Andy & Ari On3 - Would the SEC threaten to boot Tennessee for following its own state law?

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

There could be a showdown looming between Tennessee and the SEC.(0:00-0:48) Intro(0:48-19:35) Could SEC threaten Tennessee or Vanderbilt?(19:36-34:32) Wrapping up the SEC, Tennessee talk(34:33-43:23) Notre Dame-USC ending?(43:24-47:21) Story Time with Ari(47:22-52:21) What's next with Notre Dame-USC(52:22-1:00:46) Conclusion: Cotton Bowl Food Tennessee (the state) passed a law that appears to be insurance in case the House v. NCAA settlement blows up. The SEC and the other power conferences are demanding that their schools abide by the rules created by the settlement. Tennessee (the university) fears those rules may violate federal law and doesn’t want to get sued. It’s a standoff! Plus, is USC about to cancel its football series with Notre Dame? If the series dies, would it be one of the softest moves in college football history? Watch our show LIVE, M-F at 9:30 am et: https://youtube.com/live/jB3zMzLjFB4 Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey Want to partner with the show? E-mail [e-mail]

Welcome to Annie and Ari on three. Where it wouldn't be a Tuesday if we didn't have more chaos in the world of college sports, we were going to go over Ari's projected college football playoff bracket and then Tennessee and the conference is just boom. Just know what you get when you sign off an episode with a two minute diatribe about how we could be talking about rules and the house settlement and NIL. But football at this time of year is just more fun. This is what you get.

Like you did this. I know I brought this on myself. The problem is like, yeah, talking about the rules is usually really boring. Not when it's a standoff. Not when like they've got figurative guns pointed at each other. The conferences, ACC, Big 10, Big 12, SEC, are basically circulating a document. And this is something that they say

that they would like to use, where basically they will make the school sign a loyalty oath saying You will you agree to abide by the rules that we are putting forth in the house settlement Which is the the salary cap and all that stuff and If you don't we'll kick you out And tennessee Also vanderbilt which is sort of just caught in the middle of this,

is like, no, we have a state law that we passed two weeks ago that says you can't force us to violate the Sherman Act. And therefore, we're not going to follow your rules necessarily. So that is where they're at. Like they are pointing the figurative guns at one another. And like, would one of these conferences actually try to kick one of these schools out? Isn't weird that I spent all morning like thinking about conference realignment and like where Tennessee would end up if that happened. Like I just like this is all gonna blow up. But like here's the deal that I like and you're gonna have to walk me through this stuff like I'm fine. You're the seasoned one with this.

But I think that what we want in college football is for everybody to be beholden to the same set of rules. Now there's gonna be people who do things better. There's gonna be people who do things more efficiently, smarter, uh, have more money. There's always going to be, it's never going to be the NFL where everybody's on the same playing field because fan bases, universities and areas of the country are just different. But I feel like the thing that wears on people the most more than realignment more than playoff expansion, more than recruiting violations, is that they don't

feel like everybody is playing the same sport. And I just want to get to a point where we're playing the same sport. And it's just like, if we can't even figure it out in our own conference, like, what are we doing? They they all want that. The people in charge all want that they just now have different ideas about how to get there. And the thing about it is the people who are mostly in charge, the people running the conferences, they believe that what they've put together in the house settlement is going to be enough

to actually govern this and is going to be enforceable. Everybody else who's paid attention to anything involving this stuff over the last 15 years is going, no, it won't. This is going to blow up. And so that's why the state of Tennessee passed a law and I'll, we'll walk everybody through this now. So on May 1st, the Tennessee legislature passed a law. It was basically replacing the state's NIL law.

And it did a couple of things. One of the things it did is it said the schools in the state can pay athletes directly. That is what everybody's doing in every state. They're changing their laws or they're getting an executive order from their governor that lets them pay athletes directly because they're going to be able to do that when the house settlement gets approved, which we think is going to happen soon. But what the folks in Tennessee are concerned about and the people at the University of Tennessee help them craft this legislation. So when I say Tennessee, I'm referring to the state and to the university. What they think is going to happen is this is all going to blow up because here's what the house settlement says.

You can pay athletes directly up to a percentage of the average revenue in the power conference. So in this coming school year, the cap that the school could pay out is $20.5 million. In addition to that, athletes can go get NIL deals on their own, which is fine. Everybody's okay with that. Where it hangs up is they want to have this enforcement system where the deals get vetted and if it looks like it's just for football and not for like a legitimate advertising or endorsement purpose and it's not quote unquote market value. The deal would be invalidated if the player would like to play you have to go back and renegotiate and create a deal that would get approved. This is not going to hold up. This is not going to hold up. And a lot of people understand that because it is still the schools and the conferences unilaterally

imposing a wage cap on the athletes. It is illegal in this country for competitors to collude to price fix a labor market. That is what they keep getting in trouble in the courts for. They can't do that. They're not allowed because what they're trying to do is saying, okay, fine, fine, fine. We'll finally pay you people. But once we pay you people, stop it. Did I translate?

Stop it. Here I translate correctly? Just stop it. Here's the thing, whether the cap is $0 or the cap is $100 billion, it's still a cap. And you can't unilaterally impose it. Now you can negotiate with the labor force. So the NFL has a collective bargaining agreement. They have lots of rules that they have to follow.

