Andy & Ari On3 - Texas A&M’s Mike Elko PLEADS for leadership in college football | Who could be the CFB commissioner?

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

On Monday, Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko joined the great J.D. PicKell and called for sound leadership in college football. “It’s a $1.2B industry with not a singular voice in charge of it making decisions for the betterment of college football,” Elko said on J.D.'s show The Hard Count. Watch here as Andy & Ari breakdown what Elko said and setup the discussion for who the best candidates would be for the commissioner title of college football. (0:00) On Today’s Episode(0:41) Presenting Sponsor(2:35) Intro: Mike Elko joins J.D.(9:10) Protocol in attaining a CFB commissioner(15:28) Who is in charge? Guidelines & Qualifications(22:19) Tony Petitti or Greg Sankey(25:46) Nick Saban(31:51) Brett Yormark, Big 12 Commissioner(34:21) Joe Castiglione, former Oklahoma AD(36:42) Chris Del Conte, Texas AD(38:56) Biff Poggi(40:50) William Wesley(42:47) Andrew Luck, Sam Schwartzstein(45:46) Nick Khan, WWE(46:58) Mack Brown(47:21) Bob Stoops(48:58) Michael Rubin, Fanatics(50:30) Cody Campbell(51:40) Renie Anderson(53:40) The Right Candidate(55:20) Conclusion: Join On3! Once Andy & Ari dive into Elko’s comments, the fellas dive into what must happen first in order to attain a commissioner in college football. What rules must be set in place in order to even create the college football commissioner title? Next, Andy & Ari name their top candidates for this position. While there are many heavy hitters in Greg Sankey, Tony Petitti, and Nick Saban, Andy & Ari run through their top names here. Who did we leave off the list? Let us know YOUR top candidates in the comments below. Thanks for watching! See you tomorrow - get your Dear Andy & Ari questions in early! For Dear Andy & Ari, send in your questions here:[e-mail]@on3.com Our show is also presented by BetMGM! If you haven’t signed up for BetMGM yet, use bonus code ON3 and you will get up to a $1500 First Bet Offer on your first wager with BetMGM! Here’s how it works: 1. Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code ON3.2. Deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game.3. You will receive up to $1500 in bonus bets if your bet loses! Just make sureyou use bonus code ON3 when you sign up! Make this college football season one for the history books. Make it legendary. See BetMGM.com for Terms. 21+ only. US promotional offers not available in New York, Nevada, Ontario, or Puerto Rico. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (Available in the US). Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP (AZ), 1-800-327-5050 (MA), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA), 1-800-981-0023 (PR). First Bet Offer for new customers only. Subject to eligibility requirements. Rewards are non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in 7 days. In partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel.  Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey Interested in partnering with the show? Email [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On today's episode of Andy and Ari on three, Texas A&M coach Mike Elko joined our pal J.D. Pekyll this week and had a very interesting comment. He said college football would be so much better if there were just one person in charge instead of all these fiefdoms with all these conferences and commissioners trying to run everything, but really just taking care of their own conferences. So how would that work? Got Ari and I thinking, how would you get to the point where college football had one person in charge. And if we did get to that point, who would that person be?

Let's pick a commissioner. Today on Andy Narion 3. We are presented by BetMGM. We use BetMGM lines, totals and futures on this year's show. And if you're not signed up for BetMGM, now is the time because if you sign up using a bonus code on 3,

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Don't forget, if you haven't signed up for bed at MGM yet, use the bonus codes on three. That's the letter O, the letter in, and the number three. And get your $1,500 first bet offer today. Welcome to Annie and Ari on 3 presented by BetMGM and Ari. You know when two Ivy Leaguers start talking, usually get some good ideas. And that's what happened this week when Texas A&M coached Mike Elko,

Penn grad, joined our guy J.D. Pekyll, Cornell grad, two former Ivy League football players just chopping it up. And we have a Pack 10 grad here and a S&A. SEC grad over there, but only one of us had an opportunity to potentially go to an Ivy League school. And it wasn't me. Yeah, but these two guys actually did and got degrees. So I think we should hear what they have to say because Mike Elko said something really interesting. This was the last question to J.D's interview with Mike Elko.

And I think it bears further examination. And we can go a lot of ways with this. But let's hear Mike Elko because J.D. asked a very open-ended question. and got a really, really interesting answer. With your educational background, I feel like you're the best person to ask this question to, if I say, coach,

there's just one thing you can tweak about college football to take a step towards fixing it. What would be that one thing that you're changing about the sport as it stands right now? Put somebody in charge. I think it's a $1.2 billion industry with not a singular voice in charge of it, making decisions for the betterment of college football.

And I think until we get, that, we're going to continue to flounder with some of those areas. And so, you know, what's best for the SEC is always what best for the other conferences. What's best for the other conferences isn't always best for the SEC. And at some point, we're going to have to have somebody who's capable of making rules regarding the betterment of college football, enforcement of rules, and all of it. And again, until we get that, I think we're all at risk of this thing not lasting like we want to last. And so that would be my piece. Okay, it's going to last because first of all, his, his $1.2 billion number was low.

I was going to say more than that. Yeah. It's going to last because there's a lot of money in it because people like it and people pay for tickets and watch it on TV. So it's going to last. But the question is, can you make it better? And I do think what he said, where if you had one person in charge that was looking out for the entirety of the sport rather than these individual, you know, chieftains looking out for the well-being of their own conference, it would be better. And are we, you kind of brought this up yesterday. We were talking about the playoff proposal by the Big Ten.

