Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - BIG 10 SQUAD - How changes to College Football could impact Iowa Hawkeyes

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

USC and Notre Dame's storied rivalry faces an uncertain future. Could this be the end of an era in college football? Dive into the potential shake-up in NCAA governance and its implications for teams like the Minnesota Golden Gophers and Ohio State Buckeyes. Spencer McLaughlin, alongside guests Roman Tomashaw and Zach Seiko, explores the impact of a proposed 40-team playoff and the controversial noon kickoffs for Ohio State games. Key figures like Matt Rule and P.J. Fleck are at the center of these discussions, with insights into Minnesota's win total predictions and the potential for a relegation model in college football. Join the conversation and discover how these changes could reshape the landscape of college football. Listen now for expert analysis and insider perspectives!

We might get a new governance structure in college football. USC might not play Notre Dame anymore. What's going on with the golden gophers? All and more on today's Locked On Big Ten Squad. You're talking ball with the Big Ten Squad sponsored by Game Time. From USC to Ohio State, from Michigan to Oregon, from Nebraska to Washington, it's the local experts of the Locked On Podcast Network bringing you scoops, breakdowns, and the most comprehensive preview of the Locked On Podcast Network, bringing you scoops, breakdowns, and the most comprehensive preview of the upcoming Big Ten weekend.

No hurt feelings and thin skin allowed. Squad up, you're part of the Big Ten Squad. Happy Thursday, everybody. Welcome into this week's Locked On Big Ten Squad. I'm Spencer McLaughlin, your host. Roman Tomashoff of Locked On Huskies is here. Zach Seiko, Locked On Nittany Lions. Jacob Goins, Locked On Hoosiers. Zach Anderson-Yaksheimer of Locked On UCLA.

Back after an extended absence, which no one's happy about, but we welcome him anyway. Jay Stevens, Locked On Buckeyes. Mark Kolkin. The least happy of all that Zach has returned of Locked On USC. So the report this week, big story in college football that there could be this new NCAA that if you don't opt into the rules which include but are not limited to,

you can't sue this organization for any reason basically, then you get kicked out of your conference. So we'll go in a regular order here. Roman, I'll start with you. Who would you like to kick out of your conference. So we'll go in a regular order here. Roman, I'll start with you. Who would you like to kick out of the Big 10? Rutgers, Maryland, some of these bottom feeding teams. I'm not even gonna go with the whole Oregon route as neutral Arboretum of Cod football that you are.

This is just all a really, really interesting structure to me where I see this report and I see, oh cool, new governing body. Yeah, okay, let's see governing body. Yeah. Okay. Let's see what this is about. And the more I just read into this, the more I'm like, how did we get worse than we, than we were already at? Because like, I feel like there are some parts of this that are a really good idea.

Then there are some parts of, oh yeah, you can't sue this organization or, you know, just some of the different like NIL rules that seem to be floating around as part of this, where I'm like, this still seems like very far from where we truly wanna be as just college football as a whole. Well, I wasn't asked to be the leader of this commission group, so we are indeed far away. Thank God for that.

From where we all wanna go. Isako, do you like this idea, which hasn't actually been implemented and is partially contingent upon what happens with the house settlement, which we know what to expect, but we don't have a final conclusion on, are we going in the right direction here? Are we going in the right direction depends who you ask.

If you ask the big 10 and the SEC, this is awesome. This is amazing. If you ask anybody else, you're probably going to get a different answer. So I like seeing the NCAA crash and burn. That's kind of the the boat that I'm in. So anything that ultimately ends the NCAA, but I don't know that we're going to get the best possible scenario as its replacement. So I might champion and cheer on, hey, the NCAA is coming to an end. This is something that I've been calling for for a while. I think everybody has because they haven't done a darn thing correct, but the solution might be even worse overall if we're trying to think about the group of six schools or other conferences that are not the big 10, so, and the SEC, it is what it is. It's just kind of the natural, it's the natural progression of college football being more

professionalized. So, this is the result that you're going to get. And so, if you care about the student athlete, if you care about education, if you care about for in Penn State's case, they have 31 varsity sports at some point, this bubble is going to burst where it's just college football, college men's basketball and everybody's left to fend for themselves. Uh, goings, my mind goes to a famous history quote, which I want to quiz you on. I'm not going to quiz Mark cause he was probably there.