Everybody does. But the collective bargaining agreement doesn't have any sort of language, to my understanding, on how people make money in their quote unquote NIL space. Well you can't circumvent the salary cap. You can't use it. So like if you can circumvent the salary cap, but but once somebody so you're saying that if somebody goes into NIL because they're not getting enough from their rev share to supplement their income in order to go there But like how do you even prove that? That's the there's the issue Because the people who are doing the paying who are probably gonna be boosters We're probably trying to slide the players

some extra money, they're gonna say, who are you to tell me I can't pay this person what I wanna pay them? This is the whole discussion that we had months ago about this of like, you, I still think you believe this, but correct me if I'm wrong, that you think that it'll be more like Major League Baseball once the house settlement goes through, right? Where people can, everybody will have a little money and

some will have more than others. That theoretically, if this enforcement blows up, that's what it'll be like. And I don't think this enforcement arm or what is the stop Tennessee from paying its football players X number of dollars, which is as much or more as everybody else in the country. And then they're crazy boosters doing like that. Nothing. No stopping that. So like, I don't think that there's no legal way to stop it.

They're trying to stop it. They're going to use it. They're going to try to use this thing. It is going to get challenged by multiple entities and blown up. And that's why Tennessee, the university, helped Tennessee, the state, craft this law, which basically says if this thing blows up, we can just keep paying and it's cool. The thing that's so funny to me is that even if the NCDouble or if the the SEC and the entities that want to try to enforce this quasi cap on NIL were successful, that we would just end right back up with payments under the table again.

That's exactly what would happen. Like there's no stopping the money from going from one to the other. Then teams will pay people out of the house settlement rev share, and then you'll start having recruiting stories about how this kid only went there because he got a bag of cash in McDonald's bag like it's just going to go back to what it was before so which is which is probably what they want because the black market is much cheaper than the open market costs less than the open market but there are people in college sports now who want or don't want but just sort of accept That they're gonna have to do collective bargaining if they would like to have some real rules cuz like Tennessee which just lost

It's starting quarterback in a very public way Probably would like to be able to to do contracts that it could actually enforce, like with a non-compete, so that they don't have a quarterback coming in trying to get a raise after two years when the deal is still, in Tennessee's eyes, pretty good. So that's the deal. And basically, the way the Tennessee law is written, Tennessee or Vanderbilt

or Memphis, any school in the state, cannot be forced by its conference, by the NCAA, by any sort of association that hasn't been created yet, which in this case would be this CSC, which is the ACC, the big 12 the big 10 and the SEC that they can't force them to violate federal law they can't force them to take part in a system that is in is against the law and the reason and I talked to to Danny White the athletic director Tennessee the big reason behind that one they'd like I I can this is my, one, they'd like, I can, this is my words, I think they'd like the biggest competitive advantage for sure. But also, they think that the next round of lawsuits will be against the schools.

And so they don't want to be dealing with that. They don't want the University of Tennessee getting sued for violating the Sherman Act, like the NCAA has, like their conference has. So the question is, would a league or these leagues together actually kick somebody out over this or will other schools join Tennessee, other states join Tennessee and say, Will other schools join Tennessee other states join Tennessee and say? Yeah, we probably think this is gonna blow up too. So let's let's try to figure something else out Yeah, and let's just get back to a point where nil still is the deciding factor They're just gonna get paid more money now and I'll always I'll point out about this if they ever do get a federal law

It supersedes this Tennessee law like it's written into the Tennessee law. So if they ever do get a federal law law, it supersedes this Tennessee law, like it's written into the Tennessee law. So if they ever do get a federal law, they don't have to worry about this. But they're probably not getting a federal law anytime soon. We probably should have seen this coming years ago too, of like when you think about how big the industry has gotten, like lawsuits were going to be a plenty when you're talking about how much money is at stake here with the people who are driving. Like it just like, of course, I just like the thing that I driving them. Like it just like, of course. I just like the thing that I would like to know,

and like, I'm not good at this. As you know, I've tried my political career and my agent career on this podcast and neither have gone well. You've been fired both times, yes. In your perfect world, Andy, what does the system look like from a compensation standpoint?

What is the closest thing that we can get to everybody playing by the same rules? They won't be playing by the same money, but by the same rules. Well, okay, so here's how you would do it. So you have, you probably have this split off the revenue sports, or you could split every sport into its own entity if you wanted and then that might make it easier to manage but in football the players become employees of the whatever it is the the group the the organization if it's multiple conferences together if it's a super league which as we've said we don't want but if it's like we'll say these four conferences together, like they would be employees of those of whatever that organization is, it would be incorporated in a state. So Super League Inc. Right, right. Exactly. It's incorporated in one state. You're dealing with the labor

laws of that state. You then collectively bargain with the athletes, which would be one of the weakest unions in sports. Like college football players, major college football players would be the single weakest union in pro sports, because there's so many of them, like unions represent the bottom, not the top. The bottom is not worth that much compared to the top. So they'd be able to come up, I think, with a fairly reasonable number that the schools would pay the to come up, I think, with a fairly reasonable number that the schools would pay the players of percentage. I don't think the percentage

would be as high as the NFL or the NBA. I believe those are like 52%. I don't think it would be anywhere near that high. And they would pay them. Now, and they'd have rules. So they would bargain with the players, the players would accept that there are rules and. They'd have to abide by them because there would be a collective bargaining agreement so they could not sue. Yeah, or they could see what we would do any good to create a collective bargaining agreement is by there being an employer-employee relationship of some sort. Yeah, I think there have been some where you have like gig workers doing it, but it probably, yes, probably. Now, basically, the question you usually get is how do you do the non-revenue sports like that? And the way you do it is the same way that you do it with revenue sports.

It's a revenue share. It's a revenue share agreement. Like in the revenue sports or in the NBA or the NFL, they say, okay, you're entitled to X percentage of revenues. Well, in the other sports, they would just say, you have an option here. You can opt into this and we'll give you a scholarship or you can opt into the revenue sharing portion and we will send you a bill for the percentage of the loss that your sport generates. Guess what

every volleyball player is going to do. Yeah, like I just like I have to be careful about what I say on here, but I'm just going to be honest with you. This is the college football podcast. I do not care about any of the other sports. Like I don't, I know that like. And the people who keep saying they do because they just wanna recreate the old system. They don't, they've never been to a college volleyball game.

