Andy & Ari On3 - SEC’s 9-conference game RIPPLE EFFECT | Big Ten’s, ACC’s next move | How to view Penn State, Notre Dame | Pat Fitzgerald Lawsuit

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

Happy Friday! It's a Dear Andy & Ari episode, but first, we have to cover some major news that impacts the entirety of college football. On Thursday, the SEC announced that starting in 2026, the conference will move to a nine game scheduling format. What does this mean for the rest of the sport? What will the Big Ten do next? How does this affect the CFP format in years to come? Is this the RIGHT move? (0:00-0:40) On Today's Episode(0:41-2:16) BetMGM(2:17-5:59) Intro: The Big 12 Coin(6:00-9:01) SEC's 9 Game Scheduling Format(9:02-14:24) Non-conference games for the SEC(14:25-15:14) Academy Sports + Outdoors(15:15-25:26) Bigger Picture in College Football(25:27-37:43) SEC's Annual Opponents(37:44-41:06) Subscribe to On3!(41:07-43:34) What will the ACC do next?(43:35-47:45) Pat Fitzgerald Lawsuit with Northwestern(47:46-54:24) Dear Andy & Ari: Penn State?(54:25-1:00:32) Extension/G5 Coaches(1:00:33-1:02:42) Red River RB Battle(1:02:43-1:07:41) Could Notre Dame start 0-2?(1:07:42-1:08:49) Conclusion: See you Saturday! After Andy & Ari finish discussing the overall impact of the SEC's new scheduling rules, Andy & Ari discuss some news involving the lawsuit with Northwestern & Pit Fitzgerald. It's time for Dear Andy & Ari - you guys have some great questions. Why is everyone making excuses for Penn State? Which coach will receive an extension, and which coach makes the jump from the G5 ranks? Is the running back battle better than the QB battle in Red River this year? Could Notre Dame start 0-2? Our show is sponsored by Academy Sports + Outdoors! https://www.academy.com/c/backpack  Join On3 today and get one full year of access to The Athletic included! https://www.on3.com/subscribe/C Watch our show on YouTube! https://youtu.be/Ht3X9O6cGyE Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey Interested in partnering with the show? Email [e-mail]

On today's edition of Andy and Ari on three, the SEC is going to nine conference games. What will people complain about now? We'll talk about all of that, what it means for the college football playoff, what it means for which teams, each SEC team might be playing annually? Big topic of debate. Also, what's the ACC going to do now? Also, Pat Fitzgerald said us his lawsuit with North Carolina. Northwestern. And we've got your questions. Dear Andy, dear Ari, we got one on James Franklin.

We got one from a Notre Dame negative Nelly, all on today's show. We've teamed up with BetMGM this season. We will be using BetMGM lines to make all our picks and we'll have special offers for our listeners each week. When you join BetMGM, you'll get access to a variety of parlay selection features like same game parleyes, live betting options, and more. If you haven't signed up for BetMGM yet, use the bonus code CFB. is in college football CFB, and you will get up to a $1,500 first bet offer on your first wager with BDMGM.

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use the bonus code CFB and get your $1,500 first bet offer today. Welcome to Annie and Ari on 3. Happy Friday indeed. If you are watching this or listening to this as it drops on Friday afternoon. You are less than 24 hours away from actual college football. Ari Wasserman, how excited are you for Farmageddon? Yeah, I just... Dublin. Feel real bad for those Europeans who are going to figure out tomorrow if they haven't

already that they have the inferior national sport. Yeah. Exactly. You know, that same, like, arrogant attitude that I have about my opinions and them always being right is the same arrogant attitude that I have towards America being superior to Europe and every life. I can feel it emanating from you. Yes, we are, of course, presented by

BEDMGM. It is still Kansas State by three, the Big 12 plus three minus three coin. We haven't minted it yet, but it's in full effect for this game. Can you mint a coin? Can you just go on Google and type in mint my own coin and then somebody will send it to you? Probably now in this day and age. mint your own coin let's because like I think like I don't know if they'll do like copyright

but you can do it custom coins multiple companies but I wonder if you could put the big 12 logo on there without facing any backlash I'm going to try to make that for us I there there has to be a company shady enough on the internet that would let us do it and the big 12 by the way just sent us the the preferred logos and word marks so we've got the right ones now yeah I want a big like silver dollar-sized gold one. I don't care if it's 500 bucks. I need to have it. I actually have an SEC one when they let me be an official in the Georgia Spring game in 2019. Each of us got one of the coins that they used to flip for the coin toss. That's a real game. Yeah. Um, yeah, you should toss that thing on eBay, make a few shekels. I don't know. Or keep it. I don't know anybody would buy

that, but yeah. You don't know anybody would buy an SEC. SEC coin fliper or coin. That's that's flipped. That's a crazy world out there, Andy. There's a lot of people who want to buy that. They sell an SEC belt for like $160. So that's true. Anybody would buy anything. Speaking of the XCC is the most unbelievable like off shoot like of your brand ever. Like you have to have that belt. I'm buying for your belt. I can't wear it. I know exactly what day it is. I can't pull it off. Can't pull it off. But. No. No. I can't I can't. I can't. My mom would roll over in her grave if I bought a $160 belt. There's certain things you don't do.

Yeah. My mom is from a third world country and she has a hard time wrapping her mind around those things. And I tell myself that when I do those types of irrational things because I've spent $160 on way stupider things in my life, that it's a illustration of my success. That's how I write. Look at it, Ma! Yeah. No, the former Ann Cook of Selma, Alabama, despite graduating from an SEC school and getting a master's from that same SEC school,

would not approve of $160 for an SEC belt ever. Ever. And I would bet my life that you've spent $160 on Dumber. Oh, 100%. A hundred percent. Usually edible. But. Yeah.

I don't mean edibles. I mean, things I do things I can eat. All right. We got to talk SEC, not SEC belts, but SEC scheduling. Because college football is terrible at timing. Of course. We're talking about next year, just as this year starts. And I'm sorry about that, but the news is the news.

