Andy & Ari On3 - TCU’s Sonny Dykes: ‘It would be much more of a bargain to collectively bargain’

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's episode of Andy and Ari on 3 presented by BetMGM, TCU coach, Sunny Dikes, joins the show. He's talking his Harvard transfer quarterback hanging with Billy Bob Thornton and also why Sunny thinks that college football teams need to collectively bargain with the players before the costs get completely out of control. Also, a very fun, Who Am I? I'm asking the questions. Ari is answering. I think I can stump him, at least for a little while. Later, Rich Clark, the executive director of the college football playoff, joins us to discuss the discussions about 24 teams, 16 teams, staying at 12 teams. You know how Ari and I feel.

Starting point is 00:00:44 We wanted to stay at 12. Rich Clark, he'll do anything. But he explains what the process is going to be over the next few months as they try to make a decision, as the commissioners try to decide what the college football playoff is going to look like going forward. We'll talk about it all on today's Andy and Arion 3 presented by BetMGM. This show is brought to you by BetMGM. All the totals and lines we use come from BetMGM. If you want to sign up today, use the bonus code CFB and get up to $1,500 paid back in bonus bets if you don't win. If you're already signed up for BetMGM, we got the world's game playing out all across our fair country.

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Starting point is 00:02:46 87788-Y or text Hope N.Y, 467369 in New York, 1-800-3-0-1-800-1-800-1-80-10-23 in Puerto Rico. First bet offer for new customers only if applicable, subject to eligibility requirements, are non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in seven days in partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel. Welcome to Andy Narion three presented by BetMGM. Ari of our favorite coaches to talk to you joining us today, TCU's Sunny Dykes. We saw him in the national title game just four, well, less than four years ago, three to half years ago. Sunny Dykes playing for a national title in his first season at TCU. they have been a good team the last few years.

Starting point is 00:03:35 They would like to ascend and be an excellent team, a team that competes for the Big 12 title. And there's a good chance that they have a roster that can do that this year. Yeah, Sonny Dykes has a aura. I don't know if you agree with that. I think he does. Oh, yeah, he's cool. He's like got a very calming yet stern and confident demeanor about him.

Starting point is 00:03:55 And, you know, I think it's interesting because Sonny Dykes was at S&S. Um, and he went to TCU. And when he went to TCU, he basically took his entire plan with him. And they found so much success so early in his tenure in Fort Worth. And then shortly after that, things have changed dramatically and how you're about going about your business. So, um, you know, certainly find him to be a fascinating guy. And I, and the thing I like, I've always appreciated about him since he was the offensive coordinator at Arizona when I was a student reporter, um, is that he's always,

Starting point is 00:04:30 He's just very frank and, you know, has a lot of candor in his words. So he's going to tell you how he feels. And so you're going to hear how sunny feels about a lot of things. The Taylor Sheridan TV universe, for one, because he gets to hang with all those people in Fort Worth. The fact that he's like friends with Billy Bob now. I spoiled it a little bit, but it's amazing story. Oh, it's a good story. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:04:53 And also just dealing with competing in this environment now because TCU does not have a billionaire benefactor that they do have some wealthy donors. And so, you know, where do the horn frogs fit in all this? And Sunny Dykes has some definite opinions about what needs to be done to create a little bit more balanced competitive environment. And we'll see if he can get what what he wants, but he's pretty clear about what he thinks needs to happen. Here's Sunny Dykes. We are joined by TCU coach Sunny Dykes. And I got an update for, So we had your quarterback on a few months ago. And he's, you know, Jaden Craig, Harvard transfer, Northeast guy.

Starting point is 00:05:39 He said he wasn't sure if he's ever going to become a boot guy. I hear he is getting his first pair of boots. So is he now an official horn frog now? I think he's about to be. Until he puts him on, I don't know that he is. But he's got, I think he got an NIL deal with a boot company, so fired up for him to. I hope we had something to do with that. I think we brokered that because we said, like Lucchese, like Shagull.

Starting point is 00:06:01 It's not them. It's not them. It's not them. I believe it's Tacoba. I think you're right too. Yeah. Where is Lucchase? I'm waiting for those guys to show up.

Starting point is 00:06:08 Come on, Lucchie. They're right downstairs. Yeah. Well, it's funny because Brent Key, who coaches at Georgia Tech, big boot guy. Yep. I asked him, did you kill that rattlesnake yourself? And he said, no, but Lucasey did for me. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:06:22 The snake ones are the expensive ones, right? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, whatever they have on the rack that's cheap and on sale, those are the ones that I got. Yeah. Well, Fort Worth's kind of become the mecca of the mecca of the It is. It's landman. You better have about six pair of boots. So have people dressed differently now to lean into that? I know there's always a certain subsect of people that always dressed that way.

Starting point is 00:06:39 Yeah, yeah, I don't know about people, but in the Dykes household, we certainly have. Yeah, I mean, we've gone full Yellowstone Landman, just so you know. Okay, I got to ask you, as everybody who watches the show knows, Ari and I've seen every episode of Landman mostly twice. In Fort Worth, how close is the approximation that they have on Landman? Is it really what living in Fort Worth is like? You know what? In some ways, yes. Okay.

Starting point is 00:07:06 Now, not everybody's house is as big as, you know, John Ham's house was or whatever. But that's supposed to be Cody Campbell anyway, which is hilarious. You know what? It's actually not supposed to be. Oh. It's supposed to be Tex Moncrief. Oh, whose name is on Texas is a football.

Starting point is 00:07:26 And then Kit Moncrief, his wife, Texas passed on. and Demi Moore is supposed to be Kit and Kit is the chairman of the board at TCU. Oh, that's what is. Cooper is supposed to be the young Cody Campbell. That's what it is. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So that's kind of my idea is the Monkriece.

Starting point is 00:07:43 But I do got a good Billy Bob Thornton story. So I ran into Billy Bob. See, I told you they're all out. All these shows. They just like are all out in Fort Worth. They're out in Fort Worth. Ran into them at the Bowie House, which is like a restaurant bar hotel. So ran into him.

Starting point is 00:07:57 My wife knows Nicole shared in a little bit. and Kit Moncroofs with him, come sit down with us. I sit down with Billy Bob. An hour and a half later, his dad was a high school football coach in Arkansas. We knew all the same people. Oh, wow. Exchange phone numbers, and now we're buddies. And so it's been, that's been pretty cool.

Starting point is 00:08:13 Yeah, I mean, he was a football coach. He's a very, Billy Bob is a very recognizable football coach from West Texas. And so the whole thing, and what was interesting is Gary Gaines, who he played in that deal, actually left Odessa Permian and went and coached with my dad at Texas Tech. And so Gary Gaines, I'd known Gary my whole life. Yeah. And so, you know, we had a lot of things to talk about Billy Bob and I did. Yeah, so I wonder how we can weaponize that friendship for you.

Starting point is 00:08:36 We can talk about that. I got some ideas. When you bump into Allie Larder, just let me know. Well, you know what? She was actually not Allie, but the daughter was in our practice facility, practicing with our cheerleading squad one day. And as you can imagine. Did they, like, actually use the TCU cheerleader squad to, like, help her, like, figure out the role?

Starting point is 00:08:55 Did your players just drop everything? Yeah, they caused quite a right. Yeah, yeah. People running around the office and all this stuff. And I was like, what's going on? Yeah, the thing about the Sheridan universe is that there's probably 900 more of the similar shows. Yeah, worth it. This isn't a short-term thing. Yeah, and then, believe it or not, Linus is actually filmed in the neighborhood. A lot of it's filmed in the neighborhood that we live in. Yeah. Linus is supposed to take place in Washington, D.C., and I watched the show, and I'm like, yeah, that's our next door neighbor, and that's the guy down the street.

Starting point is 00:09:21 Yeah. Now, your house, because a little birdie told us, your house is very close to campus. We are, yeah. The way NCAA rules work, if your house is very close to campus. Unofficial recruits, yeah, year-round. And so we did that within a mile intentionally. And, yeah, so we have a lot of players on campus. But, yeah, we're right in the middle of it all. So they're filming Landman, they're filming liners, still filming the new Frisco King.