They've never been to a college track meet. It's just their way of trying to preserve their college football the way they like it. But what is the distinction between those two things? It's in the name, revenue and non-revenue. So if you're in a non-revenue sport, if you get a scholarship, that is probably more lucrative than what you would have gotten anyway. Well, it's definitely and the thing is like in that situation, like Libby Dunn at LSU or Caitlin Clark or Angel Reese when they were playing in college basketball, like they would still get in IELT like they would get endorsement money that would

make them. I just don't care about the right very much whole. Like there's and that's like the thing too, is just like, I have a daughter and I want her to be able to explore all the things that she wants, that her heart leads her to, and if she becomes a gymnast or she becomes a swimmer or whatever, and she's somehow supersedes my awful genes to be a college worthy athlete. Like a part of me feels bad that she might not have the opportunities if those sports don't exist or if things change.

But I also kind of understand that that's just kind of how the world works too. Like we all want to do things that we can't do. And if it means that it doesn't exist to be fair and to prop up the thing that people care about, then that's just kind of how it is. So like, I don't go to bed at night with this existential dread that they're going to like, cut non revenue sports that don't even draw a crowd, you know, like, about them, they won't. As I've told, I've argued with ADs about this, I've told them millions of times, like, you will not cut what you actually care about. If you care about it, you'll figure out how to pay for it. Because you guys figured out how to pay for it long before there was all this money. And you didn't add a bunch of sports when you got all the money. So

if you want to talk about how, because part of the scam for the last 100 years was, it's about the enrichment of students. It's about the college experience, about giving people an opportunity to find themselves, all those wonderful things that you saw in the scam to not pay college football players. Why don't you actually put your money where your mouth is and fund those very much like you fund other things.

Isn't university like one of the biggest business ventures in the entire country? And when you think about the amount of money that people are paying with money, the budgets of the large state university like the they can't figure out a large state universities in the multiple billions of dollars is right. You don't think that like if they really wanted to that they could continue to fund the enrichment of young people like that's the whole point. It can be part of your tuition.

Raise everybody's tuition 100 bucks. They do. That's exactly what they do in the group of five. So yeah, so I and like I and I covered a team that had like more sports than any or you know, like when I was in Columbus, they are like our prideful. I think they have like 37 or 36 teams. So like, and I know that that's something that's a source of pride for them, but like, I also feel like, you know, spending other people's money right now. And I feel like Ohio state could fund those if they want it to. It's a massive university with 60,000 students.

Like there's plenty of money there. Yeah. It's a choice. Don't, don't let them lie to you. So let them do it. Let them don't let people who don't actually care about those sports claim they do. Because they like if you are like a person who has a kid on the team and it matters to you like I love that. Like it's not. Yeah, you know, is- My kids team matters to me too, but I realize you don't care. But I also feel like too, that like,

and I don't know if this is just a terrible philosophy and you need to check me if I'm like gonna get clipped and people are gonna be mad at me. Okay. The entitlement to participate in sports should continue through high school. And then once you're through high school and you're a young adult, like that's when adulthood starts.

Now, if you choose to go to college, great, but you're not entitled to play sports in college if they don't exist. So I got it. And that's the thing, like some of these sports could just drop to club level. There were still be that sport at that school. It just, maybe you're not flying across country on a weeknight

to play a conference game. Nobody said that needed to happen anyway. So you don't have to play sports for enrichment in front of a crowd. And most of these places don't have crowds. It's just like anything else. If your thing doesn't make money, it's not anybody else's responsibility to pay for it.

One question that I do have and I and I don't know, cause I'm not somebody who particularly really even cares about the Olympics. I know that's a really important thing here and people care about it. But like if you start cutting programs does our American training for Olympic sports not. Yes, that you would have to you would have to begin funneling money into Olympic sports. Yes, yes, that you would have to. You would have to begin funneling money into Olympic development. Or why doesn't the choice development pile?

Start helping fund the programs for the sports that it has men. Soccer is actually trying to do it, not Olympic development. The. One of the leagues is trying to do that in men's soccer thing like if there's there's a a bobsled team. Is there a bobsled team or is it just a Disney movie? We have a bobsled team.

We have a bobsled team. Sam McGraw from Michigan running back. Are there college bobsled teams? Hmm? Are there college bobsled teams? No, nope. So how do how do people who are on the American Olympic bobsledding team train? They have their own individual bobsled camps?

Sled run? No, there's an Olympic development training center where they go. And then how does a person know they're good at bobsledding? Well in Sam McGuffey's case, y of back flips and hurdle football. I don't even kn they're like, you'd be a son. The bob sledding is they have like, you're li

slide of ice, right? Yes. like that, but this is wi with a big slide. Yeah, i this is with a sled with it with a big sleigh. Yeah. If they put me on this Bob sled, I'd be awesome at it because I'm heavy. But you don't run fast enough. So you wouldn't get, you wouldn't generate. Strong enough and don't run fast enough. What is the running part where they have to like wind it up? The beginning. Yes. How, how, the initial speed,

how, how, how far are they running? Not that far. OK, I can work on that. Yeah, but you never gave me 1000 yards in the college football. I don't know. All I want is for everybody to just call it like it is and calling it like it is is people

care about football and somewhat basketball and that's it like and I know that some people like baseball. But like, what are we talking about here? Is baseball a revenue sport? I rivers over because not not not in college. There there probably there might be a few programs that do make money like LSU, Mississippi State, where they get massive crowds. But. Depends on the place.

