Shutdown Fullcast - Conference Dealignment 2023

Episode Date: August 2, 2023

SHOW NOTES Ryan puts Spencer in the cold cold ground inside the 3-minute mark Too hot in Miami for this much fleece, John Ruiz! Let’s Remember Some Schools The Pac-12 Could’ve Had How far will the Big Ten’s historical fightiness go? Visit sunny preownedairboats.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the shutdown, to the shutdown, full, welcome to the shutdown full cast. You are listening to the end. internet's only college football podcast. And lucky you, because what realm is more chaotic this week than that of college football? Yes, even just four weeks shy of the official hangover day for the first day of college football this year. We are still making moves, y'all. Nonsense. Tomfoolery, flim flam and hokam, all still happening on the reg daily in the college football offseason. It will not stop no one is in charge and everyone has no clue what is happening um in fact let's just start

i know there's a lot to get to but i want to start with this before it goes too far over the horizon i need to make fun of the university of miami hurricanes introducing our co-hosts nope not doing it this again play fake i'm going to keep you keep you guessing we really are back in form jason kirk ryan nanny holly anderson and michael serber on the ones in twos not introducing you this week yes i'm sorry professor Sir, Michael R. Server. Is that formal enough? Professor Michelle, Serber. That'll do.

Now get on with the show. Survee. Do you hear the academic tone of indignance and confidence and just assertion of authority? God, I wish podcasting was a visual meeting. Y'all, server has a pipe. He's got a fucking pipe. Not his usual kind of pipe. He has a blazer.

You just need some patches. You need some elbow patches. Is that a vintage, is that the vintage rasseling tea that we both own underneath that it's a yes bash at the beach yeah that's our t-shirt yeah spencer you got a t-a's brain and an r a's body get on with the damn show jesus christ yeah that's that's that's that's that's really amped is what it stands for stands for ripped and awesome r a bro speaking of bros Miami

how are you good to see you if you're a Keynes fan listening to this podcast you don't exist this is hey winslow yes hey but we're here

to we're here to go ahead and make good news the good news is that everything's fine at Miami and since April their largest does the lesson in this

no their largest benefactor John Ruiz Miami businessman and private jet owner and what I say

private jet we can call him yes I mean a 767 owner. That's not a private jet. You have to call that something else. That's an airline that you happen to be the sole customer for. You own a small fleet.

Yes. He has nothing to do with the current programming. Everyone's fine. No checks are bouncing. You can definitely believe everything I heard from a Miami person who was definitely not the Miami person who as recently as February was saying, yeah, that John Ruiz. He just gets it.

Miami is a town full of absolute marks who, if you, hear them going, you know, this guy, he just gets it. 90% of them are about to get fleeced and 10% of them are about to make off with the rest of the money. We should have had Jess on for this. I know. She'd be so thrilled. Jess, we love you, babe.

Hang in there. It's a dumb guy town. And when you're in a dumb guy town, you start fleecing. And that, apparently John Ruiz was maintaining a risk-heavy business portfolio. If you don't know, John Ruiz started a company that was called Life Wallet. if LifeWallet doesn't automatically sound like a scam to you, let me elaborate and convince you further. Okay.

LifeWallet was backing a substantial portion of the 2020, 2020, or the 2021, early 22 recruiting classes at Miami. All right. But this is from the Miami Herald, by the way, who described Life Wallet and enterprises as a teetering enterprise built on a Coral Cables company that seeks to recover money paid by Medicare-affiliated insurance companies that should have been paid by a different insurance carrier. Once valued at more than $32 billion, it is now worth a small fraction of that.

The shares went from $10 right after opening to the current price, which now trades for less than a quarter. Less than a quarter. First of all, that was a $32 billion business at some point. That is correct. That's horrifying. That is correct. And they managed to do something very bad, which is, this is Miami football, again, getting in trouble with the SEC, but in an entirely different way.

In their filings to the SEC, which, by the way, they had to, they were late on and then I believe had to refile because they were like, sorry for partying. Yes. yes the company admitted in april that its earlier quarterly financial filings covering part of last year weren't reliable so they had to call and be like oh yeah you know those numbers don't look at them don't look at it's not shelf stable we were um as the expert say in our bag that night we were partying our dicks off so to speak and uh y'all might want some more sober numbers for instance, in 2022, the company projected before going public that they would earn $992 million.

I suck at math, but I'm going to say this. The number provided seems like less because the revised number was it was not $992 million. It was $23 million. That's less. So that's not as much is what you're saying. I just missed our projected earnings by $917 million. Before the shutdown Fullcast School Board convenes, let me just state that that is my opinion that $23 million is less.