But do you know who said the famous line, democracy is the worst form of government except for, of course, all the other ones? No, but I feel like you're going to tell me. Wait, does anybody else know this? Or am I the only history nerd in the chat? I'm a history nerd, too. I think you made it up. I did not make it up. Yeah, I think you made it up. I did not make it up. Yeah, I think you made it up to fit your argument

sounds Mark. Do you Mark? Do you know this one? Mark? Don't ask him Mark uttered it. What are you talking about? Probably did Winston Churchill anyway, is where it was read. So that's kind of what I was thinking about when Seiko was eloquently talking about this because that's kind of what it is. Like the NCAA sucks. But then if we go away from the NCAA, it's like, oh, well that doesn't necessarily look great.

Well, I think the whole idea is to not do what we did with the transfer portal and with NIO, which is let's hold off for as long as physically possible and then give in because we can't hold on any longer and just let it go buck wild. That's I think what we're trying to avoid is that type of a situation again. And so I'm in favor of if it takes a little bit longer to polish out some of the kinks and get everything completely finalized that benefits the most, then I'm okay with it. Not that I want us to all be under the NCAA umbrella any longer

because it's terrible, but we saw how those things went and they're still trying to rope those things back in and get control over them. And so I don't know what the answer is, believe it or not. I don't know all of that, but you got to find a way to make it. And it's not going to be equal. I mean, look at Indiana, for example, if this whole super conference thing comes to a line. I mean, Indiana is not going to be a part of that because they're not the biggest football brand out there. But there has to be some ways to make it as fair as possible, I guess. But I just want it to be structured

at the end of the day. Yeah, by the way, optimistic look for you here, Jacob. Roman did not immediately eject your school from the conference. He went elsewhere first. Indiana. I would get rid of Purdue to answer that question. Oh, yeah.

I'm not out there. Gee, I wonder why. Zach, you may weigh in. Good, sir. I mean, it seems like you give someone an inch, they take a mile, every idea just somehow gets worse and worse. We're trying to fix it. And somehow we get nowhere closer to that in this situation. I think the answer is I don't have an answer. But I just think it should be simpler than what

we're trying to do super conference, do this, do that. Why are we working so hard? Just get everybody out of it. And at some point when we just have 10 schools to root for, then that's not gonna be fun. Yeah, and it's funny that Jay Stevens is next to you because the guy that connects your two schools in my brain is Chip Kelly,

who has been banging a pretty reasonable drum, I think for a long time, Jay, which is just take college football and make it separate from everything else Put all the other sports basketball included back into the old conferences So they're not you don't have Kalman's basketball going to play Florida State in a conference game and all this craziness or USC going to Rutgers and all that sort of stuff and and then you organize football I as its own sort of thing.

I don't know that this necessarily moves us closer to that. It's just it would be different. I guess it'd be different and I wish we did get closer to what you just described because it feels like that's the best thing for everybody for basketball. Do your own thing for football go somewhere else. I feel like that's what you need to do. I like going away and trying to get some type of structure. I do enjoy that part. I don't think this is it. And I think it's going to take time. Like many people have already said

to figure the right thing out. What you could easily do is just find a model you like that somebody's already done and then make that college football. Just mirror what's already been done. The NFL. I mean, it's not a crazy idea. It's not crazy at all. Yes, you don't have to do salary caps and all that stuff is going to be very similar. It will still not be the NFL brand of football. Like, NFL is still going to be king. But if you model it like the NFL and keep the academics part of it because these kids are still going to school,

