Andy & Ari On3 - Tennessee VS NCAA | Volunteers FIGHT Back | Chris Doering Joins | Re-Naming the "Power 5"

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

The University of Tennessee is under another NCAA Investigation, and Tennessee's Chancellor Donde Plowman had some STRONG words for the NCAA.Today's show is brought to you by PrizePicks, the easiest way to play daily fantasy. All first time users that deposit and use the promo code ANDY will receive a 100% instant deposit match up to $100. If you deposit $100, PrizePicks will give you $100. If you deposit $50, PrizePicks will give you $50.Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/ivHR/ANDY(0:00-2:19) Intro - Donde Plowman vs The NCAA(2:20-12:12) Andy Gives his Initial thoughts on Tennessee and the NCAA(12:13-23:49) Brent Hubbs joins to go further in the Tennessee situation(23:50-36:40) Re-Naming the Power 5(36:41-56:02) Chris Doering Joins to talk College Football, Changes Ahead(56:03-59:31) Conclusion: Caleb Downs' Media AvailabilityIt's also time to Re-Name the "Power 5," so we gather some thoughts for our official public hearing this eveningChris Doering from the SEC Network joins to explain the state of College Football and how its changed since he was a playerWant to watch the show instead? Head on over to YouTube! https://youtube.com/live/xJqRixirZ4c

Welcome to Andy Staples on three and boy, do we have a matchup for you in one corner. The NCAA in the other corner, the University of Tennessee. This one is scheduled for ten rounds. I'm doing it like a boxing match. I should be doing it more like a wrestling match. This bout is scheduled for one fall. Entering the ring to my right, Tennessee Chancellor Donde Plowman.

Entering the ring to my left, NCAA President Charlie Baker. Wow. Who would have thunk that the NCAA's decision to enforce NIL rules that don't really square with reality would cause so many problems. But yes, here they are right now. So let's start on Tuesday afternoon. All the wheels were in motion for this and have been for a while. Keep that in mind. Keep in mind that NCAA has been looking into Tennessee for a while. Tennessee's obviously known this for a while. So all of this stuff is not as off the cuff as it might seem, all coming out at once on Tuesday. But this has been a collision that has been set up for a while,

and it could be a very, very impactful collision because I don't know that it's just going to be Tennessee when the dust settles. This is the NCAA potentially versus a lot of its schools and now we see what happens next. So let's back up and tell the story a little bit. So on Monday, or excuse me, on Tuesday, Pat Forty Sports Illustrated reports that the NCAA is investigating the University of Tennessee. Shortly after that, Dondi Plowman, the chancellor of the University of Tennessee, releases a letter that she sent to NCAA President Charlie Baker on Monday. So when that came came out i did a whole video explaining what that all meant and explaining the key points in donnie plowman's letter so let's watch that

and then there's more to the story after that it's tennessee versus the ncaa that's right. The NCAA investigating Tennessee over. We're not entirely sure what, perhaps it has to do with NIL. Perhaps it has to do with football, but right now we don't have the specific details. What we do know is that Tennessee is proactively fighting back and that Tennessee Chancellor Dondi Plowman basically went scorched earth on the NCAA this week with a letter to Charlie Baker, the NCAA president. And in this letter, Plowman essentially says, look, we're going to fight you on whatever you try to accuse us of. And this is very interesting because the NCAA just got through with a case with Tennessee where Tennessee was praised for its exemplary cooperation. Now, cooperating with the NCAA in

that particular case allowed Tennessee to fire Jeremy Pruitt for free. So there was an incentive. But in this case, it's a little bit different. But this seems to be part of a wave of NCAA investigations related to NIL that you're seeing across the country. You just saw the resolution of one at Florida State where offensive coordinator Alex Atkins got suspended for three games. They're investigating Florida right now about the contract that was signed with Jaden Rashada, the quarterback who signed with Florida but never wound up at Florida, but it was a $13.8 million contract that had no real money behind it, but taken by the terms of the contract would constitute a violation of NCAA rules if that's what they determined. What happened at Tennessee,

we don't exactly know yet, but we know that Dondi Plowman is mad. From her letter, earlier today, this is on January 29 29th a team from the university of tennessee met with members of your enforcement staff to discuss allegations the ncaa intends to bring against tennessee related to nil we appreciate your staff listening to our arguments and agreeing to evaluate them the ncaa's allegations are factually untrue and procedurally flawed moreover it is intellectually dishonest of the NCAA enforcement staff to pursue infraction cases as if student athletes have no NIL rights and as if institutions have all been functioning post-Alston, which is the Supreme Court case the NCAA lost,

with a clear and unchanging set of rules and willfully violating them. It would have been my preference to discuss my concerns with you in person your recent testimony before congress indicated you wanted to meet with as many member institutions and student athletes as possible to discuss issues associated with college sports i am sharing my perspective in writing since my december request for you to meet with me and our athletics director danny white was denied that is donnie plowman saying hey we were going to talk to you about this stuff you You didn't want to talk to us about it. And this is the biggest problem for the NCAA right now. As it goes after these NIL cases, the schools do not feel like they were given a real opportunity to shape the rules here. This has all happened kind of in flux since NIL was allowed, basically because state

legislatures legislated it into existence. And so the NCAA has been trying to play catch up ever since. And it really has become a big problem when they try to enforce these cases. We haven't seen much enforcement. We saw the Florida State with Alex Atkins. We saw a women's basketball one at the University of Miami last year. That's pretty much it, but they seem to be going after quite a few schools, and I don't know that those schools are going to take it. I think we've seen a big shift in the way schools deal with the NCAA in the last few years. It started with North Carolina. You had those paper classes, and that one was a little bit different because North