The SEC has approved a nine-game conference schedule starting in 2026. So every team will face three annual rivals, and then they'll have the other 12 teams will rotate through twice every four years. So it's a very kind of mathematically neat version of the schedule. The arguing will come in as you figure out who the three are for every team. And we'll talk about that in a little bit because I've already taken my crack at it. You can go to On Three right now and look at what my guesses are. The league has hired a couple of analytics firms to try to create balance. schedules. I didn't really, I tried to do balance as much as I could, but I also understand that ESPN

is paying extra for these games. So I went ratings when in doubt. Like, I was going to not do Alabama LSU and I'm like, no, I'm putting Alabama LSU on here. There's nobody more qualified to do this exercise because I feel like you've done it like three times in the last few years because you've been fantasizing about like what this would look like. And, you know, let's talk about it first before we get into it. And I want to give us a verbal round of applause because we nailed this. We told you that this is happening over and over and over again. And obviously, a lot of the discussion points that were around this were about pandering

as we are trying to come up with the new future college that off mark. I have not talked about this yet, Andy, I don't think this is an indication that auto bids are back on the table or no straight seating. I don't think so because I think. Great speeding is the way now because the Big Ten got what they wanted. This is what our theory was. The Big Ten got what they wanted. I think the SEC walked them into that because there were SEC ADs who only wanted to do this

if they did auto bids. But then the SEC came out very strong against auto bids and still did this anyway. So I think because the Big Ten had been saying, okay, but we won't consider backing off the auto bids unless you play. conference games, which, again, I don't know why you made that the one thing you were asking for when you knew the SEC's commissioner wanted it anyway. Unless Tony Petiti and Greg saying you were just playing the long game on the SECADs to get them to cave on this. Yeah, they could have just been like the two evil geniuses that were meeting in a business center

in a J.W. Marriott somewhere. So this is interesting because I think the most fascinating thing about the nine game schedule was a little paragraph that was also in the release. And I know you know what paragraph I'm talking about. The paragraph that also commands or makes it a rule, SEC teams are required to schedule at least one additional high quality non-conference opponent from the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten or Big 12 conferences or Notre Dame each season, which then makes it even deeper because you're already complaining. Someone reached out from the SEC to me about this last night, pointing out this has been a rule in the SEC. And it's true. And I pushed back and said, yes, but eight games has also been a

rule. And you just changed that. So people were a little surprised. I was not surprised because this is why it happened. There are four schools in the SEC who have out of conference in state rivals that they must play. Like South Carolina cannot stop playing Clemson because the SEC went to nine conference games like the politicians in south carolina will not let that happen florida and florida state can't stop playing because the cc went to nine conference game georgia door to take that thing with everybody else has to yeah so now everybody in the cc has to do it which ups it to 10 lots of weirdness from the texas fans and the and some of the other fans when i tweeted that out and they're like but we've been doing that i'm like it's not the same thing

You don't have to do it. You're choosing to do it, which is great. But these other schools have to do it. So this is basically telling Mississippi State, hey, you have to do this too. Because Georgia and South Carolina have no choice. Yeah. Now, the second thought to me is the Big Ten has to make that rule. Now, because the Big Ten, they had a hard time.

The Big Ten had that rule and they got rid of it. Yeah. They got to get it back. The funniest thing to me, through all the discourses is that while the SEC and the Big Ten were yelling at each other, Andy, they both were right. The Big Ten, the Big Ten was right in saying that if we have to do something, then you should have to do it too. And the SEC was right in saying that our schedules are harder. I think both could be true at the same time. Even though the SEC was playing one fewer conference game,

they did play a more rigorous schedule on most years. Obviously, the sports changing. We don't know if that would remain true 10 years down the line, but it's certainly true right now. Now the SEC has 10 games against power opponents and those 10 games especially for the texas of the world who also have to you know play like the ohio state type game um is a very rigorous schedule so when it comes to the strength of schedule metrics at the college football playoff committee is going to use which i you know they just announced that they've this bogus new metric of strength of record and stuff that are going to be emphasized more as if it wasn't emphasized a lot already um the big 10 and like the pen state schedule versus the Texas schedule this year, or the Penn State schedule even versus the

Oklahoma schedule. Try to wrap your brain around that in terms of strength of schedule parity. Like if Texas, if Oklahoma is 9 and 3 and Penn State's 10 and 2 somehow, Penn State should not get in over Oklahoma based on that fact alone. So from a competitive standpoint, if strength of record and strength of schedule is going to continue to be emphasized the way it has been since the beginning or the inception of the college football playoff, the big 10 from a competitive standpoint has to up their schedule too in order to match.

Like Penn State and Indiana, get ready to pay some buyouts. Yeah. There's cream puffs you've scheduled. You're going to have to buy some of them out. Yeah. I also had to beef up your schedule yesterday too. And you can tell me if I was wrong. But wasn't it incredibly short-sighted for

Indiana to do what it did? Knowing that's incredibly dumb for Kurt Signetti to say why he was doing it. I'm taking the SEC's philosophy. Well, now you look stupid. stupid because every SEC schedule is going to be significantly harder than yours. And to like kind of outline the future of the way that you did that when this seemed imminent all along was kind of a weird move, I think.

But now, you know, I wonder if in the future we always always talked about how the SEC gets a one game mulligan, right, as a response of playing a tougher conference schedule. I wonder if we're going to get to a place where if Indiana or Penn State don't have reform in their way that they've scheduled this year and that they continue, this is their philosophy as a program, which I don't know is a prudent move at this point, whether or not you're going to start seeing two game Mulligans where a team could conceivably be 11 and 1 and get hopped by it? Like, could last year's Indiana at 11 and 1 get hopped by it this year's Oklahoma at 9 and 3? Like, could you see two games being forgiven? Oklahoma scheduled this year is that much harder than Indiana schedule. What do you think is more impressive, what Indiana did last year, what Oklahoma could conceivably do this year?

I think that, like, if you don't, basically what I'm saying is if the ACC and the Big Ten don't get it together, ACC specifically because they still only play eight conference games and their conference isn't good, you know, from top to bottom the way the other news are, they are going to find themselves, rightfully so, in the rightfully so, in the wrong end of some heated playoff discussions. So we're going to talk about that. We're also going to talk about where this is headed in general. This is a signal more than anything else of what is coming in college football.

And I think people are getting a little lost in the sauce thinking about what it means for the next couple of years. There's something else brewing. But first, I want to tell you about Academy, Sports and Outdoors, the place to go, this time here especially because it's back to school time. clothes, backpack, shoes. It is also time to get ready to tailgate, and they have everything you need for tailgating.

Chairs, the grills, the coolers. I mean, you've got to have a great cooler. You need to be able to keep your stuff cold all day. They got it all academy. And like I said, if your kids are going back to school, that's the place to go to get the backpacks, to get the sneakers, for the new season.

You got to load up on the cleats. So hit your local academy sports and outdoors for all your back of school needs, all your tailgate needs, and have fun out there. All right, let us talk about the bigger picture ramifications of this. And I had an athletic director text me last night about this. And the way they said it was really interesting because they said the person said,

I'm interested to hear your analysis of why we did this. And I said, because everybody's going to play 12 hard games post-2033 or even sooner than that. And that's, and the person texts back exactly, don't start at the beginning, start at the end. And that's what this is. This is getting ready. So right now, essentially you have the SEC will, every SEC team will have to play 10 power conference games. you will already see starting next year SEC teams playing 11 power conference games they're preparing for a world where you got to play 12 where there's only one power conference

yeah Andy there are so many teams that get in and there might be even more now coming okay I don't think that people are completely moved on from what you had to be in the past to make it, which was perfect or close to perfect. Yeah. That idea is gone, okay? And I even in a column on on 3 on Thursday asserted that one or more, nine and three teams would make it this year,

and this is before the schedule reform. Again, this doesn't kick off until 2026. You can play really, really tough schedules in teams that would have gone undefeated or 11 and 1 against the old schedules still have a very good chance against these harder schedules to go 10 and 2 or 11 and 1. And that's okay. Like that's going to be great. We're going to have two loss national champions in the future.