I have missed bets before. I have missed projections. I don't think I've ever missed by that percentage. I don't think I've ever missed by 900 mil. As somebody who's repeatedly predicted Oklahoma State to win the national championship in the last like 15 years, I feel fine about this. You feel great? Yeah.

it's crazy there's a company that's worse than Twitter well hold on so far did you see about the did you see about the thing on the roof or they finally got the thing down yeah they did

the building keeps changing the thing that was being held up with sandbags and dangerously tilting towards the street yeah things are going great just so you know 80 for Brady made 40 million dollars so

Jane Fonda doesn't God. That's what we're looking at. Even The Haunted Mansion, which just came out, a Halloween movie that dropped in fucking July has made $33 million. Yes. Yes. Let me let now a number of different people are suing Life Wallet. This is where you find good quotes, which does not appear to be in good financial shape. Financial shape. Who said that? And may not survive the duration of this lawsuit, a lawyer for a utility suing John Ruiz. Um, where does this apply to Miami Hurricanes football, except, like, besides the big projection small output, besides that. Well, it applies to this because Ruiz, uh, per the Harold made headlines for his unsolicited proposals to build a new stadium for the Miami football team, which would be called naturally Life Wallet Stadium. Sun Life Wallet. Yep.

fucking terrible name. Sun Life Dolphin Pro Player. Yeah, really, for a stadium that's been named after Jimmy Buffett's beer before. Land Shark. It's such a low bar to step over, and yet they've limboed beneath in true

Miami fashion. Do you think there are normal Miami boosters who are just like, fuck man. Who are like dentists? We just want to do like regular levels of dirt, and instead we kind of, we constantly have to be doing with like... I just wanted to move to the beach and be a dentist. Yeah, and it's just like, God, we just got done with Nevin Shapes.

hero and how we got to deal with this but like do you think they're they're like oh i would love to go be a kentucky booster or something this is exhausting i don't know i mean i mean boosters call me they're you know what you're signing up for that's sure i'm a miami hurricanes booster you know how that sounds right you know how that strikes the year and let's note it wasn't just football because the life wallet man was buying rosters in all of their sports that appear on tv so like also his company last year made 15 million fewer dollars than Ben Simmons. So

my legs are going awesome. I will say this though John Ruiz unafraid to take shots baby.

That's true that's what sets them apart. Shoot or shoot. Therefore he's welcome in Philly I guess. That's amazing.

So yeah that's but according to according to my University of Miami sources. No, no,

it's all good. It's all fine. It means it's a total disaster. I should just believe the opposite of what anyone tells you. I just love like every 10 years, Miami has a situation where they have to say like, no, the guy paying to be in Rick Ross videos and whatever, we have managed to just in the nick of time diversify all of our boosting portfolio away from all of that.

And in between this every time, they're like, we're a private school and actually a pretty prestigious. institution and we don't love football all that much while the rest of the country goes woo, Adam because this is the Miami I love I don't know about y'all I think you should it's not it's not

Cain's back but it's it's turning to face that direction well triangle scheme we fell for this time okay it's not a pyramid it's different it doesn't even have a third dimension much steeper on the sides it's a diamond scheme this is Miami

you see This is where we're behind, though, because Miami Boosters are already ahead of us. Because do you know where they're going to salvage your money? Trapezoid hands. Yes. Which is like lobster, a seafood. See? Yeah.

All you have to do is do this. Trapezoid hands. Yeah. Just tilted in. The U logo is just a couple of degrees away from being the triangle pyramid scheme that we all know it is. They're going to make money off of the billable hours on the other end. That's it. Yeah.

That's it. Make money coming and going, baby. saving on taxes for the depreciation and the investment gone wrong you think we're making funny you uh-uh galaxy brain baby well surely this is the most pressing news in the ACC and college football this week right that's it okay see everybody later have a great day what time is it LOL Kaines I mean to be clear Miami might not be in the ACC by the time people hear this just that's true Would that be good or bad news for the ACC? Bad for the ACC.

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during Sleep Number's biggest sale of the year, say 50% on the Sleep Number Limited Edition smartbed plus special financing for a limited time only at a sleep number store or sleep number.com sleep number official sleep and wellness partner of the NFL C store for details. All right, so where are we, let's establish what is true as of now. August 1st. So that when we are wrong. Colorado is joining the Big 12. Yes, yes.

Arizona seems interested in joining the Big 12. Right. Arizona State and Utah are possibly on the cusp of becoming interested the Big 12 Once the Yukon I do

Yeah I was thinking yesterday about It's going to go down as one of the biggest Two of the biggest what ifs in college football history that moment when the PAC 12 looked like it could have had Texas in Oklahoma Was it the orange bloods guy? And then that moment two years ago When the PAC 12 looked like it could have had You know some combination of Kansas Oklahoma State

and pick two others and have like a very, very tidy 16 team conference that would have almost every team west of Mimel outside of like Texas OU and A&M that, you know, actually moves the needle. Like the Mimel, the west of the Mimel line conference, it would have been pretty good. And now they're going to have pretty soon like four teams, one of them's Cal. So, everything about this is strange, right? Like, I think, I think this is the first, this, and by this I really mean, like, USC, UCLA and Oklahoma, Texas, like, this is the first time that, since I have been doing this, that conference realignment is truly in like, wait, what the fuck are we doing here? Because even when you look at, like, Maryland and Rutgers going to the Big Ten, what?