All right. Before before before we go on the place. Ari, before we go on, before we go on, gotta tell everybody, if you're watching on Twitter, come join us on YouTube for the rest of the show. Hop in the chat, hop in lively as always. You wanna get in the chat now, before we go over Ari's projected 25 college football playoff bracket tomorrow, because you wanna be able to yell at him directly.

I'm just telling you right now. So there's a link just below the link you're watching. Just come watch it on YouTube. We're also going to talk the future of the USC Notre Dame series today. You do not want to miss that. Okay. All right. What do we think is going to actually happen here?

Like I don't think anybody's going to get booted out of a conference, but my question is this, like, do you think other schools and states will join Tennessee or Tennessee just sort of backs down and is like, all right, we'll just do what you guys say. I think that other states will join Tennessee. I think that other states will join Tennessee. I think so too. I think that the number one thing here when it pertains to follow the money is the one thing that you mentioned on the show, which Tennessee is seeing coming, which is the universities themselves are not going to want to be the defendant in a lawsuit. Correct. And that's really what it is because these plaintiff's attorneys, there's good money in this. And if there's somebody else to sue, they're going to find them and they're going to sue them. So that is where we're at right now.

You know what all this stuff? All this stuff feels like grandstanding and flailing and doing everything we can as like one last dish resort to like getting like to avoiding the inevitable. And it's just like, we're going to get there eventually. But how many millions and millions of dollars are going to be spent on lawsuits and meetings and committees and discussions and, you know, thought think tanks and all these things before we finally just arrive at where it's headed. It's an unstoppable force.

We're going to get there eventually. How many times do you have to get hit in the nose with a rolled up newspaper before you learn to not pee in the corner? Like this is they keep trying the same thing over and over again. Yeah. It's like I know what will work. And I think we just tried. But how much money is being spent on all these endeavors to try to skirt it?

And is it outweighing what they're just going to have to pay eventually anyway? I don't know. And I don't think there's an easy solution to this, Ari, because if they could just fix it tomorrow, if they could wave a wand and have collective bargaining and all that, I think they'd do it. But it's not that easy.

So I do appreciate the difficulty of this for the people in charge. And they are going to have to recalibrate how they fund their athletic departments because as the scam grew, they spent a lot of that money on people who probably didn't need to have jobs because the money should have been going to the players. So they've got to figure out how all that works too. There's a lot to unpack, but I don't think anybody's going to get kicked out of a conference because I don't think that would go well. Imagine if a Big Ten or an SEC school got kicked out

because they wouldn't sign this loyalty oath. It would be World War Three. Like let's play the scenario out. I did this in the column I wrote. I don't think it'll come to this, but let's say the SEC said, okay, Tennessee, you're not signing this thing. You're saying you're going to abide by your state law. You're not necessarily going to abide by the rules that we want you to abide by. You're out.

The next thing that would happen is Tennessee's attorney general would immediately file a lawsuit against the SEC, the ACC, the Big 12 and the Big 10 because they're acting in conjunction right now. And he would accuse them of acting as a cartel to squeeze Tennessee out of big time football. Wait for it because Tennessee refused to violate federal law as ordered. That'll be a fairly compelling argument in front of a federal judge. It's nonsense. And remember, let's remember the last time Tennessee's Attorney General got involved in one of these things because like Whether you feel like they're on the side of right or the side of wrong doesn't matter

The law is what matters here and they don't have an antitrust exemption. So when the ncaa Tried to investigate Nico's Nile deal last year So nico iamaliava is tennessee's quarterback at the time not anymore obviouslyaljava is Tennessee's quarterback at the time, not anymore, obviously, but he was the QB at the time. And the NCAA is investigating whether that deal was signed within the NCAA's NIL rules. Tennessee's attorney general sued the NCAA. Within weeks, the NCAA had to abandon all of its NIL rules.

Like that's how, that's what happens when these rules hit the real world in the court system. They don't last very long. Andy, somebody posted something in the chat that I wanted to bring to the attention because I thought it was funny and somewhat terrifying. Remember what us Tennessee fans did when they wanted to hire Greg Ciano,

imagine trying to kick us out. That's it. That's the other part of this like of all of the fan bases that you want to kick a business on like talk about Civil War. It's not ball Twitter. Like listen, I know people get fired up about politics, but could you imagine if you came after ball football in Tennessee? It's probably the single dumbest thing you can do because they will

marshal all their forces regardless of political affiliation, regardless of anything else. The big orange will ride as one. What do you think? What do you think people in Tennessee care about more politics? Or Tennessee football? I agree. Tennessee football. That's no question about how to bring the country back together. Left wing, right wing, power T. I don't know. Oh my goodness. Yes, it is. It's true. This is probably the worst possible fan base to pick on

here. Yeah, no, I because those are the loudest. They're the most obnoxious and they never stop. Vault Twitter. I love you. We're still I do. I do love the the fans of the other schools in the SEC that are like, yeah, just kick him out. Like we we we got swanee in Tulane sitting on the bench. We're ready to bring him back.

Yeah. Well, I also to think that like if Tennessee were to get kicked out then the other universities get sued and they don't want to be sued anymore then like three years down the line is there another team that gets kicked out or does Tennessee join another I mean like you go down that rabbit hole and it can get really well the thing is like and I saw Tennessee fans so let's just join the Big Ten no no no if you get kicked out of this thing you can't join

the Big Ten either because the Big Ten is part of this this cartel well you would have to join Sun now. Now what would be funny, this is a realistic possibility but let's ranked group of five team gets in the playoff Andy. That's right. Let's let's say Tennessee's AG sued but the court said no. Hey this is not an antitrust violation. You can go you can put your college football team in another league. There are lots of other leagues for you to play in. You don't have to play in