We had one last year. We're going to have a three loss national champion in the future, especially if it comes from the SEC. And I think that you want to do the most amusing thing to me about this whole thing. is that the SEC had a lot of talking points about scheduling easier and avoiding hard non-cons and the message that Indiana sent last year about how playing an easy schedule is the beneficial way and they did the exact opposite. You want to know why? Because those talking points were never true. And anybody who, you know, I still had a few SEC fans in my mentions yesterday at the assertion

of this saying, you know, hard wins and quality wins and hard schedules don't matter. And I'm like, dude, if you still think that, if you still truly think that you are not paying attention or you don't know anything about college football, the SEC has leaned into what gives you the benefit of the doubt in that room more than anything. It's always been that way. It will continue to always be that way. It doesn't matter if they have a new strength of record metric and there or not. The number one litmus test or the best way to analyze whether or not a team is good is if they beat the crap out of other really good teams. There's no other way to do it. Okay. Indiana was a lightning rod.

It's not happening every year. The odds of a team going 11 and 1 coming out of nowhere the way that they did. You know, if Indiana was Oregon last year, nobody would have been complaining. So the fact that Indiana came out of nowhere, no one knew where they were nearly as good as they were, played an easy schedule, the two teams that they played on their schedule

that played in the national title game the year before stunk, and they only had to play one Big Ten powerhouse. Like, think about the odds of that happening ever again. Like, that was just like a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Yeah. This is the perfect move. You want to be battle-tested. You want to show and showcase, and you want to be on TV.

You want to be in these games. It sucks for Indiana fans, they don't want to play those games. Well, I think you're going to have to, if they want to be part of the playoff and want to be considered one of the better teams of Big Ten, they're going to have to do that. Now, I do think you're going to have to be strategic about it if you're not a superpower. like they had they had virginia schedule this is one of the ones they bailed out of like virginia's the perfect team for them to play yeah why did you bail on virginia yeah Andy the thing with Indiana is in my mind and in your mind they proved that they were worthy last year because not only did they go 11 and 1 in the big 10 which is a very hard thing to do they beat the crap out

of most teams they played. Okay. Indiana was a very good football team. But I think that I have a name for this new era of scheduling. And that name is the proof. Superly. We're not getting sad today. Okay.

It's sunny outside. You have a football game to go to tonight. We have football tomorrow. We're not doing that. But it's the prove it era where you're going to have to not only be good. You're going to have to prove your good to Curry favor. And I don't know that to everybody that Indiana proved it was. good enough last year because they didn't play a team

that could, you know, outside of Ohio State and they lost. If they would have played Oregon down to a touchdown or done something like Boise even did last year, which is play another really good team close to prove that you're worthy. There was no definitive proof other than circumstantial

evidence that they beat the crap out of bad teams. And I don't think that's going to be enough anymore. So, you know, I've been critical of the SEC a lot in the pandering that's been going on. I cannot stand when people say disingen disingenuous things publicly and we all have to pretend like it's real but i applaud them now for actually doing what did we always say they're going to nine games they're going to go to nine games

it's not because you're whining about it it's because it's financial it's always been financial follow the money yeah right the back in the 14 team divisional era of the cc 2019 when texasan initially proposed this it was because the the schedules had gotten so stale and boring that people didn't want to buy tickets. So they wanted to freshen those up. When Texas and Oklahoma decided to join the league, everybody's like, ooh, how do we get Texas and Oklahoma into our stadium more often?

And then they made this, I'll say it, bad deal with the SPN for their best game when they sold the package that was at CBS. They sold it for 300 million bucks a year. They probably could have gotten 600 million bucks a year for it if they'd just waited a year. But then they watch the Big Ten get similar money for inferior deals. And they're like, well, how do we make more TV money?

We mess this up. Well, this is how you do it. You know, yeah, also to the Indian, I say also too a lot. It's a tick. I don't know why I do that. Also, I think I even got an email about it. You know, also too is redundant. The Department of Redenancy Department?

Yes, that's what, that's what I do. also part of the joy of becoming a better program is proving it like i Indiana was very good i think they're going to be very good again this year don't you want to play as a fan better teams and beat them or do you want to constantly be 11 and 1 without with everybody saying you didn't play anybody like part of the joy of it is actually appearing better and then the second part of that joy is being better and the third part of that joy is proving that you're better like Indiana is not going to get an advantageous schedule in the way that it did a year ago where the two national champion contenders or participants or not precipitous falls from grace yeah it's true

they're going to be tested in the conference just naturally yeah and the big 10's going to get deeper like every year the big 10's going to get deeper as long as the big 10 makes more money than everybody else. The best part of being in Ohio State or Texas fan right now is that you get to go play another national title contender and both teams have spent all offseason with the presumption that they can win. That's what being elite is. LSU and Clemson are playing.

Texas and Ohio State are not scared of these games. Like it never have been. Oklahoma's never been scared of them. Michigan's never been scared of them. Alabama will go play somebody really good. George will play somebody really good out of conference. Clemson will go play somebody really good. The programs that tend to win these things.

things are not scared of anything yeah and like when's the last time an elite level program did a scheduling maneuver the way that indiana just did they don't like you you had you've had situations where like with oklahoma was going to play georgia and then oklahoma joins the cc and the cc's like we you can't do that we've got to change it around and there's never been a public like play to like skirt anything whether it's financial or not now nebraska You just backed out of a Tennessee series, like Tennessee didn't back out of it. Yeah. Don't get me in trouble with those people again, man.

With Tennessee people? Oh, you're fine. Both. The Tennessee Nebraska discussion is like kryptonite to me. I cannot engage in that discussion. I just locked you up. You're just like, oh, I can't say. I've got to go to the bathroom.

Hold on. I'll be right back. I've got to pee. Well, I'll say in this case, it was very short-sighted for Nebraska to bail on Tennessee series they should have kept it but I'm sure Troy Dan and the athletic director is going to have to make some phone calls now because they can't schedule the way they they're scheduling right now they're going to have to schedule better now they are playing a power conference team week one next week they do play Cincinnati so you got that going for you see what I was doing

there that was the Lloyd Christmas yes I saw that's that movie is so hilariously funny. He was the dead man that hit me with the salt jake. And then at the end, he goes, you really wussed out, man. Okay. All right, we've talked about the greater ramifications of the SEC's nine-game conference schedule. Now we've got to talk about the in-conference ramifications because what does everybody want to know is who, who's my team playing every year?