Carolina wanted to make sure they didn't get in big trouble. They had, you know, these classes covered multiple sports athletes from multiple sports took them, but where the NCAA enforcement staff screwed up is they said they were extra benefits when in fact they were available to everyone on campus. So North Carolina's lawyers outmaneuvered the NCAA enforcement staff on that one. That was not necessarily them just thumbing their nose at the NCAA. That was fighting back with a legitimate legal challenge. Michigan fought back a little bit harder and a little bit differently with the NCAA and with the Big Ten in the Burgergate situation and in the Congress Stallion sign-stealing situation. And remember, Michigan was always one of those places that you just assumed well they're going to do what the NCAA says they don't be viewed as a renegade program that's all out the

window now none of that stuff matters anymore because the schools feel like they've been pushed into this corner and Plowman put it really well basically the NCAA is trying to enforce rules that cannot coexist with the NIL laws that exist in the states. Here's another piece of what Donnie Plowman said. No one wants the chaos that currently exists, but here's where we find ourselves. The NCAA and its members need to redefine their relationship and create creative partnership, proactive partnerships that actually help solve the problems facing intercollegiate athletics. Rather than partnering with institutions, including institutions like ours that the NCAA has cited for exemplary leadership, the NCAA enforcement staff appears to be trying to bully institutions back to a time

before the Alston decision, which will inevitably lead to more lawsuits. So what she's saying is they're trying to turn back the clock to when schools could just unilaterally impose these rules on the athletes and they weren't going to get kicked back in court what the austin decision did it wasn't about what they were arguing about necessarily before the court that was money related to educational expenses what that nine nothing loss for the NCAA did in the Supreme Court was basically said all of your rules are probably going to be construed as collusion if they get brought before us. So you need to figure out how to make them conform to the Sherman Antitrust Act and that's the problem is the rules that the

NCAA is trying to enforce probably don't conform to the Sherman Act. They they don't conform to the Sherman Act. They don't conform to a lot of the state NIL laws. And that's why the next step, probably, whether Tennessee does this or it's some other school that gets accused by the NCAA that does this, the next step is the state attorneys general getting involved, the state attorney general or multiple state attorneys general getting involved. We saw that with the transfer case where there were multiple attorneys general from different states suing the NCAA. So this is bad for the NCAA. And I get it. I understand why the enforcement staff is trying to do this. They have to justify their existence and their paycheck somehow. Because if you follow

the letter of a lot of the state NIL laws, there's no reason for them to exist. So their paychecks go poof. So they got to try something. But this isn't going to work because what you're going to have is some of the more powerful schools fighting back. And if enough schools fight back and if enough schools feel like they're being targeted, they're going to just go in and say we're the members here we're going to change the rules and we might change the rules to make you go away so they've got to be pretty careful here one more thing from donnie plowman it is intellectually dishonest for the ncaa staff to issue guidelines that say a third party collective or business may meet with prospective student athletes discuss nil even enter into a meet with prospective student athletes, discuss NIL, even enter into a contract

with prospective student athletes, but at the same time say that the collective may not engage in conversations that would be of a recruiting nature. Any discussion about NIL might factor into a prospective student athlete's decision to attend an institution. This creates an inherently unworkable situation and everyone knows it. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is what I said, where these rules can't actually exist with the current state laws and the current environment. They cannot exist because you can't say that you can't use NIL to attract an athlete to pick a particular school because how else are you going to use it? else is it going to work these guys have value we it on three we have a whole ranking that determines how valuable they are to schools

not just our nil value but our recruiting rankings there's clearly a market for it and there's nothing the ncaa can do about that they can wish it was five years ago again, but it's not going to happen. That's never coming back. And so what you saw from Tennessee, I think is an opening salvo. If the NCAA is going to keep going after schools for NIL violations, it's just going to get attacked by the schools themselves. And by the way, the schools are their members. So this is where if you piss off enough of them, again, they can turn around and legislate you out of existence. So you got to be pretty careful here if you're the NCAA. I think this Tennessee thing might just be the tip of the iceberg. And that's the deal with Tennessee because it's not just Tennessee. There are other cases in the pipeline right now, and I think that's where the NCAA has got to be

careful here. One, it can't look like it's singling out because everybody it chooses is going to say, why did you choose us? Because everybody does this now. This is how everything works. And so let's get into a little bit more of the specifics of this case. We talked to Brent Hubbs from VolQuest about the Tennessee case specifically, and that was on the Roundtable channel at On3Sports. If you are not subscribing to the Roundtable channel as well as the On3Sports YouTube channel, we'll smash that subscribe button next time. That's where we hit up all the big breaking news and this was pretty big breaking news so here is a little snippet of that conversation with brent hubs from ball quest do you wonder if the

response is going to be similar at some of these other schools as it is the response of tennessee yeah i think that is going to be fascinating is Is Dondi Plowman on an island by herself in the NIO world, or do people jump on the island with her and kind of follow that lead point? I've had someone tell me today that there's somewhere between 12 and 20 schools, or 12 and 20 collectives, I should say, that the NCAA has been looking hard at over the course of the last year or so because of, you know, they have concerns about how things are done. They wonder how some of these things are done. Some of those collectives are pretty loud, pretty vocal, and they've been looking into those, you know, into those situations. And we'll see if anything else comes of it at other schools,

and we'll obviously see what the NCAA's next move is. I think from a news standpoint, from a hard concrete news point, you know where Tennessee stands as of this evening. It's very clear. So the question now becomes, where does the NCAA go next with a continuing on investigation? Do they have enough that they're ready for a letter of allegations? Does that come next? I think the NCAA's response is the next news cycle. I think there'll be some talk, some rhetoric, some posturing, but I think the next hard news thing in this case or in this story is when does a letter of allegations come from the NCAA back to the University of Tennessee?