And you said, okay, you know, Tony Petiti's job is to take care of the Big Ten. Greg Sankey's job is to take care of the SEC. But they both have to get together and come up with a college football playoff player, or at least they have to agree on one, for the good of the entire. sport, but their motivations, their paychecks make it hard because they disincentivize thinking of the whole sport. What you just said, I think it's kind of oxymoronic and not because you meant it, but because of that's how it works.

It's just moronic when I say. Yeah, it's, you know, they have to make decisions for the betterment of the sport, but they're not considering that. They're only considering the betterment, the betterment. I think they, I think they do consider it. And I've actually had conversations with Sankey about the separation of those things. but I also think reality is reality. Neither one of them is financially incentivized to do that.

They are financially incentivized to work for the betterment of their own conference. And like Mike Elko said, they're not always like what's best for the SEC or what's best for the Big Ten is not necessarily what's best for the sport as a whole. And rarely for the ACC and the Big 12 and the other smaller conferences. Like that's the other thing too. It's like what works for the SEC does not work for the other. ones and vice versa. And, you know, I think that, you know, we've had this discussion. And I want to ask you this question at the end, Andy, and I'm going to tease it a little bit. But I do think that there is this constant prevailing notion that if we don't get on the right track collectively as a sport,

that it's not going to last the way that we want it to. That's exactly what Mike Elko said. And that's a sentiment that you hear quite a bit. After we're done talking this whole thing through, let's come, let's come back to that and come up with, is there a scenario where you think it doesn't last? Is there any impending doom scenario for college football in your mind that would make it not last? The answer might be no. The answer is no.

I can tell you right now it's no. Yeah. 100,000 people showing up in stadiums, ratings actually getting better. Like, no. Yeah. It's not NASCAR. I'm sorry, guys.

You think it's going to go like NASCAR if things keep changing. It's not NASCAR. I need to read up on that because I don't really, I know that everybody always compares what's happening to NASCAR, but I don't know exactly what happened to. Yeah, you know why? Because it's football and Americans love football. If Americans stop loving football, then it's got a problem.

But that's a very different scenario. Then the most popular sports league in America will have also a problem. So like we look at this from a business standpoint and on three, like, and I think this is this is true. This is based on market trends. college football is the only thing they can actually probably compete with the NFL going forward.

Yeah. And I trust me. It's still behind it. I know that people love football. I know that the ratings on television have indicated that there's a growth in the interest of it. And I find that to be quite funny because whenever you think about some of the changes of the sport and whether or not most people who enjoy it

or consume the sport are happy with those changes, you could make the case or it's probably a fact that the sport has grown interest-wise as a result of dysfunctional growth in terms of the way. I'd say it's grown in spite of the dysfunction. I think this is a better run business. It would, yeah, it would be doing even better. And that is what Mike Elko points out. It is a very poorly run business. It is succeeding in spite of itself.

So before we get to naming a commissioner, which I think, I've got a couple ideas. I know you've got a couple ideas too. And we're going to have a no bad idea session where we just start throwing out people. Because I do think this needs to be talked out. But we have to explain how you would even get to that point. Because right now you can't get there.

Like right now, there is no way to just say, Nick Sabin's in charge of college football. Like, you can't do it. You can't do it because you basically open yourself up to an antitrust lawsuit if you tried to do that. If you said, okay, all the leagues are going to get together and they're going to be one conglomeration and there's going to be one person in charge, somebody in the FCS might sue and say, hey, you are, you're creating an illegal monopoly. And you might lose or you might have to pay. And so you kind of need some help on this thing.

And I think, you know, we talked to Cody Campbell, who is the chairman of the board at Texas Tech. He's an oil billionaire. he played offensive line at Texas Tech. His thing, at least one of his things, was get the Sports Broadcasting Act amended so that the various schools could get together and sell the broadcast rights as one. You do need something like that. It doesn't necessarily have to be that, but you need Congress to give you some sort of antitrust exemption. And it doesn't have to be a very broad one that says you can just set a salary cap unilaterally.

Because they're not going to give you that. But you do have to get them to give you. give you something skinny that would let you all work together as one, let all the leagues work together as one, whether that's the Sports Broadcasting Act or something else. And so we keep talking about CBA, CB collective bargaining agreement. I actually think if they did decide to do a collective bargaining agreement, and I'm telling you right now, the support for that among people who actually make decisions is growing because they're not going to, they're not going to get Congress to do what they want.

If they had a CBA, and so you then go to Congress and the people who were not on your side in Congress see that you have a CBA, you can't just run roughshod over the players in negotiations, you've already decided how the money is going to be split up and they've agreed to it. I think they'd be willing to grant you some protections so that maybe you could sell your TV rights as one or you could work together. and not be considered in illegal monopoly. That would be the way to do it, I think.

Because I think just asking, they've basically asked for like the pie in the sky. Ari, it's like when your parents come to you, when you're a kid and you're like, okay, well, when my parents came to me and said, what do you want Santa to bring you? And you just put it all out there. That's what they've done with Congress so far.

Congress isn't going to do that. They'll never get enough support to pass both houses of Congress with what they want, which is just turn the clock back to 1990. Just to you know, my parents did do that, but his name was Hanukkah Harry. Okay, good. Well, you know, could you shoot for the moon with Hanukkah Harry? Yes, yeah, I think so. And depending on how good you were that year.