this one, which is that was, that's the argument that the ACC big 10, big 12 and SEC would make. So if the judge said that imagine that Tennessee joins the sunbelt and just start paying like USFL in the 80s style salaries for play like, oh, you're the number one quarterback in the country? How about 10 million a year? Well, the thing that you're gonna also consider though is that Tennessee then would also not have all the television revenue money coming in

and it would really like hurt their program. It would, but I think the donors would get together to fund it for like two years just to say do you want to try us here? Hengen Tennessee is able to pay more money in the Sun Belt than anybody else in college football is in their power conferences they beat the crap out of teams in the Sun Belt and go win the national title out of the Sun Belt. Like just just build this ultimate super team destroy the Sun Belt and go win the national title out of the Sun Belt. Like just just build this ultimate super team destroy the Sun Belt and then roll through the playoff in the Aleris. But the thing with this is that it wouldn't feel I feel like they're first but Tennessee wouldn't be alone like I don't think that they're the only program or the university that feels

this way. I have been told other universities have reached out. Other States have reached out. Yeah. How did you word this? Yeah. Everybody used to say that Tennessee was crazy with NIL and then everybody joined the fray, like maybe Tennessee's a visionary. Well, you really are trying to get on and good with Valtwitter.

I'm not trying to get, I'm there. He'll turn on you in a heartbeat. Ari, I'm telling you right now. You're doing that from here. I'm not trying to get there. They'll turn on you in a heartbeat. Are you telling me right now? You're not from Careful. You noticed? Yeah, be careful. I'm just saying be careful. They're my people.

Be careful. Also, I will point out there's history. This is this is actually, if you want to do a little history lesson, because I know the people on the, on this show, very smart, love the history of the game Look up the phrase sanity code and the phrase sinful seven This was in the in the 40s and 50s, I believe late 40s early 50s when

they were trying to set up some new rules and Basically, they were restricting what you could give in terms of the scholarship. And there were seven schools, I'm blanking on all seven, but Virginia Tech and Villanova were among them. And basically the NCAA sends out a survey saying, are you guys following the rules? And these seven schools were like, no, we're not following them.

Villanova, Maryland, Boston College, Virginia, Virginia Tech, the Citadel and VMI. Okay. So they answer this survey and say, no, we're not following them. And the NCAA is like, okay. Well, the only, at the time, the only penalty the NCAA had was expulsion from the NCAA. And so they're like, okay, we're going to have to expel you. And they're like, okay, you guys vote on that and let us know. And they voted and they're like, yeah, we're not going to expel. So I think we're probably headed towards something similar, where a lot of people make some very saber rattling statements and then ultimately everybody's still in the same league.

Yeah. Does loyalty oath strike you the same way as Alliance does? Well, I chose loyalty oath as a phrase to use in the column for a reason. It feels very Alliancey. That's well, it's more cartel-y, shadowy cabal, that sort of thing. No, like the the ACC Alliance. Oh, that Alliance. Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah, this one's this one's got a little more teeth than that, I think, but not much. All right, we have another topic, though. This this is one because in the afternoon yesterday,

I was worried because I do want to argue about ARI's projected college football playoff bracket because I love arguing about that. But I knew yesterday afternoon. What's that? Are you fired up about anything you saw on it? Just we'll talk about it tomorrow but I'm saving it for tomorrow's show. I have lots of thoughts. You have lots of thoughts. Yeah, lots of thoughts. But. Lots of thoughts. Yeah, lots of thoughts, but. Pat 48 Sports Illustrated released a story yesterday afternoon saying that the USC Notre Dame rivalries in danger of ending. They have played each other in football field night 95 times since 1924. We talked about it on the show a little bit last week. One of the reasons this rivalry started is because Notre Dame got blackballed by the Big 10 schools and was having to go

various places to play that at the time they were playing army, which was a national power. They're playing Navy. They go, you know, go west to play USC. It helps Notre Dame become a national recruiting power. It also creates this incredible rivalry with USC, one of the most beautiful uniform games in college football it might be ending soon so Notre Dame made it very clear in this story by Pat 40 Notre Dame would like it to continue forever USC has only offered a one-year extension to the rivalry and USC is saying it is dependent on what happens next USC would like to see the game moved they'd like potentially to

have it at the beginning of the year and in this case now it's played at two different times when it's at Notre Dame it's in the middle of the year when it's at USC it's toward the end of the year. So they like to move it to the middle to the beginning of the year. Ari, if they cancel this rivalry, it's the softest thing ever. It doesn't seem like an unsolvable problem here. Well, here's the thing. Well, actually, let's let Lincoln Riley talk about it.

Because we have a clip of Lincoln Riley from last year's Big Ten Media Day. He was getting asked about this a lot. And I thought what he said in this clip during Big Ten Media Days made a whole lot of sense. Yeah, I think if the conference has stayed the way they are, or excuse me, if the playoff stays the way that it is right now, then I think you'll see less and less of those, especially with us in the SEC.

Just because our schedules are already gonna be so good at some point, you're like, all right, is the juice worth the squeeze, right? In terms of playing these games, I think as competitors, we all wanna play these games. Now, if and when the playoff shifts again, if you start talking about, if something were to happen, let's say like guaranteed spots, even more guaranteed spots in some of these conferences, all of that. Then I think it could lend itself to these games being back and more prevalent

Which would be good for the game because I mean Okay Interesting that he said it that way Basically saying if the playoff is the way the playoff is now It will hurt Great non-conference games people will not want to continue playing great non conference games. We've talked about it's a ton on the show. This is like what Matt rule said. Where if it if you feel like it hurts your chances

to make the playoff, you're not going to schedule it. But we think the auto bids are coming. Right? Yeah, I mean, it's going to yeah, so by his logic, this shouldn't be an issue. They should just keep playing this thing. Yeah, right. Now that you have your four auto bids,

you know, you're good to go. So I wonder, is this USC acting as a Big Ten member dangling this out there to make sure the Big Ten gets what it wants in terms of the auto bids? Yeah, I mean, man, this podcast is such a, it's tin foil hat every day. Tin foil hat Tuesday, baby! Tin foil hat every day on this show, I mean, I guess.

