The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Ohio State has their QB vs Texas, Michigan’s NCAA Penalties, Week Zero Pick & a new CFP Format idea

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

College Football is just days away! FOX Sports’ lead College Football analyst Joel Klatt reacts to the news of quarterback battles being won around the country including Ohio State naming Julian Sayin their starting QB. He lays out what will be expected of Sayin when the Buckeyes take on Arch Manning and #1 Texas next week. He then makes his first game pick of the year by breaking down the Week Zero Top-25 matchup between #17 Kansas State and #22 Iowa State. Klatt discusses Michigan’s punishment from the NCAA following the sign-stealing saga from the National Championship season from 2023.  He also explains the latest CFP format idea coming from the Big Ten that could feature 24 or 28 teams and walks through why that is being considered and what needs to happen next for there to be any change to the current CFP structure. Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/KLATT10Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount. 0:00-2:32 Intro2:33-10:59 QB battles across CFB11:00-19:20 Iowa State vs. Kansas State preview19:21-30:59 Michigan ruling sanction31:00-43:59 28-team CFP pitched by the Big Ten44:00-45:09 Joel Klatt live from Columbus next Thursday Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We've got college football games this week. I wonder what we'll be saying about Julian after this. That was stupid. I mean, slow clap. I've stopped clapping for myself. It's the crab cakes for what week one will be, which is the main dish. The Michigan penalties, and yes, those are air quotes. Brick killed a guy.

That's from a movie. Just if you don't know that. A day like today is why we love college football. Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome into the Joel Clat show. This show is brought to you by graduate by Hilton. As always, we thank them for their support. And we are here.

We've got college football games this week. I cannot wait for them. We've got our bracket predictions. Those are already out. If you haven't checked that out, go back and check out the YouTube page. Make sure to subscribe. Give us a follow there and then get in the comments. I'll try to join you during the course of the season.

And then wherever you like to social media, you can find us on social media at Joel Clatch Show. All of our content lives there during the course of the season. So you'll be covered this fall as well. we enjoy the sport that we love. And yes, we've got games this weekend. Can you tell that I'm a bit giddy about that? I'm so excited to stop talking about all the things off the field in college football and start talking about the beauty on the field. And we finally start to get to do that not only in this show today, because I'll be breaking down that huge top 25 game in week zero between Kansas State and Iowa State, but also some starting quarterbacks that have been named

throughout camps so we can talk about some of those guys. And then we will, hopefully for the last time, hit some off-the-field news that happened really over the weekend. Obviously, the Michigan punishment coming down from the NCAA. And then the Big Ten, Tony Petiti, the commissioner of the Big Ten, kind of floating out this huge expanded playoff, 28, 24. That kind of came out of the blue. And we'll try to wrap our arms around that towards the end of the show.

But like I said, we've got football. we've got games. We finally are here. We don't have to have a weekend without college football until we get all the way into the new year. So this is quite a point in time. Can't wait for it. Let's get into some of the news. Let me start with some of these quarterback battles that have been won and some of these quarterbacks that have been named starters as of today when we're recording this. Namely, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Tennessee.

There's some other teams that have all named starting quarterbacks now. The big news out of Columbus is that Julian Sayan, the talented kid who first committed to Alabama, was there for, I don't know, a few days and then transferred after Nick Saban retired to Columbus. He's been named the starting quarterback of the Buckeyes. C.J. Carr has been named the starting quarterback for Notre Dame. That was apparently a much closer battle than all of us anticipated with Kenny Minchie. Joey Aguilar is the new quarterback at Tennessee. So basically, Nico Iyamaleava, who transferred from Tennessee to UCLA,

Aguilar transfers from UCLA to Tennessee. We've got our first trade in college football, folks. We've got it. We did. We got revenue share. We're going to have contracts coming up. Now, this is basically our first trade, even though no one's calling it a trade. So Tennessee names their quarterback.

