if not all, and you're going to stay in that, in that that that ecosystem you're not gonna play much outside the ecosystem and that's that's the thing that I wonder like are we how close are we to the to the SEC and the Big Ten being it and it feels closer than ever now it's funny I remember having a conversation with an attorney who's kind of connected to the big workings of college football. You know, these guys, Andy, and he was saying, you know, cause we were four state fans were like wringing their hands about what to do, where to go and, and how soon could we get there? And we're talking about the value of these assets,

just solely looking at programs as assets. And at one point he turned to me and said, you know, this is all hand-wringing. Don't worry about it. Eventually it's just going to be the SEC and the Big Ten. That is to say ESPN and Fox. And eventually they'll join forces too. So Florida State's going to have a landing spot. Don't worry about it.

He said that to me over a year ago. I mean, but it makes sense and and when you see everything kind of the tea leaves coming together when you see the the Mac commissioner saying hey don't necessarily believe the reports that we've agreed on a TV deal for the playoff because we don't we haven't and yeah because I I wouldn't if I'm them I don't know that I although if I I guess if I'm the big 12 and, and the group of five leagues in the ACC, I would want to sign up for that as quickly as possible to lock myself into some money before things change again. No, I don't disagree with you. The ACC learned that the hard way with the, with the Alliance. Well, you're talking about the many missteps along the way, sir.

These are the things that I'm referencing when I talk about the naivete of Jim Phillips. Yeah, I agree with you, sir. I think we both know where this is going. But I am fascinated to see who wants to be part of it, who doesn't, who's going to be invited, who's not. I do think for Florida State fans that have been concerned about this, I do believe this is an inevitability that Florida State will be out. Obviously, I think 2024, they play the schedule they have. It's actually kind of a fun schedule, to be honest with you.

You get to go over to Ireland if you're a Florida State fan. You get to go to Notre Dame. You get to host Clemson in Florida. It's a fun schedule. But after that, it may be the last hurrah. I tell people to enjoy it. It's a weird year for FSU because they're going to be doing all the construction on the stadium. Well, they are doing, as you saw, all the construction on the stadium. Oh, yeah. It's all cranes in there.

It's all cranes and concrete and empty spaces where seats once sat. And it's interesting to have this because I do believe it's probably their final year in the conference. So let's talk about that. Listen, you've been doing this show's radio longer than me, and that's why you're better at segues than me, because that is a perfect segue to the conversation I wanted to have about Florida State this season. It's interesting, when I was out there last week talking to some of the newcomers, talking to DJU, you realize how different this team is going to be than the one that won the ACC last year. That doesn't mean it's not going to be that good. It just means it's going to be different.

And you just mentioned the schedule. That opener against Georgia Tech in Ireland, week zero, is tough. But the start of the season beyond beyond that if they can win that one they got a nice little runway I don't think they could have asked for a better schedule setup than the one that they got I really think that you know we play the look the game locally on the air let's guess the schedule. You know, everybody wants to know. Everybody's intrigued. And we kind of laid out what I thought would happen. And outside of one game, I think maybe the Cal game, we pretty much nailed it.

Now, admittedly, on the air, I said, well, this is what would be ideal for Florida State if they could get this. Because of where the buys land and because the type of competition you have before your biggest games of the year you have really nice run-ups to all the critical matchups the losable games if you will and I do think that coupled with the speed they've added obviously with a bridge quarterback like DJ you I think it's reasonable for Florida State fans to believe that they absolutely have a very good shot to defend the ACC title. I bring that up because I don't think they would have believed that was possible when the season ended, given what they were going to lose. Given the amount of NFL, potential NFL draft picks they were going to lose, it didn't seem reasonable to project Florida State to be a 10 or 11 win team. And now I think it is reasonable

the schedule coupled with what they've brought in, which is a lot. And you're right, it is a different looking team. But they have filled a ton of needs with valuable experience. And where they don't have experience, they have guys on the precipice of taking the next step, or guys in the case of many of the Alabama players who were five-star recruits that were brought in by Nick Saban so obviously you appreciate that evaluation now you get those guys who either performed well there or were on the verge of becoming starters there to enter your roster in valuable spots running back wide receiver linebacker uh safety Florida State did a good job of rating others' rosters, in particular Alabama.