And it sounds like that this process has been going on for a while because in her letter, Donnie Plowman references meeting with NCAA officials and basically refers to allegations. She refers to them as false. But if they have allegations to talk about in a meeting, then potentially there's a notice of allegations forthcoming. Yeah, it certainly feels that way. I mean, you know, and I think that I don't think the story gets out at Sports Illustrated without that being the next step, because we all know the NCAA goes

and talks to a lot of people and nothing comes of it, right? They go and inquire about something and you know, all the, all the T's are crossed and the I's are dotted and everything's, and it's not a story. It never even comes out that they were around talking to anybody. Then there are other cases where it evolves into that. And it certainly feels like that that's the next step for the NCAA here. And the NCAA has been on, on Tennessee's campus, been talking to student athletes and that's been ongoing for, I would say a year or so. I mean, I think that

they have looked hard into things, particularly in the NICO recruitment, because again, that one was different. That was the first one. And that was the eye opener attention. Now there's been a lot, there's been deals done since then, right. That are, that are very much in the same platform and the same stance done very similarly very similarly with big money dollar figures and all those types of things. So he's not the outlier as the only one. It's just he was the first one. And the first one drew a lot of scrutiny, I think,

from a lot of people, starting with the NCAA. So this is centered on Nico Iommelava, Tennessee's current starting quarterback so what makes this so interesting is the nico contract which we were writing about when i was at the athletic lots of people have have delved into this thing it was kind of the first of what became standard procedure for everybody. Instead of you saying, this Chevy dealership is going to hire you for an ad and this ice cream shop is going to hire you for an appearance. Collective started buying athletes rights, lock, stock and barrel. We will buy your NIL rights for a fee. We will then farm you out to all this stuff and we'll keep the money. You get the money that we agreed upon. And that was one of the first deals like that,

the one with Nico and Spire Sports. So on Tuesday night, Tom Mars, who is an attorney who has built himself a nice practice in the last few years representing schools, players, entities against the NCAA, he put out a statement and basically explains the relationship between Spire Sports, this is the collective, and NECO, and how the contract works. And basically, it's a representation agreement, which is what has become the industry standard. And the parties agree their contractual rights and obligations were governed by California law. That's important, too, because Nico, as a high school athlete in California, was allowed to receive NIL money while in high school. And that's where things get a little tricky in some other states because they don't all allow it.

But it was allowed in California. And so if you're going to say it was an inducement, well, Mars has a response to that too. Basically, it just says that he's got to be enrolled somewhere as a student athlete, but it didn't tie it to the University of Tennessee. So that's where they're going to fight this. That's how they're going to fight this. And this is unusual because we're used to no information leaking out in NCAA cases because the NCAA puts a gag order on you and says you'll get bigger trouble if you talk. I don't think Tennessee cares. Remember, Tennessee is also in line for repeat violator status because all of the stuff that was used to fire Jeremy Pruitt for free still counts as NCAA violations committed by Tennessee. So that's where they're probably a

little more concerned than other schools might be with this situation. But I would think any school in the crosshairs is concerned. I would imagine Florida is concerned. We know they're getting investigated over the Jaden Rashada contract. Like all of these schools are concerned when NCAA investigators show up on their campus. The question is, are enough schools concerned that they say, you know what? We're the membership. You're going to stop this right now. Or are they concerned enough that they maybe take it to court?

Here's what we do know. Brandon, uh, since this citizen in the chat, uh, Plowman is a rock star here. Now they introduced her tonight before the basketball game and the crowd gave her a great ovation.

In fact, Austin price of ball quest shot some video of that. So here is the crowd gave her a great ovation. In fact, Austin Price of VolQuest shot some video of that. So here is the crowd greeting Donde Plowman at the Cincinnati basketball game tonight. Donde Plowman, 147. 147 in the center. With a ball in the recognition of Cincinnati's 27th year. Now the chancellor doesn't usually get that big of a pop at the basketball game, but my guess is it'll probably keep going and getting louder as this goes forward,

because I do think the Tennessee fans are probably going to be very much behind Don DePlomond. Now, we'll see what the NCAA has, because they eventually would have to produce a notice of allegations. Tennessee would probably have to release that as part of an open records request. So I think we'll see what is at issue here more. Tennessee has done a really good job framing this to make themselves look as good as possible in this situation, which is how you probably should handle it. But the NCAA, because of its own rules, is going to have a little hard time framing it. The way they work is typically they've got to leak stuff or they have rules that say they can't just give it out. And so I don't know that you're going to see much from them in the way of hard,

tangible stuff other than an NOA that we would actually probably get through Tennessee. But this one's interesting because, again, if a school the size of Tennessee takes the NCAA to court, the relationship between the schools and the NCAA is going to change fundamentally. That is going to happen whether it's Tennessee, whether it's another school in another case like this. Michigan was going to take the Big Ten to court. It didn't quite get there. But the fact that Michigan was sitting there ready to take its own conference to court tells you we're in a very different time than we used to be. because Michigan's not the type of school

that ever wants to be viewed as a boat rocker or a renegade. Tennessee, we saw what they did. The way they use the violations to fire Jeremy Pruitt, we put them in a different basket. But if enough schools find themselves similarly aggrieved, then there will be action. We saw it with the transfer rules. Seven different state attorneys general sued the NCAA in federal court. The transfer rules didn't last a day, essentially, after that happened. So what if they go after the NIL rules? Because if you're under attack and the only way to fight back is attack the NIL rules,

it is going to be a big problem for the NCAA if it wants to enforce those rules. Now, I'm not sure the schools actually want the NCAA to enforce those rules. The schools have figured out a system that works for them right now. Any new system is going to require more stuff to happen. And remember, there's a case before the National Labor Relations Board in California. There is a case in federal court called House versus the NCAA that's about former athletes suing for money they would have made had NIL been available to them. And the NCAA is probably going to have to settle that one. So all of these things are happening. They're trying to get a Hail Mary from the US Congress. They're not going to get that. They're going to have to figure out a way to have some rules that