I'm really interested to see how the balls do. We've got a true freshman winning a quarterback battle out of BYU. Remember, everyone. one was high on BYU this off season, in large part because of their quarterback Jake Retzloff. And he has to leave, obviously, because some of the honor code issues at BYU, he goes down to Tulane. And they were stuck. And Bacmeyer, who transferred in from Stanford in the spring, he's still a true freshman,

kind of similar to the Julian Sand transfer from Alabama after Troy Taylor was fired at Stanford. Bachmire transfers into BYU. so he didn't even really have a full spring. Still won the starting job for the Cougars. So Bear Brockmeier is going to be the quarterback of BYU. Steve Angelly wins the job at Syracuse. He's the Notre Dame transfer.

So a lot of transfers here, some true freshmen, new faces. Sayans never started a game before for Ohio State. So some of that news is pretty big. I want to sit on Julian Sand because he's got the biggest challenge out of the gate. Julian San named the starting quarterback for the Ohio State Buckeyes. and a lot of us anticipated this, although I will be fair, talking with people around the program, it was a much closer battle than I think people anticipated on the outside. Lincoln Kindholz is a guy that really impressed Ryan Day and the rest of the coaching staff,

and in particular with his toughness, his grit players rallied around him. He's very athletic. And yet they went with what all of us think to be more of the polished, talented passer, Julian Sane. The way that it was put to me kind of from people around the program was that this quarterback battle reminded them a lot of the Dwayne Haskins-Joe Burrow battle

back in the day. Now, of course, famously, Ohio State went with Haskins and then Burrow transferred to LSU. He had an okay year, his first year at LSU, and then popped and had one of the most incredible quarterback years that we've ever seen at LSU en route to a national championship. In hindsight, people were like, well, Ohio State should have started Joe Burrow.

But really, when you look at what Haskins did, I believe if I'm not mistaken, he set a Big Ten record in touchdown passes that year. So they go again with the more talented passer. Think of what they have on the outside. They got to feed Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate, their new transfer tied in Max Clare. These are important things. So you've got to have someone that really knows how to pull the trigger. And from what I've seen saying is certainly that guy.

Now, will they'll be growing pains with saying, yeah, absolutely. There's no doubt. This is not going to be perfect. I go back to the first year that C.J. Stroud was the starting quarterback for Ohio State. And let's remember, I know they couched it as an injury, but he basically didn't play a game. And in large part, to kind of just get his feet wet. They lost to Oregon at home early that season. That was a Cristobal, Oregon team that came in and beat them.

So, you know, will it be smooth? I don't know. I don't know. Now, he certainly has talent around him. There's no doubt. But think about what he's going to be facing in his very first start. Big deal for him is it's at home. Good thing for him. It's at home. He's going to be facing the number one team in the country in the preseason with Arch Manning and the Texas Longhorns coming into Columbus. That's going to be a huge task. And not just because it's Arch and Texas across the room, but it's more specifically the Texas defense. I've been saying this all offseason long. I think Texas's defense could be the best defense in college football. They've got three preseason all Americans on that defense. They were excellent a year ago.

They're going to be outstanding this year. Think about what they were able to do through schematics and talent last year in the semifinal against Ohio State. They held Jeremiah Smith to one catch for three yards. He was going off. I mean, he destroyed Tennessee. they destroy Oregon. The offense was clicking on all cylinders.

I've gone back in preparation and watched that game a few different times this offseason on the coaches film. Ohio State did very little offensively after the first possession when they went down and scored a touchdown. They had the screen pass from Trayvion and Henderson inside of 30 seconds before the half. And outside of that, guys, they didn't do much that night against that Texas defense.

And now you don't have Henderson. You don't have Judkins. You don't have a Mecca, a Buka. And more importantly, the quarterback Julian San is going to be starting his very first game. I think that that's going to be incredibly difficult. So it begs the question, what is he going to be asked to do? Well, I don't think that he's got to go play hero ball. And reading some of the comments after Ryan Day named him the starting quarterback from Coach Day,

I thought we're absolutely accurate, which is all we're looking for is a win. This is not about perfection from a young quarterback. This is not about looking like a Heisman trophy winner. This is not about going out there and putting some polished product out there. Now, do you want to be as polished as you possibly can? Absolutely. But you've got to understand for a young quarterback, even when quarterbacks play well in their first start,

there are mistakes. There are giant mistakes. I can tell you right now. So, for example, I started my very first game. I was older. I was 22 at the time. I started my very first game against Colorado State. They were ranked.