I think it's the best thing for everyone. All right, Mark, the oldest and therefore wisest, we hope, among us. Give us some clarity on all of this craziness. So typically, when the NCAA tries to do something, they trip over their third leg. This is just another opportunity for them to trip. All it's going to take is for, and again, I'm just pulling, let's just say every

program in this room right now said, you know what, we don't want to be a part of that. Let's just start our own league. That ends it right there. And it's going to happen. I mean, Tennessee tried to challenge, you you know Tennessee challenged the whole we can pay players whenever we want to start playing players look what's happened because of that. It's just gonna take one team two teams anybody with cache to say you know what we don't want to be a part of that. Well you would need a lot you would need a lot of teams because you can't go out and form a league with four schools. Let's say two teams from the big conference two teams from the big conference, two teams

from the SEC, Notre Dame, if they all say, you know what, let's just, let's go. Let's go do our thing. But how many schools are we talking about here? You saw what happened to the Pac-12 Spencer when USC took their ball and left. Yes. Well, yeah, but if you're talking

about making a completely separate league and postseason structure, you've got to have at least 20 schools in there. You don't have at least 20 schools. That would be hard to hit. You think that would be challenging? With the way the meteorites contracts are structured right now through the early 2030s, I don't think it would be super easy now. I think after that, sure, anything could be on the table.

No one said it would be easy. That wasn't part of the calculus we were talking about here. Anything that they do going forward isn't going to be easy. So why do you think it would be tough to get 20 to 30 teams to say, you know what, screw the NCAA, we don't need to be a part of that. Let's go form our own league. We're kind of talking about it anyways. So let's just dump the shark.

Let's go. Yeah, once again, Mark has brought us back to the very important point we all need to recognize. USC ruined college football. That's the message we should all take away is they were the first one through the wall first guy through his bloodiest That's USC, but they ruin the whole thing And I actually am gonna be in USC's camp if you can believe it when we come back and Matt rule said something

I just oh goodness gracious. Please know that's all coming up next First this episode brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA playoffs are in full swing and every night delivers highlight worthy performances, major momentum shifts and can't miss moments. Whether it's a game winning shot or a breakout player, there's never been a better time to get in on the action. FanDuel makes it easy to stay in the game before tip off and live with player props, performance trends and same game parlays. Fans have more ways than ever to play smart and win big. We're going to be talking about a FanDuel line later on this very program because we've been doing that one team per week over the

last several weeks and we'll continue doing it leading up to the season. Today's team, the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Why? Because PJ Fleck is rowing the boat and if you think he's rowing it to over six and a half wins, you can go bet that over at FanDuel. If you think they're tanking and he might get fired, then you can go bet under six and a half. And you can get $200 in bonus bets if your first $5 bet hits.

That's why if you're new to FanDuel, it's the perfect time to sign up. Head to FanDuel.com and place your first $5 bet. And if it wins, you'll get $200 in bonus bets. You don't have to be good at math to know that's a really good deal. Make every moment more with Fando official sports betting partner of the NBA.

All right, we're gonna reverse our way back up here because Mark, I have seen the suggestion that Notre Dame and USC might stop playing. And I have the same reaction I have to a lot of news stories in college football nowadays. Can we not have anything... What are we getting rid of next? Red River, the Iron Bowl, they're gonna stop playing...

Not that it's on the same level. Indiana, Purdue. Is this just gonna stop? Is Michigan, Ohio State gonna be every other year? Cancel the battle for Los Angeles? Cancel the border war? Seiko, do you guys have any rivals? No, that's whole Penn State's shtick, is that Penn State's unrivaled.

So I'm the last person to have in this conversation. I could care, I could care less. Okay, good. Brandon, we can just kick him out of the chat for this segment, we'll bring him back. I'm kidding. Of course kind of anyway mark Like this I I would very much like to see USC Notre Dame continue because I am legitimately tired of losing so many traditions and institutions in this sport like a

Season without USC Notre Dame. What are we doing here? Yeah, it's kind of stupid, isn't it? I agree Spencer. Look, USC, there's, I hate tribalism and there is literally two camps at USC. Do you? Yeah, I really do. Okay.

That's another rabbit. Anyways, there are fans at USC who say, you know what, it's not fair. Notre Dame needs to join a conference. I respond back with why now? Why is it so important when the big conference and the SEC is going to get four automatic qualifiers and if you lose out of conference, it's not going to affect your opportunity? So who cares? Well, it's not fair that USC has to play Michigan and Notre Dame on back-to-back weeks.