they can actually enforce. But the only way to do that might be collective bargaining. And again, the schools don't want to go there. They do not want to be collectively bargaining with athletes. They don't want to be calling athletes employees. Now, they may not get a choice. They may get forced into that by the courts. But they have got to figure out what to do. And that can be under the umbrella of the NCAA. Everybody thinks they have to break away. They got to do something

completely different. It can be done under the umbrella of the NCAA. The schools just have to make rules within the NCAA that say this stuff's okay. We're going to collectively bargain with the athletes. That's the only way because otherwise you are going to get sued. Plowman made that very clear in that letter that in a post-Austin world, any NCAA rule is a potential lawsuit threat and one that they could potentially lose. So we'll see what happens. But this is going to be an absolutely crazy case. Because I can't remember a time when you got an inkling of an NCAA investigation. And all of a sudden the school's chancellor or president just came out swinging.

This one could get wild. All right. We now move on to something else to get wild. We've got a semantics debate in college football. We were going to lead with this, but obviously Tennessee versus the NCAA was a little sexier. So we've got to figure this out. I got a tweet sent to me and to a lot more important people than me this morning from Odin Horns. Can anyone, can everyone please stop using P5 or Power 5? It is now P2 or Power 2, G2 or Group of 2, ACC and Big 12, and R6 or Remaining 6. Remaining 6. Did we add the whack back in?

I don't think the math adds up there I guess we're counting I guess they're counting the the pack two the two pack as one of the remaining six I don't know if we can count that I I guess they are officially recognized by the NCAA right now I believe for a trial period so I think they have a couple of years where they are one. So, all right, we'll count the two pack as one of the remaining six, but we've got to figure out what to say because I have caught myself using the term power five more than I'd like to admit over the last few weeks. And the fact of the matter is as soon as the national title game ended in the sport of football, there is no more power five because there is no more pack 12. So what do we do about this? How do we figure out what to call this thing? So

I've sought advice of people much smarter than me. I've come up with a couple terms myself, the fantastic four, but I think that's taken by Marvel. It's probably copyrighted. And I also think, because the easy thing to do is just go Power Four. My friend Christopher Nini from The Athletic, he said, that's what you do. You just go Power Four. But it's not.

Because that implies that the Big Ten, SEC, Big 12, and ACC are the same, and they're not. The Big Ten and the SEC are very similar. The Big 12 and the ACC are very similar, but they are no longer similar. Those groups are no longer similar to the other group. So how do we handle this? Because while they are not completely similar, they are separate from others. They are different from the group of five or the R6, the remaining six or whatever we're calling that group. So how do we term this? Because we've got to figure this out and and i will i will throw this out there so my producer river i'm going to ask you to do this going forward not tonight we can't logistically technologically probably can't make it happen tonight but i want you to get the family feud x sound so when someone gives a wrong answer on family feud they get the most humiliating sound

like it is a violent They get the most humiliating sound. Like it is a violent. There it is. I want to be hit with that every time I accidentally use the word power five. So that I, or the phrase power five. See, you're slow on the trigger. Well, now. Okay. Power five, power five, power five. Thank you. Better. All right. So now we've got that. That's impressive. I'm amazed that River did this that fast. We need to give him a raise. But this is the problem.

Because it drives me nuts when I hear somebody say it. Because I'm like, it's not a Power 5 anymore. But then I do it too. So we have to agree on a new phrasing. And I think about this because I know that you guys out there in viewer land and listener land think that we have these meetings where we get together and set the agenda. And decide we're going to promote this. decide we're going to do promote this and we're going to be negative about this we don't actually do that we've never done that but i think we should beat about this because like when power five came into existence it was as the the

bcs was crumbling and the 14 playoff was being created. And we had a term before that, and it was BCS conferences. The longer version of that was BCS automatic qualifying conferences, but we shortened it to BCS conferences. So you had the ACC, the big 12, the big 10, the pack 10 at the time, the big East and the SEC, the big East obviously fell out of that. That left five power five worked, worked nicely. The only person who hated it was Mike Oresko, the chair, the commissioner, the athlete, the American athletic conference. And he tried to make it power six a thing. Yeah. He couldn't make fetch happen and he couldn't make power six happen. So we've got to figure out what to call this thing. Ratchet in the chat, the forefront conferences. I like that. Number four, hyphen front, dual meaning.

They're at the forefront. There are four of them. That's really good. I've sought out some help from some friends in the industry. I'm at the Senior Bowl this week, and my friends T-Bob Hebert and Jacob Hester, former LSU players, they do a show together for ESPN Radio in Baton Rouge. So I caught them during a break in their show, and I said, all right, guys, what do you have? So, T-Bob, you say P4? I guess I never thought about it, but yeah, it seems lazy. But yeah, Power 4, it sounds better as P4.

I don't know. I don't know. P4? Big Quad? Here's the question. Is it even 4 or is it like Elite 2? And then we got to come up with another name for the rest of the group. Seems a little wordy, but accurate. So I think Elite 2 and then we'll workshop the rest of it in. Seems a little wordy, but accurate. So I think Elite 2, and then we'll workshop the rest of it in the middle. Is he UBA Conference?

That might be a little aggressive. There's something to do with Quad there, certainly. He's on Quad, I'm on 2. Never skip leg day. Quad Drangle, Quad Conference, Quad, I'm really failing to come up with anything funny. There is something to be done with quads, I think.

That is true. But my friend Stuart Mandel from The Athletic, he's got one that I think we should seriously consider. I mean, if we're being honest, it's the Power 2 now, not the Power 4 or the Power 5. But two now, not the power for the power five. But how about this? You know, hockey has the frozen for the ACC, Big 12, Big 10 SEC could be the chosen for. I like that.