Yeah. And it's interesting. We saw Roydale Williams carrying balls for Alabama. Now, he's probably looking at Justice Haynes going, that guy's going to probably carry more than me next year. So I might need to bounce somewhere. But I'll bring up a name that made that same decision at Alabama years ago, Alvin Kamara. He's like, oh, Derrick Henry's better than me. I'm leaving. So that happens. But it is interesting.

And you mentioned Sean Murphy, Roy Dell, Earl Little, Terrence Ferguson. These are all guys that could come in and potentially Malik Benson. You hope they can play a role. And do they have to be as good as their Alabama starting counterpart for FSU to win the ACC? No, they don't. They don't. And in some cases, they will be.

In others, they won't be. I don't think it matters. I think you've just raised the floor of talent considerably. This is the area, Andy, where Mike Orvell, obviously we know what a job he's done, and he's been paid handsomely for it. We documented how close it was that Florida State was going to lose their head coach to Alabama. As it turns out, they keep him and they sign him to a longer deal and more money. One of the things that he's done, I think, better than maybe everybody in college football is recognize how to best utilize the portal.

And it's not just go and get good players. Everybody can recognize the need to do that. It's guys that fit and it's guys that fit what you need in your culture. They've had really zero disruptions in that locker room, despite the influx of so many players from outside the program. And I think that's the balance. He figured out the need to bring in and raise the floor of talent at FSU and do it quickly while also satisfying a culture rebuild and understanding how not to upset the apple cart.

It's really been quite a deft touch. So as the new, you know, and this may be their only year in the new ACC, but the one that intrigues me the most, the stretch that intrigues me the most, is they get Cal at home. I'm not as worried about that. Cal was pretty good last year with Jake Spavitol calling the plays. He winds up going to Baylor as the OC. So it's probably back to being a probably defense first Justin Wilcox team.

SMU in Dallas, September 28th, a week before the Clemson game. That one looks like a fun one. I think it's a great game. I said that was a sneaky good game. I told my audience that I thought if there was a game that you would circle as a potential upset, other than Georgia Tech, who really came on late last year and played very good football and seems to be moving in the right direction, I thought it was SMU. They have an appetite for growing and becoming a big boy program, obviously.

They've got money. They've got investment. They've got success. They've got a good coach. They had a great season a year ago and they're hosting the game. I know that's a, that's a small stadium. So we, when we talk about home field advantages, you know, you don't often bring up SMU, but I imagine that that is a game that once again is a kind of jumping off spot for where they want to go. And so you're going to get an intensity

in that stadium that you don't often see. And I think Florida State fans are excited to travel there. Anytime you get to go to Dallas, Fort Worth or something along those lines, you're going to get an intensity in that stadium that you don't often see. And I think Florida State fans are excited to travel there. Anytime you get to go to Dallas-Fort Worth or something along those lines, you're excited to do it as a road game. So, yeah, that's a sneaky good game. Yeah, Highland Park's going to be hopping that day. And then Clemson the week after against DJU in Tallahassee. It's great. The storyline's just out the wazoo in that one.

It's a fun schedule. This is a fun year upcoming, a fun team. It's interesting. DJU has come in and said all the right things, and you've got to believe, Andy, that if he's got that great year in him, it's going to be this year. He's got weapons. He's got an offensive mind.

And Mike Norvell is a coach who really makes life easy on quarterbacks. So if he wants to see a tick up in that completion percentage, which is an area he needs to improve upon, he already throws the ball deep well. I think Florida State finally got a guy that will keep on the read option, and that's not a knock on Jordan Traversley. We're trying to stay healthy there. But you've got a big quarterback now in short yardage situations. I don't know how he doesn't have a very good year.

