Andy & Ari On3 - SEC Announces Kickoff Times | Things We are MOST Excited for in 2024 with Max Olson

Episode Date: June 12, 2024

As we inch closer and closer to the start of the 2024 season, we have some SEC kickoff times that we need to take a look at. Also,Max Olson from the Athletic joins to examine what he is most excited for heading into the 2024 season. With a brand new college football season approaching, it's important to understand the lay of the land heading into this brand new era of College Football.(0:00-1:29) Intro(1:30-9:29) SEC Announces Kickoff Times(9:30-12:13) Max Olson from the Athletic joins(12:14-16:34) More Teams Having a Shot(16:35-17:41) Seeding of Conference Runner-Up(17:42-23:52) On-Campus Playoff Games(23:53-28:59) EA Sports Anticipation(29:00-33:03) In-Helmet Communication(33:04-37:24) Major Implications on October 12, 2024(37:25-42:34) Old Matchups Returning(42:35-45:05) Honorable Mentions(45:06-47:11) No Nick Saban in CFB(47:12-48:06) Conclusion with Max(48:07-50:06) Dear Andy tomorrow! Send your questions to [e-mail] to watch the show instead? Head on over to YouTube and join us LIVE, M-F, at 8 am et! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn2g2Wy8uiE9BhDPV4knT7AHost: Andy StaplesGuest: Max OlsonProducer: River Bailey

Welcome to Andy Staples on three happy hump day. Get ready to help retrain your brain a little more. Yesterday, we talked about the 12 team playoff, we looked at a projected 12 team playoff looked at what that might mean. Obviously, a lot of us need retraining of our brains, including me, because the way we think about things going into the 2024 season has got to change because a lot is changing in the 2024 season. So we're going to help retrain the brain a little more today by talking about some of the things that excite us the most. Max Olson from The Athletic will join us and we're going to talk about the things in 2024 that we are most looking forward to, all the new stuff. And there's a lot of new stuff. But first, there is another little piece of new stuff and more news about it came out on Tuesday, which was really interesting. We've been waiting for this day because back in the old, old days, like last year, if you were a fan of an SEC team, your schedule would come out,

and you might get the first couple weeks of kickoff times. You'd know when the Florida-Georgia game was going to be. You might know when the Iron Bowl was going to be. But you really didn't have a lot of kickoff times. And you'd go into the month of the game, not knowing if you're going to have a noon kick, 8 p.m. kick, somewhere in between. It's very annoying for fans.

It's very obnoxious because the way you handle a noon Eastern kickoff or an 11 a.m. Central kickoff is very different from how you're going to handle your travel, your accommodations for an 8 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Central kickoff. Well, that is changing. So the SEC on Tuesday released essentially the windows for the rest of the season. Now there's some flex times in here, but in general, you kind of know when your games are going to be, which is a probably refreshing change for all those fan bases as people who are going to the games, try to figure things out as people who maybe are throwing parties for certain games, try to figure out what they're going to do. And it's, it's some pretty interesting game times too. And you know how we love kickoff

times here on this show, just gets the juices flowing, just gets you more excited. So before we get to Max Olson talking about a lot more of the kind of big and small changes for 2024, let's go over some of these because I'm fascinated by this because we've already seen the kickoff times for the first three weeks in the SEC. They gave us all that a few weeks ago. So let's look at the new stuff. So we go to September 21st and this is an example of how it's going to look from here on out. Basically, they're going to tell you if it's a noon game, that means it kicks off at noon Eastern. If it's an early game, that means it kicks off between noon and one Eastern. So you know exactly, you're getting that earlier window. If it's a night game, it could kick off at seven

Eastern, could kick off at eight Eastern, could off at 7. 30 Eastern. It's all somewhere in there. But you have a better idea. And then if it's flexed, it basically means it's either going to be that mid-afternoon window or the evening window. It means you're not getting an early game. So you don't get an exact kickoff time, but you get some idea. So let's look at week four.

Florida at Mississippi State is your noon game. Now I can hear the puckering among the Florida fans of a certain age, because I think, you know, you remember the last time Florida played in Starkville in a noon game. It was the JP game back in the day, 2004. Ron Zook got fired the next day. Yeah, that's not a good, like, you don't want to see that. You don't want to see a trip to Starkville at noon Eastern, 11 a.m. local. You don't want to see that. Now, look, it's Jeff Levy's first year.