They were, yeah, I know. Rutgers. They were weird fits. They continue to be weird fits, but like this sort of plain, well, you know, we want to expand the conference. We want to expand the television footprint into two big markets, Rutgers, Gem of the New York City metro area, et cetera. Like, I could at least kind of grasp it. And now I'm just sort of like, I don't know what anything means anymore. It's very confusing.

Yeah, we have it. It just looks like a situation. where the Big 12 is just nibbling into the Pac-12 just to assert itself? Like, you thought about taking our stuff. So we're taking your stuff that's closest to us, whether it's of any particular value or not. And, like, I get the basketball,

like the Commissioner, the Big 12 Commissioner thinks basketball's undervalued, so that makes Arizona and fucking Yukon desirable. And, you know, that would be a great basketball league. And Yukon's a 500-type team now. So, like, it is, it is. is a distant jump from USC, Oklahoma, and Texas changing conferences to like now we're debating the value of like, should you also bring along Arizona State? And no bias. I'm wearing an Arizona State hockey shirt right now. So I'm allowed to say such things about Arizona State.

Have you ever had something stolen off your porch that you're like, no one will steal that? Yes. And then they do and you're like, I'm not even going to call the cops. Like thanks. I guess they can have it. Yeah. So Colorado's. going to the Big 12. So that's a good example of like everything is true at once. Dan Lannning does this press availability, I think yesterday, where he's sort of like, hey, does anybody remember Colorado winning anything? They did have one good year.

It should be noted for Colorado fans. They had one good year, including, and they beat Oregon in that year. But like his larger point, Colorado football, in the sense of the move to the back 12, incredible non-entity, like in a time. When in the Pact 12 South specifically, that division was garbage, was, was, was ripe for, was ripe for somebody. Utah has taken advantage of that window in many ways. And like Arizona, Arizona and Arizona State have both had little bubbles of windows there. That's a bad sign.

And Colorado really has done, it did nothing of consequence. But at the same time, the Big 12 is not totally wrong to crow about this. to because the because if Colorado only matters as like a TV unit and nothing else which is which is the world we live in now like it is more valuable to have them than to not have them perversely even if they even if they're never good at football yeah I mean I think their value is as a um asserting dominance kind of thing I really do because like now now the door is open for any other pack 12 school to leave without feeling like oh we're the ones who caused the pack 12s downfall and it's like stop worrying about it folks USC it caused the pack 12s downfall like the big 10 killed the pack 12 Arizona leaving is not what's going to kill the pack 12 Colorado however was like a move that would have felt lateral up until you know maybe a half a year ago um but now it's like wow good for Colorado what a cool yeah yeah well yeah not just the the ability to steal a school back you know but like the fact that this is viewed

as an overwhelmingly good lifeline for Colorado, which is just, it's sort of a thing causing its own reality. Like the fact that Colorado is willing to do this proves the pecking order beyond any doubt. Institutionally, by the way, this is fine. Individually, this is terrible for Dion Sanders

because as if you weren't already convinced that he's going to flame out, find an excuse to go and jet ASAP, can you imagine that man losing to Iowa State? You imagine, like, the reaction. The reaction of that man getting hammered at K-State. Is that different from Washington State? Yeah, because more people will see it.

That's it. That's the main difference. I guess that is the value of the PAC-12's TV deal right now, because you can get away with anything. That's the other thing that happened today that we forgot. Yeah, yeah. The PAC-12 had a meaning about the TV deal. The same TV deal, which the absence of appears to be a big reason why Colorado made this jump.

And the only reports that came out of it, it were good meeting no details discussed no no deal signed has been the state of things for like a year now yeah yeah i know how it went it went like this so you say that people subscribe to this channel mm-hmm and then while you're watching you try to get uh donations but not in dollars they're in the form of bits yeah that's right it's a convertible unit they have to use that right i don't really see what the problem is yeah so you're flip ball run that past me again there's a field oh if only we could run it past you then we wouldn't be in this situation running it running it past you is quite easy pack 12 just the pack 12

turning into like the 1,348th ranked twitch user that's what I want I want Kofi to dominate them exactly so I was reading mr. Least over here stitches that Kofi does on top of their videos to make more videos yeah I was reading an old John Wilner thing that he had guest written by a guy who was like the assistant to the chancellor at UCLA for like 30 years or some shit. Relevantly, he was in this position when the PAC 8 initially expanded to Arizona and Arizona State. And he revealed that for a brief moment, USC and UCLA threatened to leave the PAC 8 if Arizona and Arizona State were not allowed in because Stanford and I believe was Washington

were more or less like, yeah, these schools don't belong here. Like, they're not, they're not, like, of our class. We don't want them here. I keep for, this is a compliment to Washington's football culture. I keep forgetting they're a good school. Yeah. The other thing that was fascinating about this was, so this is before the Supreme Court decision

that basically opens up the television market. So both of these schools as TV assets, that wasn't relevant. What was relevant was that at the time, The PAC-8 had a ticket revenue agreement where every team had to split the home gate with the visiting team. And USC hated this because if Washington State came down to Southern California, to the Coliseum, they had to split the revenue. But when they made the return trip to Pullman, like, the money just wasn't as good. And Arizona State had this big stadium and was constantly packing it. And USC was like, why don't we go get these Arizona schools that people are going to, and that will improve.