Santa. I want a pickup truck. And I'm like eight years old. I figure I'd ask. So I feel like the kicking and screaming and clawing to avoid getting to CBA kind of reminds me of something like this. You have a faulty garage door. And it's going to cost $1,200 to fix that garage door, which is a lot of money. It works 85% of the time, but once every six times it goes down, it falls and you have to manually push it up.

Eventually, you're going to get tired of dealing with the small hassle of pushing it up yourself and just pay the $1,200 just so you can have a functioning life where you don't have to worry about doing that every single time you leave your house. Like, doesn't it kind of feel like eventually people are just going to get tired of fighting and tired of court cases and tired of being sued and tired of trying to change the way things go and you're just finally just going to bite. the bullet, do the thing. I think they're already there. Basically, they've been trying to get a government program to come fix their garage door for free. And that's not going to happen. So, yeah. But eventually you're going to want your garage door just to work. And I think that, honestly speaking, and I, you know, I do this for a living. I enjoy it. I am probably more closer to the fan in this of that I'm tired of talking about this than I am enjoying it. And if I'm tired of talking about it, then I'm sure you are to a certain extent, too,

where it's like everything's, you know, you're reading legal documents and is this going to happen? We don't talk about it much on the show. Like on my other show on Yahoo, the college football and car, we talk about a lot more because it's a little bit different audience. We avoid these topics on the show because it puts people to sleep.

They don't care. Like right now, you are looking at your radio. Let's say you're listening to this in your car or you're watching it on YouTube. You're looking at your TV going, get to the commissioner names, guys. Yeah, because that's fun. And we're about having fun here.

I don't know what's going on over at Yahoo. I'm sure you guys are. But I want people to understand why it's not that easy. But it's an important thing to explain. And I'll let you get back to it, Andy, because everybody jokes about it. Like, it is a running joke. Everyone's like, you know, Nick Sabin should be the commissioner. How many times have you heard a personality in college football say that?

A hundred? Yeah. I mean, Josh Pate's been lobbying to be the commissioner for years. Yeah. And I know that's his, you know, his bit and it's funny. But it's like, that's the actual truth. And I think that it's so complicated as to why we can't get there. And you can continue on explaining it.

But I do think that the market forces are pushing them to a place where they might actually be able to get there. Okay. Now, there may be some stuff you don't want in the, maybe it's a super league that has a commissioner. but I do think just everything's sort of pushing it that way and you're going to get there. And so if you're going to get there within, say, I don't know, five to 10 years, which I think is realistic, who's it going to be? Who's the commissioner that you put in charge? Because I don't know if it's going to be somebody who's beloved.

Like, does anybody like Roger Goodell? He seems to be pretty universally unpopular except with the NFL. owners who continue to increase his salary. So he must be doing something right. Well, before we start rattling off names, Andy, I think it's important to give some guidelines on what this person's job description would be in their responsibility, what they need to be good at, and what their qualification should be.

So I wrote out five things. Okay, good. Media rights and revenue growth. Number two would be NIL governance and athlete compensation policy. Number three would be conference alignment strategy. And if that's a Super League, maybe that's part of it, but like getting everybody on the same page and even footing. Four would be legal and antitrust awareness because like this is really important.

You have to be able to, you know, understand what is. I think some of those issues may actually be solved by the time you get to the point where you can actually hire a commissioner. But I think that they at least have to be well-versed. Pop up, yes, you need to know what's going on. And then lastly, and this is a big one, it might not be number one on the list, but it might be number one on the list of what people want, rule, equity, and understanding what's best for everybody and not just the small few. Right. And everybody playing by the same rules.

All of those are great qualities. And I think that there's things that if you ever get to this point where you can hire a commissioner, here's what you also have. You probably have something with more with a little bit more common sense organization, geographically and competitively. And maybe you're doing centralized scheduling. Like we keep arguing about whether, you know, Alabama or they're going to drop Ohio State. Like there would be no dropping Ohio State.

The commissioner would be like, no, you're playing Ohio State. And you're going to play this many games against teams of this quality and this many games against teams of this quality. And that's how everybody's going to do it. Andy, I feel like the more we talk about this, the less I want this to happen. Because if everything was just, you know, given down from the guy behind the Wizard of Oz door, there would not be any nonsensical bad faith debates to have all the time about whether we it would be tough yeah this isn't a problem because this is why NFL podcasts are not as much fun yeah you know we would have to i mean maybe it would get us back to a place where we could be like part

of my take and just joke about like the guy who crapped his pants on the sideline rather than like actually talking about the ins and outs but like think about our show yesterday and think about shows that we're going to have when we ultimately get to a place where Alabama to cancel or keep the Ohio State game. Like that is just based on interest and philosophical differences based on conferences and different lines of thinking. And like that's an interesting debate.

And, you know, you have to decide because if you want a commissioner, you want somebody running a whole thing, you don't get to have those discussions anymore. You don't get to have those debates. There's not a Big Ten flavor and an SEC flavor of the debate. No.

It's like you don't have like, because in the NFL, there's no like AFC school of thought and NFC school of thought. Like Jerry Jones doesn't go like the Rooney family's ruining football. And I do feel like too, like you have been really good at helping me see this. Because at times I've been frustrated by the fact that there's no one in charge. But once you've come around to the notion that the dysfunctionality and the different directions that the tugboats are going in is the charm of the sport, it's kind of hard to give it up.