We don't know what Mississippi State's going to look like. But I'm sure that the older Florida fans are like, whoa, I don't like that. But that week has a lot of flex games. So Arkansas, Auburn, UCLA at LSU, Vandy at Missouri, Tennessee at Oklahoma, those are all flex. They could be afternoon or night game. We do know that Akron at South Carolina will be at night. We just don't know exactly when or what channel it's going to be on. The following week. So we've got noon game set. And it's interesting because it does seem like the SEC is trying to counter program your big noon Saturday Fox game, which is usually going to be the best big 10 game. Sometimes it might be the best big 12 game, but more than likely it's going to be the best big 10 game. And they're putting kind of marquee teams or marquee games, one or one or both at noon. So Ole Miss is a team

that we expect big things out of Kentucky at Ole Miss. That's a good early season test for the Rebels. That's a noon game on September 28th. The following week, Missouri at Texas A&M is a noon game. Missouri, another team that will enter the season with playoff aspirations. Texas A&M, first year under Mike Elko. We don't exactly know what that's going to look like, but they still have a pretty good roster. So that could be a great game. South Carolina and Alabama the following week at noon, South Carolina and Oklahoma in the early window or Auburn, Missouri in the early window on the 19th. Oklahoma Ole Miss in the early window on October 26th. And I know the Oklahoma fans not thrilled about this because one thing they liked about getting out of the big 12 was their best games weren't guaranteed to be at noon, Eastern 11

local. You're still going to get some of those in the sec as the sec tries to compete with that big noon kickoff on, on Fox. So this is going to be interesting though, because you have a chance to plan now. So let's go to November 16th. This is toward the end of the season. We don't exactly know what the biggest games are going to be that week in the sec, but we can, we can LSU, Florida could be a big one for a lot of reasons. Tennessee, Georgia, potentially the biggest game that week. Those are flexed. Like one of those is going to be three 30 Eastern. One of those is going to be at night, but we don't exactly know yet, but we know they're not gonna be at noon because Texas and Arkansas will be at noon. And then you go to the next to last week of the regular season.

And this is one that before it would have been like, OK, we can't make any plans for this. It's two and a half months away. They might even exercise. Remember, they had a chance a couple times a year to do the six day window. When CBS had the best game, they'd wait and wait and wait as long as they could to figure out what that best game was going to be, what that most relevant game was going to be, and then everything else got set after that. Well, now you're not worried about that. You kind of know what it's going to be, but like that next to last week of the regular season,

Ole Miss at Florida is your noon game. That game is noon Eastern. Texas A&M, Auburn, Alabama, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Texas. Those are flexed afternoon or night. We don't know yet, but they will not be an early game. So plan your travel accordingly. Plan your accommodations accordingly. Plan your parties accordingly. But just generally get excited because all these games are happening in 2024. We're going to get real games soon. I swear we're almost there. I know it feels like the

off season lasts forever, but I swear we're almost there. And we do need to work on retraining our brains because so much is different. Now, yesterday we talked about the projected 12 team playoff. And when we posted that on social media, we posted my projected 12 team playoff in graphic form. It was really interesting how many people said, I can't believe you have Kansas state as a four seat and not because they don't think Kansas state is one of the better teams in the big 12, because they don't understand that the big 12 champ is probably going to be the three seed or the four seed. Or they saw Boise State in there and they're like, how can you have Boise State?

Not because they thought it was going to be Memphis or Appalachian State or another good group of five team that might win its league. But because they don't realize the highest ranked group of five champ gets a spot. So, and again, this is, you know, people who watch the show, people who follow college football religiously on Twitter. These are people who understand the sport really well. And we're all confused about it. We're all trying to get our minds right. Imagine when the casual folks show up. So more than anything, we got to get our minds right. Imagine when the casual folks show up. So more than anything, we got to get our minds right so that when our friends show up there, when the games start, we can help explain to them how

things are going to work because it is going to be different and it's going to take some getting used to, but it's also going to be very exciting. Max Olson, my friend from The Athletic joins us now, and we're going to talk about some of the things in 2024 and there are so many of them that we cannot wait to see here's max we all need the retraining of the brain for 2024 because it's going to be weird it's going to be strange but it's also going to be very exciting so let us bring on a very special guest max olsonson from The Athletic, one of my favorite people in the whole wide world. And Max, I just think this season is going to be fun. Yeah.

Even though it's going to be weird. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. Right now, as we sit here, we can flip through our Phil Steeles in a couple of weeks and we'll be like, well, it'll just be these 12 teams and it's easy, but no man, it's going to be real wild and chaotic. And there's going to be a bunch of teams that probably make the play out that we're not even talking about this summer. So I can't wait. Exactly. So that's the thing. So we could probably start there. So what I want to do with Max is we're just going to throw some things out that we are really excited about. And some of them are kind of macro, like the playoff itself. Some of them are micro, like individual team matchups, but it's, it's

fascinating what's going on. And so Max, we had the show yesterday where we released the 12 team projected playoff and Jesse Simonson and I kind of broke down what it would look like and what the matchups would look like and, you know, how, how those second round games would look like and what the matchups would look like. And, you know, how, how those second round games would look and like what the, what seeds the best to be. And people were confused. Andy,

like we've been talking about this for three years. Shout out to the wildcats. You're feeling the wildcats, huh? Oh yeah. But they got it. Somebody has got to win the big 12. Like you could put Utah there. You could put Arizona there, gotta win the big 12 like you could put Utah there you could put Arizona there but like the big 12 champ is probably the fourth seed right yeah and you and

you know despite the fact that we've talked about this for a very long time we are going to get into this season and there's going to be a group of people that say this is absolute garbage that Notre Dame can't make the top four you know know what I mean? Like even though we've warned everybody this is going to happen. Yes. Or that two SEC teams can't be in the top four. We're going to have people who didn't know that and are like, what have they done to my postseason? Well, let's start off with – I'll throw one thing I'm excited about right away

that's kind of on this topic because you just mentioned it. I had somebody when that bracket came out on Twitter was like six or seven of these teams are going to be out of this by Halloween. And I'm like, not possible. Afraid not Bob. Yeah. Yeah.