I think he will. And you're right, that storyline is amazing with Clemson coming to town and DJU, who has said all the right things. He doesn't seem – he hasn't thrown anything vitriolic Clemson's way. But we all know there will be a lot of emotion in that football game. And Clemson, frankly, needs that game because Florida State took back the ACC a year ago, won in overtime on the road against Clemson in what was an awesome game.

And now you know Clemson in what was an awesome game. And now you know Clemson's going to be obviously hungry to prove that that was an outlier, whereas Florida State wants to prove, at least for the short term while we're in the conference, that it's Florida State's conference again. Yeah, and then that at Notre Dame could be a playoff elimination because Notre Dame looks at that schedule and they say, okay, we open with Texas A&M. It's not the most challenging schedule as Notre Dame schedules go, but getting Florida State in November in South Bend is not going to be easy. And they're going to have to win

probably both of those. I would think. And in previous years, I would have looked at the North Carolina game preceding the Notre Dame game as a problem for Florida State. I know this will upset North Carolina fans, but I don't think they're going to be very good this year. So I'm not as concerned if I'm a Florida State guy about that game before the Notre Dame game as I would have been maybe, say, the last couple of years with a first-round quarterback. Exactly right. Well, Jeff, this has been fascinating,

and we're probably going to be bugging you quite a bit more as, as the weeks go by, because it sounds like this is, this is starting to bubble. Yeah, I think it's ramping up, Andy. And I do think there'll be more meat on the bone for us legally. You know, we'll have to get our legal friends together and figure out what it all means. I'm forever talking to too many lawyers. But, but you got to find, you got to find a kernel of information there that makes some sense that you can then use on the show. And it's fun to have those conversations like our friend Matt Baker did. So I look forward to it, buddy.

It's always a pleasure to be with you. Thank you so much, Jeff. Appreciate it. Yeah, take care, Eddie. That's going to get wild. That is going to get crazy because I think Jeff's right. I think this will be Florida State's last year in the ACC.

Some sort of settlement will be negotiated and something will be different in 2025. And how different that is, we're going to find out. Next up, we've got James Fletcher III from On3. We're talking college hoops. But first, I got to tell you about FanDuel, America's number one sports book, visit fanduel.com slash staples to sign up. And right now new customers get $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 bet. College football win totals for the 2024 season just dropped. As we were talking about with Jeff, Florida States is nine and a half. You talk to Jeff, he's pretty confident they can go over. I think that number is in a good spot. I think they're trying to make things difficult on you

with that number, but I think that's a fun one. Here's one, speaking of nine and a half. Houston is a nine and a half point favorite against Iowa State on big Monday, 9 PM. Eastern time, Monday night. Remember, we've been talking about this. We'll talk about this with James in a second. The past couple of weeks, you've seen Kansas win a huge Saturday game at home and then have to turn around two days later and play against a good team on the road. And they've lost both of those. Now, this is a little bit different. Iowa State beat Texas Tech at home on Saturday. They are going to play Houston on the road. Houston is by ranking and resume the better team. The question is, will Houston cover that spread? If you want to go back and look at the Kansas Texas Tech score

from last Monday, you might feel pretty confident that the Cougars could cover that spread against the Cyclones. So maybe that's your winning $5 bet that gets you $150 in bonus bets. Visit fanduel.com slash staples to sign up. $150 in bonus bets, any winning $5 bet. All right, let us talk to James. Let's talk about some college hoops

because what a weekend it was. James Fletcher, the committee starts the weekend off, the selection committee, by releasing its provisional top 16 seeds. So the block of four, the top four seeds in each region, basically. And of course, as these things go, the number one overall seed loses. Purdue goes to Ohio State, which is being coached by Jake Diebler, the interim coach, making his debut because they fired Chris Holtman last week. And the Buckeyes win. Yeah, one of the most energetic sideline performances we've seen so far this season by Diebler.