Like, who are the three teams that my team will play every year? And I took a crack at it. Now, the SEC itself is hiring a couple of analytics. firms. I've done this before when they were close to going to nine in 23. I did it in the athletic. I think I did it in 2021 at the athletic also. Ross Delinger's done a really good list in the past where he got his hands on some preliminary documents or they were really going back and forth about it. But none of us know right now exactly how it's going to land. I texted with some athletic

directors last night. They don't know. They're not sure. They all have their opinions about what they want, but they're also sure they're not going to get everything they want. So here's how I think it's got to work. You've got your games that are non-negotiable that must be played. So that would be your Iron Bowl, your Egg Bowl, Georgia, Auburn, Alabama, Tennessee, Red River, Texas and Texas A&M, Florida, Georgia. Those have to be played. So that's obvious. Those teams will play each other.

I also think if you played in a conference together for, you know, 80 years, then you probably should be in the same league or in the same pod. So I think Arkansas, Texas, and Texas A&M all need to play each other every year because they all played in the Southwest Conference together. I think Oklahoma and Missouri need to play each other every year because they were both in the Big Eight together and then together in the Big 12. yes so so those are all easy where it gets hard is so like i'll give you an example Alabama they have to play auburn and they have to play tennessee but beyond that

who do they play if you're ESPN and you're paying extra for this i can tell you right now who you wanted to play you want to play lSU yeah and also like the Alabama LSU rivalry has had some pretty epic matchups in the last five, seven years that you'd want to keep going to. Alabama, LSU, and Florida, Tennessee are very much products of the SEC divisional era, which is 92 to

2022 to 2023. But it created rivalries where there really weren't rivalries before, and they're great. And that's why I put Florida and Tennessee together and Alabama and LSU together. Now, that may be unfair to Alabama, because...

That's where you have to draw the line. It's like, where, Where do you draw the line between fairness and what would be fun and what would be lucrative? Right. Because Auburn, they have Alabama and Georgia. That is the hardest pair that anybody has. And I gave them Vanderbilt because if you give them any, you could give them Ole Miss, you could give them LSU. Auburn had a long annual rivalry with Florida.

Auburn had a long annual rivalry with Tennessee. and the Florida and Tennessee series, if you ask Auburn fans, they would love to have them back. But I'm just like, if you, if you gave Auburn, what's that? What would you rather have two Alabama and Georgia and Vanderbilt

or three teams with national championship ceilings? If I'm Auburn's coach, give me Vanderbilt all day. You don't want to play. Like, because like the one that I thought was the hardest from your projected list of, list of pods here was LSU. They get Bama, Ole Miss, and A&M every year.

I thought that was different. Yeah, that was, I think I'm being most unfair to Alabama and LSU here, which is why I'm not sure the Alabama LSU game winds up being an annual game. Yeah. But at the same time, too, what do you think they'll emphasize more, fairness or money? I think they're going to try to thread the needle there. again I would go for ratings like ESPN's

paying extra for this give them what they want and the schedule are going to be hard anyway like you're going to the teams you don't play every year you're going to play twice every four years they're going to be on your schedule half the time anyway so I mean Florida's got a pretty rough one too I mean Florida would have Georgia

Tennessee and Oklahoma that'd be rough yeah and I gave Florida Oklahoma that people might think that's weird Florida Oklahoma was on the list like when they were close to doing this in 2023, Florida, Oklahoma was happening. I don't know if it will happen now, but it was going to be one of them. Yeah, because the exciting part about doing the pods, too, is the emergence of new rivalries as well. Now, the question that I've been dying to ask you, and when Texas was

joining the SEC, we always said it would be the biggest miscarriage of justice in the history of the world of A&M and Texas didn't play every year. Do you think the SEC will drop the ball somewhere and leave out a team or a matchup that you think is essential? No, no, because that's where you start. Like the way I started this is here are the games that must be played. I call them the non-negotiable games. And it's all the games with a name, essentially. Iron Bowl, world's largest outdoor cocktail party,

Saturday in October, Red River Shootout. Lone Star Showdown for Texas and Texas A&M, I know is a relatively new name, but it is named. So you have a weak name. So you have to play those. Yeah. Lone Star Showdown. Red River is just, that's like, that gets your blood boiling.

Oh, yeah. But Texas is actually the easiest one to do. Texas is three are so easy to pick. They have to play Oklahoma. They have to play Texas A&M. And they really have to play Arkansas. Arkansas, Texas was a great rivalry back in the Southwest Conference. When Texas did play against Arkansas,

Remember, they went to Fayetteville a few years ago. That was a big name. The Sarks first year. I think it was, and Arkansas was good that year. Yeah, Arkansas beat them. So Arkansas, like, Arkansas has been in the SEC since 1992. They've never found anyone they hate like they hated Texas. They tried it a little bit with LSU, but it doesn't really happen.

Arkansas, Texas has to be played every year. And I think Arkansas A&M needs to be played every year because they've played some incredible games over the last 12 years. Texas in all of college football has the two most bitter rivalries because I almost feel like the A&M rivalry is as bitter as their main rivalry, which you don't see very often. No, it's more their Oklahoma rivalry is respectful. Their A&M rivalry is nasty. What other teams in college football have two rivalries that match the visual? Georgia and Florida State, Florida State with Miami and Florida.

yeah that's that's really about it i mean in conference though oh it not in conference but remember texas oklahoma was not a conference game for 80 years yeah 96 was the first year that was a conference game that's crazy to think about actually that's i i think they might have been together very very early on but they were one was in the big eight one was in southwest conference for most of their history. Yeah. This is really fun to look at, Andy. It is, and I think you'll be pretty close.

Let me read it for the podcast, folks. So, again, I think I'm being unfair to Alabama. I wouldn't be shocked if they don't do Alabama LSU, but I have Alabama playing Auburn, Tennessee, and LSU. I have Arkansas playing Missouri, Texas, and Texas, A&M. I have Auburn playing Alabama, Georgia, and Vanderbilt. Florida playing Georgia, Tennessee, and Oklahoma. Georgia playing Auburn, Florida, and Kentucky.

Kentucky playing Georgia, Mississippi State, and South Carolina. LSU playing Alabama, Ole Miss, and Texas, A&M. Again, I think I'm being unfair to them, too, so that the Alabama one may not happen. Mississippi State, I have them playing Kentucky, Ole Miss, and Vanderbilt. Missouri playing Arkansas, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. Oklahoma playing Florida, Missouri, and Texas. Ole Miss playing LSU, Mississippi State, and South Carolina. South Carolina playing Kentucky, Missouri, and Ole Miss,

Tennessee playing Alabama, Florida, and Vanderbilt, Texas playing Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas A&M, Texas, A&M playing Arkansas, LSU, and Texas, which is also pretty gnarly. Vanderbilt playing Auburn, Tennessee, and Mississippi State. Yeah. Texas A&M and LSU makes a lot of sense, too, because they both recruit Houston very heavily.