Starting point is 00:09:46 They're filming. Frisco King makes no sense to me. Yeah, all the stuff. What's not all about? Like, we're going to have like a mob-infested Walmart. Like, I don't know what's going on, but it'll be, can I come out and just ask the question because I just have this is all I think about in my job but you watch these shows and you know obviously what tech is doing and stuff like there's so much money out there like

Starting point is 00:10:07 how does TCU access some of this well it's interesting I think I mean I think it's like anything else there's you have people that have been very successful and we've certainly have our share of those people at TCU and it really bottom line comes down to how do they want to spend their money and what What do they want to do with their money? And it's uncomfortable to try to urge people to do something, right? Well, I think they're comfortable doing something to a limit, you know, and I think that like anything else, I mean, quite frankly, our people are like, okay, look, there's limits on what we're supposed to do and what we can do, and we're not going to go above that.

Starting point is 00:10:46 And so that's been their kind of approach, which has been different than some other people's approach. So you've still managed to put together a very competitive roster. And we watch your guys come in today and see the kind of bodies you've got on your roster. You've got future NFL players and certainly a roster that can be very competitive in this league. So how do you make sure you keep doing that? Well, I think doing it the way that we do it. Look, we're not in a situation where we can play somebody on Saturday and say, okay,

Starting point is 00:11:21 we're going to take their three best players and money with them and bring them to our team next year. and then we're going to do the same thing with the team that we play next week. I mean, that's just not how we're built. So what we do is we have to go do a really good job evaluating high school players. We have to do a really good job recruiting those players. We have to do a really good job developing those guys. And then we put most of our money into retaining them. And I think we've been able to do that.

Starting point is 00:11:42 If you look at us over the last three years, we've lost three starters to the transfer portal. You know, we lost, you know, Don Williams a couple years ago, went to Oklahoma. We lost obviously Josh last year. and then we lost a center that went to Miami the year before that. Brockermire, yeah, Brockermar. And so we've lost, those are the only three starters that we've lost in the portal in three years. So that speaks a lot about TCU. I mean, the kids love going to school there.

Starting point is 00:12:06 They love being a part of that campus community. It speaks a lot about Fort Worth. Might run into Ainslie? Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's a lot. Fort Worth's making a huge national statement right now. There's a lot of things like about Fort Worth. I've never been to cattleman's ranch.

Starting point is 00:12:19 I would like to go there one day. Yeah, Calman's restaurant's awesome. I don't know if I fit the estate. I came in today. He's on their website, just looking at their cocktail meetings. I know that, like, it's in the show a lot. They have a private club downstairs. Have you been there? You've been there, obviously. Been there. A lot of, some landman was film. There was a fight scene filmed.

Starting point is 00:12:36 Do you think that... In a booth that I sit in down there? Do you think that Billy Bob is telling people that he met you and you guys are friends now? I seriously doubt it. Yeah, but the thing that I find fascinating is that it feels like a decade ago that we were in the pre-NIL or... Yeah. And now at the same time, it really wasn't that long ago. And at the end of that NIL switch, you guys were in the national title game.

Starting point is 00:12:59 I'm wondering, how does building your team feel different now? And, you know, obviously, that was an incredible run, something you'll probably remember for the rest of your life. But how realistic is it based on food chains and financials to repeat something like that? You know what? That's a good, honest question. And I'm going to try to give you a good honest answer. You know, I don't know what's going to happen with this stuff. You know what I'm saying? I don't know how it's going to play out. I don't know if we're going to get some of the spending under control. My hope is that we do. And for a number of reasons, because what we're going to find, I think, is that we're going to find kids that have transferred from school to school to school for money. And that money is going to disappear. And then those kids are going to be 30 hours short of getting a degree. And then what are they going to do? You know what I mean? And some of them are going to

Starting point is 00:13:50 going to go play in the NFL, but the numbers are the numbers. One and a half percent get a second contract of power four players. And so 98 and a half percent of them aren't. And then what are these kids going to do? I mean, they have some money that they ran through, or maybe they didn't, maybe they saved, but it's not going to be enough to sustain them. And more than likely, they're not going to want to spend that money to go back to whatever school they're closest to graduating from. So I think we're going to have a serious problem here in two or three years where we look back at this and we say, you know, this was supposed to be a very player-friendly era, and it's about time that we actually paid the employees.

Starting point is 00:14:27 You know what I mean? That just should have happened 30 years ago in college football. There was no other situation in the world where the talent didn't get paid. But we've rectified that, and I think we've gone so far the other way that I'm afraid, you know, some of these kids, this might end up being the most that they ever make in their life. Yeah. And how does that affect their mental health? I think most people.

Starting point is 00:14:46 And their self-esteem and all the different things, you know, and I just think we've got to be mindful of that. And so I think it would be good for everybody if we could get the spending under control. I don't know that anybody's worried about the kids, thinks about the impact that's going to have on the kids, whatever. Everybody's trying to win, and I get that. This is a competitive thing. College football is the most competitive thing in the world.

Starting point is 00:15:07 But at some point, you do have to have a little concern about the young people and make sure that you're dealing with them, in a manner that's going to benefit them, not just now, but for a long time. Yeah, and I never thought about it this way, but there aren't a lot of people on earth that make the most they're ever going to make when they're 20. No, and I think, again. Child TV stars, and that child is out so well. Yeah, and how's that going to affect their mental health and their state of mind? Like I said, and their self-esteem, you know, when you sit there and you go, well, you know, I don't have a degree, now what am I going to do?

Starting point is 00:15:36 And, you know, I made all this money and, okay, there's got to be something wrong with me. I mean, just all those things. And I think we better start having those conversations. and thinking about the impact that's going to have. And you talked about the employee thing, and I talk about this with Sweeney back in January. And he had obviously very much changed his thinking on this and was saying, okay, make them employees, do the collective bargaining, do all that. How do you convince the people you work for to do that?

Starting point is 00:16:03 Because they're the ones that are fighting. Yeah, I mean, that's certainly the best answer. Because what you can get is you can get a model that has proven to work for the last hundred years, the NFL model. You know what I mean? And they have collective bargaining. Everybody understands exactly what they're getting into. There's no lawsuits.

Starting point is 00:16:21 There's no suing. There's no finding a judge that, you know, is going to be sympathetic to your cause. There's none of that stuff. You know, you have somebody that's in charge and somebody who says yes or no. And there's rules. And guess what? If you don't follow the rules, you get punished. And what a novel idea.

Starting point is 00:16:36 And again, the thing that we're teaching our players, and I hate this, is we're teaching our players, look, if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying. and is that really what we want to teach young people? And so, I mean, I think we got to think about all this. And if we could get to collective bargaining, the reason nobody wants to do it, I think, is because it's going to be expensive. Yeah, because you're going to have insurance and you're going to have 401Ks, and you're going to have all these things.

Starting point is 00:17:04 But to me, it's the only way that it gets. It's expensive now, though. It is expensive now. And it's only getting more expensive. It's going to get more expensive than the other alternative. Well, and I think so. And I think what happened was, I think when revenue sharing happened, And everybody goes, okay, revenue sharing, that's $22 million.

Starting point is 00:17:17 That's a lot of money, but we can live with that. Well, now it's $22 million, and then it's, you know, 15 for football plus another 30, if you want to be competitive. And now it would be much more of a bargain to collect a bargain, in my opinion. Yeah, and plus all the things that are kind of moving expenses, which are lawsuits and all the other. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, so I just change this five for five rule. They're going to have to wind up settling.

Starting point is 00:17:43 They're going to settle lawsuits. I'm sure they are. And then I'm sure there's guys lined up right now to sue them as soon as they get there. And it's just at some point you say, okay, look, this doesn't work. Yeah. I would get tired of being sued. I've never been sued. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:17:56 You keep talking, you will. I've been threatened. When I moved to California, I got sued. I'd never been sued before. And, you know, you live in the Bay Area for a while you're going to get sued. It's wild. It's part of it. Hey, we have to ask, because we had Jaden Craig on a few months ago, what's it like to have a quarterback who's probably

Starting point is 00:18:14 smarter than you? Probably. I mean, Harvard. I mean, that's a big deal, but like also somebody who was viewed as a potential NFL guy already. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, what I, what's cool about Jaden, I mean, look, there's, there's people that are book smart all the time and you run to those guys and you go, this guy, you know, has no functional intelligence whatsoever. What I love about Jaden, Jaden is incredibly self-aware. And how many times do you say that about young people? I mean, he knows what his strengths are. He knows what his weaknesses are. He has, He just knows who he is. He's comfortable with it.