Like, that was the whole thing driving it was the thing that nobody cares about anymore, even talks about in these discussions is, like, people actually going to football games. That was the driving financial concern. And I, what, what, which is at least a business decision. Sure. And I guess what's discernible business decision. I guess what gave me some optimism. or maybe sort of like tempered my pessimism

about conference realignment reading this story is like what is important and relevant today may not be the same thing in 20 or 30 years. So like there is part of me that kind of wonders like, yes USC and UCLA are

off to the big tent. I don't know if they're going to stay there. I don't know if 20 years from now everybody's going to be like, this fucking rules. We love that we have to send all our non-revenue teams on fucking shared flights like it's you know two middle schools going on a Washington D.C. trip together so that they can go to gymnastics meet like there are so many pieces of this that I think will suck on the ground that even though the top level number is very big and

very loud I am kind of like yeah I don't know I wouldn't rule out that like even even if the pack 12 meets its untimely and unfortunate demise today this week next month whatever. This two shall pass. This is all, like, this is all a very, this has always been a very fluid thing. This has always been, South Carolina was in the same

conference as all the SEC schools, and then it wasn't. And now it is again. Like, Colorado. Yes, Colorado is back home perversely. Like, I don't know. I, I choose to believe that as much as everyone

likes to think, like, oh, this is the thing that determines our destiny. It was two years ago. Everybody was like, well, the Pac-12 is king and the Big 12 is toast. So, like, who fucking knows where we'll be two years from now? It was two years ago that we all agreed. The Big Ten definitely won't kill the Pac-12. Right.

There was an alliance. There was a goddamn alliance. And now the Big Ten might kill the ACC, another alliance member. Can we make a super serious, like, six-hour? Can we make a podcast series about the alliance that is longer than the alliance actually lasted? Yeah. We'll say it starts right now and then

I will say. Declare it over. I do think Notre Dame should go join the PAC 12 now. Well, yeah, it goes to that same. We run shit. So they can run away from USC, yeah. No, I think they should continue to play that game. But say it doesn't matter.

It's a non-conference matchup. Anyway, Stanford's the opponent we care about because that's a conference game. I think that, by the way, Stanford's saying that Arizona and Arizona State don't belong in the conference back then. That's the funniest part because I'm like, yeah, because people go to those games.

Stanford's like, oh, overcrowding. There's too many people at the stadium. The way it's described, they were in the meeting to where they had to get a unanimous vote. And Stanford's president was like, well, you know, we don't feel good about this. We think we're voting now. And USC's president was like, we will announce, they had, you know, there was, there's press outside waiting to expect, they think they're about to hear like, oh, we're welcoming Arizona and there's a state.

and USC's president was like I will go out there and tell them we're leaving immediately we're leaving the pack eight today and UCLA's reps were like well if they do it we kind of have to do that shit too like they were ready to blow it up

you gotta love this about USCLA is the Gretchen Wieners I don't think my dad the inventor of the toaster struddle will be too happy about USC's decision my dad the inventor of postseason college football the inventor of the Rose

Like you gotta love USC at least for this That though they are run by like five crazy rich people Having just five crazy rich people in charge Get you some bonkers results and decisions Sure yeah It's never boring The um the pack 12's academics thing has always been really funny to me Like the Big Ten gets away with that bullshit

Because it has large stadiums people like to fill The Pac 12 trying to do that we only associate With smart schools bullshit is so funny You don't have the clout to pull that off for a while you kind of did ish you know um you didn't want Arizona state you never added Boise State you know like you had tiny little um footholds you could have used to strengthen yourself but you turned them down because you think football is where um research money is generated or something I don't I don't get what the hell sports have to do with like your academic rankings

or whatever every time that argument comes up I just hear Washington State crack at a beer in the backer class right what I wonder if that's I wonder if that's the problem Stanford's like we cannot be associated with multiple Washington states the difference between the PAC 12 presidents and the big 12 presidents appears to be big 12 the big 12 president president seem to be like all decisions are good all action is positive like everyone yeah add UCF add Colorado like all all all meat is good Whereas the PAC 12 presidents are like, all decisions are bad. Because even going back to, like, there was a report, I think it was last week, about George Klaefkoff coming into the conference and sort of saying like,

okay, I know I have to sit down with USC, I have to win them over, and talking about sort of like, this is what I'd like to do with conference expansion. And USC was like, no, no, no, we're not doing that as they're like quietly sneaking out the back door. but yeah I mean there's I don't know the TV deal is a good example of just sort of like there are bad things that have happened to the two things are true there are bad things that have happened to the pack 12 and there are things that the pack 12 has failed to do in light of those bad things yeah I mean they had their chance they had probably multiple chances to emerge as the fourth and possibly third conference.

