The Josh Innes Show - Oh How I love College Football

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

Tonight is really the start of the college football season. I have my issues with the sports. I don't mind NIL, but I hate the way it's used. I hate the constant transfers. It all feels pretty gross. But, dammit, I love the sport and it makes me feel connected to home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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land rover.ca. All right, everybody, good morning. Hello, it's about 436. It's bright and early here in Detroit on this Thursday getting ready for college football tonight! Yes! That is exciting! And ow! I just hit my knee on the console in here. Shit! Oh, God!

It was a subtle little knock, and boy, it hurt! Oh, why was that there? Ow! Oh! Oh, hold on. Just give me a second. I'm going to rub it out. Like, there's this... I mean, it is hard, too. Oh, shit.

Like, I move my, my, my leg to the right slightly, and it hits, like, right on the corner of this, this thing. And, oh, it was terrible. And it, and the worst spot on my knee, too. Ow! Ouch, Charlie. Oh. Anywho. So, now that I've rubbed it out, the college football season really gets started tonight.

It's not the greatest slate, but you've got some matchups on there that are interesting. Hey, look, they're all. all beautiful matchups when you're a degenerate gambler. That's the beauty of it is, like, as long as you can sit around and bet on these games, it don't matter who's playing, baby, because football is back and we got it tonight. We got it Friday. We got it Saturday. We got it Sunday.

We got it Monday. And then by the time the college football weekend wraps up on Labor Day, guess what? We're like two days away from the start of the NFL season. So, God damn it, I tell you what, kiddos. That's the birds and the cowboys. Yes. I just, I love it. And here's where I'll start today.

The first of all, let me play a couple of commercials and then we'll get going. All right, here's where I'm going to start with this today. So, you know that I'm jaded as it relates to the overall state of college football because of NIL and not the idea that people are getting paid. I'm totally fine with players getting paid. Players should get paid. You know, but what's happened is the idea of, NIL has been bastardized. The idea, which was a nice idea in theory, was, hey, you at least have the opportunity to go out and make a name and make a, well, rather make a dollar off

of your name, off of your image, off of your likeness, right? Like, that's what it meant. It meant, hey, before when you couldn't go out and do a signing at Walmart and make five grand to go out and sign autographs, now you can. It's name, image, and likeness. You can work deals. And now what's happened is the schools have found workarounds for this, and they've basically used NIL, which wasn't supposed to be used as a recruiting tool, is now all that recruiting is. I mean, look at Bryce Underwood. Bryce Underwood was going to go to LSU and was committed to LSU forever. And then last minute's like, yeah, I'm going to Michigan. Why will they pay the guy $14 million over four years or whatever the number was? So it is. The NIL money

is being used to recruit guys. Yet, we're in a world where they're not signed to contracts. basically. So you can sign an NIL deal as a hired gun for one year. Say you're currently at Auburn and you want to head out and you want to go to LSU. You can sign a one year deal and get NIL for a year. I say one year deal. It's a one year scholarship. And you can still then move on after that year. So you can basically be a mercenary, a hired gun, and go to a handful of places over the course of your career. And to me, I think that's just the wrong way to go about it. This should be a situation where you could argue there should be unions. You could argue these players should be under contract, just like I'm under contract.

I have a three-year contract, and I ain't making a lot of money for my three-year contract at this radio station, but I needed a job and I took the three-year contract. I told them I'd prefer to have two. They said, great, fuck off. Here's three, and I took the three-year deal. So I am here for three years, assuming I don't get whacked. I am here for three years making a small sum of money for each of those years. With no raise, mind you.

So, like, that's where I am right. Again, I'm happy to have the job. I'm not ripping anybody. But my point is this, that in college athletics, we should be in a position where these guys should be signing contracts. And if they decide, hey, I'm going to LSU and you sign a two-year deal, if you break that contract. Like, people love to use the argument that, well, coaches can leave whenever they want

to leave. Yeah, a lot of times when those coaches leave for upward mobility, the school that hires them helps them pay their buyout. That was always the biggest thing. Dude, and I'm talking, like, the low-end coaches had buyouts. Back in the day when my dad first got to Baton Rouge, people were talking about LSU buying out Jerry DeNardo's contract at Vanderbilt to hire him. And that's who they eventually hired. They brought in Jerry DeNardo, and they paid, they paid out the buyout.