What do you think the likelihood of that is? I don't know that that's it. I don't know that that's it. I think it may be USC and not necessarily Lincoln Riley because while he probably has some input in this, this does happen somewhat above his head. It may be USC saying, Hey, the big 10 schedule is hard enough and Notre Dame is getting really good and we're scared to play them. That's sad, either one sad. I'm being honest with you,

cause like they're both soft. Oh, it's it's it's dumb play the game, but I don't think it's an accident that Notre Dame scheduled this 12 12 year series with Clemson. Yeah, I wonder if they saw this coming. So Ferris con smash number seriously, what is the point of USC playing Notre Dame?

Ferris, I'm going to put this in the most scientific terms possible because it's cool. The history of it is cool. The look of it is cool. The idea of it is cool. The uniforms are cool. Why do we do anything? That we don't absolutely need to do to breathe, to eat, to sleep, to live.

Because it's cool. Notre Dame and USC should play every year because it's cool. And it's also like ingrained into the fabric of the sport. Like, I mean, like I'm all for screw tradition, do what makes sense, you know, in a lot of areas. But it's also like, when you think about college football, this is one of the games that pops into your head. Like it's what do you mean? What's the point of them playing? Yeah, because they can. It's that none of none of these teams need to play each other.

Non conference games don't have to happen. They don't have to happen regularly. You don't have to play the same non conference teams every year, but it's awesome when you do. You want to think you and join the sun belt. That'll be good. Yeah, that'll be easier.

What do you say? Everything easier, right? And it makes you appreciate schools like Georgia Tech. Like Georgia has gotten really freaking good. So good that it's really hard for Georgia Tech to win in that series. And they keep playing it. They're not like, well, got to cancel it. You're too good. Like South Carolina, historically just gets bombed by Clemson and Clemson's been really

really good the last ten years I mean it makes you it makes you appreciate Georgia Tech I mean shouldn't make you appreciate Notre Dame they're the ones who who have been doing this and maybe you know obviously out of necessity but they've always had pretty tough schedules and have been willing to play big games and like like, I hope- David says, wouldn't Michigan Notre Dame be more important in ratings and playoff implications? Cool, play that too.

Nothing's stopping you, especially if you get the auto bids. Like if all you gotta do is finish fourth place in the big 10 to make the playoff or sixth place in win the play-in game, then you shouldn't be scared of any non-conference game. Yeah. It's sad.

And it's not gonna matter in a year. That's the thing, if they get the auto bids and the series still goes away, that's just wrong. Now, I will say this. If Notre Dame is pushing back on moving it, moving the date of the game, you can compromise on that. Like if USC wants to the beginning of the year, play at the beginning of the year. If it means having the series. I'm OK with it. That's the thing too. It's like I don't get precious about timing of games either.

I mean, there's a few out there like I mean, rivalry Saturday's entire lineup, but you know. JC in the chat says Notre Dame, USC was cool and he used to load up trains and mules to play They I mean they did take trains to the early games That'd be a hell of a we feel like, you know crunching tape on there or what? No, they didn't have to back then I don't know. I think they were you know, I think the coaches were swill and whiskey in the in the bar car I took my daughter to see the movie Snow White on Saturday

and she wanted to watch it on Disney Plus again today, but they don't have the new one on there because it's only it's in theater right now. Yeah, it's only in the theater. So I turned on the old one and like it said that it was made in like the 30s and I'm like, God damn, they were like they were with it in the 30s. I didn't know that Snow White made in the 30s, and I'm like, god damn, they were with it in the 30s. I didn't know that Snow White was in the 30s. Yeah, animation happening in the 30s. Also, train rides. In my brain, the 30s was prehistoric times.

So when I was like, oh, they made this in the 30s. They had TVs in the 30s? For what was it, a comic trip back then? They didn't have TVs in the 30s, did they? They had movies. I don't think anybody had TVs at their house yet. So they went to the theater to watch Snow White in 1937? Mm-hmm.

And there was like a projector where it was just film? Yeah. Yeah, because those go back quite a bit further. I didn't. Yeah, I don't know these things. I know nothing. I've learned in my life that I don't know anything about anything. But you can just look it up. That's that's now like before you had to go to the library or have a set of encyclopedias like you just pull out your phone.

I'm just saying last night I was making her dinner and I turned it on and it said like Snow White, copyright 1937, I was blown away by that. If somebody would have asked me when do you think Snow White was made I would have been like the 70s. I didn't know, I didn't know it went, I didn't know it was that deep. Yeah as David points out silent films ended in the late 20s and the talkies came in in the early 30s. Yeah. Joe says, stick to the topic, Ari. Sheesh. I'm sorry, man.

How dare you? You're just letting Joe down. You're not letting me down. Yeah. I know you. I expect this. The person who just typed into the chat, silent films ended in the 1920s, Ari.

It's like, I don't have that knowledge. Like I don't have any of that knowledge. But you have an iPhone. That's true. But like the fact that he just like walks around knowing that, like, I don't know how people know these things. It's it I will tell you as someone who knows things like this. Yeah, you does you know good in the real world. I don't know, like, where did you learn that? And why is that in your brain? I probably just picked it

up and it's stuck. but it doesn't like, unfortunately, it's there's a line in an episode of married with children where they're trying to teach Kelly Bundy something. And Bud says, when you try to pour a gallon of knowledge into the tiny, a tiny shot glass of a brain, something's bound to spill out. That's also something I remember that I should know, but I do know about. That's also something I remember that I should know. But I do about so these things that I remember push out useful knowledge.