So now we move on to whether or not Florida State's going to go to the Big Ten? A real thing that's the... I love you. I'm going to let if Nebraska open the floodgates. For 10 years now, FSU has been complaining about, like, we should make more money than the rest of the conference, which has been a thing in other conferences as well. And, like, I sort of feel like, you know,

as soon as the glory days ended, if you looked up and, like, oh, it's not so fun just beating up all these bad teams. We actually should make the most money. And, you know, sure, I get it, but, like, you agreed to the 8,000-year contract, so, I mean, I don't know. I hope you have good lawyers, I guess. What's that contract through 26? I think that's a 30. 30. Oh, God.

36. Yeah, the ACC is locked in. It's bad enough. Until the end of time. The ACC, Scotty Pippant to this thing. For not a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Basketball also.

Nothing but celery salt. Famously happy Scotty Pippin. Guy who loves being second best. Yep. Yeah, I love that you say, Ryan was talking about how USC was quietly negotiating out of the door. I remember being very surprised when USC left. I think most of us were sort of surprised by that. No one would be surprised if Florida State loses because, or, you know, leaves because

Florida State has been waving a pistol at the meeting table for 10 years and openly saying we want to leave, we'll go. Please, please let us out of the deal we signed. Trying to break up for 10 years and the ACC's like, it's so crazy.

At this point, I want to let them leave before they have a chance to play Miami and the championship game. This is entirely speculative. but if I am on this show I know let's say you're Indiana I feel so bad right now oh god wow this sucks

homefield apparel dot com the sickness in my bones let's say you're Indiana I feel so weary it's in my suit let's say you're Indiana and you're like I want a big flat piece of pork on a tiny bun what are you even referencing

a real sandwich why are we talking about sports in August they don't start for several months We're talking about Indiana and sports. I'm sorry. Sorry, Connor. So you're Indiana and you're like, fuck yeah, we have a seat. We're at the big kids table.

Like, we have all the best Thanksgiving sides. This is the fucking life. The way in which conference realignment in this most recent iteration has taken place has made it very clear that anything that these conferences said mattered in terms of, like, fit and identity and geography and all that, that shit's all at the window. It is purely your, what you bring to the table as a broadcast asset. If there's some part of you, if you are an Indiana, and there's somebody like this in all the big conferences, that thinks maybe I will not be welcome here at some point. Because if it's easy enough to bring in USC and UCLA and be like, fuck it, they're Big Ten now.

then being Big Ten stops meaning anything, and that has been the thing that you, that has sort of kept you there in the first, like, Connor, we love you. We love all our Indiana listeners, but like Indiana football as a product is not the thing that makes the Hoosiers like a valuable and viable part of the Big Ten. And if that equation is changing drastically, will we ever get to a point where conferences start to say, either directly or through indirect means like no this is running we are going to start trimming the fat

because you know there's there's you think about it in pro sports you're asking if we're gristle yeah and and you know pro sports this is the question all the time of like pro sports don't expand because they're already like we have too many teams

we would rather move teams around than see expansion well you can't you know you can't just pick Indiana up and be like, congratulations. You're in Dallas now, although that would be fucking amazing, to be clear. So I don't know. Part of me would worry if I'm lower on the pecking order of the power conferences that at some point I'm going to get the tap on the shoulder. That's like, hey, here's your buyout. You're done. It's a thing that has sort of floated around college football conversation for decades is like, why does Vanderbilt get to cash these

checks, right? And, you know, the answer is always just like, oh, well, because they always have. And so they're in. It is feeling more and more real that we might get to a point where you have to actually do something in order to cash those checks. Because, like, the arms race, ultimately the big picture arms race is Big Ten versus SEC. And there's all this jockeying to see who's third place. And, like, either the Big Ten or SEC will be first. The Big Ten surely doesn't want to because, you know, despite killing the Pac-12 and its various other moves and launching the 2010's round, of realignment and the 1990s round

of realignment and the 1890s round of realignment and launching the conference zone networks yeah despite all these like bloodthirsty business moves the Big Ten does they would hate to be the one to fire that shot so like as soon as the SEC

finally decides we're swapping Vandy out for Clemson or whatever then the Big Ten's going to you know news drop that they're dumping Rutgers Indiana so on and I agree that this is going to happen because what we're ultimately talking about here is we're we're done letting inertia be the thing that binds us together sure and we have seen the

schools that are making the schools that are making moves of their own accord have already stopped doing that they have stopped letting inertia history whatever bind them together and the logical next step i don't see anything else that could happen but having that loss of inertia be inflicted upon schools, so we're not asking for it. And I mean, how many times have we, not just this show, like every college football fan for the last 10, 20, however many years, so, like, relegation would be perfect for our sport. Like, it would just naturally balance things out. And I mean, this would be manual relegation.

It would be based more on money than wins and losses, but it'd be something. It would be, you know, say the Big Ten and SEC end up coast to coast, splitting the country and a half, right? Boise State would have a way up Just make more money and you're in You know UCF has basically pulled this off But not at you know

Not at the expense of somebody being kicked down Like I think we're getting closer and closer To the point where like it'll be It'll be floated That pressure already exists for programs Because you know I've been doing the At conference level discussion sure

You know like Missy State doesn't have the same place At the table as Georgia they never have No and but in terms of actual effort In terms of actually trying Like the last team to get kicked out of a conference for the kids who don't know was Temple in 2001 out of the Big East. Temple had to fail for 10 straight seasons. And that was, I think, attendance-based or something, right? And there's a financial indicator.