So like I also kind of like how dysfunctional everything is. And like, frankly speaking, just to go on the example that was yesterday, I don't want to belabor the point, but it was just because it was yesterday. We are talking about Alabama and SEC teams and any team, really, in the merits of canceling non-conference games to get in. Or we can expand it out. We can talk about Indiana and Texas Tech as a matter of policy. Don't schedule tough non-conference games. And I find it. And I also find it compelling to watch different schools.

of thought go about their business and seeing which one was right. Like I do think like it would be entertaining to see if Alabama cancels the Ohio State game, if they wind up with a schedule like 2024 Texas and 10 and 2 if they could conceivably left out or if they would get in because they didn't play. Like I find all these different schools of thoughts and these debates and the payoffs of those debates one of the charms of college sports. So like if you got to a point where it's too functional, Andy, like our show would be completely different. Like it wouldn't be the same joke.

So should we stop now before we solve all the problems? You know what? Next up we're going to start, we're just going to rank the quarterbacks again. And we'll, you know, it's true. Like, it is a highly dysfunctional sport. And I think that the dysfunction causes the angst, causes the argument, which causes the fun. And maybe that's just a sadist way of looking at it.

Oh, no, I've always felt that way a little bit. But people keep saying we need a commissioner. So I'm going to give them a commissioner, damn. Yeah. Yeah. So, We'll keep going. We'll keep going. But like, just know, it's for the love of the game, guys. We could add to your qualifications for the commissioner and just have like some sort of wild card category. Like they have to be one out of every 10 ideas have to be completely bananas.

Yeah. But to keep to keep the just absurdist nature of the sport intact. Yeah, like if Roger Goodell like changed like a rule in the NFL every year and people had to figure it out like they did with the kickoff rule, next year, safeties are worth six points. Good luck. I don't know. You know, I don't know. That's exactly right. No, but I do think that the one thing that wears on people, and I think that this is the thing that needs to be fixed the most, is roster retention and construction.

I don't think as much as I enjoy. But the thing is, that's solved by the CBA, which you probably got to have before you can hire the commissioner. Right. But we have to get to a place in the sport where people can identify with their hometown teams and their players and that those players are at least contractually bound while being compensated fairly to sing through their agreements. And that is solved by the CBA, which probably gets you the antitrust exemption, which probably allows you to hire a commissioner.

So that person is probably coming in it. Now, that person is going to be the one who has to negotiate the next CBA with the players association. So they better be good at that. So awareness and all those things are still going to come into play later down the line, even if it's solved before they take the job. Yeah, they better be good at that stuff. So you mentioned, though, that the media rights and all that is the most important thing,

which is interesting because that is how Tony Patini got the Big Ten job. So let's start with the two most powerful men in college sports right now. Would you consider either Tony Petiti, the Big Ten Commissioner, or Greg Sankey, the SEC Commissioner, to be the guy in charge? Well, I think that, like, Greg Sankey is kind of known as a villain by everybody who's not an SEC fan because they think that he's trying to like, you know, use the power and the SEC's prowess

to, you know, bastardize the sport. Wouldn't it be kind of cool to see Greg Sanky, like, in charge of the entire sport and, like, thinking about everybody on the same plane and the way that he cares for the SEC. Like, I think that... What's interesting is, like, Greg, Greg Sanky used to be the compliance guy

in the Southland Conference. Like, he's actually done these jobs in other... At other levels and has probably a lot of very strong opinions on what's best for the whole. And I know he does. I've talked to him about it. He has some very strong opinions. Those probably bump up against his current job as SEC commissioner.

And the thing is, I think it's probably likely, if you ever got to this point, that it's not either one of these two or the people who occupy their roles when that happens. That because they're going to be fighting so hard for it, there's going to be so much, such a large group on the other side of them, that you're probably going to have a hard time having them be a coalition builder. Like Tony Petiti, not coalition building right now

because everything he's done in the college football playoff format argument, it's basically nine against one, and he's the one. So, like, I don't know if he'd be able to, but he's a former TV executive, which, to your point, is that the kind of person you need? Yeah. And, you know, he already is off to the terrible ideas,

one out of every five with the playoff expansion. So that's good. But I do think that it would be interesting, too, because you would have to, there would be an evolution into the spot. And I wonder if the new leader of the sport, the entire sport in this made up hypothetical, can come directly from being one of the power brokers

or one of the two conferences that changed it. so rapidly. Like, that's the other thing. Right. And that's where I'm coming from on this. I don't know that the Big Ten commissioner or the SEC commissioner could get enough support to even get the job. But I think it is a good place to start because I wonder, like, and I think the next person we go to should just be the obvious one that everyone always said. But what are the qualifications? Like I said the five things that I think that they would have to be in charge of and good at. but what are the actual career qualifications for being, and do you have to be somebody who's currently working in college sports?

Do you have to be somebody who's a AD or a commissioner now? I think you need to be someone who understands it, but you can understand it from a lot of different angles. You can be someone who played in it. You can be someone who coached in it. You can be someone who is an AD. You'd be someone who worked at the conference level. You could be someone who, like the Tony Petit example,

you could be someone who was a television executive, who televised college sports, who understands how that works. Let's boil it down like this. Do you want a football guy or a nerd? Well, I think we could have, I have a candidate who can be both. Because, so let's just go down the Sabin road

because I want to talk about this. I think Nick Sabin's a great one because Nick Sabin, if we go to his career at Alabama, was great at adapting to different challenges that got thrown his way. He would create a system that would work for him. They would change the rules on him. He would adapt to that.