All the way up and down the court, he was very excited, you could tell, to get his head coaching opportunity here, even if it is for just about a month or so at Ohio State. But yeah, no, that was the upset of the weekend. And obviously for Purdue, the question now is, do they hold on to that number one overall seed? Was there enough margin of error there? I don't think so. I think we're going to see UConn pass them by. This, of course, pending any more upsets, maybe UConn drops a game this week.

But I think when we circle back next week, we get to the next weekend, we're going to be talking about UConn as the new number one overall seed because UConn got a big win of their own and absolutely routed Marquette. So Purdue dropping a game to Ohio State, I think, was the difference between those two teams as we stand right now. Well, and I saw Shaka Smart after the UConn-Marquette game. He was like, let's just go down the list of the things they were better than us at. And it's one of those, you look at the win probability graph, it was 100% or I'm sorry, it was 98.5% UConn or higher

for the entirety of the second half. It was a blowout. But what is UConn doing that makes them so tough? Because it feels like they play a grown man version of the game that hardly anybody else plays. Well, I think you look at, first of all, just their size. I mean, you look no further than Donovan Klingin when you want size on the court, a seven foot two and just a big body, an imposing figure in the paint. We've seen his defense has been another level. He's able to stay

on the court a little bit longer than he was as a freshman last season. That's been big for them. And I thought he had one of his best games against Marquette this week. So you see that, and then you look at their guards, they don't have small guards. And one of the other things that they have there is they've got experience. You've got a guy in Tristan Newton who has really taken his game to the next level this season and provided that team with the spark that it needed when they lost some of the production off of last year's championship team. They bring in a guy in Cam Spencer who has been really a plug and play type of guy for them, able to have an immediate impact. Caravan returns with his experience. And then you add in a five-star talent like Stephon Castle,

a guy who early on in the season wasn't the most efficient, but he's really rounding into form. And getting a guy like him playing as a lottery pick, which is what he probably will be once we get to the summer, that's a scary thought because they're only heading upward the rest of this month. Yeah, and that's the thing. They feel like they're built for the tournament. You mentioned the size, the guard play and, and really because old guards win in the tournament

and it just feels like they're, they're as put together as possible for whatever they might have to see. Now, obviously you can have the wrong matchup on the wrong day, but it does feel like they might be the kind of prohibited favorite going in, in terms of who can just win six games in a row. Because you've got to be able to win six games in a row against teams that look very different. Yeah, I think they're the most complete team in college basketball right now. I don't think there's any question about that. Purdue, of course, they've got the top-end talent.

They've got the veteran guards. They've got just about everything we just talked about. The problem is Purdue has not shown it as consistently. They've dropped a game to Northwestern. They've dropped a game to Ohio State. And I know we're nitpicking here. I mean, we're talking about teams that have, you know, two, three losses for the entire season at this point.

But like you said, it matters your ability to repeat over and over and over that result, because that's what you're going to have to do in March with the conference tournament where you're playing day after day, then you get about a week break and you've got to play two games in just a couple of days. And then you got to repeat that the next weekend and then the next weekend again. So I think UConn and Purdue have kind of separated themselves. Houston, they're no slouch there. You talked about them. They are in the analytics and the numbers. They are the top team, but I do think they're just a step behind those other two

based on, if nothing else, the lack of a superstar power that they just lack that big guy in the paint who can just change a game on his own. So we were talking about Houston and the home Saturday road, big Monday situation that Iowa State faces. But I'm curious from Houston's standpoint, you know, last year they were coming out of the American. They had this great record. How much more tested will they be coming out of the big 12 than they were last year coming out