Cause there, there's like 30 teams that are in it probably to start the season. And then there are going to be some surprises that show up along the way. I mean, I remember talking with Bob Bowlesby when they came up with this plan and they believed, you know, they'd done the homework and they truly believed there was going to be 30 to 40 teams that were in contention at the start of November with this format.

Now, obviously, conference and realignment and all that stuff plays into what we have today, but they absolutely believe that there's going to be way more teams that matter that when you look at the playoff ranking, you know, the, the, the 13 to 25 is really going to matter. The perception of all the teams that are not going to be playing a conference title game is really going to matter. And, uh, you know, I, I can't wait. I think it makes, you know, you can, you can argue whether it's for the greater good. I think it wait. I think it makes, you know, you can argue whether it's for the greater good. I think it is.

I think it makes way more games matter in October and November. Well, and that's the thing. So if you are Missouri fan, Oklahoma fan, Utah fan, Arizona fan, and you're mad I don't have your logo up there, don't worry. Like, you're going to be in it at that point in the season. And the way, look, on the national media side, we've kind of gotten bad about this, where you get the 14 playoff creates this, like, thing.

And I hear this from plenty of folks, Andy, I'm sure you do too, where it's like, okay, they lost two games. We can stop talking about them now. And that's just not going to be the case with this season. There's just not going to be these teams that you are eliminating and saying, I don't have to tune into this game because they're not playing for something. They all are.

Well, I know people get mad at the deliberate misseating, the fact that you have to be a conference champ to be a top four seed. But I'm telling you, especially in the Big 12, like I was looking at some of those Big 12 matchups as the season goes on. And that's going to be appointment television because I don't think we're going to have any idea who's going to win the Big 12. Whether it's a two loss, it could be, now it could be an undefeated team. Somebody might go undefeated through the Big 12. Somebody might go 11 and one or 12 and one

if they win the conference title game. But I think it's more likely that you see a couple of 10-2 teams playing in the conference title game, and the winner's in and the loser's out. I think so. I was looking at, this is obviously on our list of things we're excited to watch. You go through Colorado's schedule for 24, and there's all this debate about you know is Colorado better in year two

yada yada Andy they have they got one of the toughest big 12 schedules this year they have all the teams that made your post spring top 25 they're all on their schedule in addition to uh going and playing road games at UCF Texas Texas Tech, playing against Kansas at Arrowhead. There's eight different Colorado games where you're like, oh, I can't really miss that one. And I just think that's how the Big 12 race is going to be. A couple of these will emerge. But I agree with you. I don't think there's an undefeated team.

But at the same time, I didn't see TCU coming in 2022. Neither did Sonny Dykes. So maybe there will. Maybe there will be a playoff team or two that we are just completely sleeping on. Yeah. And the TCU thing's interesting to me, TCU 22, because I think you can port it to this year. And cause we're assuming the big 12 champ is, is the four seed, but like in that situation, K state might've been the three seed that year as the Big 12 champ. TCU would have been the five seed because they weren't the champ, but they wound up being the number three ranked team in the final playoff ranking.

So we assume all this stuff. We don't know. We don't know. But in 22, it's, hey, K-State, great job. Here's your trophy and your confession. Now you have to go play Alabama in the Sugar Bowl and see you. That's the end of your season. And now all of a sudden it would be like, oh, my gosh, K-State,

can they make a run through this thing? Can they get the right matchups? Can the Will Howard, Adrian Martinez, however they're going to play that, can they go make a run here? Going to be a very different conversation around those teams that ultimately makes those conference championship games matter differently too right and and the sec and the big 10 championship games are going to matter and there's now this is part i'm not necessarily looking

forward to i'm a little worried you're going to have the loser of the sec and the big 10 championship game fall behind the third place team which is going to be a complete screwjob on the team that lost the conference championship game. Yeah. The criticism of the committee, I can promise, even if they have the right 12, the order of it is going to be a problem now too, don't you think, Andy?

I think that the scrutiny on that group of people to not just get the field the field right but then to get the seedings right um it's just going to be different because you know usually you go through last season and there's chaos last season but we kind of all know all right well these three will probably still make the four and um yeah there's a there's a lot on those people's plate now uh they they better know what they're doing all right right, Max, we we've talked playoff the, you know, well, there's aspects of the playoff.