We were not. Big game Saturday night. It's down in Mile High Stadium. And I ended up throwing for over 400 yards. And everyone's like, man, you played great. I made more mistakes in that game than maybe any other game that I played in college football. Why? Because it was my first time.

I fumbled a snap inside the 10-yard line. No one remembers that, thankfully, because we ended up winning the game. But I'm just saying, like, there's going to be growing pains. What's he going to be asked to do? Just win. win by a point. Find the open guy. Operate the offense. It's simplicity over perfection for Julian saying in week one against Texas. I think that's what he's going to be asked to do. When I've seen him play, the talent jumps off off the field. He spins the ball incredibly well. He's accurate.

He's confident. I think that he does flash some athleticism. It's not great and it's not game changing, but it's there for the ability to allude and maybe pick up a first down with his feet. But again, this is about his passing acumen. And again, it's because of what they have on the outside. You've got to feature Jeremiah Smith. And you've got to feature Carnell Tate and Max Clare. They've got Brandon Innes there as well. So the skill position players are going to play such a big part of this game and this game plan the entire season for Ohio State.

You've got to have somebody with the acumen throwing the football to take advantage of that skill on the outside. And that's why I think they went with Julian Sand. We'll be interesting, man. I can't wait. I can't imagine. I mean, I thought it was big playing as an underdog against an in-state rival that was ranked. And, yeah, it was probably a big game. But against Texas, Texas, Ohio State as his first start.

Woo! I'll tell you what. I wonder what we'll be saying about Julian after this. That was stupid. That was just, I was trying, you know, I got stuck in Chicago last night, and I'm a little tired. I thought that that would work. And it didn't. It didn't. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

All right, let's get to games. I want to get to some picks. Don't you remember last year, guys? We were terrific on picks. Now, let's hope it happens again this year, but 63% against the spread last year. And remember, we weren't cherry picking like the best spreads that we saw across college football. No, no, no, no, no, no. We just took the five, six best games of the week.

We talked about them. We broke them down. and then I picked a winner with a score, and we were 63% against the spread. I mean, slow clap. Again, I did this. I think I did this. I've got to stop clapping for myself. We're going to do one game because it's a giant game.

Kansas State, Iowa State, number 17, Kansas State, number 22, Iowa State, live from Dublin. I love it. The line is the Wildcats, Kansas State, by three. Top 25 matchup is like a little bit of a teaser, a little bit of an appetizer. It's the crab cakes for what week one will be, which is the main dish. Because we've got three top 10 matchups in week one. So we get this top 25 matchup. And remember now, in the Big 12, this is going to be a monster game.

This was a game last year that basically the winner got themselves. of birth into the Big 12 championship game. Iowa State ended up beating Kansas State late in the season, got themselves into that game against Arizona State. I think these two teams are easily in the top two, three, four in the Big 12, which is, as we've talked about all offseason, a very evenly matched conference. So what does that mean? Tiebreakers are going to be massive, massive. And here we go, week zero of college football. And these two teams are going to be asked to play in an international game in a game in which we will absolutely be talking about the outcome of this game come postseason, come Big 12 championship, and potentially come CFP. Now, as you know, I picked Kansas State to win the Big 12 and go to the college football playoff.

If you have not seen those picks, go back to the last show. It aired Monday on YouTube. Go subscribe to the program. Go check out my bracket. I filled out a bracket. And I had Kansas State in the playoff. and largely due to the fact that I think that they are really consistent and I like their quarterback. Every Johnson is a guy that is athletic. I think that he will make less mistakes this year than he did last year.

And all of their losses, you can boil it down to one thing. Mistakes and in particular turning the football all over. If they're cleaner with the football, Kansas State really should be at the top of the Big 12. This game matches up programs that I love because Matt Campbell has done very similar things to what Chris Kleinman has done at Kansas State, which is develop and play incredibly sound football in every area. And when they get the right quarterback, when they get the right defense, they're going to pop just like the Cyclones did a year ago. Their best season in program history, 11 wins.