And that's like an actual... An overtime game alone cemented that as a game you want to see every year. But I do, I know that we're in this era of de-emphasizing recruiting results because of the transfer portal. I hope we get back, like what Josh Pates out on the show that we get back to obsessing over actual high school recruiting. But the most bitter rivalries to me also include the rivalries that happened in July, which is a kid from X area is down to the rivals and picks between those two. like that's what makes this Florida and Miami yeah luckily they're playing you know played last year and they're playing this year but they've been like that on the recruiting trail for the past couple years and I think it enhances the on-field games it does

because then when you're watching the games three four years down the line too you remember those battles and for the kid that almost went there and it's just a it's just another layer because that's the geographical purity of the whole thing so especially because sometimes rivals like Alabama and Georgia will be fighting for kid in LA, you know, and like that still hits, but there's nothing that hits like a Houston kid picking me to an A&M and LSU. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think this is going to be fun. I'm excited to see what they do. I'm not going to get too bent out of shape because it, again, they're going to play all the games they have to play. They're not going to miss any of those.

And if you don't get it exactly the way I want it, okay, they're still going to play everybody twice every four years because, I mean, the biggest problem before was if you were not in the same division and you weren't annual rivals, you were only seeing that team like once every seven years. So, you know, Alabama, Georgia was a very infrequent game. Auburn, Tennessee was a very infrequent game. I read a stat on Twitter, Andy, that or a fact on Twitter that A&M has never hosted Georgia since joining the SEC.

Isn't that crazy? Has not. They've gone to Athens in 2019. Georgia has never been to Texas A&M in its history. They've played it in neutral sites before, and they played the one game in Athens in 2019. Texas A&M is entering its 14th season in the SEC. It's crazy.

14th. So, yeah. That's a crazy little nugget. And that's why Texas A&M proposed the nine-game schedule in 2019, by the way. And it's only getting harder because of the expansion. aspect of it but you know my hope is that they'll get them this looks like a good list there's nothing here that's glaringly off to me um very excited to see how close you get to the actual pods yeah it's it's gonna be interesting because i i do the Alabama LSU thing is the one i'm curious

about because i just from a business standpoint i don't think you leave that on the on the table two out of every four years i think you you play that every year because that's what people want to see yep I'm with you all right so we know what the big 10 teams need to do. They're already playing nine conference games. Ohio State, Michigan don't need to do anything. They're already scheduling hard non-conference games as well. The ones that aren't need to figure out how to start doing it or they're going to get left behind. The other leagues are the ones we need to talk about a second. But first, if you are not subscribed to On 3, now is the best time. Sign up for On 3 for $1. And you also get access to the athletic for a full year, which

that's near and dear to Ari and I's heart. We worked for the athletic before we came here. We still love those guys. They do incredible work. But On 3 has the best college football coverage. Your team site is here. If you're a Tennessee fan, you need to be on VolQuest. If you're a North Carolina fan, you need to be on Inside Carolina.

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partnered with the athletic because it feels like on three Andy is starting to resemble what it felt like to work at the athletic in the early days. And that's really exciting. As two people who worked at the athletic before you probably heard what it was and to help build that place into what it is, which is a great place and part of the reason why we're partnering with them,

the on three college football team is starting to feel like the early days of that, which is really good news for the subscriber. So we are building a monster here. We're building a monster on three. So get on board, join for a dollar, also get full year of access to the athletic. like it's a rocket ship so just before we take off you hop on board yeah you know what I love about on three's team is that we have multiple national writers and another national

writer coming who all have very specific niches who are good and there's certain things so if you are somebody who likes columns hey I'm your guy and he's your guy if you're a person who likes breaking news Pete Nacos is your guy you like features we can all do that and then And if you like something else, because I don't want to give it away. I don't forget Brett McMurphy on the breaking news, too. Of course, Brett McMurphy goes without saying we already referenced him. But there's another person that's very good at something specific that's coming. I can't tell you what it is because then I'll give away maybe who it is.

It's going to be good. It's big. Oh, it's going to be huge. And as producer River points out, the producers also love college football. We love college. Like, everybody who works here loves college football. And that's one thing I will say. previous places I've worked, that's not always been the case.

Yeah, yeah. Everybody here does. Yeah, it is awesome. This is the first time in my career where the publication that I work for's priority is college football. That's never been the case anywhere. I'm sure, I don't know what it was at the, at SI, but I can't imagine that it was more important.

No, I mean, they try to treat every sport equally and understandably, that's their business model. But our business model is we care about college sports. We're going to give you the best college football coverage, the best college basketball coverage, the best college baseball coverage. It's all coming. It's all coming. So, oh, yeah, and the best recruiting coverage. Do not forget with rivals, because you get rivals as well with on three.

Ari, ACC, now saying, hey, we're going to consider this. Brettman Murphy had a great story. We talked to an ACCAD, because. The math doesn't exactly work for a 17-team league and a nine-game schedule. It's not like, because the SEC with a 16-team league, it actually works better than it ever did before in terms of the math. Not so much in the ACC with the 17-team league, but as one ACC athletic director put it to Brettman-Murphy,

we have the highest-rated academic schools in the power conferences. We'll figure it out. So somebody at Stanford and Cal are like on it right now. Isn't it that's so funny that he said that because it is very amusing to me that like Stanford is the mecca of tech and like whenever it comes to like solving like how can we crown a national champion fairly like it's like we're putting a blender. You know, it's like, you know, we're pulling cancer. The Duke people are like, hey, we're smart too. We'll figure this out. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm thinking Duke, Georgia Tech, Stanford. I mean, all of them. North Carolina is a good school. like they're all working on cancer research and you know stem cell research and i'm sure they're cloning dogs at one of these schools somewhere can you figure out how to put together a cc schedule that that fits the mathematical criteria or you could add a team that how funny would that be just add a team who would it be i i don't even want to get into and give me one if the acc could

pick any team and that team had to say yes who do you think they would take I would pick West Virginia and then back fill the Big 12 because I think West Virginia would be a good geographical fit in the ACC. Yeah, and I'm happy you didn't say like an SEC or Big 10 one. I wanted you keep it realistic. That's good. Yeah. That's a good one.

Yeah, it's, ah, man. All of this is going to get weird. West Virginia at the bottom of the graphic and it was just like that one team on its own row. Because every time we would rearrange the graphic, right? We have six rows of three or three rows of six probably if we got to 18. I don't know.