We have not talked about yet that we were also very excited about. I got a long list here, buddy. We got it. We got a lot to cover. Yeah. Yeah. What is your,

what is your neck, your first topic that you are just pumped about for 2024? All right. Smooth transition here. First campus playoff games. And let me take it to another level andy i i don't think i'm a bad person for wanting this i want a playoff game in the snow yes i want a playoff game 100 i want to see an sec team absolutely on skates and their game plan shot to hell like we like

like a chiefs dolphins game last year where man we, we had a great year. Oh no. Oh no. We were not built for this. Um, and, and because that's that, but, and you can say, oh, well, that's, that's, that's a horrible thing to do to a team that, you know, had a great year for them to end up in this trap of, of, you know, playing some game in state college or whatever it is. And all of a sudden things are really messed up. Um, but that's football. You got, you got to learn to adjust and adapt and, and figure out a way to, grind out a win in suboptimal conditions and to to not be playing every single one of these postseason games in a dome um i i find very exciting i although i now i'm just thinking about that rick flair clip where he's like i'm gonna be even worse even more like imagine so imagine i i don't know, we'll just say Michigan gets it.

Because Michigan's style of play actually feels most built for that sort of game. Like, I'm thinking back to the 2021 Ohio State game in the snow. Like, that feels like what Michigan was designed to be. And so, like, imagine Alabama has to go to Ann Arbor, but Alabama wins in Ann Arbor. How insufferable will the SEC people be if they wind up winning that game in the snow? Absolutely. And you know what? If that game is ugly as hell and it's like 10 to 7, I'm here for it too.

If there's eight turnovers in the game, but you found a way to win. Like, I think that's an incredible spectacle. And to me, it rises up to the top of the best games of the year, no matter who wins it or the final score. Like I just,

I'm praying for that. And honestly, we are going to get that at some point in the next few years. It might not be this year, but it's going to happen. Well, and I love talking because I think once we see on campus playoff games the people who run the sport are going to feel so stupid for still having the bulls in the playoff at all like they they're going to feel incredibly dumb

and they're stuck with it for a little while but like it's going to be such a spectacle on campus and and like all of their little excuses like well the students aren't on campus during the break you don't think they're gonna find their way back i'm also looking forward to uh the sports writers that we sit next to in press boxes trying to book these flights and hotels uh to cover these games and just cursing up a storm because suck it up boys it's such a bind girls um it's gonna happen yeah no listen you and i we we've done the we've done the dance where we've stayed three hours from state college where we stayed two hours from from tallahassee or wherever it wherever it is you you have to deal with this it's part of like that's what you get for getting paid to cover games. So yeah,

all you fans out there, I give you permission to just bury any sports writer who's complaining about getting a hotel reservation or a flight. Because their hotels too expensive. Yeah, exactly. Just bury them. No,

I, okay. What stadiums show out the best in that? Like what stadium do you want to see the most in this environment overall or cold weather? All of the above, man. Like,

like a playoff game in death Valley. Can you imagine? Oh, tire stadium. Like it better be. I mean, we got to make it, but like, Like a playoff game in Death Valley. Can you imagine? Oh, Tiger Stadium. Like it better be. I mean, we got to make it. But like, of course, of course. And the thing is like. Big regular season game at LSU.

Let's send an Alabama game. It sounds like a jet engine. Roar like you're standing next to a jet engine when lsu comes out of the tunnel i can't even imagine what that sounds like if joe burrow and the boys are in in 19 are playing a home game in the playoffs could you imagine like what that place is going to be like it doesn't matter who you play like you are absolutely toast you are you are not you are not going to have any juice for this game question if you're penn state let's say you you make the playoff you get a home game yeah and they because remember that on that selection day they're going to tell you what your time slot is

let's say it's a night game do you do you declare it a whiteout immediately have to yeah I think so oh I mean yeah we got to come up with new traditions here, man. You have to make it the most intimidating thing it's ever been for that. Even if it's, you know, I know the Ohio State game and the Michigan game might, you know, feel like the biggest deal of all time. But this will feel bigger, I think. And even if, you know, again, even if that Penn State team has lost two or three games and you're like, I don't know if we can go all the way. Those people are still going to show up. Right, because if you win you're advancing like you are in the game at this point and you get to make a difference in this game

right and you're playing a lower seeded team if you're if you're hosting it so sure that's it Autzen Stadium is another one because I I think that's a great big game stadium I've been to a bunch of big games there I think they know how to show out. And for 60,000 people, it gets incredibly loud. Dude, if, if Texas A&M got a home playoff game next few years, it's going to, it's going to be unlike anything you've ever seen. I mean, it's going to be, it will be deafening. Like the, like, thank goodness we're changing the, the play calling mechanisms right because uh that's that's a problem it's a problem out there yeah that's a that's a it's so loud on the first snap that the other team is playing offense that the cameras are shaking and like all

the stuff they put into the video game to make it it simulate a tough road environment it'll look like that on your television i mean andy i I could not be just since you brought it up. I could not be more envious that you have laid eyes on the video game that you have hit the sticks. The video game is extremely high on my list of. Well, let's talk about the video game. That's another thing we get back and we get it sooner. So July 19th or the 16th, I guess, if you ordered the deluxe edition. Yeah. 19th or the 16th i guess if you ordered the deluxe edition yep um yeah so as i see various of my son's

friends the last few days that's the only thing they asked me about what is this team like what is this team like what is it it is going to be amazing to just dig into this game and play as everybody like i you know i keep saying i'm going to be general booty in the in the ulm warhawks we're gonna we're gonna have a dynasty mode but i'm just excited to see everybody i i'm i'm the guy who is going to spend an hour just looking at every single player on the rosters and just being blown away that these are real people with their faces and everything um that part is the the nil, the actual likeness piece of this is just still so mind-blowing to me. But yeah, I'm a Dynasty guy.