And guess who's back? Rocco Beck, their quarterback. The reason that I haven't picked Iowa State in the offseason to win the Big 12 and go to the college football playoff is for a very specific reason. Losing those two wide receivers is going to be really difficult to overcome for Rocco Beck. Jaden Higgins and Jalen Knoll were outstanding, both NFL draft picks. And replacing those guys is going to be, I think, more difficult than just finding

guys in the transfer portal. Now, I was able to talk with Rocco Beck during the course of the off season. I actually saw him in St. Louis. We were covering that U.F.L. St. Louis Battlehawks game where Rock Rocko's dad, Anthony is the head coach. Rocco was down on the sidelines, and before the game, we talked at length about how the offseason was going. And in particular, I asked him about those wide receivers.

He was very excited. He was very excited. He thought that they were going to surprise people with how well they would play on the outside. Now, if that's the case, then this team is going to be very difficult to beat. It's just tough for me, in all honesty, to believe him. Because you don't know until the bullets are live. You just don't. Again, from experience, I had great wide receivers.

My first year as a starting quarterback as a sophomore. And not to disparage some of my better buddies out there, but like they weren't quite as good. They weren't NFL players in the next season. And I didn't really realize it until the first third down to the next season. And I'm like, no one's open. This is different. Okay, okay. And Rocco is going to have to go through that.

And unfortunately for him, he doesn't go through that against a cupcake. He goes through that against what I think is the best defense, maybe defensive front, but defense in the Big 12th in Kansas State. I look at this game and I think it's going to be close. I think it's going to be physical and it's going to be hard-nosed. I really like Avery Johnson and Kansas State and climbing that defense, that defensive front seven. If Iowa State's linebackers stay healthier than they did last year when they were a mass unit, That unit should be fine and maybe even better than they were a year ago.

But again, would not surprise me if these two teams are right in it in the Big 12 till the very end, which makes this a massive game, a massive game. I think that when I look at the pieces that Avery Johnson has around him, as a returning starting quarterback, he's got his best wide receiver in Jace Brown. Guy went for over 800 yards last year. They've also gotten a couple of transfer guys in, but they don't have to lean on them like Iowa State is going to have to lean on their transfers. I like their backs. There's been some injury issues up front on the offensive line. We'll have to see how that

manifests, and we can only see how that manifests when it actually goes live here in week zero. So what's the pick? Okay. So that's a big old discussion about how I love both teams and love both programs and coaches and defenses and quarterbacks. What's the pick? This is a tough one. It's why it's only three. And it's why 63 percent last year was so incredible to be. quite honest with you. I'm going to go Kansas State here. I think that Kansas State wins this by four. I see like a 24-20 game, and I think that the Wildcats win, and namely because I just don't know if Iowa State is ready to operate on the outside with those wide receivers right away. You don't know until you know. And I think Kansas State is a bit more of a known commodity. Love both teams, though. Love both teams. And by the way, I can't wait to get up to Iowa State Week 2.

We've got SciHawk. So Gus Ginny and I will be up at Iowa State as Iowa comes to town. So I can't wait for that when I've done it in the past. And I think it's one of the great games in college football. You know what it's time for games. And you've got to get out there and you've got to do something that's fun, whether it's catching a game, surprising someone with tickets for live events. They're back.

They're back in a huge way, which is why I want to give the sponsor of today's episode, Seat Geek, a huge shoutout. With over 28 million downloads, Seatgeek is the number one rated ticketing app with more than 70,000 events listed. College football season is upon us. The NFL season is right on the horizon. MLB is in full swing, and our team uses Seatgeek to grab tickets for all of it. It's quick, it's easy, and you know you're getting a good deal. This is what I love about it.

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Thanks to Seat Geek, huge Seat Geek for sponsoring the show today. Isn't it just great to actually talk about on-field football. We've got quarterbacks that were named. We've got a week zero game. And unfortunately, there was some giant news that we have to hit on. So we've got to hit on Michigan. We've got to hit on some of this playoff structure stuff because we love the sport and we cover the sport for you, the amazing college football fan. So the Michigan penalties, and yes, those are air quotes if you're listening on audio, comes down. from the NCAA.