Starting point is 00:18:47 He doesn't try to be somebody that he's not. There's no errors. He doesn't put on any errors about, you know, I'm this, I'm that, I'm the savior of the program. None of that. I mean, he showed up, he went to work, he wanted to earn everybody's respect. He's led when he was asked to lead. He's kept his mouth shut when he should keep his mouth shut. He's just handled things the way adults handle things.

Starting point is 00:19:08 Or are they supposed to handle things? And so he's been incredibly impressive and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, Again, you mixed out with the book smarts. I think you got something special. One actual football question. Yeah. There we go. You've been on both sides of this game on the first weekend that everybody watches.

Starting point is 00:19:24 Where you played Dion in his first game and you lost. You played Bill Belichick in his first game and you guys have the huge win that everybody sees. Yeah. You're doing a week zero against North Carolina. We're going to be so excited to see it because the first game we've seen in months and months. How much does that do for your program to have that many people watching? Well, I think it can be good. You know, I think if you go out and you play well, it can be good.

Starting point is 00:19:49 I think that was obviously good for us last year. The one thing I do know, I know this will be a different North Carolina team. You know, I know, number one, Bill Belichick's a good football coach. I mean, one of the best that's ever done this. His team from year one to year two is going to make a huge jump. That's just what well-coached teams do. His team is going to do that. Bobby Petrinos now is play caller on offense.

Starting point is 00:20:14 Bobby, in my opinion, is one of the elite play callers in all football, not college football, pro football, college football, whatever it is. He's good. And so those two guys together with that kind of experience, that kind of know-how, Bill run the defense, Bobby run the offense, that's a dangerous combination. And, you know, they're going to be a year, a lot of lessons they've learned in the last year and the way to communicate to players and expectations and all the things. So I think we're smart enough to understand that it's going to be a completely different North Carolina team than the one we saw last year. I can't wait to see it.

Starting point is 00:20:46 Yeah, it'll be fun. We'll be watching football and it's going to be here 53 days from now. That's right. That's right. Soon enough. A lot of stuff has to happen in between those two things, but we're looking forward to it. We are too. Thank you, that was awesome. See you guys.

Starting point is 00:21:01 Very cool. Thank you. All right, so Sunny Dikes thinks North Carolina is going to be a better version of the team than the one. the horn frogs crushed in Chapel Hill last year. BetMGM has installed TCU as a six and a half point favorite week zero in Dublin, Ari. Seems like a pretty good opportunity to me. For who? For people on TCU or for people in North Carolina?

Starting point is 00:21:31 Yeah. Andy, I'm like on high lookout, too, that like Jaden Craig turns out to be maybe a top quarterback in the entire Big 12th this year. I don't know. I'm excited to see him. I mean, we had him on the show. He was awesome and exactly what you'd expect the Harvard grad quarterback to sound like. And we saw him at Big 12 Media Days.

Starting point is 00:21:54 I don't know if I appreciated fully how big he is until I saw him in person. He's a big dude. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I put together some of the clues of, you know, what people say in between the lines a little bit. And it's just like, yeah, TCU couldn't run the ball last year and upgraded some lines and is going to be emphasizing running the ball while also adding a guy who was an NFL prospect to the quarterback position against the team

Starting point is 00:22:19 that they beat by 100 without being able to run the ball. Like, I don't know. You know, it's very early in picking games. And Andy, I know that you remember last year I had a very rough go of it. So we'll see. But like, I think that TCU is a team that should be athletically

Starting point is 00:22:35 and maybe even schematically, maybe that's schematically is not right because Bill Belichick's the other coach. But like, two new OCs in this situation. You got Bobby Petrino the new OC at North Carolina, Gordon Sammis, the new OC at TCU. So the offenses are going to look different. Neither team really knows what the opposing offense is going to look like. So I think that's going to be a surprise for everybody.

Starting point is 00:22:59 Ari, it's still, by the way, still over a month and a half away. It feels so much closer, but it's still a while. Did you have that little bit of a hangover when you realized that, like, walking out of Big 12 media days that it actually still is kind of far away. Because like when you're in that environment, you're like, they have games next week. And then it's like, oh, well, it's actually six points. No, no, no. There's practice in three weeks.

Starting point is 00:23:22 Yeah, practice in three weeks. And then there's a month or three weeks of practice. But, you know, I think that the most interesting thing to me, Andy, from the entire event. And, you know, the cool thing about this event, just to bring people behind the curtain is that we did record interviews with coaches. And certainly, you know, like Sunny Dykes, we had. on. But we met with all but one big 12 coach for 15, 20 minutes and just had informal discussions to help, like, our understanding of what's going on in the sport to help us talk

Starting point is 00:23:53 about it. And, you know, I think that the fun thing about this and maybe the weird thing about this now is that these coaches admit that they know less about their opponents now than they ever have before. And, you know, that's certainly something that you think about in interconference play, but how much could Sunny Dikes possibly know about North Carolina? You know, there's a lot of change. It's not much. I mean, they can go over the players that North Carolina acquired in the transfer portal, but that's pretty much it.

Starting point is 00:24:25 I mean, like, and in the same for North Carolina, like, they can watch Jaden Craig tape from Harvard and they can watch Connecticut's offense from last year, which is where TCU's OC came from, but you don't see it all together. It's not like before where if you had a team that had a bunch of returning starters, over the summer, you could have your staff breaking that down and have a pretty good idea what your game plan was going to be. I think it's more of you've got to figure out what you do well and lean into that early in the season before you ever figure out what everybody else can do. Yeah. But, you know, I think that it's interesting because Sonny Dykes was probably viewed as a mastermind as recently as three years ago. and of course TCU hasn't put on the field what they did

Starting point is 00:25:12 until they ultimately lost the Georgia and the national championship, you know, ways back. But I do believe that Sunny Dikes is a very good coach. He's a great talent evaluator. And, you know, I think the biggest thing here is that you know that TCU's floor as a program is probably a lot higher than North Carolina's floor as a program. But we're still trying to find out what North Carolina ceiling might be.

Starting point is 00:25:34 They have a lot of new players, as you would anticipate, but what are the caliber of athlete that North Carolina brought in? because as we discussed the day that Bill Belichick was hired, you could be the greatest wizard in the history of football when it comes to X's and O's, but if you don't have the type of player necessary, and Andy, you pointed this out when we were on the turf at the star yesterday. It's like DCU's got NFL bodies, you know, they're athletic, you know,

Starting point is 00:26:00 and especially on the line of scrimmage. Like, they're big and athletic on the D line. they have offensive linemen that look like they can play on Sundays. And that's not universal in the Big 12, by the way. We know Texas Tech has that. Utah has that. BYU has that. I think TCU has that too.

Starting point is 00:26:21 I'm not sure how many other teams in the Big 12 you're going to say that. I think we were able to say that about Oklahoma State. Cincinnati's offensive line certainly fits that profile. but it's hard to say, you know, how complete all these rosters are. By the way, just while we're talking about offensive linemen in Cincinnati, I ate the pancakes for dinner last night. I made them. They gave us a box.

Starting point is 00:26:45 By the way, so, yeah, I got a box of pancake mix and special syrup from Cincinnati to celebrate their offensive line. I showed it to you on the show yesterday. The syrup would not fit, you know, was too many ounces for me to take. You hate to see it. Security. and you bastard, you ate it. I ate it.

Starting point is 00:27:04 Yeah, I mean, we got home late last night or I did. It took about an hour and 10 minutes to get back from the start. And I was just like, I don't really have anything here. And I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute. I've got a pancake kit. And it was actually quite delicious. I don't know what the batter was. Maybe it was Bisquick.

Starting point is 00:27:20 I don't know what it was. It's a special blend. It's a special bear cat blend. It tasted like bear cat dominance. So thanks to Cincinnati for being wonderful. posts this week. But, you know, we did spend time with their offensive linemen. And I don't think that people appreciate, including myself, who's been covering this

Starting point is 00:27:37 sport for going on 20 years now, how thick and big these linemen are. Like, they are like big humans. So I'm a big man in terms of like how I stack up against other people that don't play college football. And then you sit at a dinner table next to a tackle or a defensive tackle or somebody at dinner. And it's just like that person's three times. Like Evan Tingestall is is 323 pounds.