of the American? Well, I think they've definitely faced more challenges. I mean, just look at that schedule. It's a night in, night out type of deal in the Big 12 that you don't really have in the American. Now, that's not to say that they didn't face challenges in the American, because you look at throughout the last couple of years, Houston has played maybe some of the most competitive games in all of college basketball when they went up against a Memphis team and Penny Hardaway that always got up for that matchup. And so you asked Kelvin Sampson, you asked Penny Hardaway, that matchup was for sure a huge deal for both programs. And so I think that they've had the experience of getting up for big

games of performing when the chips are down, but you're, you're right. It's a whole different level in the big 12 of having to do it every time you go out on the floor. And I think that that will, uh, that will pay off for them when we get to the NCAA tournament. I think that they will be a little bit better prepared for maybe they have to play an ACC team in the second round, a team that has more of the, I guess, the history behind them than Houston might have. And they're not going to blink because they've played at Kansas. They've played against Baylor. They've played against all of these powerhouse programs along the way. Yeah. And they're going to get it again tonight with the Cyclones because this is a top 10 on top 10. it's just the question

is can they you know can iowa state actually bounce back we we saw the kansas last two weeks just not been able to to get it back up on the road but i one of these one of these weeks it's gonna happen but i don't know nine and a half points actually feels like not that bad of a spread given the circumstances. Yeah. It's, it really feels like they're set up in a bad spot. And I think it was interesting. We had this discussion just last week before we got into the weekend slate of games. And I actually listened to press conferences over the weekend, Brad Brownell brought up pretty much almost word for word what we were talking about, how hard it is to go from Saturday to Monday and give that same effort after you get five days to prepare for a game and then you get two days. So I think it's an issue

that not only impacts the Big 12, but you see even the ACC talking about it too. I think it's an issue that comes up across college basketball. Nobody's going to feel bad for these guys, but it's something that coaches are aware of that they're working every week to try to get through to these players. Yeah. And Brad Brown, I'll drop, just dropped a tough one to NC State. Let's talk a little bit about the ACC. You know, Wake Forest keeps trying to get that quad one win. They end up losing in what must be Tony Bennett's dream game, 49-47. If you ask Tony Bennett to draw off his perfect game, that is the perfect Virginia win right there.

Yeah, he might have even taken 39-37. But that game was – you kind of saw it go back and forth there, and you thought maybe this is where Wake Forest kind of breaks through. They get that quad one win that they really need this season to stand out on the bubble because they've been sitting right there. I mean, I think in the last four in for a couple of weeks now, that team has just been pretty stationary and needed that big performance. But they actually ended up getting some help

elsewhere across the country. And now they pick up the quad one win, but it happened, I think, back in December, maybe late November against the Florida team that we've seen on the rise. It's like the top 30 because of the way that these quadrant systems work. It doesn't matter what that team looked like

when you play them. Their overall body of work is what matters most. So Florida moves into the top 30, that home game that Wake Forest won against them. Now, all of a sudden, that is a quad one win. So they get the boost they needed, even if they had a disappointing result over the weekend. Yeah. So they should thank Florida for going to Athens, Georgia and winning. But speaking of Wake Forest, they are in a bubble matchup here on Tuesday in Winston-Salem because Pittsburgh is coming. Pittsburgh, another team that's in that mix. Pittsburgh beat Virginia last week, kicked the crap out of Louisville behind 41 from Blake Henson. And, you know, this one feels like the winner is in a much more advantageous position here. Yeah. This is one where Wake Forest pit is going to be a bubble game.

It could end up being the difference in one of these teams making the NCAA tournament or not. We've seen Pittsburgh really rise quickly on the bubble. These last couple of weeks, they've strung together some performances. I'm not. I'm not sure how much you can really take from a win over Louisville. I think the best thing you can say about that is that they got it out of the way and it wasn't a loss because a loss there would have really killed the resume. Terrible. But you do get a little bit of a warm-up game, I guess. That's the good news ahead of such an important matchup against Wake Forest.