The big 10 one's off kilter. So you've got 4-4-4-2. So maybe somebody at Stanford can figure out how to make that one look a little bit more. But I mean, I think that's the only way you can make it look like nice. Yeah, it'll look good. They'll fit like they're smart. They'll figure it out.

Other news, Ari, Pat Fitzgerald has settled his lawsuit with Northwestern. And I thought it was very interesting statement Northwestern put out. Now, we don't know what the money is here. We do know that he had sued for $130 million. I don't know that he got that, but I think he got paid significantly, and I'll tell you why. Because Northwestern fired him despite not finding anything new after it had suspended him for two games over this hazing investigation a couple of years ago. And it's not that you can think he should have been fired over the hazing thing, and that's fine. the fact of the matter is Northwestern

investigated it, adjudicated it, decided he was suspended for two games, and then the reaction to it caused them to change their minds and fire him. And that's why he was entitled to money. Not because, like if they just fired him for it from the get-go,

I don't know that he would have gotten anything out of this. Yeah. I've spoken to people in and around Northwestern multiple times in the two years since this happened, Andy. And I have never encountered a single person who would say anything bad about Pat Fitzgerald. Right. And I wasn't there. I know some of the stuff that went on there was inexcusable.

I think he will coach again. Yeah. And I'll do it being a little bit richer. So, yeah, you don't, somebody has to pay the price for, you know, pay the consequences for those things. but I am not under the impression that Pat Fitzgerald did anything or, you know, was a part of anything that would not warrant him getting another job somewhere as a coordinator or a head coach in the future. So I think he's a head coach next year.

I don't know where it's at. I think he's definitely head coach in 2026. If we did coaching rankings before all this happened, like Pat Fitzgerald's in the top 10 of a lot of those lists because Northwestern was doing things that Northwestern, you know, A, had never done before and B, frankly, shouldn't be doing. So, you know, I'm happy that this was resolved for him. I'm happy that Northwestern was able to move on. Hopefully, everybody can move on.

And in Northwestern statement, they're very clear that they did not find any evidence throughout the discovery process of this lawsuit that anyone had reported it directly to Pat Fitzgerald to Hazing. Now, I will argue the head coach should know about that stuff. anybody who says oh you know this is the soft you know this is just making people soft no no that that sort of stuff that they were doing is you know preppy northwest northeastern private school bullshit like it makes you a soft team when you're doing stuff like that like that never would have happened in the sunbelt or the SEC because somebody would have gotten stabbed so I love that yeah you think that this is bad we would have stabbed you no uh no i'm like no i like you get your ass kick you and i talked about this and cole

had had somebody in his class that they you know they they would do the haircuts or the buzz cuts for the freshman and somebody tried to to buzz a guy and he's like you can try this but it will end very poorly for you and suddenly that tradition didn't didn't happen anymore so So, like, I was, when I was a freshman, some of the dudes in the locker room, like, if, if the seniors had come in and been like, we're doing, you know, somebody's going to get naked and put something on your face, like, there would have been a murder. Yeah. So anybody who thinks all that stuff that was going on is okay, it makes you a worse football team and it probably been a Northwestern. Also, too, I never understood the hazing aspect of, like, being the more powerful. That's frat boy stuff.

That's not football stuff. Like the hazing, like there is hazing in football, but a lot of it is just being physically dominated by people who are bigger, stronger, and faster than you. What's hazing in the NFL that the rookies have to go buy dinner for people? It's the hazing they do now. Yeah. Yeah.

All right, it is my favorite time of the week, and that is when we answer your questions. Dear Andy and dear, Ari, we got a good one from Stephen San Antonio, right off the bat. And I don't think Steve's alone here, by the way, Ari. Hey, fellas, I'm a bit perturbed by the James Franklin talk as of late. Whenever his awful record against really good teams come up on the show now, it's well, remember, he's never been favored to win these games.

One in the world is going on here. He coaches at Penn State, not U-Tep. I've never heard you guys apologize for any other coaches bad records against really good teams, only Franklin. Don't coaches get the greatest satisfaction by beating teams? They weren't supposed to, two that are clearly better and have superior talent. It's true. I think discounting his big game record is a mistake.

Franklin just hasn't produced. Is it asking too much you win at least 25% of these games? I bet each of you could name at least 10 coaches you'd rather have to win that one game over him from Stephen San Antonio. P.S. Can't wait for the live reaction shows. They can't get here soon enough. And programming note, we will be going live after Farmageddon in Dublin. So we're talking about, you know, 315 Eastern time on Saturday.

We'll be talking about actual football. So we're going live. So plan on that. Hopefully you'll get a push notification from YouTube. You need to be subscribed to On3, the On3 Sports YouTube channel. And we will be going live. So I know Steve will be in the chat.

All right, here's the deal with this. No, he doesn't coach at UTEP. But if you understand the dynamics of how Penn State treated football, relative to how Ohio State treated football, and Alabama treated football and Tennessee treats football Penn State has only been treating it that way since 2022. That's when they got a new president,

new athletic director. Penn State treated football the way Indiana treats football before that. Well, not the way Indiana treats football now, the way Indiana used to treat football. Like, Penn State did not prioritize football the way that Ohio State prioritizes football. So that is only a relatively new thing. so yes if he can't start to win those games then absolutely crush him but they weren't doing the same

things as these other teams we talk about i understand the the heart of the question and given the person's location um i think too they're probably a fan of some cc school um i don't know steve you'll have to let us know a texas fan probably a texas fan or an a nm fan or somebody here's the deal he has the best roster he's ever had and i think trying to draw a straight line by saying because he didn't win the games as underdogs that you purport he should win is a evidence-based argument that he won't when he has a better team or a good enough team if he goes oh and three this year in those games, then his record that you think we have just, you know, have thrown to the side

will come back with a vengeance. Let me tell you. He's not getting a pass for them. The only thing, because I do think that there have been head scratching big time moments that James Franklin has flubbed in those games. There's no question. I think that Penn State probably should have won the Notre Dame game last year. You can name that on the coach, but Penn State beat the crap out of them for an entire half. Yeah. And something's shifted there. You, you, they're, we're not trying to say that he doesn't deserve culpability for

losses. I think the point that I've always tried to maintain is that I don't take the 2017 Ohio State game into account when trying to analyze whether they can beat Ohio State now, because the game has shifted. Ohio State will not be as good as they were in the past. And Penn State is much better than they've been in the past. And I think in the situation they're in now, they, they should be 50, 50, in these games. Right. So if he has one in nine or oh and eight at his next eight moving forward,

then I think that the emphasis on that statistic will get bigger and bigger now that, A, Penn State's taking football more seriously than it never has before, and B, it has the rosters. It's the coaches that lose repeatedly when they have equitable rosters that I think really get cooked. And by the way, James Franklin has gotten cooked a lot. And also we're pretty nice about Kirby Smart's record against Alabama because he beats the crap out of everybody else. Yeah. I mean

if you go look at, I think somebody put a stat out there last year that like all coaches are terrible in top five record because it's hard to win those games. Like there's no coach out there that's a second time. Urban Meyer was really great at him. I mean, if you go back and you look at the Urban Meyer era, I think he was