It was attendance-based, but really it was also a sort of summary judgment on the overall execution of the program, which would say something because there was some truly lackluster programs in the Big East, and they singled out Temple. that's how bad temple was there's an NCAA attendance rule and it's usually ignored otherwise the whole yes yeah in other words they got called for things that no program gets called for because the effort was so piss poor across the board there were you know they were i believe in the big east size free riding they were a free rider uh basically taking whatever the collective sum earned by the conference and doing absolutely nothing they were the worst roommate in the building and that is something we haven't had to do and no conference is chosen to do

outright since 2001. The pressure to me, the evidence for that kind of pressure is this. There are very few teams and very few conferences where I can point to someone and say, you're not even trying. Like organizationally, you're not even on the same page. The Big 12, the Big 12 does not have a single team that is not trying. They are trying so hard. There are many, many teams in the Big 12, trying as hard as they possibly can to be competitive

in football. The ACC was the one conference where I went, gentlemen we have some programs here that honestly dropping to fcs might be a plausible option we went along on this uh on this big 12 being the only honest football conference uh thing for channel 6 by the way and it's my favorite thing that we've written in a minute uh you should check it out if you get a minute plug i think you don't have to say pluck it's like it's like closing your tags closing your

you know right yes sure sure close close close plug sorry for my livelihood i think the big 12 is um sorry for what i said sorry for my livelihood oh congratulations on your livelihood big 10 preview drops this week oh my god plug plug plug plug i think the big 12 is the exception that proves the rule on this like schools trying thing because like the big 12 is just top to bottom like b tier programs that are all doing their best you know yeah it's the ACC, the SEC, and Big Ten have stragglers? Do they have anyone absolutely phoning it in? Like, I mean, full-line, no, does the Big Ten have anyone absolutely phoning it in?

What does that mean? I guess I don't know what that means. Like, it's hard for me to. Is it a vibes question, is this operational? Is it either phoning it in or not capable, don't have a phone? Because, like, if, you know, Indiana tries its absolute hardest, what does that even look like? Is it even worth anything to the Big Ten? that's sort of the stickiest question here is like giving grape jobs like yeah vanderb to use vanderbilt

is the example we keep going back to like vanderbilt has started putting money into facilities like has hired a coach that i think mostly people are like okay this is the right direction they have they have made some strides they have made some recruiting improvements but like the pathway for vanderbilt to get to competitive in the division let alone, well, not the division's going to be a long much longer, but like I don't know what the pathway looks like for Vanderbilt to be

like, oh yeah, they're a top six team in the future SEC. Does that mean they're failing? Does that mean they're not trying hard enough? Or does that mean that's just not who they are? My pick, my pick, I don't think, like for Vandy, I think you have to go ahead and say institutional you have your own priorities. For them, like if you could go, if you could

go six and six every year. Yeah. Right? If you could go six, and six they'd be they'd be elated at six and six okay if you yeah if you can if you can be punch a little bit higher have a kick ass baseball team and a bowling team and jerry stackhouse please please build like a basketball team worth watching like maybe maybe that sort of checks all the boxes right so and then you have yeah and then you have some programs that i think are just institutionally incapable of being in a major conference just because of what the priority for that institution are.

Sure. Right. Like Boston College is right there. I don't know. Boston College turns out some really good football players. They're great at developing linemen every now and then. I do not know what they're doing. I do not know institutionally what they have in common operationally or even in terms of any

priority with like Florida State or Clemson. Sure. And as opposed to Vanderbilt or Indiana, like Boston College is not culturally important to the ACC's identity. at this junk you know like there there's no there's no like oh boy but we've gone back so long we've been friends for so many decades that it's important like that's not that's not a factor yeah and also by the way like like in terms of like priority in terms of okay well how do you establish like whether they're trying or not it may look it may astonish you to know that

jeffley the head coach at boston college you know makes three mill it makes three million dollars that's a lot of money relative to his peers like that's falling behind right that's not damning but it's like a little indication of okay are you guys really investing in order to compete because if you're not the acc honestly could use the help especially with legacy with legacy powers in the conference like uvaa uva's never that's an entirely different sub like rant sub discussion to have. But when you look back at UVA where they are and what they could have been football wise, that is just the largest. I think they are what I think people thought UNC was a while ago, where you go, you're the flagship program for a major state and you've done nothing.