I've been playing the old game this whole time. Been playing Dynasties for the last five, ten seasons. So from July 16th to an indefinite period of time, uh, I will just go missing playing this game. I can't promise that, uh, I will come back the same, uh, when it's, when it's time to actually work. Have you had the, have you had the talk with your wife? You know, it's going to be, it's going to be interesting. Like how quickly can I teach my son to play this game? He's three years old. That part will be a challenge. But if we can make that a thing now, we now it's a shared activity and we can have a little space.

But yeah, I'm not a night owl like I used to be because I have a kid. So I'm just going to have to stay up late. I just don't, you know, or, you know, just sacrificing sleep.

Eight to five. I'm playing the game. And then at night, you know, we'll get some work done. Maybe something like that. And that's the beauty for me is having a kid who is a a gamer you know in that age group like it's just bonding time for us that's that's all it is now when he wants to play with his friends and i'm like dude listen general booty and the boys need to progress here

through this season i don't know what we're going to do. We're going to have problems. It's going to be like, you know I paid for that PlayStation. They're not cheap these days, so you got to hold that over his head. Also, I just, I cannot wait. Andy, I'm calling it now.

I will become the portal king in this game. My recruiting strategy is going to be- You or Pete Nacos know the portal better than anybody like you have to be I I heard a rumor about a certain high-profile quarterback that went in the portal when you guys were playing it and uh it just it got my tail wagon man like if uh if I can go swipe these guys that uh and and lead I don't knowas state or somebody to the top like i can't wait when when they were going through the deck of slides to explain the different aspects of the game so they're on the dynasty mode when they explain the whole transfer portal the slide comes up and there's a gasp in the room

because drew aller's name was across the top of the transfer portal it's like and then and then very quickly because because one of the designers was a penn state grad he's like of course drew allers not actually going to do this in real life but did you think kyle mccord was gonna do it but it hey look it speaks to the logic of the game if he's not going to be a first rounder and he's a quarterback, he's going in the portal at some point in his career. Right. Right.

Um, those guys are fair game. Yeah. I, I haven't locked in on like who I'm, I'm, I'm kicking this off with it partially. And it's just exciting to like,

you know, to have coastal Carolina and app state and Liberty. Some of these that just have never been in the game too. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm going to fire up a G5 dynasty. I'm going to fire up online dynasties with my friends.

Hopefully I'll be playing you at some point. And, you know, we're going to be a little bit older and a little bit more washed than the last time the game came out. But I can't wait. Could we have an, I think we should do an online Sunbelt. Like a bunch of us all pick a sunbelt school and i say i keep saying ulm but maybe i go georgia southern for my online sunbelt dynasty

and we we just all pick one now of course we might take other jobs as we go but we all start in the sunbelt so it would be what if you take it to another level by making a rule that whoever wins the conference championship gets promoted to the sec 100 100 and you get to pick who you're swapping out but they're they're coming in that that you know can you can do your own promotion relegation if you want to with that we could we could this is this is incredible so uh let us move from the virtual world back to the real world let me throw one one more thing at you that again i feel like all this change is coming at us at once and it's going to be like that first maybe even the dublin game the florida state georgia tech game where we we sort of see okay well this is this is real in helmet communication are we done with like is there no more spongebob sign on the sideline is that over can we all all the budget that they were putting into printing signs with images and purchasing sheets from target or bed bath and beyond i assume um what do you do with that money

you put it into nil i guess right but that was of course i mean how does a young guy in a building uh prove his value if he's not uh printing you know signs of disney characters um to to get the coaches right on saturdays you know what play is princess jasmine by the way do we know oh what do you got it's got to be like if you have a tiger call because does it she has a pet tiger so it's her and the pet tiger so if tiger is one of your blitz calls on defense yeah i think that's like like under the seas like a like a mesh call maybe something like that i like it i like now i don't think these completely go away because I've talked to coaches about this. And like, especially for defense, like your linebacker has the helmet or your, you know,