Starting point is 00:28:03 Like he's, he's, and he is an all big 12 guard. Could be an all American this year. And not fat though. Like, right. When you meet these people, you think, oh, that guy is 280. No, no, no, he's 40 pounds heavier than that. And it's all muscle. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:28:19 It's crazy. Brick muscle, yeah. But yeah. You know, but Sonny also had a lot of conversations on the show. and I thought there were a few things that were interesting about roster building and kids making money and protecting kids and all these things. What was your prevailing takeaway from that aspect? You don't need to protect anybody from money. You need to show them how to use it.

Starting point is 00:28:42 You need to make sure they understand the tax burden and all that stuff. But let's not pretend you're saving anybody by having to make less money than they're making now. Like that's not the point. The point is you want to pay them less or at least control the information. amount you pay them so that you have a more competitive environment where you don't have certain schools that can pay significantly more than other schools. That is something you can do. And Sonny Dykes addressed that. Like he said, it may be actually cheaper to do the collective bargaining thing now. Yeah, and we've had this discussion too. Escalating the way it is.

Starting point is 00:29:20 And I think that the most important thing about this whole thing is that everybody has different takeaways about, you know, money and how it's used and stuff. And I agree with the sentiment. It's like giving 18 or 19 year old a million dollars isn't detrimental to their life. You know, if some people might use it. Like, are there dangers inherent in it? Yeah. And, but I'm not going to do. I'm certainly not going to try to take that money away from that person. And also the dangers, Andy, let's be honest, the dangers are far less dire than not having any money at all. So, you know, it's more dangerous being broke. Yeah. But. But I do think that the main takeaway that I have from all the financial discussions that we had,

Starting point is 00:29:59 and listen, the Big 12 is very unique in that, you know, obviously all the conferences now are weird geographically, but like the issues that Texas Tech may have and the issues that Baylor may have may be completely different, even though they're not that far away. And then, of course, West Virginia and Arizona are much different than TCU that's in a major metropolitan area. So, and resources and wealth. And what I do find interesting is, is of course, the, the ability to pay players also probably has a huge impact on the geographic, you know, situation. Like, what's your population of the town that you're in or the state that you're in? What's the general?

Starting point is 00:30:38 So what medium income? What are your alums do? Yeah. You know, how much people are. How many of them are in oil and gas? How many of them are in tech? You know, yeah. I just think that like West Virginia's financial circumstances are obviously.

Starting point is 00:30:51 much different than maybe a team like TCU or Texas Tech. But even though Texas Tech and TCU are more similar than they are, the TCU is similar to West Virginia, Texas Tech and TCU are also very different in how they approach this stuff. So it's all very different. I think if TCU had a billionaire that wanted to spend like Cody Campbell wants to spend, that they would approach it the same way, but they don't have that. We just did like a random R.E doesn't know anything about anything ranking,

Starting point is 00:31:19 and I had to pick, you know, which alumni or which, you know, places are most situated well in financial situations, just in terms of alumni, metropolitan area, median income of people who live in that town or around that town. I'd probably put TCU number two or three in the Big 12. I think TCU has the capability of paying quite well. It's a matter of convincing everybody to do it. And I don't know if I'm being influenced by the Taylor Sherry. and shows that we joke about in the interview. But I do know that there's a lot of oil.

Starting point is 00:31:53 Baylor has money too. Like Baylor and TCU are not that different. SMU, which is obviously not the same league, but they used to be in the same league. They all used to be in Southwest Conference. SMU is a similar profile. Now SMU's donors have been more aggressive. And we see the success they've had in the ACCC.

Starting point is 00:32:12 Because you said we were going to run the sunny thing today. I've been thinking about it. And I don't know the answer to this. I can't remember off the top of my head, but I know for sure that you do. is one of the benefits of having a research diary as your co-host. When Sunny left SMU for TCU, SMU was still a G5 team, right?

Starting point is 00:32:30 Correct. Yeah. And I think Mar to the reason why he did that was because he wanted to coach in the power level, right? But now that they're both in the power level, which job is better? Like if you asked T's, I should have asked Sunny this and I didn't think about it in a moment, but like what do you think is a better job? I didn't think about that either.

Starting point is 00:32:50 I actually think Rhett Lashley may have the better job because the way the game has changed, SMU's people are, at least based on what we've seen, seem more willing to give you the resources. Probably more hungry too, because it's been years of craving the ability to experience. Because remember,

Starting point is 00:33:09 SMU is not getting any TV money from the ACC. That was the deal they made. They're like, we'll cover that. You just let us in and let us play. So not only are SMU's, donors footing the bill for the roster and all that, they're footing the bill for the gap in TV money. Yeah. It would have been getting, you know, if they were a full member. So it's a lot of money. And the team is like competing for the conference championship already, like in year one. So like,

Starting point is 00:33:36 in year one, they went to the conference championship game. They should have gone to it last year. They should not have lost a Cal last last year at the end of the season. And I think that it's funny because fundraising is all about appetite. And like it's, you know, you would think that T's, you know, you would think the TCU would have a pretty big appetite too, considering the fact they tasted the nectar of playing in the national 10th year ago. Yeah, like SMU, when they were in the Southwest Conference, had situations where the NCAA came down on them for paying players.

Starting point is 00:34:03 And so it's not like that their histories are all that different. SMU got punished more harshly, but. Yeah, but I think SMU is probably on the hunger scale, probably hungrier to prove itself. And they're both recruit. I mean, like Sonny Dykes. said this himself. I think I read an athletic story a few years ago saying that when he went to TCU, the blueprint for building the program is exactly the same. And the number one thing that changed

Starting point is 00:34:28 when he moved was the logo, you know? So like, I mean, they're in the same general area. What are they 30 minutes away from each other? So like it's, but it's interesting because I have thought a lot about that, you know, access to players and stuff. But we probably should have asked that question. I don't know that he would have answered it. Yeah, also nobody. I think Red would probably answer us if we I mean, if you took a job that was worse than one that you left, I don't think you'd be keen to want to admit that. But it wasn't what he took it. That's the thing.

Starting point is 00:34:56 Yes. You know, but that, but the gap, even if there is one, even if SMU is 10% better, they're still both great jobs. It's not like he made an awful move in his career. It's just interesting that he might not have a decision at the time. And he was in the national championship game. Like, there's no. And he's already accomplished the feat.

Starting point is 00:35:14 Like he got to the place that he left to go be a part of. like, you know, I just, you know, TCU is a team that I always have on high alert of popping up again, because A, we saw it already during a, I would say an arguably more difficult time to compete. Now if TCU, you know, evaluates the same way that they did and, you know, get transfers back in from the DFW area and all the, you know, same general plans that they have, you know, have as a chance to flare up and be a real contender. So, and Sonny Dikes is a great coach. So, yeah, I'm excited to see what they do this year because I do think they could have one of the better rosters in the Big 12. And now, look, they got one of the tougher schedule draws because they got to play BYU, they got to play Utah, they got to play Texas Tech. But it's still doable. And so I can't wait to see them play in Dublin.

Starting point is 00:36:10 I want to talk to you about Zen AI. Zen AI is the home of vibecasting, a new way to capture and share conversations in the same way vibe coding apps like lovable and clawing. co-work made it possible for just about anyone, regardless of coding skills to build their big ideas. Zen AI helps anyone to turn a conversation into something worth sharing, a podcast, a reel, a TikTok, no production skills required. At the heart of it, Zen AI is an AI producer. The producer handles the edit from audio cleanup to the creation of share-ready clips.

Starting point is 00:36:38 You collaborate with your AI producer conversationalally, make audio and video edits just by chatting and plain English. So basically, ZNAAI is paying new Vibecasters to create, their first vibecast. You create a sportscast about your favorite team. And with vibecasting, you get paid to do it. So here's how you do it. Zen AI is an invite only beta right now. So you join the wait list today and you get a chance at early access. So you go to zen.aI, that's zen.a.i to sign up or you can head to our show notes for the direct link at zen.aI, zen.a. a. a. Ari, it is time for the game this week.