Like I need seven reminders that my daughter has an eye doctor appointment today or I will forget and just not go. But I remember a line from Married with Children in 1994. It makes no sense. See, I know a lot about the the things I care about and I know nothing about anything else. That's good. You're better off. You are better off as a person. Your vast knowledge of everything freaks me out. And what good does it do me?

None. Pretty good for podcasts. None whatsoever. I still can't pass the test to get on Jeopardy, so I'm not good enough at it to actually make some money off of it. Well, that's actually being smart. Not that you're not, but like you need to actually be like, I feel like people on Jeopardy are like just like really smart brainiacs who like really good school.

Scott in the chat, this is a great Homer Simpson quote. I hope he looked it up, but I bet he remembered it. Besides, every time I learned something new, it pushed some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took a home wine making course and I forgot how to drive? There's also a quote for everything. That's the other part to remember. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Okay. So what do we think is gonna happen here? Is this a conspiracy theory? Like is my tin foil hat working

where this is just USC kind of doing the big hand of favor to get the auto bids? What is the main driving factor between the tension in your mind? Don't censor it. What do you think is the reason there's a problem? I think USC fears that it has to play Ohio State and Michigan and Oregon and conference and Penn State and conference now and Notre Dame is good and it doesn't want to deal with that. It

doesn't want to play a team that can beat it every year. So hopefully they'll come to their senses and realize we're 12 months away from that not mattering. Or this is part of that and they're just trying to push that across the finish line and then the auto bids get approved and they're like okay never mind we're good keep the Notre Dame series. The auto bids are gonna get approved. It's a 15 year extension. They're gonna get approved. Dame series. Like auto bids are going to get approved. 15 year extension. They're going to get approved. I feel like the auto bids are the entire reason for expansion. That would.

Expansion is happening for auto bids. I don't know that it happened specifically for auto bids, but you're right. Why is it happening if it's not for auto bids? Well, Kevin Warren was big 10 auto bids. Well, Kevin Warren was big on auto bids even when it was going to be 12. Why would they expand it to 16 if auto bids weren't on the table? The whole reason for expanding it to 16. Yeah. Oh, okay. The

16 playoff. I thought you meant I'm sorry. I can I got confused. I thought you meant you were saying like the big 10 took USC and UCLA. Oh no, no, no, no, sorry. Okay, my fault, totally my fault. Yeah. So yes, no, no, they're going, yeah, going to 16 to get auto bits.

Yeah, they're not gonna go to 16 if there's no auto bits. It's gonna happen, it's happening. Yeah. Yeah, and look, I've made my peace with that. I don't like it. They should just take the top 16 if they're gonna do that. But it's going to happen. There's no way without it. I'd rather get the better non-conference games, but you better hear. Okay. Can I, can I address the schools again? Okay, can I address the schools again? If you do the auto bid thing, you'd better schedule the good non conference games.

Do not turn around and start scheduling crap now that you've done the auto bid thing, because there's literally no incentive for you to not schedule the good games. Nothing's going to hurt you now. So schedule the good games. Like nothing's gonna hurt you now. So schedule the good games. Let's have some fun. Let's have more of Texas, Ohio State,

more of Michigan, Oklahoma, continuation of USC Notre Dame. I'm over here like all upset that they're expanding the Playoff to 16 and making the regular season feel less important. Can you imagine if the non-conference games didn't matter and the game sucked? I'd be so mad. I would be so, it'd be the ultimate bait and switch.

Oh man. I think there's a financial incentive that'll keep that from happening. Yeah. You want better ratings. Yeah. And you want people to buy tickets. Like, yeah, you're going to sell out when you got a good. I'm going to tell you Andy, I know this feels like this is like a fear for you, but like you, I feel like you live in fear that we're not going to have good games in the sport. Yeah, because I watched 20 years of the schedules get watered down.

It's not, it can't happen now with what's driving the sport and what. I hope not. I hope not, but I watched it happen for 20 years. So like I. All playoff expansion, everything that we're talking about right now leads back to one thing, which is television revenue. True. And I should trust that.

I should trust that these people's greed will guide them to that. Of course. But I don't that these people's greed will guide them to that. Of course. But I don't trust these people. It actually goes back to everything we've talked about on this entire show is I don't trust these people. I will tell you this though. I think that the Matt Rule threats are a boogeyman that don't exist. People are always going to want to play good games. Hold on. Where's my Senfo hat?

What if he said that? To help the Big Ten get what it wants. The autobits. I don't think, I think that everybody says it for a bunch of different reasons and I don't think that it'll ever come true Because here's like here's here's like a non-tilted tinfoil hat. I think when people lay their head at night Down on their pillow and they shut the door and they're alone with their thoughts They know that having a better schedule with more entertaining games is more advantageous for their team than not having them And like everything that we've heard and everything that we've seen from the college football playoff committee

since its inception is that it rewards and favors teams who play harder schedules and have quality wins. And the teams that are the ones that are shaking at the end of the year are the ones that don't have great schedules. And like we can pretend like the conferences are too big or that like, you know, we're not gonna play this

or we're not gonna do that. And it's like, okay, keep banging your fist against the table against a boogie man that does not exist, but you will only hurt yourself in the long run if you play bad games. And in the chat, I'm an Oklahoma fan and I would rather have an easier schedule than what we have. Well, yeah, I mean, I will give you that Evan

because you guys, oh God, that's. If you're an Oklahoma yeah, you guys. Oh god, that's if you're a Oklahoma fan, you have to go into the year understanding that it might just be a rough year because of circumstance. Like imagine like, oh yeah, Michigan and Auburn in the first five games. That's that's kind of tough. Texas, South Carolina, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri, LSU. Can I do an outrageous prediction at 53 minutes into this? Mm hmm. Oklahoma is going to start the season five and oh, I like it. It's spicy. And so we're all going to descend upon Dallas, where I think they're going to play a much more competitive game

against Texas than they played last year. Can I? That's not really going out on a limb, right? I mean, they should because Oklahoma was completely brittle last year. That game's weird. That was like I got angry. Watching that game, you were you were next to me in the press box. I got angry at Oklahoma's offensive game plan because you spent the entire week trying to like prophesied