Mike linebacker has the helmet, but they do feel like getting calls out to the corners, getting calls to the linemen, like the linebacker could come up and adjust people, but they would really rather have those guys know what they're supposed to do before that and not force that linebacker to have to make that call, especially if the offense is going fast. So we're still going to see some of that stuff, but offensively, I'm, I'm really excited about what it means. Like that doubling game is a good example because Mike Norvell is a play calling head coach and he will be in DJ use's ear like immediately how much of an advantage does that give you if you are mike norvell if you are lane kiffin if you are hugh freeze like these really good play calling

head coaches yeah you you do wonder like i remember um when when the rams made their run to the super bowl with jared goff you know there was a lot of talk about, oh, Sean Mavay is just kind of pulling all the strings here and telling Goff what to do, and that became an issue in the Super Bowl when I think he couldn't hear as well or whatever. You kind of wonder, will it raise a bunch of quarterbacks' level of play just to have all that extra advice and input? Coaches know how to do that in a way that's not over the top,

that's not flooding their brain with way too much. But I do wonder if that's going to lead to like are we statistically going to see a better year for for quarterbacks or powerful quarterbacks uh across the board here i also wonder andy one of the things that makes this sport so wild to cover and fun is that there's just always these like scandals you never see coming is this going to be somebody's gonna last year i remember sitting in a in a hotel room in in denver after nebraska colorado and in the middle of the night reading this mel tucker article on usa today and you're like what is going on here like and then you got connor stallion that's one of the great things of sports is the college college

football is you just never know what's going to happen. So will in human, in helmet communication lead to our next finger pointing in game scandal? Or is there going, you know, is that going to be just solid across the board or they're going to be like these guys screwed us and turned our thing off and we got a problem. One can only hope one could, although I still like, we were just talking about tiger stadium and Ottson stadium and,

and you know, beaver stadium stadium like places that are super loud maybe you can't even hear the coach like maybe you have to go to the the disney signs and the the spongebob signs because you just can't hear the coach yeah we don't want to be fast too i mean yeah i'm gonna factor into the decision making on all this stuff yeah it's gonna be awesome all right what what is your next uh next thing you're excited about all right andy so when we we spend a lot of time last few years talking about uh the perils of realignment and and you when you do the pros and cons list a lot of things you can put on the con ledger obviously um i would i would submit into evidence uh one of the pros of realignment um october 12th 2024 i have already pre-downloaded your october 13th uh episode uh of the andy staples show

because you are going to be you are going to be talking about so much in that episode andy we've got ohio state oregon playing on october 12th for big 10 dominance we've got Ohio State, Oregon playing on October 12th for Big Ten dominance. We've got the first SEC Red River, Texas, Oklahoma. We've got Ole Miss at LSU. We've got Penn State, USC. We've got Kansas State, Colorado. We've got Florida, Tennessee. It is like I think there are going to be a few Saturdays this season when you're like, I don't know how to order the conversation

around these games because there were so many games and so many matchups that we just have never seen before. It just the the Saturday night, Sunday morning talking about what we just watched is I think there is a couple mind blowing nights this fall because, again, realignment is just going to give us some matchups and and that we have not seen and uh you know when you add the playoff component of it too uh it's uh it's going to be a lot to wrap our heads around in a good way i i threw this out this whole topic idea out on reddit cfb the other day and one of the responses was i i think i'm quoting a person accurately rose bowl type matchups that we never actually got to see in the rose bowl and i think you know

ohio state oregon michigan oregon wisconsin well we saw wisconsin oregon rose bowl that was fantastic um but those are all games we're going to get to see. USC Penn State, we did see a Trace McSorley versus Sam Darnold USC Penn State Rose Bowl. Now it's a regular season game. Absolutely. And I do wonder, I'm curious how likely you think this is. Like you take Oregon, Ohio State, and these are two teams that obviously have shoved all in for trying to win a national championship this year.

You know, on paper, that's going to be a fascinating matchup. Like, is it possible, Andy, that we're going to see them play three times this year? It's entirely possible. It is entirely possible. Like, if you look at the odds for Vegas, those are the top two. I mean, Texas, Georgia, same thing.

Texas, Georgia can play three times. Like it, that wouldn't be like impossible. And I know some people might say, well, I don't really want to see that, but like,

you know, I, I think that that, that part of it, I think the, the chess match of some of those, um, if those are the best teams in the country,

um, it's going to be incredible. Well, and what about Ohio State and Michigan? Yeah. Where the regular season game is going to be something, but a potential second matchup there, whether that's the Big Ten, not the Big Ten title game, but in the playoff, where one's going to end the other season.

Think about all of the psychological drama of that game with Ryan Day. What if Ryan Day beats Michigan in the regular season, but then Sharon Moore comes back and eliminates Ryan Day from the playoff? What happens in the Ohio State Twitter sphere with that result? Because it's like he beats them in the regular season like finally he beat michigan it's they're over the hump and then michigan knocks them out like what would happen we we had it a few years ago where um you know texas finally got out got over on oklahoma with sam ellinger against Kyler Murray that year.

And then they meet again in the Big 12 title game, which had not happened, right, because of, you know, north-south in the past, stuff like that. And Kyler gets the win, gets the playoff berth, all that. We're probably going to get one of those where – and I know you don't want to see the thing where, like, oh, these teams just played back-to-back games against each other. I know we don't want to see that sometimes. But yeah, that's like those where we finally beat the rival. Oh no, we've got to see them again in January. I think there's a pretty good chance of that happening.