Stewart asked me if he needs to copyright that. I said, yes, do it immediately. Start printing T-shirts. I like that one. Here's why I like that one. Because again, the ACC and big 12 are different than the big 10 and sec. That's why Florida state's suing the ACC right now, but they are also all different from the other leagues in that we are pretty sure in every year that there's a 12-team playoff that the champions of the ACC, Big 12, Big 10, and SEC will automatically be in the playoff and, in fact, will get a bye in the playoff.

Now, there's a chance that the champion of some other league will be ranked higher than the champ of one of those leagues and we'll then get the buy. But in most years, those will be the ones who get the buys and get in automatically. So I like that. I like that because that's where it's different. And it's not like power conferences is different in football than it is in basketball. Because in basketball, you've got other conferences that you can definitely consider power conferences.

Football, it's only got these ones. And so, but again, two of them are considerably more powerful than the others. And the reason why is the big 10 and the sec are going to get more teams into the playoff most years than the ACC or the big 12. Now there are going to be years when the ACC or the big 12 gets probably three in, I would think, but I think almost every year, the big Ten or the SEC will get at least three. And I think that's where the difference lies. So how do we handle that? How do we

find the differences in the words? Elias in the chat, let's go full confusing and call it the Big Four. The Big four would be all right, but again, it feels like the SEC and the Big Ten are bigger, so I don't know if we can do that. I like the one that our guy Connor O'Gara from Saturday Down South suggested on Tuesday morning, the core four. The core four works because it rhymes. They are at the core of the new college football playoff because they're all getting in every year, and there's no guarantee that one of the other leagues is going to get in every single year

because it can go to any of those. Now, again, it could conceivably go to any conference at all because it says the four highest-ranked conference champs. It doesn't specify, but I think we know that the champions of the ACC, of the Big 12, of the Big 10, and the SEC probably going to be the four highest ranked every year. So the core four sounds really good. It rhymes. The chosen four, the core four, a core four rolls off the tongue a little better.

I think it, I think it might work a little bit better, but that is, uh, we got to figure it out. So I'll put up a poll with some of your suggestions, some of my friends suggestions, and we'll see what we can, what we can get because we definitely need to have a consensus on this. We got to agree to it because I'm hearing too many people say Power 5 these days, and I said that on purpose, River. Do it when I don't mean it, but I'm hearing too many people use the old word

because we can't stop ourselves. We've been using it since 2012 and we just, it's become part of the furniture. But it is time to change that. It is time to do something different. So whether it's core four, chosen four, big four, power four, I don't know that I'm necessarily going to go with what you choose in the poll. I'm going to keep some artistic license there. Elias in the chat, Premier Leagues. That would be good. I think, although you spelled Premier like a movie premiere,

I think we'd drop that last E if we were going to do it like that. Although I imagine a certain soccer league in England might get a little upset about that. But we definitely need to figure out what to say here, how to do it. And again, it'll be part of our ongoing reeducation during this off season where we figure out how we deal with the new version of college football. I had a really good conversation with my friend, Chris Doering about the new version of the SEC. Chris works for the SEC network, obviously great former Florida walk-on. But first I got to tell you about PrizePix. Download the PrizePix app. It is the most fun daily fantasy game in America. You're picking

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Use the referral code ANDY, and they will match your first deposit up to $100. Now it's time to talk a little new SEC with one of the great walk-ons in SEC history, Chris Dorn. What about the greatest walk-on in college football history? I don't know about that. You're one of them. Top five? Chris Doring. I didn't have my razor in my... Listen, we know it's a look. It's not a look. It's too old and gray. I would never... It is definitely a look. I swore I wasn't going to do any interviews on camera today, but because you asked me... And we never see each other. We live in Gainesville together,

but I never see you except on events. Well, this is a guy who is... He's 27 years old. In my mind. No, still 27 years old. So that's all right. Cody Schrader is an interesting one, though, Chris, because he was a scholarship guy in D2, and then a walk-on. So we don't count him like that?

Those scholarship guys. I can say that at Florida alone, I mean, Louis Oliver was a walk-on. He was pretty good. Kerwin Bell was a walk-on. That's right. Some pretty good players there. That's right. Now it's amazing the path, but for those who don't know, you held the SEC touchdowns record for- 25 years. Devontae who broke it? Yeah Devante Speaker 2 Yeah. And broke it badly. Yeah. I was gonna say, I was gonna, I was gonna give you something about you playing fewer games back then, but now he did it pretty quick. Speaker 3 And he, you know, if there was anybody that I had to watch break it, you know,

you always want to say the right things about how excited you are, but literally watching Devante do it with the, the, the type of, of, uh, tactician he was at running routes, the way that he was so competitive. It was fun watching that run. So we're out here at the Senior Bowl and you're seeing these guys as they go to the next level. You've been through this process. What is that like? It takes me back to my days of coming here. After we played the national championship game against Nebraska, I lost that game and then kind of immediately went out to the East-West Shrine game of Palo Alto and then flew directly here. So it was kind of immediately went out to the East West Shrine game of Palo Alto and then flew directly here. So it was kind of a whirlwind experience. I had no idea back then of

what to expect. Now these guys, they go through all the training and preparation for this and the combine, but like it's showing up and being on your own and not necessarily knowing the offense and the schemes and the coaches. It was really a kind of an anxiety producing uh experience really what what are those questions like that you get has that changed i know i'm sure you asked these guys now again we had no idea what what any of it was like but the giants were all they were quick to grab you and you take you in there and it was like a 500 question like bubble fill-in scantron test that you had to take personality wise like I thought I got out of this. Yeah, it was, it was terrible, but, and they gave you a nice jacket,

a little pullover giants pullover, but for your time, but it, you know, I remember coach Gruden was at the Eagles at the time. He's the offensive coordinator there. And he hit me with this long verbiage. He goes, you're going to be able to remember this. And then it just ripped off one of the long West coast offense. You're like, I'm not the quarterback. Yeah. Yeah. Just that you tell me what to do do I'll listen to the part that I need to and run the right route yeah the Steve sprayer playbook did not have a lot of long no and you know this

yeah I haven't played there too like I watching the games even when he's at South Carolina with the Apollos he didn't care about anybody stealing his signs right the signs were the same from when we were there there is something to being you know seeing the matrix and there's not many coaches that that can do that they can you know from the field see everything and that that's you can steal all the signs you want it it doesn't really matter i don't know that i've ever been around or seen a coach that had a better feel for what a defense was doing than coach spur you remember we we'd be doing seven on seven out there most every coach has that thing scripted out he's got an empty play sheet with, you know, just what the coverages were and just ripping them off the top of his head.