What's the word profits the size? proselytize proselytize I Don't know if I don't know if I was trying to prophesize or proselytize I need to hear the rest of the sentence if you were trying to prophesize That this game was weird and that even though Texas was better at every single position in that Oklahoma well, that's probably what it was. I was like I know it's weird. I know it's a weird series and weird things happen, but like this They're better at every position in Oklahoma is battered with injury. What do you remember me sitting on your couch though?

the following day going over and over like watching Oklahoma's offensive play design. And he was upset. He was sitting on my couch. I was looking at the barbecue restaurant menu and Andy was like sitting at the end of my couch with his laptop on the coffee table, like rewatching like play designs where Oklahoma is yelling at the computer. Why is this? Why is this guy going in motion here? You had a long conversation with somebody affiliated with Oklahoma on my couch like 45 minutes complaining about their game plan

I remember yeah, I remember yes, and they agreed with me They agree with me. So yeah, it was I think you're right I think that's what it was is I had spent the whole week trying to gin up like This is a weird rivalry strange things will happen That was kind of crappy was it was my first time ever going to the Texas State Fair and It was my first time going to that game So like I would have preferred to have some crazy Caleb Williams shit break out and that didn't happen

But I think that the odds of that happening this year are probably much higher if Oklahoma Yeah, and what well in the one two years ago was a spectacular game. Yeah. You know, Oklahoma has the game, Dylan Gabriel is the game winning driver, I think Nick Anderson caught the touchdown pass at the end. Like that was an awesome game. Wasn't the spread of the game like six and a half to?

Yeah. They were handing money out this year. Yeah. That one was pretty easy. The Korean corn dogs were fire though. Oh, by the way, I thought about that. Like that's a thing in mall food courts now. Do you know that?

Korean corn dogs? Yeah. Whoo. Now we're talking. I feel like we ate so much that day, but I feel like if I could go back and only eat one of the things that I ate, it would have been that. Yes, I would have probably left everything else on the table and just eaten that. Yeah,

it was the hot Cheeto corn dog with mozzarella cheese melted into it. That was deep fried. That was and I didn't realize there was cheese melted into it like that was a that was a pleasant surprise for me. Yeah, what do you think that was like 2000 calories on a stick? Probably I'd say.

Worth every single one. Yeah, every single one. Yeah, there it is. Oh yeah, dude, look out. Yeah, that was really good. The Cheeto dust. Oh my gosh. Do you look at that hairdo? Oh yeah, hardest fade in the universe.

Yeah. David already knows the universe. Yeah, huh, huh? David Ari knows the spreads. That's his useless streaming knowledge. It's true. I know the spreads because I care about the spreads and I know that's what I know about spreads and you don't instantly forget them when the game's over. Like you still remember what spread that game was.

Well, because I remember I remember very vividly like what I'm on in the past and like good and bad things that happen. So yeah, like I can I can come up with. I can talk about spreads in the sports sense and spreads in the food sense, because I always remember like what every single college football program serves in their press box for their meals do.

Oh yeah, spreads and spreads. It's good, that's a good combo. We'll talk about that in another episode. Ferris says, I eat salads. This over fried stuff did not tempt me. I am immune. Good for you, man. God bless you, Ferris,

because the rest of us are struggling. It's so funny to me what people are addicted to and how different it is for everybody. And I don't know what the distinct, have you ever wondered like what the distinction is for like what causes you to pick what substance you're addicted to? Like there are some people. And I'm sure it's chemical. But like, what do you think? So like I've, I've said this to you before, but if you put a 30 rack of beer in my fridge,

I can open and close that fridge a million times and not even think twice about the beer that's in there. But if you put a leftovers Domino pizza in there, I'm thinking about it when I'm upstairs. And it's like, what is it about my brain that chose pizza over beer? Because if you're addicted to something, you are obviously able to get addicted

to anything. It could be nicotine, it could be gambling, it could be alcohol, it could be drugs, it could be food. It's like if you have that gene in you where you're able to, you know, have that thought, then what is it about your brain that picks what specific thing that you're drawn to? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what necessarily presses the dopamine button I don't know what necessarily presses the dopamine button on certain items. Yeah. It is very strange, but you're absolutely right because I'd be more apt to want to drink the beer. In your fattest days, you would be more tempted by the beer? Yeah, the pizza in my fattest days, I think I'd be all over the pizza. The beer, I like drinking beer.

But gambling. You're like your stern comparison to like crap. I can place a bet, lose, and be like, oh, no need to chase that one, not my day. Yeah. Now back in the day, if you put a pizza in front of me. That piece was getting finished. What's the thing that makes you like tick?

I took the food one for me was always the big why do I wake up at 7 in the morning and automatically think like what am I having for lunch today? And then you have people out there that just forget to eat lunch, which is like blows my mind Yeah, the person is like if I wish I could take a pill that gave me all my nutrition So I would never have to eat like yeah, that's insane. That's wrong. I mean like that's Domber stuff. Okay That's all right speaking of psychopaths We are going to talk about Ari's College football playoff projection on tomorrow's show, unless some other conference threatens to kick out

some other member. But probably not. Probably going to be Ari's college football player projection. I cannot wait. Get in the chat. Yell at Ari. You're going to love it.

We'll talk to you tomorrow.