Starting point is 00:37:20 the nation. I'm nervous. Who am I? When last we did this, I got it on clue number two. I'm saying it, didn't you? You may get this on clue number two. Producer River was testing it out in the office, and our guy, Josh Newburgh,

Starting point is 00:37:38 who does the recruiting videos on the Rivals channel, he got it on clue number two. Okay. You follow recruiting very closely, and when this player was being recruited, that you were following recruiting very closely. So I'm a little worried that I might have made it too easy. Okay, so he played circa 2010 to 2020.

Starting point is 00:37:58 That's the decade. Something like that. Yeah. Somewhere in there. Okay, so that's a bonus clue. Yes. Ready? Yep.

Starting point is 00:38:07 Clue number one. I was born in Hackensack, New Jersey. My family lived there because of my father's job. Hackensack, New Jersey. Okay. Number two, I went to high school in Flint, Michigan, where I was a four-year starter at tailback and cornerback, and I started on the track team. Flint? It's not Mateen Cleves.

Starting point is 00:38:35 So this is a high-profile prospect that played high school football in Flint, Michigan. Okay. I think I know who it is. I was ranked number 144 in the rivals national rankings for my high school class. I was number 20 in my position and the number six recruit from Michigan. Okay. Number four, I was the 10th highest ranked player in my college recruiting class. So he's 144 in the country, but number 10 in his class.

Starting point is 00:39:13 Is it Mark Ingram? Very nice. Yeah. I had a feeling you could get it early with the Michigan part. The second you told me he went to Bama, I knew who was. I never said he went to Bama. I know, but that stat meant he went to Bama. Yes, yes.

Starting point is 00:39:29 Well, let's give out the rest of the clues for the folks who might not get it as quickly as you did. Because one, these are just crazy. Some of these. Number five, my college recruiting class included five future first round draft picks, a Heisman trophy winner and an Outland trophy winner. Number six, in my first college game, I carried 17 times for 96 yards and a 3410 win for my team. Number seven, my freshman year, my team went 12 and 0 before losing to the eventual national champion in the conference. title game. Number eight, my sophomore year, I ran for 1,658 yards and 17 touchdowns, and my team

Starting point is 00:40:05 won the national title. Number nine, I am the Heisman trophy winner for my recruiting class, and number 10, I currently work on Fox's big noon kickoff show. Yeah, okay. Well, I had a feeling because I was thinking, like, this is a high profile player who went to high school in Michigan. And then the second you told me that he was ranked in the top 150 and number 10 in his own class, I knew who it was. Like that was enough for me. Yeah. Yeah, that Alabama recruiting class, of course, was Julio Jones, Dante Hightower. Barrett Jones was the Outland Trophy winner in that class.

Starting point is 00:40:39 It was maybe the greatest recruiting class of all time because of what it's set up for the future at Alabama. I didn't remember he was in Flint. So that was if I would have, I understand why a recruiting person might have done. They were in Jersey for his dad's job because his dad played for the Giants when he was born. Yes. Yeah, makes sense. But I'm sure there are people in the On Three office that got it quickly because they remember Flint, Michigan. There aren't a lot of players that are just from Flint.

Starting point is 00:41:08 Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. If you hear Flint, Michigan and recruit, Matine, Cleves, and Morris Peterson are the two people you think of, you think of, you know, basketball players who led Michigan State to the national title in 2000. But Mark Ingram is probably the only football player you might think of. Yeah. So, yeah, well, hey, what was that? Four or five?

Starting point is 00:41:27 That was four. Four? And I think you could have gotten it after two or three. You should have got to try it. You throw it out there. I should have guessed because I, Mark Ingram was in my head after clue two. But that was okay. That was my fear.

Starting point is 00:41:38 And you see why I made it so vague. Because if I'd said, I played running back, it would have been over. Yeah. But there are clues. Like, I just feel like sometimes when we're playing this game and like, I love the way you do it. But like, you saying he was the number 104. 44th overall player, but the 10th rated player in his class, like to a casual, they wouldn't know that that means Alabama.

Starting point is 00:42:03 Right. Like, I was able to surmise where he went from that. I knew you would know that. Yeah. So, hey, you know what? We've made it more than a month into this game and I haven't completely embarrassed myself yet. So, you know, it will happen eventually, but I'm happy that, you know, I think you still got to get one right out of the shoot. Yeah. Well, that's not going to happen.

Starting point is 00:42:25 you're not going to let me do it. Now that you've probably never going to write one that's going to allow you to get it on the first. I know, but especially now that you have the belt, like you're not going to ever, like put me in a position. Like you saw how vague my first one was. I was born in Hackensack,

Starting point is 00:42:38 New Jersey because of my dad's job. Yeah. Which metal. It could have been like, is he a metal worker? Like I didn't know. Yeah. I walk on two legs and breathe air.

Starting point is 00:42:46 That's what my number one clue is going to be every time. Yeah, but fun, fun game. Love to have it and that'll be a good clip. All right. Some more good clips coming from this next interview. Rich Clark, the executive director of the college football playoff.

Starting point is 00:43:02 We sat down with him while we were at Big 12Bini days. Now, here's the thing. Executive director sounds like you are the person who is making all the decisions, but that's not really how the college football playoff works. Rich is basically the administrator who handles everything. He executes the plans once the commissioners decide what they want to do. But he's in there for all the deliberations. And so he's been watching very closely and has watched as they've tried to decide what they were going to do.

Starting point is 00:43:37 Remember, they talked about maybe expanding it going into this season, but then they never could come to an agreement. Now they have until December to decide what the 2007 playoff is going to look like. And the SEC and the Big Ten eventually have to agree on something or it'll just stay at 12. Ari, you and I want it to stay at 12, so I'm fine if they can agree. But I really appreciated Rich giving us an update on and explaining the timeline of all this. Yeah. And it was cool to just talk to him about it. So why don't we let them watch the clip and then we'll get into it.

Starting point is 00:44:15 Yes. This is Rich Clark, the executive director, college football playoff. We are joined by College Football Playoff, Executive Director, Rich Clark. And all right, so Ari and I have been talking about this. You're in these rooms. Yeah. When all the commissioners are in there, I don't know if they're yelling at each other. I don't know exactly.

Starting point is 00:44:36 No, no yelling. In fact, I've never seen them yell. And this is, I mean, going into year three, there's never been yelling. There's been frank discussions. But it's always been professional and collegial among the group. I think if someone yelled, they'd get kind of, there'd be a pretty much. probably some some lasting right yeah well and okay so it you know as someone who you're going to do the job no matter what they have to decide how they want to handle this thing and what they want

Starting point is 00:45:09 the format to be do you ever feel yourself going all right guys this good can we can we make a decision just tell me what to do no no I don't because and here's why it is so complicated like it is so complex the things that you have to think about the calendar the TV windows, the revenue, student athlete health, campus finals. Right. I mean, you know, it's just like there's so many things, and they want to know everything before they make this decision because there's no going back. Once we go, you're not going to walk it back to 12 after that.

Starting point is 00:45:46 So I do not want them to rush. I am ready to get our team and to move our team and galvanize us to answer whatever we can answer for them. do the research because we need a good decision here and I really want a good decision because I love 12 and I want to make sure if we're going to leave 12 a 12 team format that we go to a better well this has been my contentional I you know full disclosure we we've Ari and I both said we like 12 already was not a big fan of 12 going into it then I think it kind of changed his mind I thought 12 was a good

Starting point is 00:46:22 number I always thought maybe I'd like 16 better but once I saw 12 I don't really want to see them move off of it. But you said that it's got to be a good decision. Because I've been highly entertained by 12, and it feels like only two years' worth. I'd like to see a little more of that. Rich, I think the problem here, too, before you answer, is that like every offseason in college football,

Starting point is 00:46:43 the discussion is always, here are the nine different things that are a threat to college football, and the sport's going to come to an end, and this sucks, and it's just like, I don't know about you. I thought last year was awesome. Me too. I don't know. Like, so, like, it doesn't always have to be some existential threat that, like, something bad's going to happen.

Starting point is 00:47:02 And it does, the thing that is, gives me pause about it is that we're not even really deep enough into this system yet in terms of data. We've only had one year of the current seating system. Two. Oh, oh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because the first year was kind of wacky because the seating was messed up.

Starting point is 00:47:21 We got, and I thought it was a highly functional year. So it's like, that's the thing that I think is interesting. It's like as we change it, we're so soon into this still. I think part of this is where victims of our own success, because people did love 12 and there's this tendency to want more and to go bigger. It's like 12 is good, 16 will be better, 24 will be better. I understand why people might think that, right? I understand why more access is good.