It's a unique skill set and one that was really cool to kind of watch. Well, and that's the most interesting thing. When you look at these coaches today, you guys just talked to Eli Drinkwitz for your SiriusXM show, and he's the guy who gave up play calling, and it worked for him. But some coaches, like Hugh Freeze, is taking it back now. Because he's probably, like, watching Auburn last year didn't feel like I was watching a Hugh Freeze team.

I suspect it'll feel that way again this year. I couldn't imagine working your way up the ranks of coaching by primarily calling plays and then getting to the pinnacle and giving that to somebody else. Like, trusting your fate in somebody else's hands. And maybe it has to do more with finding the right person. Obviously, the Philip Montgomery-Hugh Freeze pairing wasn't that and it's not that it's not his offense either and that like he said he said in the middle of or after the season he said you

know there were times i wanted to jump in but i wasn't as familiar with the verbiage as i should have been and didn't didn't want to confuse anybody and that's a it's crazy to think about that when you're like i I want to do this, but I can't even say it. Yeah. It is such a balance though, with how, you know, the, the demands of being a coach in college football these days, particularly in the sec. So I don't know how these guys do it, but it's, it's, it's, it's a job that I don't think as many people want these days because of the NIL stuff and having to deal with the transfer portal i just i'll take the money i take the money getting fired for it too that's a and not nothing wrong with a little mailbox money exactly no but you're right it is it is a much different job

and i i find that the your eli drinkwits is your kirby smarts uh the younger guys yeah complain less about it and they're just like adapted right this is well, I got to work for 20, 25 more years. So I got to figure out how to do this. If you're closer to the end, I don't know that you may hasten. You know, Nick Saban says it's not that Nick Saban said it had to be a little bit of that. Right. Well, it had you talk about not having energy. It's I'm sure that takes you drain your energy on everything else outside of football. But, you know, I just I think that, you you know i've talked to a lot of different coaches in different

college sports say it's not about building a program it's about building one season i thought lane kid did a great job of that last year where they have like 40 something new players and to have everybody kind of come together and do what they did win 11 games for the first time in that school's history it was crazy it's funny because i think the best coaches have done that all along and and you kind of have to because teams change personalities over seasons and and now it's it's even more highlighted like even in football like basketball they've been doing it for a while yeah but the football coaches definitely have to do but i go back to like think about when tennessee won the national title in 1998 that team wasn't supposed that wasn't the

one that was supposed to be 99. all right yeah well the four and right yeah so it wasn't supposed that wasn't the one that was supposed to 99 or after yeah well the before and after right yeah so it wasn't Peyton's last team and it wasn't two years into T-Mark so that's the question like and that 99 team had a completely different personality than that 98 team yeah the 98 team was built to win a national title super selfless that 99 team a lot of guys looking at their their it happens it happens, right? But even more so now with what can I get from myself in terms of NIL opportunity in terms of shopping myself around? It's like what happened with Michigan where everybody's saying they're cheaters gave them a common cause to rally around. And you know, those guys were probably kind of the right ingredients you'd want anyway, you know, those guys were probably kind of the right ingredients you'd want anyway.

You know, guys who weren't necessarily superstars from the beginning, but kind of built their way into it. But, yeah, they had that nice comment like everybody hates us. Yeah. So I wasn't you know, I didn't pay as much attention, obviously, with Michigan being in the Big Ten. But like I didn't think a ton of them. I thought they'd get exposed when they stepped out of the Big Ten. But watching them when we were all out there in Pasadena man it was really fun to watch one at media day how tight they were and they talked about that chemistry yeah but two they look like the legit kind of offensive and defensive lines you need oh yeah yeah they were they were built from the inside out and that's why i like the chiron more promotion because he was such an instrumental part in building them from

the inside out. When they moved into offensive line coaches, when stuff changed. And you already get the opportunity to have that audition, what, four games you got a chance to coach this year there when Tim Harbaugh was out. So I think it's a perfect transition. So we've been talking on the show in the last few weeks about what we're excited about with the new version of college football, because it's going to be completely different this season so let's you're on the sec network so let's stick with the sec which team are you most excited to see the 2024 version of oh one i'm fascinated to watch oklahoma texas i mean that's going to be a unique opportunity with them coming to the league you

know i'm interested to see the two teams that won 11 games old miss and Missouri. Can they do that again? I think both of them are actually built to have a lot of success, but going back to what you talked about as it related to that Tennessee team, how, how do you handle success? Sometimes how you handle success is more telling than what it is with, with, with challenges. And Ole Miss actually seems to be with the portal have improved the talent on the roster because they were already bringing a lot back. You know, Missouri, they've got some more key spots to fill like where you know Chris Abrams drain is out here and uh talk to Blake Baker though he actually said look they're set up pretty well and the schedule is fairly forgiving for them as well yeah Blake Baker who is now

