Shutdown Fullcast - 40 FOR 40: The 2025 Birmingham Bowl

Episode Date: December 28, 2025

WWWWWWWWELCOME to the return of 40 For 40, our bowl preview series where every bowl game gets its own episode and each episode is exactly as long as that game deserves.Who decides what “deserves” means? We do! Thank you for askingNow through December 31, 100% of proceeds from all PTKU merch sales will be donated to Trans Ohio. Visit preownedairboats.com to purchase BRAND-NEW BLUE SHARKS GEAR #EXCLUSIVEThis episode was produced by Michael Ray SurberFullcast theme 40 For 40 intro arranged and performed by Russell PowellFullcast theme 40 For 40 outro arranged and performed by MattDID YOU KNOW: Spencer and Holly write Channel 6, a year-round newsletter that is mostly about football, until it’s notBefore the world ends (again), treat yourself to Jason’s critically praised novel and other workTravel in your mind palace to Phantom Island, Ryan’s new show with Steven Godfrey, which is not a college football show because another simply cannot existCheck out Surber’s band Killer Antz and his new show Podcasterino

Welcome to the Birmingham Bowl. That's a Birmingham Bowl. Appropriate enthusiasm. This is, of course, this year, the very exciting thing about this game is this is the one that after Notre Dame sat out bowl season, it caused a chain reaction all throughout the ACC's games. and they were scrambling looking for a five and seven team to put stuff back into their lockers to like bring their uniforms out of storage

to remember where they put the keys and to clock in and hurriedly scramble to play Georgia Southern in a bowl game. And the team that they found to do it was none other than the team that hates Georgia Southern the most, Appalachian State, five and seven. They were like, you know what? We could take the winner off

or we could go punch those assholes we hate in Birmingham what do you think fellas we want to go headbutt georgia southern again yeah hell yeah we like that more than vacation and so at the state is here because they get to fight georgia southern on tv for a few hours um a couple days a few days after christmas and that's what bull season is all about can we talk about the list of teams that turned down the invitation to be in the burning table on selection sunday brettman murphy reported reported Florida State, Auburn, UCF Baylor, Rutgers, Temple, and Kansas turned the game down. And then there's some sort of a haggling over what does turned down mean.

Like Temple came out and said, like, well, no, we didn't turn it down. You know, so like, there's varying interpretations of exactly what that means, but it's quite a list. For some of these, like, okay, for Temple, I can be like, look, Birmingham's far away. You're maybe not like, I don't know, we're going to sell our ticket allowments, et cetera, et cetera. Florida State, Baylor? This is 100% like, I'm not looking for it. I'm not looking for more losses. Do not put that.

No. Five and eight. I have survived this season. Do not put that shit on me. Don't give us one of those records that when you're looking up on sports reference, it calls attention to it like, what the fuck were y'all up to you, five and eight? That's right. Did you play Hawaii twice?

What did you do? You know, society is held up by rules. And I feel like there's a lot of teams probably today, a lot of, a lot of alums who were like, wait, we can just turn down the Birmingham Bowl pit. I'm looking at you. Most of them went to pit. That was their ancestral homeland. Yeah.

Yeah. They're like, we didn't know we were allowed to do that. I want to see his butt. I want to see that strong butt. What I'm asking for is like some kind of under the Tuscan sun situation for like aging pit football luminaries who had to do time at the BBVA compass bowl. He's got a butt like Jerome Bettis. I want to see it. Buttis.

Back up the bus. You're, you want the main dish. I'm going straight to kick. Oh, and... Oh!