So Max, I've got another one that the realignment has brought to us. It's not necessarily new matchups. It is old matchups max texas and texas a&m are going to play football against each other again and it took years of whining and bellyache they were both such babies about this texas is like well you left so we can't play you because you left us and then texas a&m was like well you spent all those years destroying the Big 12 and you had your network and that's why we had to leave

so we can't play. They were such babies. Now they're going to play. Now they're going to play. If you were doing the gun to your head, you can only go to one game this year, Andy. Is that it? Because that's it for me.

Yes. Let's say regular season, just regular season only. Even bringing it back was a thing where they argued because a and m's like well it has to be in college station and texas is like well the last one was in college station and a and m's like no remember how the sec said they were never going to let you in well part of the deal is you got to come to college station first like they can't agree on anything it's amazing like they hate each other so much they i i think it's possible they hate each other way more because

they haven't been in the same conference like that is just that has just taken this yeah it has just the rhetoric and the online fighting and all that kind of stuff. And obviously we've had a lot of head coaches, a lot of 80s that have passed through in that interim time. But yeah, there's absolutely no love. And that game in College Station is going to be an all-time. Did you see the tweet from the UT student who said he was looking at on Ticketmaster at seats near the 50? And he found a pair and and they were 106 000 each

and the problem is there's like some booster who's like sounds fairly reasonable like it's like taylor swift tickets like hey someone's gonna pay for that you know exactly so yeah and and i for years i was like okay if you know when they finally get back together because Texas had been kind of just wandering through the wilderness. Totally. It's like they're going to get back together and it's going to be like the kid coming home from college and little bros been in the weight room. And it's like, so except now it's not because Texas is good now. So like they're coming in probably in a in a in a better place than a and M as where they've just changed coaches and are dealing with a, a first year situation.

But that even adds to the angst because a and M for years was like, well, when you get to the sec, you'll see what we've been dealing with in Texas now is probably like, well, we, we, we actually beat the sec champ last year at their stadium.

And you know, we're, so we're not particularly worried about this. Well, this is also the beauty of the fact that we're playing at the end of the season. Like, Texas-Oklahoma, huge deal. But we can have rematches, right? It's the midseason bowl game.

This, like, I think there's a very, like, I'm high on what A&M can do in year one with Mike Elko if they can get a healthy Connor Wegman. I, you know, a lot of new faces there, a lot to put together over the course of the seasonko if they can get a healthy connor wegman um i i you know a lot of new faces there a lot to put together over the course of the season they got to get a lot better but there's like i think there's a very decent chance here that texas has to win to get into the sec title game right or a and m is on the outside looking at like the a and m could make and a win gets them into the playoff maybe maybe. Exactly. I think that the stakes on this, not just because I hate these people so much,

we haven't played them forever, I think there will be postseason stakes to this year's game. Let me add one more that we now get back because of conference realignment. And this is one that if you just love hatred and rivalries, like we just talked about Texas and Texas A&M, but if you love rival hatred and rivalries, like we just talked about Texas and Texas A&M, but if you love rivalries where the schools teams just hate one another. So I'm talking Egg Bowl.

I'm talking Texas, Texas A&M. Utah BYU is a conference game for the first time since 2010, Max. I love it. I think, believe me, when that was all going down last summer, I heard from a lot of BYU fans who felt that Utah was not showing proper gratitude for getting saved, that Utah should not be getting full shares of anything, that they don't deserve a spot in the Big 12 and all that kind of stuff. I think Kyle Whittingham and some people there have kind of made some comments suggesting like, well, this is what we had to do. Not not exactly what we wanted to do. And I think that that to add conference stakes to that, it's just more fuel on the fire there.

And it's going to be a lot of fun. Yeah, it is going to be spectacular because this game is nasty and ugly and has been. Yep. Basically, every time it's been played. Let's not forget Utah helped destroy the WAC and create the Mountain West. Remember BYU had that hatch, that little scheme to blow up the Mountain West. And then Craig Thompson,

the commissioner of the Mountain West, essentially nuked that from an airport on his cell phone. Like all of that is part of this. It's baked in. It's going to be incredible. It's going to be incredible. I have a lot of honorable mentions here. If you want me to kind of.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Judkins and Henderson. I'm going to play that a ton on the video game. Just the Ohio state duo. I just cannot, cannot wait to see how that goes.

Cam Ward at Miami. Obviously, Ole Miss is going to be extremely watchable. I can't wait to watch, especially their big games. You know, Andy, the freaky freshmen, Jeremiah Smith, Dylan Royola, Cam Coleman, Micah Hudson, Colin Simmons, DJ Lagway. Just so many very exciting players that maybe because of Portal and all that kind of stuff are not getting talked about maybe enough. You guys are, but those superstars kind of coming in and making day one impact is going to be a lot of fun. The first time that a former Pac-12 school beats an ACC power and messes up the race there, I can't wait for that.

We're getting Memphis at Tulane, regular season finale. And there's going to be so many of those G5 games, I feel like we're going to have to circle and be like, this really matters this year. Oh, yeah. Northwestern playing on lakefront property. Kansas playing at Arrowhead. You know, it's just, there's going to be a lot of wacky stuff this year.