And even before you read what the penalties are, even before that, you don't even have to tell me what the penalties are for me to immediately roll my eyes and think to myself, the NCAA has zero teeth because it's so late. It drags on for so long. They have so much red tape. They are completely inept at governing college football, completely. That being said, they can. do still have a role, or at least they think they do. And so they weighed in on all of the

sign stealing stuff that we had in the saga of the 2023 season when Michigan went 15 and won the national championship. So here's what it is. Mostly a monetary penalty. A lot of details of like how the fines happen, 10% of this, 10% of that. You know, like for instance, 10% of the program's operational budget, 10% of what scholarships awarded would. be. Basically, if you start to add all of this up, it's going to come out to about $30 million. There were reports mostly when we got this news that it was $20 million. It's really more like $30 million, which, by the way, is a massive deal. And I'll tell you in a moment. Sharon Moore, the head coach of Michigan, does get an extra game suspension on top of the

self-imposed suspension that he and the school gave to us, the program gave to us, for this season. So he's going to sit out games three and four this year, which conveniently misses the suspension misses the week two game in Norman against Oklahoma. By the way, where Sharon Moore went to school. And then that additional game, and I immediately thought to myself like, oh, okay, they gave them the Oklahoma game as well. The third game is the Oklahoma game. The NCAA grew a spine and said, no, no, no, no, that's not enough. So you're also going to sit out the Oklahoma game, which would hurt them as a team. and more specifically him personally since he went to Oklahoma.

But no, no, no, no. That's not what the NCAA did. They said, hey, you're going to sit out an extra game, but it's going to be the opening game next year when you go to Ireland and face Western Michigan. What? What are we doing? Honestly?

Okay, okay. What else did they throw down? Jim Harbaugh got a 10-year show cause penalty. That's nothing. He's never coming back. So whatever. Conner Stallion's got an eight-year show cause. Okay. Let's not forget. And I wonder how much of this played into this punishment, if you want to call it that. I do think that the most severe punishment that they got was actually in real time and not even from the NCAA, but from the conference. I remember vividly being in state college and getting ready for that game, Penn State, Michigan. Massive game. Massive game. Michigan's going on the road.

They up to that point had largely been untested with a schedule that was incredibly weak. And late in the week about Thursday night, we start getting these rumors. Friday, we get more rumors than the Friday night. They really heat up about like, hey, the conference might suspend Jim Harbor. for a period of time. We don't know if he's going to be able to end. And then all of a sudden, Michigan's like, nope, we're going to have file an injunction.

And people are waiting at the courthouse. Harbaugh is flying with the team to Penn State. He's in the hotel. He was suspended for the game. That's a lot of distraction when you're about to play on the road against at the time what was a top 10 opponent. You know, so like that's not nothing. I think for some people, this punishment is not going to go far enough.

And that's fine. I totally understand that. I think if you're Michigan, you look at this and you even think, like, man, I think we got off pretty easy. But again, let's not forget that the most difficult and important games of that season, they had to play without their head coach, Jim Harbaugh. Ivan will go to the Ohio State game. Harbaugh was not there for the Ohio State game. so they had to play that game without their head coach.

And that was a game against two undefeated and the loser was not going to the playoff. Loser was not going to the Big Ten championship game and the loser was not going to the playoffs. So they lose that game. Championship doesn't happen. And I think from Michigan's side, they would have been because our head coach wasn't there.

So those suspensions weren't nothing, okay? And they went on a run, obviously, and ended up winning the national championship. I will give the NCAA just a touch of a break. are they really going to do in this situation? I mean, we all hate them and we realize they're completely spineless anyways. They have no teeth whatsoever. And so like, what are they going to do? Well, if you're taking this from a pro model, and I know people don't love to do that in college football, but if we talked about this from a pro perspective, as the money grows in college football, as we now get into revenue sharing, what's about the most, what's the most penalizing thing you can do to a program?

really, really, in real time that affects them right now for things that took place and take away revenue. So the fine of upwards of $30 million is not a small fine. Now, some will say price of doing business, pay that every year if you guarantee us a national championship. Okay, well, that's fine. But in the era of revenue share, I will tell you that every athletic director that I talk to across the country, whether it's Big Ten athletic directors, SEC athletic directors, all they talk about is revenue. All they talk about is finding money because they don't feel like they have enough to keep themselves as a program, the entirety of the program, up to speed because they're going to have to share the 20 and a half million and still find all this money for all of their other sports. So when you find a school like Michigan $30 million, it's not small. I think that that was, in large part, kind of the right way to go for them.