I don't care. To your point, Spencer, there is so much being taken away from college football. You've got to keep certain things. USC, Notre Dame, USC versus UCLA, Alabama, Auburn, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas, Oklahoma, those things do not need to be taken away to move forward with the game. This whole thing, well, you got to get to the playoffs. You got to get to the playoffs.

You don't need to take Notre Dame off USC's schedule to make that happen. No, there was a time when USC and Notre Dame played the end of the year, whether it was in LA or in South Bend, Indiana. And the fact that I have to play public defender and carry Notre Dame's water a little bit right now really bothers me. It was USC who asked Notre Dame, hey, you know what? We don't really want to play in South Bend the end of November.

It's kind of cold, it sucks. We said, you know what? We'll play two rivalry games at the end of the year in LA. Notre Dame was happy to do that. I think this is just another step of USC and I hate to say it, maybe even Lincoln Riley looking for the easiest way to get to the playoffs. And it happened, you know, there was a speculation

that he wanted to get out of the game against LSU last year. We know he wanted to get out of the Ole Miss series. That happened. And now USC's two out of conference schedules, two out of conference games at home this year, you get Missouri State and Georgia Southern. USC fans are not going to pay to see three out of conference games like that.

If you remove Notre Dame from the schedule, they're willing to pay and sit in a hundred degrees beginning, you know, end of August, beginning of September to watch two crappy games, knowing Notre Dame is down the line. There's not one of USC's 11 national championships that they've won that they did not beat Notre Dame in that same season. I just feel like if you are in the mindset of we need to not play a perennial playoff team, you're just not good enough yet.

Like that's not, that's just not the way to go about it. Like Jay, if Ryan Day came out and said, I don't know if we should play Michigan game every year, they keep beating us. Like, but guy fans would say, no, you beat them. You play them. You just go out there and meet them. They will say that.

And then also just get out of town. You don't have a job anymore because that's what we do. You play Michigan. Unfortunately, they've also lost four in a row, but this whole thing about Notre Dame and USC not playing it's. I understand the scheduling aspect to try to make your schedule easier to get into the playoff.

I'm with Mark, don't lose the tradition. I mean, that's why I fell in love with college football when I did, because of the tradition of the sport and also, I mean, granted, I'm not a big SEC guy, when I was younger, but having the SEC game in the afternoon, it allowed me to get more of the tradition of the South and why the football was so rich down there.

But also, every school has that. Every school has tradition. Every school has things that make them special. Like this rivalry, taking it away from the sport, from these two schools, I think it's dumb. But unfortunately, I think more schools are going to be going down the same path to take away and to cancel their biggest rival because they think hey if

We cancel this game. We're gonna have a clear path to the playoff. I think it's very stupid Well, I think you hit on it though is in it mark said it too is the idea It's not USC or Notre Dame that is at fault here It's the system that we're playing in where I said it a couple of weeks ago and got yelled at you're either in the playoff Or you're not they put major graphics of who's in and if you're not in you're out and so all these major programs are having to make this decision of, okay what's best for us in the future, the next five, ten years, whatever the college football playoff looks like and give ourselves the

best chance to get in. whether it's playing an Indiana State or if it's playing Notre Dame, you do what you gotta do. And I don't agree with it. I think it sucks too, but it's the system, not the teams trying to get out of the games. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, I am with you there, Roman. Should we just go to a 40 team playoff like Matt Ruhl said?

Is that the solution? Gosh. Washington would be in every other year, Roman. Right? Hey, Jacob, that's still more often than Indiana. So, you know, that's really nice to say. Hey, we've been, hey, we're, you know, we've been there once in the new era.

That's all I'm saying. We need Ohio lawmakers to intervene, draft the bill. Hey, enough of this. No flag planting, no games at 12 Eastern time. Those guys are stupid. Those guys are so dumb. Thank you, Jay. Okay, hold on.