Let me throw another one in there. Kansas UNLV in Sporting KC Stadium. Yeah. um you know it's it's just there's gonna be a lot of wacky stuff this year let me let me throw another one in there kansas in sporting kc's stadium yeah that's gonna be a great game that's gonna be two fun offenses in an mls stadium so like the crowd kind of right on top of you very intimately it's gonna be fun i've got a couple more too. Colorado back in the Big 12. When I threw this out to the Reddit CFB folks, the best response was this. It's like introducing your college friends to your high school friends.

It's good. It's true. It's like, hey, Arizona and Utah, meet Oklahoma State and K-State. Yeah, and there's, I think that there's quite a few coaches in the big 12 who would, who would like to notch win over coach prime. I think that that's fair to say. I don't think they hate them,

but they certainly watched from afar at everything going on over there. And they know that, you know, the way the TV networks are going to pitch this is that, you know, Colorado is the most exciting team in the Big 12, and there's going to be a lot of schools that would like to humble them, just like Dan Lanning wanted to last year. One more before we let you go, Max, because this is one that's a little bittersweet, but it's something that especially us in the talking writing sphere have hypothesized on for probably the last 10 years about what this

will actually be like when it happens now we get to see what it's going to be like when it happens a nick sabanless college but now we'll see him on game day but he will not be coaching alabama and how much does that change the dynamics of the SEC, of the playoff race, of the national title race? It's a great point. I think that it puts a lot of pressure on Kirby Smart, Dan Lanning, Steve Sarkisian, all these guys to be the dominant program now going forward. Alabama just is going to be different to watch.

And I don't think that's necessarily a horrible thing. I think just is going to be different to watch and i don't think that's necessarily a horrible thing like i think it's going to be very like fascinating to see what kaylin devore's spin on this is and and you know can he turn jaylen milrow into the you know like a heisman contender like you know what with what he did with penix i can't say that's impossible right like i think that he he could take you know this is more talent than he's ever worked with before uh i think he's going to figure it out yeah and i i think he's going to do a good job the question is are they as annually invincible yeah as it like is is a 10 and 2 season a failure for them like it was under nick saban because i think if you're all miss if you're texas if you're lsu if you're texas a&, if you're Auburn, you've been waiting.

George is different. George is like, no, we're fine. We're already at or above that level. But everybody else is like, okay, they've been the impediment that we must get past. Do they still feel that way about Alabama? And also, the way the SEC schedule works now, Ole Miss doesn't even have to play them this year.

It's different. And that's, you're right. They've always been the boss level at the end of this. Right. And they may still be, they may still be under Kalen Moore. But yeah, there's, it definitely gives more hope to way more SEC programs. And look,

I think it also kind of shows up in some of these win totals we're seeing in the off season, right? There's the expectations on like the number of eight, nine, ten win teams in the SEC this year is kind of comical. So they're not all going to be top ten teams, but there are a ton that think they are. Somebody's going to be mad. Maybe that should be the theme of this college football season. Like college football 2024. A bunch of you are going to be mad.

Get mad. Let's go go i love it i love max i i'm even more excited than i was when we started i cannot cannot believe it's all happening at once like all these things we've talked about in a theoretical sense for how many years basically being dumped on us in one football season i I think that it is going to be exhilarating, probably exhausting. I mean, the fact that the national championship game is on January 20th,

like I still haven't wrapped my head around that. It is going to be an absolute marathon and I can't wait, buddy. Max, thank you so much. This has been an absolute pleasure. We'll have to do it again very soon. Yes, buddy. Max, thank you so much. This has been an absolute pleasure. We'll have to do it again very soon. Yes, sir. Thanks so much to Max Olson for that.

I am so excited. I know I say this every time, but it feels more and more real every day. And more times we talk about this, the more excited I get. Like the idea of texas and texas and playing each other in football again i knew it was going to happen eventually but it's just now it's here it's real and yeah we knew it was going to happen again

in 2021 when we found out that texas was going to join the sec but even then it felt so far away now it's coming they got they've already sewn the logos on the jerseys they've already put the logo on the field like it's coming it's happening that said max and i have talked about what we're excited about i want to know what excites you what do you want to know about tomorrow is a thursday my favorite day of the week, because you guys drive the show. It's a Dear Andy show. We want your questions. I will do my best to answer them. They will probably be wrong answers, but that's okay. It'll be a fun discussion. Nevertheless, you can find me on social media at Andy underscore staples on X at any underscore staples on Instagram.

Also, if you have an Epic question, or if you want to send me a question on video, which we do love our guy, Nathan, our guy, Willie, they're always sending those cool video questions. That could be you. Andy staples on three at gmail.com. So hit me up. Andy underscore staples on your favorite social media platform. Andy staples on three at gmail.com. So hit me up, Andy underscore staples on your favorite social media platform. Andy staples on three at gmail.com. If you want to send me an email and I will answer your questions on Thursday. Thank you so much. We'll talk to you tomorrow.