And then the other thing that you can do is you can hinder their ability to build a roster. That's what would happen in the National Football League. You would find the owner and you would dock them draft picks. We don't have draft picks. So they've got to do some convoluted things about when you can recruit and how many recruits and so on and so forth. but it doesn't seem to be hurting them all that much up to this point because they just nabbed the number one running back in the country on Tuesday, Saving and Highter over Ohio State, Tennessee, and Georgia. So, you know, this Michigan thing, I get it. I get it. People are upset. You know, they're going to continue to recruit well, regardless of what penalties the NCAA put in. I think that this commitment from Savian Heiter, number one running back in the country,

it largely signals that. So now we're left with this. Like, was it fair? I've been really consistent. I think I have. I think I have. And this is easily one of my least favorite things to talk about, this whole situation. Because I've been on record and will remain on record as saying that I don't

think it was as big of a deal as some make it out to be. Okay, and I've said that and I'll stand by that. Okay, that's the way I feel based on my experience within the sport, what I know about the sport, when I know about offensive operation more in particular. I have also said that when the investigation finishes and pending what they actually did, if rules were broken, then they should be punished. So good. I'm glad they're getting punished because clearly rules were broken. Then the question becomes like, well, was the punishment fair? Did it fit the crime? You're never going to make anybody happy with this. Do we want to dock them postseason play? Why in the world, I have been consistent about this for my entire career. I never want to penalize a current

player who had nothing to do with this for some actions of people that aren't even in the program anymore. What happened to USC and other programs during the course of their punishments from the NCAA was egregious because you're punishing Matt Barkley for what Pete Carroll did. Like what? Like what are we doing? Okay. So I've remained consistent about that. So I'm glad that they didn't give them a postseason ban. And yet I think that's all that people would want who are on the outside.

I don't think there's any way that you can make this fair. There's just none. And that largely speaks to the inept nature of. the NCAA, they're too slow. They take too long. You can't punish in real time. At least the Big Ten's punishment was in the season when they got the information and they can hurt that team, that coach who committed the so-called infractions. That punishment was more in line with, I think, what happened, allegedly happened, did happen, so on and so forth, versus this. So you find them now, you dock them some show cause. Sharon Moore gets a game, which feels like a total

slap on the wrist. My only fear is that we continue in college football to have a lack of enforcement of rules in real time. Again, all of this is timing. In real time, we do a terrible job of penalizing the people that break rules when they break rules. This has been going on forever. And so regardless of if it's this or if it's some other rule, whether it's tampering, whether it's pay for play, or wrong NIL deals or back in the past, the duffel bags and the churches. We never penalize people in real time.

And in order to clean up the sport, I think that's what you have to do, which then speaks to the fact that we don't have a singular body governing college football. That structure has to exist. It needs to exist. We're desperate for it. We're desperate for it. And it's not there. So we're going to continue to have this,

which is it fair? Probably not. If you're not a Michigan fan, this didn't go far enough. If you're the Michigan Athletic Department, you're thinking to yourself $30 million. So, you know, don't cheat. It's disappointing. It's disappointing. Let's move on. Let's move on.

We also got news about the college football playoff. Okay. So this one kind of came out of left field, and I think you would all agree. So what was it? Last Saturday? Saturday. I was actually on vacation with my family. And all of a sudden, I see some of these news reports about, like, Big Ten floating 28 team playoff model. And I was like, I was like, what? Bang! Like, mind exploding. 28? Holy cow. And I'm sure, I'm sure that you felt

the same way. Because this feels like, man, it went from four and it took us a long time to go to 12 and then there was starting to be some discussions about maybe we would go to 16 and then it's just like, 28. And you're like, oh, wow, that escalated in a hurry. Brick killed the guy. That's from a movie, just if you don't know that. Okay. I thought it would be a good exercise here to talk quickly about kind of how did we get to this point and what's actually going on.

Because I think that everyone right now is just starting to clamor to like, which model do you prefer, which one do you support? And now it's just a big argument. But I think if we start to understand how we got into this position and then why maybe something like this has floated out, I think that might help us as just college football fans. It'll help us navigate what's going on in relation to the college football playoff. Okay, where are we now? Well, right now we're at a 12-team playoff that is largely selection-based, and we've got our five champions are in, and then we've got all these at-large teams. That's what we have, and guess what?