So speaking of Louisville, well Wake Forest. Speaking of Louisville, before we get to Louisville, we have a fake. I've got to admonish my producer River here, James. He got faked out. He sent me a text. Jerry Stackhouse out at Vanderbilt. Somebody made a graphic. Yeah. Somebody made a graphic.

And it's a pretty good-looking graphic. They got the V and everything. But when the person who tweeted it is called Big Orange Punch and has a checkerboard Kool-Aid Man avatar, I don't think that's necessarily the truth, but I do want to ask you, Jerry Stackhouse, Kenny Payne, these are guys that are on the hot seat. Jawan Howard, now he got a vote of confidence from Ward Manuel last week, but we saw Chris Holtman get fired. Are we going to start to see these dominoes falling, or is it a case where they're going to wait out the season

and then figure it out then? I think it's a little bit different than what we see in college football. We don't see as many of these kind of early goes where they kind of dump a guy in February to get the search going because you really can kind of start putting feelers out at the same point, regardless of what you're doing. Usually, if you're looking at the top pool of candidates, you have to wait for them to exit the NCAA tournament anyway. So you're not really putting yourself at much of a disadvantage if you wait until you bow out of the conference tournament or whatever the end of the regular season, whatever it might be. So I don't think that we're going to see just some big run of February firings here. That just hasn't been the trend across college basketball recently. And I think that one of the things for Kenny Payne in particular is that we're kind of

at that point. We know what the likely outcome is with Kenny Payne. It doesn't seem like it's a tenable situation beyond the regular season here. So I think if you're Louisville, you're waiting to do this in a respectful manner. And if you weren't willing to pull the trigger in December, when things seem to be crumbling around that program, I don't think that two months later, you're going to reach any point where you decide now is the time to get this search going early. Same situation with Vanderbilt. I think you kind of owe it to Jerry Stackhouse, what he's tried to do.

He has done all the right things in terms of trying to build that program up. It just hasn't all clicked. It hasn't really come together the way that maybe he would have liked. Maybe he hasn't gotten some of the support that he would have liked. I think that there's a lot in that Vanderbilt program that's got to be ironed out if they want to compete in the SEC. So I don't think that either of those guys in particular and then jawan howard uh a different situation as well where he is an alum there i don't

think they would do anything to kind of uh break that relationship more than it has to be even if a a coach coaching change is needed at those well jawan howard had a heart procedure before the season and that that's i i think that probably plays into it as well and and Ward Manuel is interesting because he he was asked about it in turn like in the through the lens of the decision he made on Jim Harbaugh a few years ago where they cut his pay after that 2020 season and then but brought him back and so that that will be an interesting one to watch I you know kind of sticking in the SEC though we were talking about Vandy and Stackhouse. So Texas A&M goes to Alabama.

That's a win they really needed. They got destroyed. I think it was 100-75 was the final. Where are the Aggies right now in terms of the bubble? Yeah, I think the Aggies are right on the bubble. That was obviously a devastating result for them because even more than the loss and what that win would have meant for the resume, the way that they lost is just brutal for your resume

because it messes up your computer numbers. There's no way around it. They did drop in all of the metrics that you're going to look at. So for Texas A&M, it's really unfortunate to lose that way, but then you kind of look at it and you take a second glance. And I mean, Alabama has been doing this to teams all season and they did it to LSU just a few days before putting up that many points. I think it was, I saw a stat, the first team in like 30 years almost to put up 18 two-pointers plus 18 three-pointers in back-to-back games.