So, like, people love to talk about how coaches are so against mobility and they're so against NIL, yet coaches can leave whenever they want. Yes, that's true. But there is at least some sort of penalty, generally speaking. There is some sort of situation where if coach at X school, let's say you're the coach at U of age, because that's like a school that's been a feeder school in recent years, right? Not so much recently, but it was prior to that with Kevin Sumlin and Tom Herman and whatever. So like, let's say that you're at U of age. Back when you of age, before I went to Big 12, before it was a destination school, back when it was a feeder school.

And you're at U of H, you're going to get competent. for signing to Tom Herman or get compensated for signing to Kevin Sumlin to a long-term deal. They have a buyout in their deal and Texas is going to pay that buyout or Texas A&M is going to pay that buyout. So why should it not be the same thing for players? Players who sign NIL deals to come to a school should be obligated to sign a contract. And if they sign a contract, if they agree to a one-year contract, they agree to a one-year contract. But if a school says, no, we want to get you here for a two-year deal and just know that if you wanted to be treated like adults and you want to be treated like this is big business, which all of you do, all you 18, 19-year-old dudes want to be treated like this is big business, well, put on your big-boy pants and make big-boy decisions. But what we're doing is we're allowing 18, 19, 20-year-old people to basically have zero responsibility and not understand how the world works.

And look, I'm not going to lie to you that I care about these guys. and if they get chewed up and spit out in the real world, it's not like it matters to me. My life will keep spending, but the world will spend, my life will keep going. But, so I'm not going to sit here and play the kind of polyana,

kind of idealistic look of, but what about the kids? Because I really don't give a fuck. But you're spitting out people who have no concept of how the real world works and you're spitting them out into the real world because all they know is, well, I was at LSU this year and I decided,

even though I signed a letter of intent and a scholarship, I'm going to leave this year and now I'm going to bounce to Auburn then I'm going to bounce to Jacksonville State then I'm going to bounce to Duke your base and really it's more of an annoyance and it's annoyance to me that like people like me

who have a job and have to sign a deal have to stay at a place for a certain number of years I cannot break this deal it is a contract it is a binding agreement yet somehow there is zero punishment seemingly for a guy who goes to a school agrees to play at a school

and then, oh, I'm just going to leave and go somewhere else to the highest bidder. Everything about it feels kind of icky. I'm fine with them being paid. I'm fine with it being, if they made it contracts and unions and all that shit, I'd be totally fine with it. The problem is it isn't. It's just the Wild West.

And then all the schools are finding ways to skirt around all this. And now what you have, essentially, is new ways of cheating. How about you create a world where cheating doesn't exist because everything is laid out cut and dry. There's nothing that you have to work around. There's nothing where you can be like, hey, we're LSU and what we decided to do was Brian Kelly said he'd match

up to a million dollars in donations to the Tiger Athletic Foundation, which is a workaround for coaches paying NILs directly, which, by the way, was brilliant in the setup, a brilliant move by him. But how about we get to a world where you're like the NFL? You want to be like the big boys? You want to be pros?

Work it like the pros. But all that said, that's why I'm jaded as it relates to college football. And that's why my love for individual team is kind of different than it used to be. I just kind of view guys more of commodities now, you know. But my love for LSU doesn't die. And that sounds lame. And I get it sounds hokey and it sounds trite. And I could understand if you mocked me for it.

You said, Josh, you sound like a dipshit. And that's fine. But more than the guys who wear the LSU uniform, because a lot of those guys you can't really feel a commitment to, and I'm sure you feel this way with whatever school you root for, because so many of them move around, other than a guy like, say, Garrett Nussmeyer, who's waited his turn to be the starting quarterback at LSU. And really, that's the kind of guys we should root for. You know, rooting for the hired gun guy that goes to the highest bidder for the fourth time isn't the kind of guy that we should be like, hey, let's root for that guy. who he should be rooting for as a quarterback that waits his turn, sits behind a Heisman trophy winner, rides it out, and gets two full seasons at the end of it at the school he started at. I'm not saying that's the right way, quote-unquote, to do it, I guess. But what I am saying

is that's a very commendable way to do it, and it makes it easy to root for somebody like Garrett and Smyer, and that's why I am. But as someone who grew up in Baton Rouge was not born there, moved there when I was about 10 years old, I lived there from 1996, really probably more 1997, 1997 until 2009 is when I moved. My entire middle school existence, my entire high school existence, the little bit of college I went to, getting laid for the first time, everything that happened to me in that important part of my life happened in Baton Rouge and my family still lives there. My mom moved there eventually.