The 12-team playoff last year, with its minor flaws, was outstanding. It was outstanding. It made the regular season better. It increased fan-based engagement and excitement. and I think overall added to the stability and an overall value of the sport. Those are objectives that I think are very important. If you're going to change anything in college football, it really should achieve those things. We should be increasing value.

We should be increasing fan base engagement and excitement, and we should be stabilizing the sport. If we do anything about anything, it should achieve those three objectives, right? Yes, yes, of course. And the 12-team playoff with its flaws did that. So I'm grateful for it. And I'm looking forward to this year's as they've, by the way, tweaked those seeding models. Okay, so that's where we're at.

Now, in 2026, the contract kind of rolls over. Now, it's already signed from a television partner deal, but there's a clause where the structure can change. And so there's been a lot of talk about, like, well, since it can change, let's fix, if you will, or create, if you will, the perfect model. And so that's been talked about quite a bit this offseason. Now, before we get into the actual models, let's just pause for a moment and take a look at the four entities that have to agree to make this happen.

It's the four power four conferences, the SEC, the Big Ten, the ACC, and the Big 12. Now, amongst those four, two really garner all the power. the SEC and the Big Ten, because in a memo of understanding, in an MOU, they basically have the power to do what they want if they agree those two. Now, as of now, they don't. Okay. So where are we? The SEC favors a model very similar to what we have now, which is few at large, or excuse me, automatic. spots and more at large spots.

The SEC, in simple terms, favors a selection-based model because they feel like that favors them. They feel like the narrative surrounding their conference is strong. The depth of their conference is strong. They're not wrong about either of those things. And so they feel like in a selection-based model, they will get the benefit of the doubt, which is why they support the current model and or an expansion with more at-large spots, selection-based model. The Big Ten favors a different model, which I would consider an

access-based model, where there are more spots given as automatics, which can expand something like a play-in weekend to try to increase fan-based engagement throughout the month of November. More teams would be more relevant for longer into the season than what we have right now. So they desire, if you will, or want an access-based model. Now, the other two are also going to look out for themselves, but there's a caveat. Because you see, in a selection-based model, without automatic spots, there's no delineation as to which spots go to which conferences. So there's not an official marker that says, hey, Big Ten and SEC, you get four spots, and the Big 12 and the ACC, you get two. You see, all the Big 12 and the ACC are looking at, and they're saying, we just can't be on paper signing an agreement that says we're less than you.

So that's where they sit. They don't want to do anything that signals or makes official that they are less than the other two conferences. That's where we're at. That's where we're at. So you've got the access-based model that's been floated, and we've talked about it on this program. four automatic spots for the big two conferences, two automatic spots for the Big 12 and the ACC. You've got the selection-based model going to 16, like five automatics plus 11 at large is from the SEC. And then there's these two other conferences, the ACC and the Big Ten.

And all they're thinking to themselves is, hey, you know what? We can't officially be less than you. So guess what? We're going to favor the selection-based model because at least we're not putting down on paper that we're not as good as you as a conference. So that's where we're at. So they all favor the 5-11 model. And then here's the Big Ten. They're over here with an access-based model.

And it's kind of a stalemate. And what are we going to do? And then all of a sudden, out of the blue, this new giant 28-24-team model gets thrown out there. Okay. Why? Why are we in this situation where we're throwing out this giant model? Let me first say, I do not believe, after having self-year, several conversations that it's actually a 28-team model that anybody actually wants or is suggesting.

The model that is being talked about with any seriousness is a 24-team model. And I think that that's an important piece of this. Because in a 24-team model, you can, at least in theory, make more sense of it. They're talking about eight teams having a buy, and then the other team's playing to whittle it down to 16, and then playing the 16 and from there. Okay. That's fine. Regardless of what you think of that, I would say it is an attempt at putting a net over all four constituents. Because what you're saying is, hey, it can be selection based, but there's going to be, you know, a significant amount of automatic spots. And you don't have to say Big 12 in the ACC that you're less than us.

because there's enough to go around. So as crazy as it seems, I think that's why we got this floated out there from the Big Ten, is it was an attempt, at least, to try to cover college football and get people around a table to start a conversation and a negotiation. Now, I think there are some in college football that are not going to like the way that it was leaked. And they would have rather heard about it behind closed doors rather than through the public and in the media. That might be the case.