The game would change itself. He would adapt to that. I think he stopped because adaptation at that level is hard and takes a lot of energy. And I think he probably got tired of doing it over and over again, didn't want to do it in a way because it was going to be a really difficult adaptation. I think because Nick Saban understood where Alabama is in this universe. that Alabama was not going to enjoy some of the of the advantages that he didn't enjoy.

Yeah, I think Nick Saban knew that he was the most dominant coach of all time and he didn't want to have a seven-year run where they weren't very good or they weren't as consistent that they've been in the past to close his career out. It is because I don't care how good of a coach you are. I don't care. Like I don't think that Nick Saban as a coach right now would win five out of eight championships. At Alabama. Yeah, maybe somewhere else.

I don't know. But even then, like the challenges of roster assembly and retention are so vast and so out of the coaches control even at times that. So I think some of the things that Nick Saban has said, you know, he wants kind of a turning back of the clock. But I think if you put him in this position and the things that have to happen to make college football need a commissioner have happened, you don't have to worry about him pining for the old days. He would just drop into the position and look ahead because he's a smart but person. Okay, so you think that he would have that ability because I don't know if the right, then my number one, here's my number one qualm and you kind of touched on just there. Do you want somebody ushering college football into the future who is longing for the past?

No, I don't. But I think Nick Saban is smart enough to understand the past. At that point, if you've got it to a point where you can hire a commissioner and all, all the leagues are actually working together, then you probably have a CBA, you've probably already hammered out the financial stuff, then it's just looking forward, and you're putting what might be your brightest mind on the case,

I have no problem with that. Yeah. And I think that being a coach for as long as he was also gives him a unique understanding and perspective of the challenges of being a student athlete. And like that's the other thing too. Sometimes when people are behind the scene, or in a suit or in front of a computer screen,

you're not necessarily inundated with the day to days of kids coming into your office, explaining and talking to you about the things that they're having struggles with. And I think that that appreciation makes him a good person. And here's the other thing about Nick Saban that is the reason why I think he keeps getting brought up. When you think about the greats in college football, you know, there are certain people who are universally celebrated. But for the most part, some of the best coaches in college football history, at least in my lifespan.

have complicated pasts and complicated resumes, complicated instances with NCAA rules, are even viewed amongst some fan bases as bad or not great. I think Nick Saban is one of the few people who could have transcended being the Darth Vader of a sport in dominating everything to then all of a sudden being universally beloved by the entire sport and everybody recognizes him as the greatest. Like you will not find a single person.

who would argue against Nick Saban being the greatest coach in college football history. Like that's not a thing that anybody's even engaging. Right. And there were people who despised him when he was coaching against their team who now say, I respect him. It's that gift for that kid with the Yankees hat. Everybody is, everybody's taking their hat off to the guy. And I think that like universal respect is a huge would be like,

and I think that that's the qualification that he would have over any of the current commissioner. I think he'd be a good coalition builder, too, because the thing is, even, let's say you get all this stuff worked out. You have a CBA, you have a little bit of financial peace. You're not dealing with player free agency year after year, month to month, player free agency and all that. You're still going to have varying constituencies. You know, I mentioned that Jerry Jones doesn't go after the Rooney family. That doesn't mean that NFL owners don't go after one another privately in those rooms. and Roger Goodell has to referee it.

Like, that's going to happen. Whether you still have conferences like the Big Ten in the SEC or you've split things up differently and you have schools that have some have more money, some have less money, you're still going to have to referee all those things. And I think he can be a coalition builder. I think he's smart enough to create compromises.

I do think he's, it's just the intelligence and the creativity is the thing I appreciate. And then you're going to see that a lot with the people that I suggest, intelligent and creative. Because I think that nobody's going to have all the skills you actually need. Like, Nick Saban's never negotiated a TV deal. He can hire someone to consult on that. Yeah. But Nick Saban always looks at things with a little bit different lens than everybody else. And I want that. I want that intelligence and that creativity

because I think that carries you a lot farther than expertise in any one particular field, even though he's got expertise in the football part of it, perhaps more than anybody else. He also, if you were to ask AI to generate what the college football commissioner would physically look like. I think Nick Saban would be what it spits out. Yeah, yeah, I'd say, I'd say it looks like that guy. I think he's a handsome man. Who you got? You got another one?

I got another one if you don't. I've got a bunch of them, yeah. Here's one that's another conference commissioner that isn't from the Big Ten or the SEC. What about Brett Yormark and all the innovative things he's done with the Big 12 and media rights and all those things? Is that somebody that you would consider? I would. I would because I think he's come in from the outside, was not of the college sports world, but has done it in a way that feels, one, respectful of the product.

He's not like, oh, this sucks. I don't want to do it. He's trying to create value. you ads for the Big 12 that make the Big 12 more popular than it currently is. He's got a league that I think it's pretty stable now because everybody's kind of in the same boat. And he keeps trying to move them up, you know, up the shelf. And he's very creative. He's full of ideas. You know, they're not all, they're not always going to work. But I do think you turn him loose. He's going to come up.

with some stuff. And also, actually, Ari, I think he's the one that would probably have the most kind of, wait, what type of ideas? Yeah, he's good. He's the guy with the point out. We need to still have in college football. Well, I think that without the football background, he has made himself feel like a football guy. Like, I don't, I don't view him as like, oh, look at this suit who doesn't know anything about our sport. Like when he's in the room, who came from the NBA and yeah. Yeah. Like, he seems to really get it. And I, and I think, he seems to really get it. And I think that he came in during a very tumultuous time in his conference, too. Let's not forget.