You've done absolutely nothing. Like maybe George Welsh was the greatest head coach of all time given how well he actually managed to do it, UVA, because historically they've just been trash. What I'm hearing here is NIL salary floor. If you can't raise enough money to pay every player on your roster thousands of dollars

in addition to their scholarship, you don't need to be in a power conference or in a conference attempting to be in a power conference. That's not a hard floor, whatever that number is. In some ways, none of these ideas are, like the airplane conference from 1959 that Pitt proposed,

was going to be Washington, Cal, USC, UCLA, Stanford, the three service academies, Notre Dame Pitt, Penn State, Syracuse. That's not wildly different. I mean, you know, adjusting for how programs have changed since the 50s. Like, it's not that different from some of the stuff we're talking about now. I mean, like, in the most extreme example, when the Big Ten's next deal is up, what is to stop, let's say, Michigan, Ohio, state, Penn State,

um, USC, UCLA and I don't know, throw Wisconsin in there for fun for just saying just like, nope, we're just going to go negotiate our own TV deal. Like, we don't really need whatever inventory we get from Purdue and Iowa and everybody else.

Like, we don't need it. We can go fill out ourselves. This is the fuck you, Iowa plan. Go away. Iowa's borderline there. They're right there. I think it'd be deeply unfair to the fine Iowa archives. It's like a Mendoza line or whatever, right?

The Iowa line, are you above or below? I mean, I don't know. It feels like a weird time because I really do think that once you start to say that conferences don't mean anything, that conferences are just a TV negotiating group. It starts like, I don't know what the spillover effects of that end up being because, you know, you know we know we're going to see like in the SEC like certain rivalries are going to go away certain teams are not going to play each other every year they're not going to play each other that often and we've already started to see that as the conference expanded and everybody's like

why don't Auburn in Florida play anymore blah blah blah blah blah but like the erosion of the regional identity or the conference as a defining characteristic does feel like it's going to inevitably suck some of what makes the sport different from its big brother, the NFL. Like, nobody really gives a fuck about the NFC versus the AFC. Nobody is, like, deeply invested in, like, the cultural difference between those two. And I think it will probably ultimately be bad for the sport to go towards this, like, everything is just a brand label, but secretly you're all getting, like, the same soda mix underneath. Yeah.

Yeah, losing the regional stuff is, like, I think the single most dangerous thing for the popularity of the sport and all that. Like, and I all wonderful. Keep it coming. Ramp it up. Transfer Portal. I love it. Let's have more chaos. I don't care. Like, realignment, you know, as a year-round topic is like, okay, this is fun. This is great. Once we got to the point where geographical coherence no longer meant anything at all, then like, okay, now we're actually seeing dangerous. are on the horizon. There's also this. You can say that, but admit that it's true,

and also say the money's going to point you into a Super League direction. And at this point, when you look at you go, well, who's going to move first most aggressively and most decisively? It'll probably be the Big Ten. It's not a Super League

unless it's Big Ten and SEC like combined. Which is why I think the Big Ten will ultimately pick off an SEC power. They'll try first. They'll try with the most money. They will. They will try first. I'm not saying you're wrong.

I'm just laughing at the idea of it. It is, no, again, it is the stupidest idea in the world, but it's what's going to happen. Because I don't think, I just think in terms of like, when I look at the pattern of behavior, which league is less content to stand pat? Which league has been more aggressive? Which league jumped into television first? Which league went and pulled apart multiple conferences in order to acquire, like, there's one league that has stolen. I'm sorry recruited

from at least what by my account three different conferences in terms of Sacking Pharaoh's tombs Yeah four different No four different conferences In Scadaway

Right Maryland Maryland was pulled out of the ACC Noted Maritime Ruckers pulled out of the wreckage of the old Big East I do think accusing anybody of looting the old Big East is not an accurate

description of what happened there The Big Ten pulling from three powers. Like maybe you can say like Miami and Virginia tech leaving, but like the Big 12 didn't loot the Big East by taking West Virginia. That was an estate sale. Right? An estate sale was very low prices.

It's saying the Big East was bad. Not saying Big 12. Right. West Virginia banging on the sarcophagus. I just fell asleep. I'm still alive. I'm never going out with Bob again. You don't let me plenty of Beatles to snack on. not again thank you for bearing me with my shit per my instructions though my cat's real angry she needs to go out you don't have a cat god damn new cat all right so so so so acc pack 12 yeah pack 12 and um Nebraska out of the big 12 yeah okay right sure so but they're the only conference that's done that. They're the only conference. They're the first conference to really, I think,

in earnest, completely shatter regional affiliation. They're the first ones. Yeah, the first major conference to completely shatter. Yes, you have examples like the old megawak, like the megawak where like Hawaii and Louisiana Tech were in the same spot. But they did that because out of, you know, they did that out of just like grab bag necessity. Yeah. They did that out of necessity for survival's sake and to put together a complete conference. slate of any sort. The Big Ten didn't do that. The Big Ten did that because that's step one towards a national

super conference where the Big Ten brand, it doesn't have to mean shit. It really doesn't. And it's going to work because right now they make so much more money than anyone else, including the SEC. Their team payout on average. Now this is average for people who do not have full divestiture

yet. They don't have full share like Rutgers. Rutgers does not have that yet. Which they desperately need. Do they have it or did they borrow against? I think they do have it. Do they borrow against it in a weird way? I'm probably getting that wrong. I got a guy.