I'm gonna defend them real quick without knowing any of their names. No. I'm just, no, hold on, hold on. The flag planting thing is what my friend calls Charminsoft, okay? Like that's weak. The no noon kickoff thing,

Ohio State plays an outsized percentage of their games at noon Eastern time. And after seeing that environment at night in the playoff against Tennessee, I understand, you don't get to ban all of them. You're in the big 10, that's how your contract works. You gotta play some, ban all of them. You're in the big 10. That's how your contract works. You got to play some. Like, I get that.

Signed it. But to play... Yeah. Ohio State does not play enough night games. That's where I'm coming from. And I don't fault lawmakers that want to win favorability with their constituents who obviously care about college football by going out and saying, hey, we want to give you a night game so that you don't have to start drinking at 9 in the morning.

I mean, they still might do that. It's just all day. Yeah. Well, yeah. But look at look at the other side of that coin. Now you're preventing people from drinking all day for a five o'clock game. Look at what they're doing to the good people of Ohio. Good. I don't know if any of you have ever experienced Heine gate back in its heyday.

Experience? I'm sorry, what? It sounded like it was in the 1840s. Hey, do you know what's funny about Heinegate is? Let's keep it clean here, Mark. Literally, there are beer cans stacked up, empty beer cans just stacked up all over the place. Oh, so that's like an abbreviation for Heineken.

Okay. I had no idea where you're going with that one, Mark. I thought we were going off the rails. There's a reason why we play their games early. Well, but my thing is like, do the lawmakers, and I get the idea of appealing to your voters, sure. Not to get political at all, but like we have nothing better to do,

nothing better to do than say, I'll ban noon football games at the shoe. Like, I don't know. I don't know, man. Hey, we talk as a network all the time, meet our audience where they're at. People in Ohio are right there, man. Yeah, I mean, hey, dude, we got to do.

Look, like if you if you were if you were a fan of Ohio State, and you see this bill get introduced, and you do hate the excessive number of noon kickoffs, how much more favorably do you see every lawmaker that stamping his or her name on? Yeah, I'm in favor of that. Like, I don't know. That kind of seems like one of the good things that a Congress could do nowadays is like, okay, we all agree.

Like it's a bit excessive. Anyway, Kaseko, did you wanna hop in on this? I mean, I'd just be preaching to the choir, right? About rivalry games and tradition in college football. I will say this, I'm seeing the transition of age of all of us because we are, for the most part, sorry Mark, we are aging out of this version of college football that we knew like over the past couple of decades or so.

And now we're becoming those old heads that say like, the game's changing because if those old heads that say like, the game's changing because if we talk to somebody that's like, this is great, 12 team playoffs, 16 team playoff, I get to see all my favorite schools. And we're yelling at a cloud in the sky about how college football is. All right, team of the day,

gotta take a stand one way or the other. Six and a half is the win total for the Golden Gophers of Minnesota who are quietly the best mediocre team in the Big Ten every single year. Gowans just remembered we're doing this and he's calculating the wins in real time on his fingers like one, two, three.

So Jacob, what has your fast math told you about whether there's value on Minnesota over under six and a half? Yeah, it was whether I could A, count to six, and B, whether they could get over six and a half. And look, I mean, you've got trips to Oregon, Iowa, Ohio State, cross country to Cal. I mean, not that Cal's gonna be any good, but it's, you know, a weird game.

And you never know. They don't have a good quarterback anymore because he plays in Indiana. But I mean, are we running back? Oh, true. He's in the sec now. Could we, yeah. Yeah. And the big 10, could we, I mean, what winds are we going to give

Minnesota on this schedule? I mean, maybe at Northwestern, maybe Purdue. I think between, I think I bet between Cal and Rutgers, they split, they'll win their first two. Like I bet they start, I bet they start three and one before obviously upsetting Ohio State and Columbus. There's no chance that I bet on Minnesota to go over six and a half because I think the PJ Fleck thing

is finally coming to an end. Give me the under and it may be by multiple games. They won't even make a bowl game this year. Minnesota is not good. Their schedule is pretty tough for them. Give me under by a lot. Give me the rowboat. I'm row. We're rowing the boat. Okay. I think the schedule sets up nicely. Roman, you can you can take your stance over under six and a half. I think this schedule sets up nicely. Roman, you can take your stance. Over, under, six and a half. I think their home slate has so many winnable games. The road slate is just outside of Ohio State and Oregon.