LSU defensive coordinator funny listening to drink talk about uh Blake and obviously it's a big loss for them but joking around like I hope he freezes out here today i hope the sun gets in his eyes and he can't see but it's a it was a great phenomenon watch how good that defense became after being historically bad what three years ago well and blake's one like such an interesting case because he was the dc at miami he gets let go he's you know reemerges as a position coach at lsu gets caught in the wash of that staff getting fired and so he finally got a chance to show what he could do and now he's the highest paid dc you know this man so much of being a successful player or coach is being at the right place at the right time with somebody that wants you to do well so it's been nice to watch him have that success and i'm glad we kept him in the sec albeit you know back in baton rouge well lsu's an

interesting one to me because the defense can't help but get better. Well, they only have three scholarship defensive linemen right now. That's crazy. You know, think about LSU. It's almost like at our alma mater, Florida always had great defensive linemen and for them not to have for LSU, not to have that right now. Well, and they didn't have great DBs for the last two years. That's what you're known for. Yeah. Well, so that that's the thing. They've got to get that better. And then you don't have the Heisman trophy winning quarterback and the two aliens at receiver. I do think getting Corey Raymond back to LSU is going to be a big part of helping to rebuild DBU there. But it was weird seeing them cherry pick players that I don't

think were sec caliber secondary players. It does help when you have two offensive tackles that you're really confident like yeah, like Lance heard may wind up starting at Tennessee because he just couldn't Yeah, I mean, there was no place to start him. But remember, just what two years ago, we were looking at, you know, them starting to true freshman out there and how well they they kind of grew in a quick period of time. Yeah, I just I'm so fascinated by all this because the schedules are

different. Well, are you sad? i'm a little sad about the the the elimination of the divisions yeah i mean it just i would i would be i would probably be sadder if like if i'd followed an sec west team the entire time because i feel like the sec west was such a meat grinder and so good for the last you know 15 years it wasn't that way when we were at florida though the florida tennessee game was the de facto championship game Speaker 2 and then Florida having its ups and downs, it just, the east didn't have the same cache and, and then, you know, Kentucky got better under stoops, but Vandy was Vandy South Carolina was up and down. So it never really was that. So I'm excited because it freshens up the schedule. So if you're a Georgia fan, if you're a South Carolina fan,

you're not seeing the same schedule every year. I'm interested. You know, I think the pendulum that you talk about scheduling for a while there, it felt like it was inevitably going to go to nine conference games. And then as much of a grind as it's been in projecting what the schedule is like. I don't know how they're going to go forward that. I I don't know. I think that that still probably depends on if TV's willing to kick in some more money. I'm sure they'll

they'll find a way to do a ninth conference game but if if nobody's going to make it worth your while. Why would you? Because I was always you got to do nine. And I still am a a you got to do nine because I don't think you can have Texas and Texas A&M in the same conference and not have them play every year because the only way to do it with the schedule format they have now is Texas and Oklahoma are going to play every year and then where does that leave Texas and A&M where does that leave Auburn Georgia where does that leave Alabama Tennessee and I'm sorry you made the schedules boring for all those years to protect Auburn Georgia and

Alabama Tennessee so you damn well better protect them now I think that's one of the things that I think I'm most worried about with the landscape of college football changing so much. The SEC is built on history. It's built on tradition. And so losing some of the – we lost Florida-Auburn a number of years back, which was such a great game. That was a rivalry. Both fan bases absolutely lost.

And to not have that. I think there's a way that you can create in this new environment with two new teams, a way to go back and keep some of that tradition just does a Hey, if you want to play this team every year, we'll, you know, within reason, we're gonna, we're gonna schedule you against your traditional rivals every year. And then we'll just rotate around makes a little more complicated. I don't know, Florida wants to be drawing. No, they don't want LSU. You want to you want to do Georgia LSU at our No, no, let's talk about the Gators. Let's the Gators have what looks like the hardest closing stretch of any

schedule I've ever seen in my life. Most difficult schedule in the history of college football, right? Right? Well, because the thing about it is there would be years where you know, you Florida State's always going to be at the end. But they wouldn't have a miami or ucf much less both of them yeah and i think that's like this is and and you know how ucf's gonna feel about coming this way the miami game is fascinating to me because that's one where both both sets of fans think well they gotta win this one otherwise if they can't beat these guys uh oh, both teams have a losing record.

Both coaches have a losing record currently at their schools and like you're right, you lose that game. You're immediately on the hot seat. Yes. Yeah. And it doesn't matter whether it's Billy Napier or Mario Cristobal. Yeah, the same situation for either one. And that's, that's the part like when both sets of fans think, well, if we can't beat these guys were we're screwed. Like that is a strange situation. And then you got UCF and then Texas, like Texas A&M comes to Florida early. You don't know what Mike Elko is going to bring at A&M. I suspect that they're going to be better.

Speaker 2. Oh, I think there'll be better for sure. And then, you know, that everybody's looking forward to the trip to Austin, but i don't imagine like playing the longhorns is something that's all that exciting for the for the fan base but uh yeah i don't i mean a successful season to me i think if you can just get bowl eligible next year you're probably feeling pretty good about here's the question because is that good enough if you're building it i think a lot of it has to do with the investigation going on too i mean you know what would we find out from the ncaa about the future i think it's going to have a lot to say about the future of billy napier like i they're doing a great job recruiting i know that the class slid a little bit from where they were projected but i still think they they did a nice job of of creating some excitement around particularly

lagway the way he's kind of been that that the head of lc mccray may be able to come in and play right but it's interesting because i i've talked about this with a lot of people about Billy Napier. You know, if he had gotten hired at Florida five years earlier, it may have been the perfect situation because he was building through the high school recruiting ranks, you know, getting getting guys on who are difference makers out of high school. But now you have to be so fast and so nimble in the portal or they'll just, you know, everybody else just passes. And I think Ole Miss is a great example of that. Missouri is a great example of that where they're very smart. And Florida State's another good example. Like they go find what they need.