500 in games with 500 in games. His Florida against those teams was really good. Sabin's record was insane because he's the best. Yeah, I don't know. We'll have to go with that all. I'll push back on Steve saying, I bet you can name at least 10 coaches you'd rather have to win that one game. The problem is

I'm not picking coaches to win that one game. I need the ones that can win the other 10, too. Yeah. And that's what James Franklin is not like, he's not like everybody else. He does win the other 10. Like, most of those guys don't or can't. If you want to call him a choke

artist too, you can't also discount the thing that he's done unequivocally great, which is never losing games they shouldn't lose. Like, that's a hard, that's a skill too, you know, and choking, I think, would manifest more and losing to teams that are inferior to you more than the inability to beat great ones. So, you know, I think this is a very important cross-section of his career. I think it's very interesting. I'm higher on Penn State going into the year than I think I've ever been because a lot of the circumstances around Penn State has changed.

And I don't know that him and I, Andy and I have excused Jamie. Franklin's record. I think we have tried to rationally view how to contextualize future and we've contextualized why they've lost so many. So, you know, he's going to get hammered if they lose all of them again. Yeah, and that's the thing. I won't be mad. I'll just be disappointed if he doesn't beat Oregon or Ohio State this year. Like, he needs to win one of those. Sorry, he just does. Yeah. So hopefully the context there makes you feel a little bit better. There's no excuses. It's just a part of this job has become about trying to project.

the future and what you weigh in those predictions, I think, is a person-to-person thing, and I don't weigh many of those losses in my projection of what he can do with this team. All right. Let's go to a question from Crawford. College football is two days away, so nothing but happy thoughts. What coach or coaches will earn themselves an extension this year and what group of five coaches get hired away? The extension thing's interesting, Ari, because I had a conversation with an agent about this,

other day. And I mentioned, hey, Billy Napier is in an interesting spot because if things go really bad, he might get fired. But if things go really well, he probably gets extended, which is a strange place to be. I'm happy you started off with that. I was going to say, Billy Napier. But the agent brought up something interesting to me is like, you think he gets extended if he goes eight and four with three years remaining on the deal? I was like, huh. Yeah. I never thought about it that way because back in the old days this is this is my old college football brain nobody went into a year with only three years or two years left on their deal that didn't happen because you got to have four years for croutin but now that doesn't matter because you just pay

the players and and like the coach can be a NFL coaches go in go into a year with an expiring contract or with it with only two years left on their deal all the time and yeah It's also, too, like the hardship of the hardship of recruiting a player who loses his coach is definitely the burden of that is lessened when you're being compensated to be at where you're being. Right. I mean, listen, Andy, we've all had jobs before where the boss has left. Mm-hmm. Yep. And so I do think it's interesting about the extension piece of it.

I think it's going to be harder to predict who gets an extension. Well, because also, too, I think that athletic directors, programs in general are becoming more savvy of trying to avoid putting themselves in a terrible buyout bind. Correct. Correct. And that's the other piece of this. With all this movement you're going to see, are people going to lock themselves down to

contracts that they can't buy out? Because right now, we're looking at a lot of those. Yeah. Between, you know, Mark Stoops, Mike Norvell, Luke Fickle, Lincoln Riley. You know, if LSU fans get mad at Brian Kelly, it doesn't matter. I wonder if we'll ever get to a point where you don't get a God contract or you do not get a buyout as insane as the Jimbo Fisher one, for instance, even though when they signed him, he had won a national title already until you've proven you can be good at the place you're already at. Yeah, you got to be Kirby Smart to get that kind of money now. And maybe that's naive because that desperate programs will go to Desperate.

expert lengths to make a splash in their hire. But I feel like I wonder if Texas A&M's lesson that they learned from Jimbo and how they reacted to their following hire after replacing him becomes the norm. I don't know where you go get somebody you want, no question, but you don't go throw your entire financial future at somebody who has not illustrated the ability to excel at your place because there have been coaches who have excelled at play like lincoln riley is the perfect example we don't know what that's going to look like in five years but lincoln riley was a top three coach in most people's minds at u sc and then he go or at oklahoma and then he goes to u sc and now things are going terribly for them now it looks like the rebounding hopefully they do yeah

but but i don't even know if like when you look at resume or uh what you've done somewhere else if that's a surefire enough bullet point to know they're going to be successful at your place because every place is different. So as terms of group of five coaches who may get hired away, the one that jumps out is John Summerall at Tulane. I think Tulane's going to win the American. I think Tulane's going to be the group of five team

in the playoff this year. And we already know SEC schools are sniffing around John Summerall. If Mark Stoops had gotten the A&M job, John Summerall would be Kentucky's coach. Like he'd be entering his second season as Kentucky's coach. right now. So that is certainly a possibility. Other possibilities. And I wonder if you go back in time

if Kentucky would take that right now. I'm sure they would. I'm sure they would. But for the same reason that A&M's board revolted at the idea of hiring Mark Stops and signing him to a contract that would have essentially guaranteed him as much as Jimbo, that's why they didn't do it. Yeah. So they were trying to to learn from their previous mistake. But I wonder, yeah, I wonder if A&M will be the poster child to all ADs and administrations trying to ink new deals. But then again, I think people will throw that to the wind if they're desperate enough and the right persons out there.

They, they probably will. Bob Chesey's another interesting one at James Madison. If he does really well, then some of those jobs that could be opening up along the Eastern Seaboard, because we don't, we don't know what's going to happen at Maryland, Virginia Tech, Virginia. you know what if fran brown has another good year at syracuse he could be in line for for an even bigger job and that job could open so uh that's another one but it's it's interesting because i don't think it's the same as it used to be where there there was this huge list of group of five head

coaches they're like these guys are next now i think you got to look at the power five coordinators like georgia defensive coordinator glen schumann oregon offensive coordinator will Stein. Those are guys they're going to be heavily considered for Power Conference head coaching jobs because I think it's it's probably easier to make the leap that way. Tim Banks at Tennessee to DC, the Andy Cole, Nicky the O.C. at Penn State. Those are all guys that are going to be in the mix for stuff. So those are some names if you want them to get you starting on the coaching carousel even though nobody's coached a game yet this season. Yeah. It's from Alex. I know you're going to like this one, Ari. Red River

won't be Mateer versus Manning. It'll be J. Knott versus C.J. Baxter. I mean, yeah, both. Can it be both? What if it is just like a grinded out whoever gains more yards on the ground wins? What's the spirit of the question that they're going to both be run first teams

this year? I don't know that that is because, look, Oklahoma, if they are a run first team, Meteer running is a large piece of that. At least it was at Washington State, and Ben Arbuckle is the same offensive coordinator. So I am assuming there's going to be a lot of QB run.