Starting point is 00:47:54 But sometimes you just have to make sure that you're not going too big, you know, because I think that's probably your... That's our... Yeah, that's my fear is that... The diminishing returns of that. Right. Because the 12 did create more meaningful games in October and November for more people. But it was still punitive enough to... But I don't want to...

Starting point is 00:48:13 You know, you get so big that there's some... Now you're taking a few meaningful games off the table in, you know, in exchange for something else. But as you go into the machinations of this, and Brett, you are more... Mark talked about this a little bit in his address. They have to know that there's value in it. The TV partners have to be willing to pay the freight, for lack of a better term, because if you do go that big, maybe you have to get rid of conference championship games. There are other things that happen on the back end.

Starting point is 00:48:42 What's the timetable on all of that information coming in? So we have to have a decision by December 1st. If we're going to implement this, not this coming. season but in the 27 season. So by this December 1st, we have to have a decision if we're going to implement it at the earliest that season. So that's one timetable. The other one is, are basically our own limitations of we have a meeting in September, and that's really our last meeting before December. Yeah. Now, we could always have another one. We could always do it. But ideally, we get them the information they need by August. They meet it.

Starting point is 00:49:24 in September and maybe they've had time to think about it, cogitate a little bit, whatever, and then we come in September and they make a decision before December. So that's my own sort of notional I would like to see. But technically, we have until December 1st to make a decision. And last year was actually extended and then they still. Yeah, extended. They still said, well, let's just keep it. And they, again, they don't want to, they don't want to make a bad decision, though. They want to be deliberate about it. They want to have all the information because 12 is working. 12 is good. The thing that is interesting to me is the fluctuation and support. It seems like sometimes, I mean, you've seen how it's evolved and I'm assuming you've seen it evolve in person about being in the room and listening to the discussions.

Starting point is 00:50:11 Do you find yourself being swayed back and forth between the pluses and negatives of them? Because you're not going to be making the decision ultimately, but you're also privy to all the information. that everybody's desperate to know, which is one of the talking points in making that decision. So here's how I look at this. And this may be somewhat of a cop-out, all right? But it's, I am as sincere as I can be. I was in the military for a long time. And there's times when you go into a leader. So you just say that's classified? Not anymore, but if it was, I'd have to. No. But so you go into a room and your boss says, okay, what are our options to execute this? and you give them these three options and maybe there's one that you like more than the other and you you put your heart into that one and you love that one and then your boss says okay I want that one not the one that I liked but a different one now you've kind of you've kind of sold yourself on this you you've put your emotions and everything into it but now you got to go execute this one and it can be kind of hard to do right because you're like man this is not the right you know I go into it

Starting point is 00:51:22 it with the pros and cons of all three. And I go, this is what, you know, I give my best military advice. This is what I think we should do. However, I'm ready to execute whichever one you pick. Whichever one of these three is the choice, I'm going to execute it violently and make it good. This is how I feel here. I honestly feel like whichever of these choices that they pick, I'm going to, my team, all of us are going to own it and we're ready to do it. And we've looked at it. And if it was something that was a showstopper or something that we thought, this is going to keep us from making this great, we would have told them already. We would already put that out there.

Starting point is 00:52:00 So I will say, for me, I haven't really swayed. I am wedded to the one that we're in. Right now, I love 12. I know everything. I know the ends and outs of it. Our team knows the ends and outs of it, and we really like it. But we also have researched the other two pretty extensively, and we feel very confident that we could execute either of them in good fashion.

Starting point is 00:52:22 Are there three models on the table, 12, 16, 24, or are there more different machinations within the two other numbers? There's, so 12 and 16, we've pretty much narrowed 16 down to one format that it would look like. 24, there's a couple of ways to look at it, but I think we're leaning towards a particular format for that one, too. So I would say there's one machination for 16 and there's a most likely one for 24. You know, on this podcast, I've had a long history of asking stupid questions. So I'm at the risk of doing it again. I've always wanted to understand this.

Starting point is 00:53:01 And you made this comment earlier, which you said, well, once we make this decision, there's no going back. Why is that the case? What if you make the wrong decision at 24? There's some negative returns or things that happen from a television viewing standpoint that were unaccounted for? Why is it so impossible to go back to a system that we know works? Well, I would say, I guess no going back might have been too strong. We don't want to have to go back. Okay.

Starting point is 00:53:25 You don't want to walk it backwards with a decision like that because you've, now you've granted access, you've given access to, you know, a lot of teams now, 24 teams. And now you're taking it away. Well, I also think it's human nature. Yes. that people don't tend to contract those things. The thing that is interesting about this is that the number one fear, because you're going and doing all your due diligence,

Starting point is 00:53:51 and I know that there are television models and things about viewership of what it would look like and all the research is there. But there is a line in the sand where there is diminishing returns. And the biggest fear that I understand from sitting out in the hallways. I'm not in the room is that there's a fear that you step over that line unintentionally. And I just never understood that. you ended up doing that, like how you couldn't remedy it if we know there's something that works. But then what's the point of taking the risk if you have, I mean, there's a lot.

Starting point is 00:54:19 It's just so. Well, and at this point too, if they go to 24, there's a chance you're selling to another TV network. You're going to have multiple rights agreements that last for X number of years. So you can't really at that point. Yeah. You would definitely, we would have sold those extra games to somebody. Like someone would have bought those and we would have already had a media deal and we're locked into a contract. track. Now, at the end of that deal, you could walk it back. But again, now you're you're reducing

Starting point is 00:54:49 the access now. You're walking back what we've presented. And you're right. You could you could do it, right? Especially if it was if it was really bad and we really needed to go back. I'm sure you can always go back. Never say never. It's just not a good look. And that's why you've got to put your best foot forward the first time. And that's why they're being real, deliberate and slow about this. So like what, I mean, we don't have to rush into this. And so. And the current deal, just, we've only had one year of the current Meteor Rights deal, right? So that's, no, this is the first year of the current. Oh, this is the first year. That's right. This is the first year. That's right. The last two, the last two or the last two of the old deal.

Starting point is 00:55:31 That's right. Okay. So there's, there's six years to go of this format if that's what they choose to do. Okay. Right. So it, I would assume that gives you a little bit of patience. Yeah, it does. But I also, I do think, though, the commissioners, they want to be deliberate, but they don't want to take forever. They don't want to take a four-year period of these questions. They know that people are anxious, people want to hear this. People don't want to look at them as being indecisive. I mean, they don't want that. They don't want that. And there's a balance between being deliberate and being indecisive. I don't think they're at the indecisive place yet. I don't think we're there. I think we're still in the deliberate phase. Yeah. And they do have a few months to go. So we'll see where we land.

Starting point is 00:56:17 But I think we're moving in a good direction. Have you ever thought to just say Sanky, Petiti, right here, arm wrestle, figured out. Oh, that'd be good. That's two or three. Well, you know, maybe if they don't get it done by December 1st, it's like maybe on November 29th, we go, look, okay, we don't have an answer. We need one by tomorrow, so let's do it. I know we've got to get you out of here, Rich. I just want to ask one last question because I'm personally curious about this.

Starting point is 00:56:45 And Andy and I talk about this a lot. The sport itself outside of the CFP is changing drastically in front of our eyes, and it has the last few years. In fact, if you would have done the 12-team model in 2009, I don't think it would have made sense with the way that the sport set up based on how the teams are imbalanced. Right. The array, yeah, yeah. So how do you guys measure how many teams could win that? the national championship in 233. And is that taken into account in the meetings? Because, like, the reason why I hated 12 when we left is because at the time we left, four, there were really only

Starting point is 00:57:22 six teams that were going to win the national title every year. So what's the point of doing it? Now it might be 15. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But we don't know, because this is still so early in the evolutionary process of where college football itself is heading, that you want to have a system in a playoff system that fits that. But we don't know where it's going. Like, is that something? Is that something? something that is, is, or mind just galaxy branding this? No, I think there's, there's something to be said there. I mean, even how many teams could win in 2027. You know, that's a, that's a question, right?