You got a Northwestern in there and Iowa, and that's it for conference road games. A lot of home games. I think PJ Fleck wins. They got better fan support than everybody thinks. So since I'm stuck in the middle of you two originally I was on Jacob's side and I was like, oh, I don't you know Maybe this schedule isn't necessarily great I'm not a huge fan of the just the talent that PJ flecks been able to accumulate 20 been able to do with it really over the just the course of his Minnesota career

Which has just been underwhelming to say the least but I look at the schedule and I don't necessarily hate the way it winds up. So give me the over here. I got a couple of former Huskies on the squad. You love to see that, but I look at this and I say, you know, yet Northwestern Rutgers. I think they do end up winning that game at Cal plus those first two. So that means you got to win one of he he's not here so I can say this, one of Michigan State, Nebraska and that Purdue game. Yeah, I feel like there's certainly a logical road

to seven wins here for this team. It's going to be gross. And I don't think we're going to enjoy it, but I have a feeling that they're going to get there. Jay, any worry about that potentially fateful day on October 4th in Columbus, Ohio? Nah, nah, not at all. I'm going barely over.

When I look at the schedule, I have five definite wins, four definite losses, and three flip of coin games. And I think they're gonna win two of those three flip of coin games. And maybe it's me trying to still ride the PJ Fleck train even though I know it's about to be going off the rails but I'm still here trying to believe in the man and what he's doing there in Minnesota I'm going barely over I feel crazy saying that but it's already out there

can't take it Jay can you tell me Ohio State's all-time record against the Golden Gophers I'm not gonna look it up. I know it's on Winzipedia. No, I can't. I can't do it. I don't know. 22 and one. Just the one.

That one came October 14th, 2000. In Columbus, mind you. In Columbus. At the end of the John Cooper era, right before Jim Trestle came over from Youngstown State Yeah, that was a weird time to you but we're trying to be a Buckeye. That was a night I loved that little history poll. That was good. I really that was that that was great I say co since Penn State doesn't have any rivals Maybe now is the time to start a rivalry with with somebody, know, like just get some juice out there, you know.

Minnesota, start throwing shade. Minnesota would probably say that Penn State is a rival, honestly. I mean, they took them down to the wire last year. So I'm gonna throw, I'm gonna be very careful what I say about the Golden Gophers here because they almost upended Penn State's final four run there. There is a path, I agree.

I think they are better than eight of the teams that they're playing. They're gonna start the season four and oh, it's that second half of the stretch where it's just an absolute, I mean, it could turn into a blood bath for them. I'm a big Darius Taylor fan. When people were talking about-

Good take. When people were talking about transfers and every, I was like, wait, did I miss that they lost Darius Taylor because he is an SEC big 10, right? I mean, I know he's at Minnesota, but he could certainly have gone for an upgrade and started somewhere else and made maybe some more NIL money, but now that's the thing though.

He is the whole team. That's just it. So if he gets hurt, then this team is cooked in Minnesota. So I don't like their odds. I will take the under because with the way they utilize Darius Taylor, I can easily see him going down midway through the season and then they have no answer after that.

This is a run first and a run only team. So I will take the under, but not because, it's just because they don't have the depth and everything proven after that. Yuck, Simon, you guys lost to Minnesota last year, right? Yeah, I don't know where on the board you need a Minnesota is to Iowa. What a safe assumption on my part.

Anyway, go ahead. Yeah, they did, they did. That's why I was like, am I gonna come with the hot take that they're gonna go under? No, they're going over. My highlight is on that November 22nd game when they play Northwestern on the road in Wrigley Field. That could be the game that gets them that seventh win.