My sister lives there. Baton Rouge is my home. I love Baton Rouge. and maybe it's because I'm not there every day if I never would have gotten out of Baton Rouge and never would have gotten a job in Houston that led to a job in Philly that led back to Houston that led to Nashville

that led to St. Louis, that led to Detroit, maybe I'd feel differently if I were there every day and that's probably true. I'd probably hate it and I'd hate the LSU fans and everything and I'd probably be a lot more jaded but that's why I'm glad I don't live there but

LSU is still a connection to home. That's why I have an LSU license plate on the front of our car like a total fucking fanboy dip shit. Or that's why I bought a flag to put outside of the house, an LSU state of Louisiana, LSU flag. It keeps me connected to home. So the people who wear the uniform that make up the LSU team don't really matter to me anymore because I don't feel a connection to any of those guys. There's very few of these guys where you're like, wow, I watch that dude as a freshman and now he's a senior and he's bawling out. I mean, LSU is the ultimate portal team, which you have to be at this state.

If you can't recruit the guys and the guys you're recruiting, keep going to other schools and they're leaving in the portal, then beat them at their own game and you've got to go to the portal and LSU dominated the portal this offseason. So, look, it's hard to feel committed to certain guys because there aren't that many of them. That's why it's really easy to root for Garrett Nussmeyer, who even though this is probably not true, you want to feel like your guys that are there love the state and love the state. school as much as you do. And maybe some of them do because LSU used to put up that fence around Louisiana and keep Louisiana boys in Louisiana. So I'm sure some of them do. And some of them are dudes from, you know, Ohio that are there because this is where the best offer was and this is where the money was and this is where they came. So, like, you want to feel like those guys feel the same way that you feel about your school. And you're really, you say school, but your

institution. Like nobody gives a shit that it's a school. I mean, education. is lower than it's ever been for college athletics because of NIL and like nobody gives a shit if you're going to out to fucking American history or whatever class, you know. But the reason I care about it so much and the reason I love it so much is because it keeps me connected. So any time I get jaded and I'm like, fuck these guys. I don't even know these guys. The portal's gross.

Fuck Bryce Underwood. All these things. I just remember that LSU represents Louisiana and Louisiana is. home and my love of Louisiana and the Saints and the Tigers went up when I moved. When I was doing radio there, like I didn't hate it, but like the fans annoyed me and I'm like, I'm doing a radio show. I didn't care if they won or lost. When I moved 16 years ago, that all changed. My perspective changed because I wasn't there day in, day out, and I was kind of homesick for it and it made it easier to love it. So that's why I get excited about the start of college.

football season. And that's why it still matters to me. And that's why even though the portal has kind of ruined my overall love of it. And I feel like there's a commitment issue that a lot of these guys have. And I wish they'd be more committed to Louisiana and the school that I represent. I'm sure many of you feel that way about whatever school you root for, whether it's Texas or A&M or Penn State or whomever you root for. It's like you kind of wish these guys felt the same way about your place that you do. That part of it sucks. But it's still LSU. It's still purple and gold. It's still Tiger Stadium. It's still Louisiana Saturday night and calling Baton Rouge. And like I get going every time I fucking hear it. So, you know, as jaded as you

might be, it's the start of college football season. And that's what keeps me connected to home. So as much as I might hate a lot of what's happened and feel that it's a lot different than it used to be, and I remember when guy yells at Cloud here, I still love it, and I'm excited. And Saturday, even though I feel like LSU is going to lose because they've lost, what, five consecutive season openers, I'm still going to be there. I'm still going to crank up Louisiana Saturday night and calling Baton Rouge on the Bluetooth. I'm still going to make some jumbalaya at home, buy Louisiana beers, all that shit and get

hype for it, because it keeps me connected. And that's why I do it. That's why I get emotional when I talk about it. That's why when I hear Colin Baton Rouge, I'm like, God, it feels like home. It takes me back to being in the stadium. 2000, really the first game I went to is in, actually, only in 2003. I was 17. It was the year after the national championship.

My first game in the stadium was 2003, Florida. They lost, I think, 19 to 7 or 16 to 7 or I think it was 19 to 6, something like that. But either way, that's why I still love it. It's very easy to get jaded. We all are, but I think that kind of is what it comes back. to for us as people, you know, you know, fuck it. If you're a Longhorn fan, it's still burnt orange, you know? If you're A&M, you're still like, you know, your weird Adidas sweatshirts that look like they come from a low-end gas station. That's what you're here for. Anyway,

more to come.