He fixed it for me. Yeah, that's Rutgers. Right now they're getting like 58, 59 mil a year. I think it's 58.8 mil a year. The SEC gets payouts of 49.8 mil a year. So the gap is already serious. So if you're a cynical betting person who's just looking at the numbers and you want pick big number win, pick big number win is the big 10.

makes an offer to an SEC team. Probably one with a gripe, probably one it could peel off, probably one that it can add without waving too much of a white flag their precious notion of... Don't laugh. I was thinking they would get mad at Kentucky because Stoops keeps making recruiting for Rays into Ohio

and just deciding to eliminate that problem. Oh, I was thinking Florida. Florida's mercenary, Florida is their Florida it would be a it listen they could at least say as an a as an american association of university school right does florida being in that kind of like negate the whole premise yes very much so you know it's also like it's also like the it's also like the kid in an ancient ugly kid jo shirt beating you on standardized test but sometimes it happens sure um don't project place yeah story of my life is such a specific reference.

That's why you know he's projecting. Yeah. It's okay. Let it out. Yeah. So. Yeah, it's hard to say. So, like, I thought that was my first pick because, one, we don't have to worry about geography.

It's not like they're like, well, we have to go get Kentucky because it's on our border. No, they're just going to go get a TV market. That doesn't matter anymore. Florida, Florida. I don't actually think the Big Ten is going to get Kentucky. Yeah. She said, willing it into existence. I'm not wishing for it every night.

Yeah, I would think they would go do that, you know? I only want them out of the SEC because I'm scared. I would also say if they were looking for another program, if they were being super cynical and just pulling numbers. Go get Vanderbilt. Listen, go get the Texas A&M. Fast-growing metro area. What?

A&M because, yeah, yeah. Oh, God. Yeah. All they care about in life is making more money than Texas. That's it. They wouldn't care, yeah. But then they couldn't play Texas regularly anymore. Oh, no.

Until Texas joins the Big Ten. Chasing A&M. As always. I call my contract the original Big Ten, because I got it for 10 guaranteed. Bang, bang. Got 10 digits in it. Hell yeah.

But yeah, those are the two, like, the Big Ten will win. If you want to, like, go ahead, bullet down. The SEC is going to get outplayed. they'll get lost in sort of internecine conflict between powers who are already partnered up with a TV network that has- Make that the Instagram post for this episode. Yeah. Spencer Hall.

The Big Ten will win. That's it. They will. They'll. They'll, they've already, and frankly, like, the partnership with the ESPN, ESPN has its own issues developmentally, like, looking forward. So, like, who's cash in their own checks and who's got the biggest bank right now? That's the Big Ten.

Weird does it sound? So once the Big Ten is the thing that we think the NCAA is right now, right? Like once the Big Ten is top-level college football, as long as it divides things up geographically, fine. It's all I want. It's all I care about is teams that are near each other playing each other. And if it takes the Big Ten buying college football to do that, so be it. So we're going to end up getting a war map that basically looks like.

Because if the Big Ten does what Spencer says, the SEC is going to immediately start gobbling up ACC teams right they're going to be like well fuck it it's time like we want six ACCC teams we don't care clemson florida state they're right there that's the default plan slide right over to them okay so then it's basically going to be a risk map where the SEC is like this weird sort of like sunbelty part of texas and the big 10 is everything else yeah well i mean In that scenario, the Big Ten could just take Clemson and a Florida State for itself. It's a filthy part of Texas. Florida State and esteemed research institution. Don't do this. It's, uh, yeah. This is my favorite thing about Florida State, but I'm going to use it as a diss in this month because I'm a bad person.

They have a circus school. Yeah, exactly. That's their, that's their foundational element. I fucking love it too. Yeah. See, I've gone from, I've gone from using this as an insult to thinking it's cool. It's not. It's awesome.

Their anthropology department's in a strip mall And I kind of love that Well Where would you want to study American culture? Yeah Yeah You're in the right place, man Do you mean their anthropology with a Y or with an IE department?

No, that's UCF. Calm down. They wish. They're Ph.D. and ARI studies. They're Ann Taylor loft at best. UCF is wet seal. That doesn't line up at all. I think you mean Delias.

You're out of your league. here. Unfortunately, UCF has Spencer's gifts. Where's the fart machine? Go nights! I don't know if we've already seen it, but there is going to be one, one, like, truly, one move and realignment that both sides end up hating. Maybe it's already happened.

At least one. What is anyone getting out of Missou, for instance? Oh, God, we haven't said the word Missouri all to show this is great. The Zs made more SEC title games than A&M has, so... That's true. I don't want to talk about it. For what? Yeah.

That is, like, I'm sorry, but... That is one that just sort of, like, what has that added to anything? For either side. I don't think... Yeah. I have never gotten a sense that, like, for Mizzou fans, they're like, oh, fuck, this is sweet. This is fucking great. Yeah, no.

Like, they don't seem to be having fun. They probably could have won the Big 12, one of those years. Sure. Winning the Big Ten West, you could do that more than twice. Or you could go six and six.