He stabilized a team, a group of teams that was kind of on the brink of like, what the hell are we doing here? So, um, like I have a lot of respect for him and the way that he has kind of sustained the big 12 and frankly speaking has muscled the right ways in a lot of these playoff negotiations and different things. He's in the rooms with Sankey and Petiti all the time. And I think that his voice is heard. And I think that that's an important quality.

So, um, I just wanted to at least put his name out there. I was talking to Pete Naco's on the phone this morning, and he thought that this is somebody, too, that he would mention. And, you know, I agree with that. So I think that's a good choice. I'm going to throw another one out there. And it depends on how long this takes because he's just retired from his current job. Now, I don't think he's looking to be completely retired.

But this guy, he's in his late 60s. So, you know, if we go 10 more years, I don't know if he's going to want it. But former Oklahoma athletic director, Jokie Stiglione, nobody cares more. nobody thinks harder about it. And if you know Joe, there's a lot of things that he's been kind of pushing for behind the scenes,

common sense stuff that he understands where the sport's going and kind of understood for a long time and was trying to get everybody else on board. And I think if you put him in a situation where he is leading the way and isn't necessarily constricted by, he's got the conference commissioner above him. He's got these other ADs he's got to deal with.

I would love to see him because he would definitely be a good coalition builder. He would definitely be able to get everybody together pulling in the same direction. And from a qualification standpoint, I'm very curious what your thoughts are on the commissioner versus AD qualification. Like which one do you think is more like, you know,

boots on the ground? I don't necessarily think it matters because I think there's a lot of ADs who could become commissioners too. And commissioners who, if they decided to just work at one school, would be good ADs. So, but I think Joe, just the way Joe deals with people is everybody feels special when they're around, Joe. Even if Joe's telling you something you don't want to hear. You shake his hand for the first time and it feels like the hundredth time. Yes, yes.

And I think he, understands the sport really well. And he would not be one of those people, even though he's in the generation that a lot of those guys are retiring now because they don't want to deal with the changes. I don't think that's Joe's issue. I think Joe's never been too precious about the way things used to be. He's willing to look forward and decide how things can be best going forward.

So I think he's good. And I think actually one of his friends in the business would be a lot of fun in this role too. and you want to talk about somebody who could throw some wild ideas in there. Texas AD Chris Del Coney. Yeah. I like the AD level to this because I feel like they are close to the players and close to the administrators. Doesn't it kind of feel like they've got their legs in both doors a little bit? Whereas I'm sure commissioners interact and have their exposure to players,

but not at the same level that an AD would. And the thing that you would also want to find too is, is a organization that has run consistently and functionally. And I don't know that you would have said that about his Texas historically, but think about the strides that that university has made with their football program over the course of the past five years and who was like overseeing that growth. Like I think that's a good sign. Yeah.

No, I, I think he's the one. And remember, Texas was pretty dysfunctional as an athletic department before he took over. He got everybody pulling in the same direction. which was something that at that time seemed impossible. And I think that's, again, you're going to be dealing with such diverse constituencies. You're going to have so many people arguing saying, we need this, I need this, I need this. You have to be able to get everybody together. And remember, if you're at the University of Texas, you're the AD, you have donors who are

by themselves incredibly successful people. They are not used to being told no. They're used to being told absolutely whatever you need. here's what we can do for you. Sometimes their wishes are at odds, and the Texas AD has to go in there and referee that. And I think that would be an important skill set to have in this new world. And the burnt orange blazer certainly helps too.

Well, you know, he went purple blazer when he was the TCU AD. Yeah. Chris will be the best dress commissioner. There is no doubt he'd be the best dress commissioner. you know who's always got great blazers as Ohio State Athletic Director Ross Bjork I am a big alternate color blazer guy and I've never bought one

but I want to be that person one day we work on that but you have an alternate color blazer that you wore that was really good looking I went I went baby blue for the national title game yeah baby blue blazer yeah I like that but with a flower you know flower under the lapel too

yeah yeah so But Chris would be the best dressed, and he would definitely wear the boots pretty much everywhere. I've got, I've got one. I've got one. This is a person who's been successful in the world of finance and also influential in the world of football. You ready? You're ready? I think I know who it is.

Roll the video. Good question. I want to keep my sugar on it. No, no problem. Biff Pogie. Former Michigan interim coach, former Charlotte head coach, that didn't go well.

But managed to hedge fund, built a powerhouse at the high school football level, was kind of the guy behind the guy with Harbaugh at Michigan. Biff Pogh is going to have a lot of ideas, a lot of thoughts about how to do this right. Anybody who has been independently successful running any type of organization, that's not college football would be a good qualification too. Because as you know, Andy, there are so many moving parts and so many different areas of the country and levels and program types and preferences and geographical limitations, all these different things that you're going to have to put into one plane.