Hmm. Hmm. The Wrigley, the old, the old Wrigley Field battle. The old one way football game still, right? Or is it now both ways? No, it's both ways now. It's both ways? Okay. Ah, boo. Wait, wait, wait, the what? You can only go one way because it was too dangerous with how they set up the field at Wrigley Field

way back when, but now I think they probably fixed it. That would be awesome. It's still pretty dangerous, but it's still, they go both ways now. You know, playing pick up football in my backyard growing up, we only went in one direction because on one side the yard sloped down. So that end zone wasn't very easy to throw into. Was it something like that? Potentially, or it's just like tech mobile. Nice. Or it was a wall

that you were running into. Also, can we discuss the fact that Minnesota, Wisconsin on Saturday, November 29th, there'll be a game between two teams who are both looking for brand new head coaches? That's too high. That's too high. PJ Flex gonna be okay though. Not when he goes under and has four wins and gets fired. And Wisconsin will have Luke Fickle out the door. I'm sure no one wants to talk smack about Minnesota more than Mark, right?

I mean, Minnesota was terrible last year, right? Awful, just awful. Bad football team. Who lost to them, right? They have another player on the defense side of the ball, things, Koi Perich, remember that name. He's really good. Yeah, he's really good.

First round pick. Oh, if Minnesota is going to go over six and a half, they're going to have to win every home game to have a chance to do that. And then you look at some of those road games, you're like, which one are they going to get? So if Minnesota cannot win every home game, you got to go under because winning on the road and like everyone seems to agree, they're not a great team this year they're not gonna get that they're not gonna go over let me tell you know yeah playing at Cal is easy it's not trust me going into the Calimony will

cover the the Calgar rhythm the algorithm will come for you yeah Calimony what Zach has to deal with. Yeah. Yeah. Berkeley is a very, very weird place. And they will get up for, you know, out of conference games. Whether it's in the U.S. or whomever. I think that's a reasonable take.

I think it's kind of feasible they do go unbeaten at home though. I don't think that that is crazy at all. And so between Iowa, Northwestern and Cal, I mean, if they go two and one, they could drop a home game. But yeah, I could see your scenario goings coming to fruition where like winner winner of that game gets to keep his job. I think it would have to be very specific. Like you'd have both teams have to be five and six,

because I don't think either program's firing someone for going to a bowl game. But if Luke Fickel misses a bowl game for a second year in a row, he might be out the door and the next offensive coordinator at the Ohio State University. We'll wrap the Big Ten squad. Hold on, Spencer.

One thing. Can I just add how fun it would be for two coaches in the last week of the season to actually compete for their jobs? Whereas the winner gets to keep their job for another season. That would be a blast. See, this is why I want a relegation model in college football, because I want there to be games where you are

playing to stay in the upper division. FCS, Group of Five, FBS. I want a game between last, you know, last year's Purdue and gosh, who would it have been? It probably Florida State. And like those teams play last week after a 13th game, the loser goes down to the Group of Five the next season. Now we've got Spice.

Millions of dollars on the line and add to your row level. That's what I'm saying. There's pressure. It would be tangible. And then you could have. Oh, gosh. Who would have won that game? Nobody. We all know. Let's say Purdue, Purdue probably over Florida State. I don't know. Purdue was pretty bad, man.

I mean, FSU, FSU, FSU stunk, but man, Purdue was bad. Purdue was Purdue was pretty bad. I mean FSU stunk but man Purdue was bad. Purdue was really really bad. I could run the ball every single play on offense in deep Purdue. And I've seen that probably. I've seen that happen to the team before recently. Yeah. Wait I why did I miss Mark what what game you were just referencing? Michigan Penn State He's oh, oh he's two years ago I was going through the 2024 schedule and I was like which game is he did he just dunk on USC? No, they threw it a little I was thinking about flying across the country and ending your season and overtime That's that's what came to mind for

There's certain times you can run the ball every down. You're going to win. There are. The same thing happens. But again, I'm just saying if those teams played a 13th game, winners stayed in the power for conference. Loser went down to the group of five.

That's must see TV for the worst football imaginable. We will cap it there today. Roman Tomashoff locked on Huskies, Jacob Goins locked on Hoosiers, Mark Kolkin locked on USC, Zach Seiko locked on Nittany Lions, Zach Anderson-Yokzheimer locked on UCLA, Jay Stevens locked on Buckeyes, I'm Spencer McLaughlin locked on all over the place of course. See you next time and until then hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.