Starting point is 00:57:53 And it's going to be different in, you know, six years, right? It's going to be different. We just saw Indiana win the national titles. Right, that's right. Our minds are very open to the possibilities now. Yeah, and it's a great question. I think that what the, The commissioner's view on this, though, I know at least a couple of them view this as if, okay, if you go to 24, you may have some of those early games where you don't have teams, but you know that you're going to have enough opportunity for any team that could win the national championship to be in it. And they will be in it for sure.

Starting point is 00:58:30 Yeah. And you don't run, you know, last year, honestly, there were five teams that could have been in the playoff. Like, there were, that weren't. There were five teams that got left out that could have been in a playoff and competed. I think the fact that there was danger and that a team that might have been capable of winning the national title or multiple teams. Like Notre Dame, Utah, BYU, whichever one you're choosing here, that they got left out, that added drama to the regular season. Yeah, that's the thing. It's like if you overdo it and it's like, okay, well, we got everybody in, but there's six teams that aren't frankly good enough. then there's no diminishing, or I mean, there's no punitive damages for losing. Like, and that's the thing that's scary.

Starting point is 00:59:15 But I also understand, like, I talk to these ADs. Everybody wants to hang up here. We made the play-up. We've made the CFP this many times. Yeah, you know, and here's, so here's the thing that gets me. And I'm probably speaking a little bit out of turn, but when people go, you know, open it up so that, you know, you're being judged on whether you make the playoff or not. So open it up to 24.

Starting point is 00:59:38 Now there's less judgment because people are making it. Well, you know, the judgment's going to be did you get past the first round? You know, they're going to, the judgment's going to change. Yeah, I mean, you know. Hubert Davis didn't get credit for making the tournament because he's the North Carolina coach. It's a little, every school has its own sliding scale. Yeah, right. So, you know, but I'll be honest, I tend to think if we do go to 24, if we do go to 24, that the first round,

Starting point is 01:00:08 at least initially could be a bit problematic, maybe. I don't know, because you're going to have, you know, those top or those last eight teams, 17 to 24, yeah, 17 to 24. Yeah, the part of the bracket they fast forward through right now on the show. Yeah, right, you know. We'll see, right? But I do think, though, after that, you know,

Starting point is 01:00:33 if we went to 24, after a couple years, that's going to sort itself out. And teams are going to start going, and the selection committee, and college football is going to go, this matters. You know, like, we need to, teams are going to rise to the occasion. And my hope is that teams will go, look, we can get in the playoff. Now we need to get ready to win it. Like now we need to do what it takes to win. And maybe the quality of those teams rises, you know, and people rise the occasion.

Starting point is 01:01:03 I felt like the competition this year in the 12 was better. than last year. Oh yeah. I felt like. And I wonder. Especially the 10 seed going to the title game. Yes. You know, and I, and I wondered to myself, well, is it because now people are going, look,

Starting point is 01:01:17 this is the mark now. And people tend to rise to the occasion on things. And I'm wondering, if we go to 24, does that make teams, you know, does that make more teams now rise to the occasion? I don't know the answer to that. I have nothing scientific behind that. But human nature is people rise to the occasion. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:01:36 And the truth is, the. fact is that the teams that are one through four aren't as good as they used to be either in terms of a talent accumulation standpoint. So it also is very interesting. But, you know, a lot of people are very interested in this and it's a huge, huge decision. So next time you're in that room and we're out in the hallway getting Jimmy Johns delivered, just tell them, don't mess it up. Get this right. Well, come on. That's right. I was going to say just arm wrestling is the way to solve it. I don't know. Sanky does a lot of the like CrossFit type stuff. He's pretty Yeah, and Petiti is pretty wiry.

Starting point is 01:02:07 That's true. You know, I don't know. Maybe they just need to talk about it. All the contests from old school. I think that's the way to do it. Yeah. Well, but they're pretty collegial, so I imagine they're going to talk it out. I mean, they're going to figure this out.

Starting point is 01:02:22 So it'll be good. We appreciate it, Rich. Thank you so much. Yeah, I appreciate you having me. Good luck, and I know those are a long days. This was a long day, so we appreciate you being here. It was great. Yeah, thank you guys.

Starting point is 01:02:31 Thanks for what you do for college football, too. Appreciate you. Okay, Ari, I am not super confident about the staying at 12. Did you get that too? I just have to hope that they get to the point where Sanky and Petiti arm wrestle and Sanky wins. So just so people understand, like, Rich Clark isn't the person making this decision, right? Right, but he is in the room. Like, you know, whenever they have their meetings in Dallas, I drive out there and I sit in the lobby with reporters waiting for them to come out and tell us nothing.

Starting point is 01:03:05 but he's in the room listening to the deliberations and hearing how thorough they are. And I truly do believe, and you should too, that the reason why it's taking a long time is because it's a very complicated change. And they are doing their best from a due diligence standpoint to understand every angle there is before making the decision. But you can also get a sense of how the things are going in the room based on some of the things that Rich Clark was saying. and like at the beginning of the interview, Andy, and I'm sure you picked up on this in person, but he kept talking about, you know,

Starting point is 01:03:40 we really think that this can work, or we really feel like 24 can work. And I'm not sure he would have said that publicly a year ago. Yeah. And so here's the thing about 24. They're not going to go to 24 unless the dollars and cents work out. Because if you go to 24, you're probably ditching the conference championship games.

Starting point is 01:04:00 So you're probably going to need to make enough money to make the SEC whole for having to give up its conference championship game to make the Big Ten hole for giving up its conference championship game. And they have not gotten the valuation yet from the potential TV partners. But if that math works, and this is the thing, if you actually go back and listen to Greg Sankey, the SEC commissioner, who does not want 24, he would rather have 16. If you go back and listen to what he said, he's never said they definitely want. don't do 24.

Starting point is 01:04:37 He's basically said we'll see we like having our championship game. We think it's a valuable. Yeah. I mean, you have to also keep in mind, too, that of all the championship games that exist, the SEC one still seems to me the most important one.

Starting point is 01:04:50 It's the most valuable one for sure. Yeah. And so he's more married to that than others might. But if the math were to work out where they are actually made whole, I don't know how precious they would be about it. Yeah. So the math has to work out in terms of television deals and the bids for the extra games that you would be getting would have far outweigh what you're already getting in that weekend. But I think that, you know, it was also refreshing to hear Rich Clark say what we feel, which is we really like 12.

Starting point is 01:05:24 Like he said he's all in on 12 and has enjoyed 12. And I think that's the hardest. And he's probably thinking about it in terms of his own job. if they suddenly decide they're going to do 24, and he's got to figure out logistically how to make all that work, his job's about to get a lot harder. Well, I think the hardest part about this, it's the toughest pill to swallow.

Starting point is 01:05:44 And he alluded to it, too, is just that we're in the infancy of this. So if we enjoyed how it went, like the change is happening so quickly, potentially, after a system is born. And I know that the playoff system is over a decade old now, but this new system is very young. And the first year was kind of long. In the interview, only one year with this version of the scene.

Starting point is 01:06:06 We've only had one year of it actually being functional in the way that it could have been for two. So, you know, if last year was an abject failure, if last year sucked, you know, I can understand, well, we got to figure something out. But the other thing, too, Andy, is that we actually had a system in place that, you know, had good games. You know, there were some first round blowouts, but if you are some second round blowouts. And if you would have asked me when you and I were at the athletic, and I was in these podcasts screaming back and forth at you about 12,

Starting point is 01:06:44 how many years it would take with the knowledge that I had in 2020 for the 10 seed to advance to the national championship game, I would have looked at you and said, it's never going to happen. And it happened in the first year of functional seating in the 12th. So, you know, it's just like a very interesting dynamic. And I get the sense. And the eight seed won the first year. And the wonky, you know, seating rules that Ohio State should have been the sixth seed

Starting point is 01:07:10 the first year. But the sixth seed, I mean, the team that would have been the sixth seed won. So like, you wouldn't have said that when you were yelling at me about 12. Or if I, or what I would have said is if the eight seed is LSU who had a few weird loss at the beginning of the year, because. they had a problem and then they figured it out. You know, like that. But not lost to a five lost Michigan team at the end of the season.

Starting point is 01:07:36 Right. Yeah. So, but obviously the type of team that ended up winning as the eight seed was the type of team that dominated the sport before it changed. So, but Indiana was probably more like those teams too, but there's no way in hell we predicted that. Not even before last year did we predict that. But you did you get the sense, though, that it's going to happen, right?