And so this is a team that's scoring at almost an unprecedented level right now in the SEC. So it's not the worst result they could have had, but it doesn't help them in any way. They're going to have to get things righted as we head towards March. Texas A&M, they're headed the wrong direction, and it's something that you hate to see from Buzz Williams and that group. Do not lose to Arkansas at home. That is the main rule. Or as Tommy Bowden once put it to me,

don't lose to Wake Forest on a Thursday night. That's footballism. That Arkansas game is going to be really big for them because Arkansas still, we know what they are. They're not a good basketball team. But that's still a roster that when we looked at it in the preseason, we thought maybe it was a Final Four team. So you cannot go in there and just take it lightly because you never know. Guys that talented step on a basketball court, there's always the chance that they have a big night. So before we let you go, James, we do let us celebrate because I'm a big fan

of when somebody makes a mistake, doesn't have their best day at work, but then they learn from it and they come back and do it better. So I was reading in one of the stories, I think it was the Columbus dispatch story about the, the Ohio state Purdue game that before the game, like two hours before the game, there was a very intense meeting. It looked like among the ushers at value city arena to make sure that if Ohio state were to pull off the upset against Purdue, that if the court was stormed, it would be stormed in an orderly fashion and no star players would get collided with.

And I got to say, unlike when they beat Iowa's women's team and Caitlin Clark got slammed into by some lady with a phone, Zach Eadie was not harmed in any way, shape or form. By the way, can you imagine if that woman with the phone had hit Zach Eady instead of Kaitlyn Clark? Well, I don't even know. If she had hit Zach Eady, I'm sure the headline would have been that the court stormer went down with potential injuries because Zach Eady I don't think is moving if he gets run into while people are storming the court. But yeah, it is good to see that court storming is something in college sports that it has a long history.

I know that we debate it pretty much every time that it comes up. Is it good? Is it bad? Should we ban it? How do we ban it? Because at the end of the day, they're all kind of just sitting there on the edge anyways. It's hard to completely deny access. But it's good to see it go the right way and to see these fans able to celebrate and really

soak in what was a huge moment. An interim coach comes in and knocks off the number one team in the country. There's only one way in college sports to celebrate that, and that's by storming the court. So good to see them do that. The ushers to gather together, make sure to get Purdue off the court and help us enjoy the rest of our Sunday without having to discuss potential injuries to players. Yeah, I've been, you know, on back in the day when press row was actually courtside,

I've been there when they've come, you know, come over the top at places. And then I've been on football fields where it's happened quite a few times and I I'm fine with it. As long as everybody stays away from the players. Like it is so much fun that that overhead shot we remember forever, you know, I'm, I'm with you. So as long as everybody can behave, realize you don't need to touch the players and also realize you need to remember it and not be holding up your phone, trying to record it. It's all good. Yeah. I think if we can just take that, take that advice that you just gave and apply it to the rest of our lives i think we'll be doing doing pretty good exactly the sec will

can stop increasing the fines although i think i i love it because the ads have made such a big show of like they're so happy to pay those fines now because it means they want a big game so they don't even care oh it's great james we will talk to you again probably later this week because I am fascinated. We are not far away. We've got about three more weeks of regular season conference tournament play. St. Paddy's Day is Selection Sunday. I mean, is anyone going to be sober when the bracket comes out?

We might have to wake up on Monday morning and take another look at it for sure. Wait, we're a nine seed? What? Yeah, exactly. James Fletcher III, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. All right. So we're getting you ready for college.

We're going to be doing a little more college hoops here in the next few weeks because we want to be ready when the tournament starts. Because here's the thing. We will all be watching the tournament and we will all be acting like we are experts and watched college basketball religiously all season. But I know how this works. Like for me, I'm a kind of mid January is when I really dive in. After the national championship game in football is where I really want to dive into college

basketball. I know there's some of you who don't get there until kind of the last couple of weeks of the regular season. There's some of you who are waiting for conference tournament play. I was involved in this pool for years. That was awesome. It was just, it was a conference tournament pool. You want to really add a little flavor to that week or those two weeks. Cause you have the mid-major tournaments the week before. Find yourself a fun way to keep track of the conference tournaments. Like be sweating out a Charleston Southern game late in the season. That's the way to do it. So I can't wait. I, this is, this is one of the more fun times of the sports calendar for me.