I'm not totally sure about that. But what I will say is that the 24-team model is not all that different in theory than what the Big Ten had already suggested with a 16-team model with automatic spots and attached to that would be play-in games on conference championship game weekend. Because if you had play-in games in order to get to the 16, get to the 16, get to the how many teams would be basically playing and playing games, about 24 or 26, right around there. So it's essentially creating the access-based model, but not calling it the access-based model. And instead of calling it play-in weekend, it's play-offs weekend.

So it's a bit of a play-on language, and I don't, you know, I think that's why it was floated out there. It's not as far-fetched as everybody believes. I don't know if everyone's going to get on board with this. I really don't. I think that there are some areas of weakness of this model, and in particular getting rid of conference championship games and going to a more selection-based model really de-incentivizes the non-conference.

So I would be worried about the non-conference because if you're just taking the 24 best teams, you know, pending some automatic type of qualifications for group of five and the Big 12 and the ACC, whatever it is, what you're really saying is it's like a race to nine wins. And what you're really saying is like, hey, just schedule nobody, get to nine wins and you're probably going to be in that top 24 or you're going to have a great chance of it.

Now, is that the case? That would be my fear. My hope would be there would be some sort of attachment in terms of a change of how we rate non-conference games, how we schedule non-conference games, something along those lines, because that would be my fear. But having said that, I'm all for discussing these models.

And remember, it can stay at 12. It's not like this thing has to change. I do think that there are ways that the sport can change for better to achieve the three things that I talked about earlier in this segment, which are increase the value of the sport, increase fan base engagement and excitement and stabilize the entity, the entity being college football. If you can do those things with changes to the college football postseason, I'm all for it. I think that there are ways to do that.

I don't know if we'll get to an agreement. But again, let's go back to what I just finished that Michigan segment with. And I think it rings true here as well. If we don't have a centralized governing body to govern the sport, then we certainly don't have a centralized entity that's helping as a brain trust for the structure of the sport. And we continue to have everybody in the sport looking out for their own self-interest. And that's not a knock. That's what they should do.

That's what their jobs are. Tony Petiti's job is to look after the Big Ten and Greg Sanky's job is to look after the SEC. And the same can be said for Jim Phillips in the ACC and Brett Yormark in the Big 12. These are smart individuals. They know what they're doing, but they also know very explicitly what their job title is. and who their bosses are. So they're going to do the best things that they can for their sector of the sport. And we have nobody over the top looking out for the entirety of the sport.

I wish that the CFP were stronger in leadership, but they're not. And they're largely nowhere to be found in these discussions, which quite frankly, I think is bad because we need somebody as a centralized entity in both governance and in structure to get these things done. But we don't have that as of right now, so we're going to continue to have self-interest, which is, again, why we got kind of an outlandish idea about a 24-team model.

Why did we get that? Because it kind of touches all the bases. You're putting everybody into a frame of mind where they can at least get to the table and start to have conversations and negotiations. We'll see where it goes. We'll see where it goes. Like I said, I think that there are changes you could make

to college football's postseason that could make the sport better. All right, we've got games this weekend. So obviously that's going to be great. And we've got a giant game next week. Remember, we are going to be live in Columbus next Thursday night. Cannot wait for that. We sold out very quickly for our live show of the Joel Clad Show. For those of you that have reserved a spot, there are a lot of you.

Try to get there early. We're going to have food and drinks, kind of a happy hour starting at 630 out there. So get there for that. If you're one of the people that reserved for one of the first 300 spots, there are more than that, but the first 300 spots, the seating starts at 7.30. The seating starts at 7.30. So get there early. And again, happy hour starts at 630. Premium seating starts at 7 for the first 300 that already registered.

And then 730 general seating will be live with the Joel Clash show there in preparation for the giant Texas, Ohio State matchup, week one in the shoe. we're here. We did it. We got through an offseason. We've got college football this weekend. We've got a massive week one next weekend. Man, for those of us that love this sport, it's a little bit like Christmas, isn't it? We're finally there. Enjoy the week in the games, folks. We'll see you next week.