And Texas is going to run. I don't know if Texas will run quite as much as Oklahoma. You saw the thing that Arch Manning said the other day about how his grandpa kept telling him, get out of bounds or get down. Like, you know, telling him not to take hits. If you watched any of Archie Saints career, you know. Yeah.

Get out of bounds or get down, I think it was. was funny. But I think that Texas is probably going to want to mitigate as much exposure to the hit, the hit. Like, I mean, he was in the game for, in the Ohio State game in the Cotton Bowl for what, one or two plays. And we didn't need to see him again. So, yeah, I need to protect yourself as a quarterback. So, but I don't know if these two teams are going to want to air it out, I think. And if they can't, then that, like Oklahoma better hope it's Matera versus Manning. I think. I mean, Matera is the reason why I'm, I'm, I don't know. I'm. I don't know. I mean, Meteer's the reason why I had my bold prediction.

So if this is true, then I, I mean, I don't see it. But if it is, then Oklahoma is the problem. I'm very excited for C.J. Baxter coming off the injury. Yeah, people forgot him. He would have been a lot of fun to watch last year behind that offensive line. He was a very good back as a freshman. I can't wait to see him play this year. You know, those things, you hate those, the preseason injuries.

reason, and the guy's just gone for a year. So I'm glad he's back, and I hope he is back completely full strength, and it looks just as good as he always did, because that'll be a lot of fun. One more. This one's for Brian, as he points out, not Brian Kelly. Dear Andy and Ari, longtime fan of the show, first time emailer, I'm a Notre Dame fan, but I'm getting a bad vibe right now. I hate to say it, but I think the Irish start the season 0 and 2, and then lose two more

along the way, Arkansas, Pitt, Boise, USC, That means an eight and four season that, of course, misses the playoff. I would love to be wrong on this, but it just feels like a more reasonable outcome to me than 11 and 1 or 10 and 2. Thanks for all the fun during the long offseason, Brian, not Kelly. That's a paranoid Notre Dame fan that doesn't know how to have nice things yet. Exactly. And I don't want to pick on Brian because I think there is this version in every fan base. This person's in every fan base, the negative Nelly who just they can't.

can't take the joy when they got it. Because here's the thing about Notre Dame. They historically, well, recent history, have been the type of team that will drop some inexplicable games. And we've seen that in Marcus Freeman, or we saw it Northern Illinois last year. We saw it with Marshall and Stanford, his first year. I think they're through with that.

And I'll tell you why, because I think they've built the best offensive line in the country. And we've talked about this on the show, a bunch of times, but that raises your floor. Notre Dame is a very high floor program now. So high of a floor that I don't even think 8 and 4 is the floor.

I think 9 and 3 is probably the floor. So I was talking to an NFL scout yesterday on the phone. And this NFL scout is at all the training camps watching. You know, this is a year

a year round job now. And he told me, Because you know what he called, Andy? Because of my Oklahoma prediction. Oh, excellent. He called me to talk about it. And he, and this is a Notre Dame question, he was not fond of that because he doesn't think Oklahoma has as enough dudes on the team

as some of the other advocacy schools he's seen from top to bottom. It doesn't mean that John Mateer and Jaden Hunt. Usually when they talk about dudes, they're talking about line of scrimmage dudes. He said the two teams that impressed him the most that he's seen this fall. Notre Dame, number one. Very physical, talented, fly all around the field type of team. Guess the other one. It's kind of off the cuff.

You're not going to get it. I'm going to tell you. Illinois. All miss. Illinois. Oh, very interesting. And I don't know if he was saying that Illinois is going to go out and win the national title.

He just said that they've got a squad. Illinois has quite a few NFL plays. players on the roster. Like, it's not, it's not just kind of hand, you know, pick and shoes one or two. It's not a lot. He said Notre Dame is far away the most impressive team he saw in practice this fall so far. So yeah. And he's all over the country and all over the conferences and stuff looking at players. So, because when you're an NFL scout, you're not doing it based on. Yeah. And Notre Dame, I give an example because so even though Charles Jagasaw is out right now, if you're an NFL scout going to practice and you watch them practice, you watch

the offensive line practice. So you're going to watch like 15 guys. practice, obviously, only five of them are going to start. But he's probably looking at it like, okay, I'm watching 15 guys, and I see nine guys who are going to play in the NFL. Yeah. And that's what they, you know, they notice like, hey, they've got a lot of players out here that are going to be drafted. And I think that's a pretty good way of looking at it.

And it gives me pause on the Oklahoma prediction because you don't want to hear that that come out of a scout's mouth because they're looking at it from a pure talent perspective, which is the way I typically look at it. but when you hear him say that about Notre Dame, that's not something you hear four years ago. Like, I feel like they've turned a corner program. I don't think they're going to go 0 and two to start the season, and I certainly would be shocked if they lost two more of those games that you put out there.

I do think they're going to split Miami and Texas A&M, which I think is all they need to do. Yeah. And you look at the rest of the schedule. Arkansas could be tough. Boise State could be tough. I think NC State could be tough. And then we don't know about USC.

USC is a bit of a wild card here. if they're pretty good this season, then that obviously changes some things. But if Notre Dame splits Miami and Texas A&M, I feel very confident predicting Notre Dame makes the playoff. Yeah, I'm with you. I think that you're having some preseason nightmares there, but you're going to be fine.

Notre Dame is going to be good. Their offensive line's great. I know we're not sure what CJ Carr is going to be, but I'm sure it'll be fine. I don't see a four-lost season for Notre Dame on the docket this year. No, it's again, They're a high floor program now. Marcus Freeman has raised the floor.

Now the question is, where's the ceiling? I think we know the ceiling's a national title. They were playing the national title game last year. No reason they can't get back there this year. So enjoy. Don't worry so much. I get it. If they lose to Miami, you can worry.

But for now, enjoy. And everybody else, enjoy. Because the next time you see me and Ari, we will have just watched football. The European mind cannot comprehend what it will see on Saturday. It cannot. Armageddon, baby, Iowa State, Kansas State, noon eastern from Dublin. Ari and I will be live right after the game.

We'll talk about the game. And more than anything, we're just going to celebrate football being back. Thank you so much for helping us through this long offseason. Thank you for all your questions, your emails, your comments in the chat. We love you so much. please tell a friend as you know the season gets ramped up and they say well i really want to get into college football again what do i do just we're your guys no your old pals annari we'll talk to you tomorrow after a football game enjoy