It gets them better. And the thing about Florida State that I don't know that people realize is they have their deepest high school recruiting class in eight years this year. So that has allowed them to get better that way. I think if you're Florida, you look at Florida State, they wanted to get Norvell out of there and they didn't have the ability financially to do it. So they were kind of stuck with them and it turned out to pay dividends. So I hope that there's a level of patience. I know that's not a thing in college football fan bases these days, but the question you have to ask

to me, if you're going to make a change, who am I going to go get that's better but the question you have to ask to me if you're going to make a change who am i going to go get that's better than the guy i have right now right and there's not a lot of obvious choices out there because i you know jed fish is a florida grad but i i think by choosing to take washington now is a statement it's a statement about one the future but two also you know it's it's a it's going to be a grind for them going into the big 10 and, you know, it's a chance that, that could, you know, put a little bit of the luster off the star to some degree too. Well, and that'll be an interesting one, but, but that job, you know, if you feel like you can finish top three or top four in the big 10 every year, it's a really good job because that's, that means you're going to get in the playoff quite a bit.

So anxious to see what happens out there with the those teams from the pac-12 version it's so crazy like what what the what the success is now like because i i keep thinking we talked about tennessee on the show and like if tennessee could improve by two wins they're a playoff yeah like that's the thing is like it's going to be so much easier to get in the college football playoffs than it will be to get into the sec championship game yes which is wild yeah agreed because because three are getting in every year and then and then maybe yeah before i let you go i asked you a question that we're asking everybody today this is so this is the theme of today's show we're having an open forum town hall we are replacing the term power five okay because it's obviously not accurate anymore do we just go power four like that doesn't feel right to me because I don't think the Big Ten and the SEC

are the same as the ACC and the Big 12. What are you thinking? You got suggestions for me? Is this like multiple choice? One suggestion that I really like is core four. Core four is good. Because that means, okay, everybody's got essentially your champion makes the playoff.

But we acknowledge there's some differences. Like the Big Ten and the sec are probably going to be able to get more in yeah than the acc and the big 12. core four is good because you got the rhyme aspect you either got to go with rhyme or alliteration is there an f word that we can use that would be there's some efforts we can use but that would be appropriate the fabulous four fab four i think that's taken i think somebody's already got that but but no it's that is probably the i think core four feels like the the best one but you have the you have the power to push this out but i don't that's why i need

enough people to agree with me because i was thinking about who agree everybody all the the listeners viewers readers think that we meet about this stuff and we don't like we didn't meet to come up with power five and group of five who coined that it just sort of happened organically when they were creating the the four team playoff and remember it used to be BCS conferences and then the Big East drops out and so you gotta call it power five yeah so yeah we we don't actually have the meeting so I was like well why don't I host one of those meetings we've never actually had one so let's actually have one is that in person or is it zoom well it's everybody who wants to come in it'll be your your segment is actually airing after this uh okay this discussion so that's why i revealed core 40 because it will this hasn't been revealed on the show all right but yes

i just think it's one of those things we should agree on because i don't see a consensus like power five the consensus formed immediately yeah i haven't heard a consensus either on that i haven't even heard that really be discussed we keep saying power five because we don't know any better that's true i i catch myself all the time i'm gonna like i'm gonna get my producer to get the um the family feud buzzer yeah somebody says to play it every time i say it yeah i don't train myself out of it that's a good you know i we do that sometimes with like uh crutch words like you write the up there, so you don't use it because you have a go-to word. So you didn't have to make yourself aware. Fascinating is my crutch word. It's a fascinating crutch word. Chris Doring. Thank you so much. You do have to watch those crutch words and also just words in general.

Let's play a little audio from Caleb Downs, the former Alabama safety who transferred to Ohio State. And he had his first media availability at Ohio State on Tuesday. Spencer Holbrook of Letterman Row passed along this audio. This one got transcribed in a story and oh boy, did the Alabama fan seize upon this particular choice of words. Here's Caleb Downs. What is it that stands out right now as you look back on it about Nick Saban? What made him special? Very disciplined person. He was committed every single day to being his best self.

And not many people can actually say that and be truthful with that. He was the same person every single day. And he taught me a lot about commitment, about being disciplined, consistency, everything that goes with that and being great. I feel like that's what he embodies. It was the word commitment that bothered the folks because Saban left and then

Caleb Downs left now I I will I will quibble here somewhat though I I would say Caleb Downs probably should not have used that particular word when saying what he learned from Nick Saban as he sits at Ohio State three weeks after leaving Alabama. But Nick Saban did have a contract that didn't end after this past season. So a little surprise there from Saban for Caleb Downs, I imagine. But yeah, don't use that particular word in that particular scenario, because yeah, they're going to jump all over you for it. And it's, it's, it's a learning experience. It's a lesson for the young man.

When, when stuff like when you change schools like that, that's probably not a word you're going to use in an interview for a little while. It's okay. Because the new fan base is going to love you the old fan base will probably get over it eventually and then you can start using it again but right now maybe just not yet i will work on my crutch words we will put out the poll and figure out power what not power i'm not going to say it power cinco I'm not going to say it. Power Cinco. We're not going to say that anymore,

but will it be chosen for core for power for the big four? We will come to determination. I think by the end of the week, we should have a determination on this and we will know what to call this thing going forward. I think I like core four the best, I think, but I need some time to think about it. Tomorrow night is a dear Andy show. You know how to reach me on Twitter, Andy underscore staples on Instagram, Andy underscore staples. You can email your question to Andy staples on three at gmail.com. You want to turn the camera on yourself, shoot a video, send it to me.

That'd be great. We love your questions. We love when you help guide the show. You have the best ideas. So I cannot wait to see your questions. Andy underscore Staples on Twitter and Instagram. Andy Staples on three at gmail.com. And we'll talk to you tomorrow night.