Starting point is 01:07:55 Like, I don't know. I got the sense from him that it seems pretty imminent. I think if the numbers work, it's going to happen. And I don't think the Big Ten pushes this hard without knowing the numbers are going to work because Fox is pulling the strings there. So I do think. Well, maybe the research has to come from the television companies to decide, yeah, we might get all these extra inventory at the end of the year. But what if we lose our ass on advertising in weeks one through six? Like, they have to figure that out because it might not make my financial sense for them.

Starting point is 01:08:24 They convinced those schools. to schedule better games. Yeah, in weeks one through four, for sure. So one more, speaking of interesting games, week one, Notre Dame and Wisconsin

Starting point is 01:08:36 are playing at Lambeau Field. Notre Dame made 20-a-half-point favor, but now we know how Wisconsin's going to look for this game. We got the Wisconsin Unis debuted on Thursday. Red helmets. Silver numbers.

Starting point is 01:08:54 I like the Culver's patch, by the way. I actually think that ever, I saw a lot of people were like saying it should at least be like color. I think that the contrast of that actually doesn't look that bad. I love the red helmets. I, and I, I'm normally one that if you have a, because I think Wisconsin's traditional helmet's pretty awesome, that you don't mess with it. But I'm fine. Like, I'm fine with, with reversing the color scheme. And especially in a one-off situation.

Starting point is 01:09:19 And this is a special situation. You're playing against Notre Dame. I think Notre Dame actually handles the uniform stuff really well. they have an iconic uniform, but they're not afraid to every once in a while play with it a little bit. Yeah, I think they suck. You don't like the Wisconsin ones or don't like the Notre Dame ones? I think Notre Dame's normal uniforms are so beautiful that like if you're going to wear an alternate, you have to knock it out of the park, and I don't think they did with the Notre Dame one.

Starting point is 01:09:48 You like the green jersey alternate. I like the green one. I like the alternate green, but their uniform is so iconic that I'm not a snoburn. when it comes to like tradition. Like I'm fine changing it up. But like when you change it up, it should look completely awesome. And I don't think that these do.

Starting point is 01:10:04 I don't like. Can I reveal to the folks what you said the Wisconsin uniform looked like? Look like. I'm going to reveal it myself. It looks like they borrowed it from Rutgers. Like I don't know. And we have seen Rutgers with red and the silver numbers before I get it. But I think with that with that italicized W and I think with the helmet looking the way it does.

Starting point is 01:10:23 And you know, I like the helmet. The helmet's cool. Yeah. I don't mind the helmet. I just, it is what it is. Like, it's like, who cares? It's one game. For the podcast listeners, the helmet is red, instead of white with red stripes and a red

Starting point is 01:10:38 W, it is red with white stripes and a silver W. And maybe it's like, also kind of in a very interesting place as a program. So maybe if people are fired up about it. I haven't even read the message boards yet. How have Wisconsin fans reacted to this? Are they all about it? I haven't gotten a chance to look at it either. That was one of those.

Starting point is 01:10:56 I saw it and we were about to record the show and I was like, you know what? I kind of like that. And, you know, it is interesting because this is a good, good question. And this is something that, you know, I'd be curious to hear from Wisconsin fans or from fans, maybe like Florida State fans. Are you more open to stuff like this if your traditionally good program is not that good right now? If you are frustrated with the way, like are you more open to experimentation with a new look? Does it matter to you? or you're just like, okay, I don't care, just figure out a way to win. Yeah. I do wonder if you're more willing to let some of this stuff go when all you really need is, you know, a win, a spark, something.

Starting point is 01:11:40 Yeah, it gives the fan base of spark, as River just pointed out. But the thing about it, too, is that I think that they're, you know, you saw how Nebraska reacted to their uniforms. I didn't like this, yeah. Yeah. I think, as we joked then, we'll do it again now. It's like Wisconsin's uniforms look a lot better if they're celebrating. at the end of the game.

Starting point is 01:11:57 But, you know, there's still a 20 and a half point underdog. So let's say you do, okay, you're a 20 and a half point underdog at Lambe against Notre Dame. Yeah, if you beat Notre Dame wearing these unis, you're bringing them back at some point. Like they will be, they will be some fans new favorite uniform. Yeah. I mean, memories are in style. I mean, it's like if you have a six pack, you can buy a suit from Walmart and look awesome. So, you know, it doesn't really matter.

Starting point is 01:12:26 All that makes me wonder, like, so I think about my own alma mater, the ugliest uniforms Florida has ever worn the ones that look like actual alligators against Texas A&M. And I want to say like 2017 or 2018, can't remember what year that was. But they lost. If they, if they, if they won that game 35 to 7 with those uniforms have ever made another appearance, like I hope not because they were hideous. But I told you like, I feel differently about it. You know, I'm a weird Instagram algorithm, but there's this bombshell woman who tries on clothes from Walmart and shows everybody how awesome you can shop buying on a budget. And it's just like, the clothes are crappy lady. Like, you're just unbelievably attractive.

Starting point is 01:13:11 Male or female. If you're at 10, you could shop at Walmart all you want. You look amazing. Literally, you could put a garbage bag on yourself and it would look good. Like, I mean, it's just like, that's not what it is. So, but like, go go be hot, Wisconsin. like you know that's exactly right we know Notre Dame's hot Wisconsin you're going to figure out how to be hot

Starting point is 01:13:30 which is why no one's react from what I saw like the reaction is more Wisconsin related than it is Notre Dame we know Notre Dame we know Notre Dame's hot like yeah there's uniforms look good because they're attractive you put them in anything but you know what like I also think too that you know anything that gets people talking about your program is a good thing and you know as long as like if these were their everyday uniforms I would be mortified but like over a one-off

Starting point is 01:13:53 you know, neutral site game in the state of Wisconsin. I do think that you know, it's not going to bother me too much. It does. It's just,

Starting point is 01:14:02 I don't like when alternates look too much like alternates from another school in your conference. And I think they look a lot like what Rutgers. See, I don't know.

Starting point is 01:14:11 I don't really, I didn't make the Rutgers connection as quickly as you did. But I guess that's just personal thing because I immediately made the NC State connection with those Nebraska ones. It would have been badass.

Starting point is 01:14:24 And I don't know. This would have been sacrilegious. But what if like Wisconsin just did a Packers uniform and a Packers logo? And instead of the G being in the oval, they did like a W Wisconsin to like as an ode to green bay. Like that would have been like I feel like they're just not green. Green Bay colors. No, no, no, Wisconsin colors. But like put a white helmet on with the with the Wisconsin W inside of the shape or something.

Starting point is 01:14:47 Remember when Notre Dame played the game at Yankee Stadium and they did the pinstripes? Yeah, like it's cool. It wasn't my favorite one, but I appreciated the thought. A lot of stuff that's like really like popular and streetwear amongst kids. Nowadays, two are collaborations where two brands come together. Oh, you use an X, right? You even saw, yeah, or like you saw even in like watches that AP did a collaboration with Swatch and they created this, this watch that is a plastic.

Starting point is 01:15:15 Otomar Pigay, not Austin P. by the way. Yeah, sorry, yeah, Otomar Pigay. But like you could go buy one for 500 bucks and it looks like an AP. And, you know, people have been buying them and thought they were cool. They did it with Omega's moon swatch a few years ago and, you know, made it more affordable. And it was cool. Like, I don't know. Like the collab thing would have been fun, like a Wisconsin Green Bay X collab, you know, Under Armour.

Starting point is 01:15:39 Wisconsin X Packers. Yeah. Wisconsin Green Bay is a college. It's also. Yeah, that is. But you know what I mean? Put the X in the middle and just Wisconsin Green Bay or Wisconsin. and Packers and do something to

Starting point is 01:15:54 it's the Ode to Lambo or something. I don't know. I like the red helmets. I'm telling you, if you win this game, sprinkle the red helmets in. I'm okay with that. Yeah, it's not the helmet. It's the uniform.

Starting point is 01:16:05 Okay. Tomorrow, talk to a coach whose team has beautiful uniforms. BYU's Kalani Sataki joins the show. Plus, your questions answer. Dear Andy, dear Ari, we got some great questions.

Starting point is 01:16:21 We'll answer them. tomorrow.

Andy & Ari On3 - TCU’s Sonny Dykes: ‘It would be much more of a bargain to collectively bargain’

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