Like, don't you want somebody who has already run an organization that knows how to run one? Like, and maybe that's at the football level from a coaching perspective. Maybe that's at a conference level with a commissioner perspective or even the school level as an AD. but like anybody who run like I already have respect for anybody who's like run a hedge fund well all right let me let me throw another one this is this is one I hadn't thought of before but now now now you got my my brain turning and this is one I he his expertise is in a different sport but he's sort of connected to everything and he's he's been connected to everything for decades now worldwide west

Okay. William Wesley, who has been a man behind the curtain in sports, why not bring him in front of the curtain and be like, at least interview the man. How would you run this? You've been dealing with athletes, you've been dealing with executives,

you've been dealing with coaches, you've been dealing with agents, you know every piece of the world, you know, every corner of the world. What if you were running? You almost, you almost, feel like, and I wonder with this suggestion, Andy, if hiring somebody with too much familiarity with college football would be a detriment. Like if you are too close to the game or have too much

experience that your decision making would be based in large part in ways of maintaining how things used to be when maybe the correct person has to figure out how to usher it into the future the right way. And you would maybe go out in, in, leave the football footprint in order to find that person. And like anybody, okay, your mark, like your mark has, has shown himself to be a very smart person in the football world now that he's in it. He wasn't in it before. But yeah, somebody like World Wide West who understands all of the various constituencies

and has been able to move seamlessly among them for an entire career. And look, let's be real, this person might have to have something to do with college basketball, too. I don't know if they are. I don't know if this is a football job or you have a separate person who does basketball. But this is someone who understands how pro sports work, how brand building works, how everything works. Okay. So let me take it from here and give you another one. Andrew Luck.

I like Andrew Luck. So Oliver Luck, his dad is someone who's frequently suggested for a job like this. And I love Oliver. And you talk to him. He's doing consulting work now. He's been an AD. He's been a quarterback at a big school. He was in West Virginia.

He's been a professional quarterback. He's run pro leagues before. He's got a – so Oliver has a really diverse group of experiences. But Andrew, who has learned from his dad, is now navigating the new world as the Stanford GM was a great college quarterback has been an NFL quarterback and dealt with that world, that would be

a really good one. He's also freakishly smart. Yes. Yes. The smartest person in every room he ever walks into no matter who's in it. Now, if Andrew gets the job, there's a person who I think he'd hire immediately

and not to poo-poo the Andrew choice. But I say we also consider the guy that Andrew would hire right off the bat for the big job. And that's our pal Sam Swartzstein. He was Andrew's center at Stanford. Even if you don't know who Sam is, you've watched Sam's work.

The new NFL kickoff is what Sam came up with for the XFL. He designed that. He wanted to create a play where they would actually return kickoffs again. So he took the giant collisions out of it, the running head start, and now you have more kickoff returns and more kickoff returns for touchdowns. That's the type of thinking he does. He works for Amazon right now.

He does the Amazon advanced stats broadcast on the Thursday night football. One of the better thinkers about the game of football that you will ever meet. He was Andrew Luck's center at Stanford. So he played for Harbaugh. And every single time you say Stanford, it gets more convincing. Sam is so. We'll have, actually, I'll tell you what, We will have Sam on the show this offseason because he listens.

He'll text me every once in a while. He's a great resource in general. But I don't know that I've met anyone who thinks more creatively about the sport of football. Now, he was tasked with thinking very creatively about the on-field product when he worked. He was hired by Oliver Luck at the XFL. But I do think Sam, if you put him in a position, like this would think creatively about everything. We say, okay, how do we distribute this the best with our media rights deals?

How do we make this the biggest sport in the universe? How do we need to change the on-field product? Is there anything we need to do that can make it better? Yeah. I feel like we came up with some good names there. Do you want to go to the next one? I try to think, is there anybody we missed? Is there no bad ideas time?

Who else we got? I'm going through the list here. Let me see. I got one. I got one. Okay, go ahead. Nick Kahn, he's the head of WWE now. He used to be an agent at Creative Artist's agency.

So, and I believe the SEC hired him to work on their TV deals before Nick left CIA to run the WWE. But the fact that you're running the WWE now, you understand media rights deals. you understand spectacle, you understand storytelling, you understand brand building, all of that. All of that would be really useful in college football. And then you could always hire somebody to help you through like the rules and regulations of how. Yeah. Also, college football probably resembles the WWE more than any other sport. Yeah.

I mean, assistant coach's pet monkey bit somebody once. That happened. Does that sound like something that would happen in pro wrestling? I don't know. Chris Delcani had to deal with that. A few other names here, Andy, Mac Brown. Oh, yeah. A steward of the sport that, you know, I feel like he could unite any room.

Honestly, I feel like if he were in politics, he would have been really good at that. Right. And the thing is, whether you want to believe it or not, college football commissioner would be a hugely political job. And Mack Brown would handle the politics of that job really well. Bob Stoops is somebody that River mentioned? What do you think of Bob Stoops? I love Bob Stoops, and I'll tell you why. Bob Stoops is not afraid to take a stand for what he believes in,

but he's also a little more of a coalition builder behind the scenes than you think. And just one of the smarter people you'll meet. I've mentioned this on the show a few times. When I was a walk-on at Florida, Bob Stoops was the 36-year-old defensive coordinator, and you could tell this guy is going to be special, special. And you look at what the way he worked, the way he operated, the way he dominated in the Big 12. I look at the way he just,

he molded what he'd learned from Bill Snyder with what he learned from Steve Spurrier to create, I think one of the more perfect coaching philosophies. And so I think, and it wasn't just, philosophy on field coaching. It was a philosophy of how your staff works during the week and, and, you know, how much family time they get. And he was able to create like a work life balance that other staffs didn't have, which is the exact opposite of the Bill Snyder regime. He took

it from Spurrier, but then he had these teams that were incredibly disciplined like the Bill Snyder teams. I think he's one, if he wanted to do it. Now, he seems to be having fun selling tequila now. But if you wanted to do it, I would definitely enjoy that interview. Let me give you another one that's off the wall. It might sound crazy. You might be like, no way. But can I just throw it out there? What about Michael Rubin? The owner of fanatics?