Like I really enjoy the conference tournaments. because you get the buzzer beaters. You get the low major, mid-major ones where the team that dominated the conference all season is trying to win a game. And if they don't win, they're out. No tournament at all for them. Like it is do or die. It's so much fun. Plus you've got some pretty intense regular season games here these next couple of weeks. We're also going to talk a ton of football, of course. So on Tuesday, and you guys can help me out here. You can either hit

us up in the chat or hit us up. Andy underscore staples on Twitter, Andy underscore staples on Instagram. So Jesse Simonton and I on Tuesday morning, we're going to be talking quarterbacks in 2024. We're going to try to predict all of the open quarterback jobs in major college football. Plus we're going to talk about some other quarterback situations where think about this year compared to last year. Last year, we had the Caleb Williams Drake May debate going into the season, which probably will extend into the draft this year compared to last year. Last year, we had the Caleb Williams-Drake-May debate going into the season, which probably will extend into the draft this year. Then Jaden Daniels pops up.

We knew he was good. We didn't know he would take the leap he took in that offseason. That's how I beat Jesse in our quarterback draft last year. I had Jaden Daniels on my team. I won because I had Jaden Daniels. But who's that going to be this year? Who's going to take that big leap? Who are going to be the quarterbacks that we're talking about this time next year in terms of the draft? Carson Beck feels like an obvious one because I think Carson Beck would have been a fairly high draft pick had he come out this year, but now he's got another year. We talked to Jake Rowe last week about what

kind of weapons he's going to have at receiver. It'll be's got another year. We talked to Jake Rowe last week about what kind of weapons he's going to have at receiver. So it'll be a very interesting conversation because I'm not sure who the stars are necessarily at quarterback. It is not as cut and dried going into 2024 as it was going into 2023. And also you've got the situation where you've got new faces in new places where maybe Cam Ward at Miami, we talked about DJ Uyungle at Florida state. We had him on the show last week. You know, you got Riley Leonard at Notre Dame. Who's going to be the one that just emerges. Also maybe some guys who got got hurt who haven't seen in a while. The one name I'll throw out to you, and we'll talk about this with Jesse tomorrow too,

Connor Wigman at Texas A&M. He was looking great, even in an offense that was not exactly spectacular. He looked very good early in the season before he got hurt. I think if he doesn't get hurt, Texas A&M season goes a little bit differently. Maybe Jimbo Fisher isn't fired. That buyout isn't paid. But it did work out that way. Now he's in Colin Klein's offense at Texas A&M. Fascinating to see what happens there.

So I want to know what you think. What quarterback competitions are you most interested in? What quarterbacks do you think could be stars by the end of next season? One I'll throw out there for you, Avery Johnson at Kansas State. You know how I feel about Avery Johnson. I've been on the train for a while, and that Pop Tarts Bowl did nothing to disabuse me of that enthusiasm for Avery Johnson at K-State. That one's weird. It's been interesting watching the back and forth because Will Howard left Kansas State to go to Ohio State. And it

feels like people want there to be a winner of that one. I think that one might be where they both come out winners. Will Howard has a chance to potentially lead Ohio State to a national title. That is maybe the best roster in the country that he steps into. And he's probably the starting come out winners. Will Howard has a chance to potentially lead Ohio State to a national title. That is maybe the best roster in the country that he steps into, and he's probably the starting quarterback there. Avery Johnson, meanwhile, he's this kid from Kansas who's got at least two years of eligibility left with you because he can go to the NFL after three, but you might have him for three more years and he might have a higher ceiling. So I think that works out for both parties if both teams are successful. And I think there's a good chance of that because K State is your co-favorite in the Big 12. Ohio State is your favorite in the Big 10 and possibly your favorite for the national title, depending on how you feel about them versus Georgia. So it doesn't have to be that somebody has to win and somebody has to lose in those

situations. But we're going to talk quarterbacks with Jesse Simonson, try to fill those open jobs as best we can and figure out who the stars are going to be at the most important position in sports. We'll talk to you tomorrow.