I don't know. I know where you're going with this. He's another one like World Wide West who has his hand in every piece of sports. And I know he's in the gambling which might already disqualify him. But in terms of like brand growth, business growth. Well, but working in gambling and understanding the gambling world,

actually is probably going to be a requirement now. Yeah. So whether you like it or not, you're going to be dealing with it. Yeah. But, you know, if you start to like think, like I feel like just saying Nick Saban is just a low-hanging fruit.

Like I think we have to really expand our horizons of like who we're thinking about. And I think that would he take the pay cut is the question. Yeah. Well, I also think, too, that he loves sports, obviously, with his like immersed his entire life is immersed with fanatics now and in doing all that but like I do think about like if you look at his background and how he got wealthy and you know the the exposure that he had to different like shopping you know outlets and all these things like I just I don't know like he seems like a very smart person that understands sports yeah and I think that's that's the key

like you cast a wide net you look for smart people you don't necessarily limit it to people who coached or people who played. Though I do think it helps if you played, which leads me to one more. And it's a guy we've actually mentioned already in the show today. But I don't know if you take the pay cut. Ditto for just like Michael Rubin.

Cody Campbell. Cody Campbell, former Texas Tech offensive lineman. I think you would take the pay cut, by the way. Went on to Starz Zone oil and gas company is very interested in all this stuff and has been very active in trying to shape the future of college sports. He's the one who very publicly pushed

for the job. changing the sports broadcasting act. So we know if Cody was the future commissioner, how he'd get there. He's already told us how he'd get there. And I think he's also one who, when we had him on it big 12 mini days, it was interesting because we were talking about, you know, hey, Cody, you say you don't like any of this, but you're a very active participant in it. And his thing is, you just work within the system you're given.

So I think that that level of flexibility, would help you if you were in a role this big and overreaching. Yeah. I'm trying to think of anybody else that we might have. The fact that Cody played, I think, helps too. Like, there's a little bit of instant credibility there. Yeah. How about a one?

How about a woman? You ready? Who you got? What about Renee Anderson, the chief revenue officer of the NFL? Like, what if you, like, go get somebody who's been, at that level working in the NFL at a pretty high level who takes their expertise on how the NFL runs so functionally and then applies it to college football

once they have the CBA, excuse me, tickle on my throat, once they have the CBA, like, you know, just from a diversity standpoint too, you know, I can't think of somebody who would be more qualified than somebody who runs that type of operation in the world's most successful sports league. Well, and that's the thing is, again, cast a wide net because the end.

NFL probably is where you'd start to look for a lot of these candidates because they are running a business probably most similar to what you're going to be running. So yes, people who were high up in the NFL would be absolutely somebody you'd consider because they're going to have the skill set and they're going to understand. And now she, I'm trying to think of, you know, because we haven't heard a lot of Goodell successor type names. Yeah, she might be in line. She might be one of those. Yeah.

So, you know, just people I think, you know, we're always so like, football, college football, college football, college football on the show. And it's just like, well, maybe you need somebody from the NFL to help us out a little bit, you know. Well, the thing is, it's not. And I get, I hear a lot of people say, well, I don't want it to become just like the NFL. It won't. It won't. there's no level of governance that's going to make it exactly like the NFL, and nor do you want it to be.

Like, you don't want to take away what makes college football special. And I think the people we've mentioned are all smart enough to understand that. Somebody like, oh, we're getting rid of the marching ban so we can pump some more EDM into the stadium to keep the beats per minute high. That's not what's going to happen. The right person, whoever that person is, if this job ever really exists, exists is going to understand what makes college football special, embrace that, and then try to push it forward to engage more people.

And that's the part that this person, like what their chief job would be, is there are like 10 million hardcore college football fans. Like that's the audience you and I are reaching every day or trying to reach. Yeah. Those 10 million people. And then there's another 20 million or so that, that there's. during the season, they're watching games every week. But then there's the rest of the world,

the rest of the sports watching world. And it's a big number. And you want to get more of that number into those other two groups. That's this person's job. But I think part of that is keeping what's special about this thing. Because I think it's one of those, and it may be a lot of these people just never been introduced to it, never experienced it.

So, I'm excited. I'd be excited if there was such a job because I think it would be fun to watch the search for someone who could actually shepherd it into a bigger thing. I'm all for the chaos while we have it though. Also, if it's bit pogey, I want him sleeveless. Yeah.

But cheers to chaos, Andy, for the time being. Oh, we got chaos for several more years. So enjoy the chaos. Hey, great time to remind everybody. Wednesday, tomorrow, mega board Wednesday. We dive into the message boards. And we are in the thick of the off-seasonary, which means the message boards.

This is when they get really, really special. Andy, I know I'm terrible at ruining your outro, but I wanted to make one more thing. Okay, go for it. Go for it. On 3 just released today a huge deal for national Yes So go ahead and promote that

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We've got the biggest recruiting operation in the country. So nobody covers college sports like On 3 in Rivals. On 3.com slash join 1999 for your first year. We'll see all of you on the website. And we'll see all of you tomorrow for Megaboard Wednesday.