The Josh Innes Show - The Farce Of College Football Rivalries

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

I'm fascinated by the number of phony college players who do dumb shit under the guise of passionate rivalries. Do I really believe that some kid from Michigan really hates Ohio State? No. Why? Everything is about money and branding. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, friends, so college football, final weekend of the season happened, final weekend of the regular season, then you get conference championships and you start getting all these people bitching about who's going to be in the college football playoff and who isn't going to be in the college football playoff. All I know is if Alabama somehow gets into this goddamn thing,

I will lose my mind. Like, you lost three games, and I get the argument that, oh, you play games against better teams in the SEC. Fine. Cool. Whatever. Alabama lost to Vanderbilt. Alabama got pistol whipped by a shitty Oklahoma team that in turn got pistol whipped by LSU who had gotten pistol whipped by Alabama. Cut the shit about Alabama. I don't need to hear about them. Alabama is not a team that deserves to be in that spot. That said, yeah, the big Texas-Texas A&M game, the rivalry is back. Talk about teams that got pistol whipped by someone that shouldn't have gotten pistol whipped

by them. My God. Look, I root for LSU. That's my team. They lost four games. They don't deserve to be anywhere. But if you want to know what's despicable and gross and disgusting is that LSU, had they not lost to Florida or A&M, they would have won either one of those games. They very much could have been in the race for the SEC championship game. Of course, they didn't get there. I get that. But they could have been. Despite how shitty they are, they could have, should have, would have done it. And when I watch, there's two things that I've seen that make me even more disgusted about the LSU season. You watch Alabama just get throttled by this shitty Oklahoma team. Now, mind you, Alabama destroyed LSU. Absolutely embarrassed them. Jalen Milrow, who's not good, destroyed them running the ball. When he has to throw, he's not good.

Somehow you couldn't stop him from running, but Oklahoma could. Then Oklahoma couldn't stop the LSU offense. Vanderbilt beats Alabama. LSU handles Vanderbilt fairly easily, fairly convincingly. Like, you just watch this and you're like what the fuck but maybe the worst of them because again it's Alabama and Alabama they beat LSU that's just what they do but when you go back to that A&M game and you watch the way LSU dominated the first half and then Marcel Reed comes in and looks like Michael fucking Vic and LSU can't do a goddamn thing in the second half against A&M then you

watch A&M just be inept against Texas offensively Marcel Reed inept against them and you go how how did this happen like I'm watching this game I'm watching A&M and they're late in the game I think they blocked a punt they're down I think at the time it was at 17-7, I think was the score. And they block a punt. They've got the ball at about the 18-yard line of Texas. Now, mind you, they're down two scores. They need to score and score quickly because they have to get the ball back again. They're at the 18-yard line or thereabouts. Marcel Reed, this dynamic playmaker, it took them three and a half to four minutes just to get down to the one-yard line where they subsequently got stopped at the one-yard line. When I watch how inept they were, it disgusts me that LSU didn't beat them.

Because 9-3 LSU maybe has an outside shot they're in that conversation of hey does LSU deserve to be in they're in that South Carolina spot and also as far as South Carolina goes I feel bad that LSU beat South Carolina because if Lenore Sellers does not get hurt see people love to talk about uh the penalty that was called that saved LSU against South Carolina on the I think it was a pick six and they called a block in the back on the return or an illegal hit, so it called that back and LSU got new life, right? Fine, because it took a touchdown off the board. If Lenora Sellers does not get hurt against LSU at South Carolina, South Carolina wins that. Now, obviously, South Carolina has to win all the games that they went on to win, but if you're 10 and two, you're in South Carolina. Here's what bothers me about college football as it relates to my team,

right? So LSU spends $10 million a year on a coach. They got one of the high profile, big name coaches. And you know who those guys are. They're not just big names because they happen to coach a team. They are legit big name coaches, right? Like Sark is a big name coach. Brian Kelly is a big name coach. Saban was a big name coach. Urban Meyer was a big name coach. Homeboy at USC, you know, one of the, you know, those guys are big name coaches, right? You look at those guys and you go, those are like brand coaches. Pete Carroll was that when he was at USC then there's guys who are elevated because of where they go you know I would maybe throw James Franklin in there as well uh guys like that who are big name coaches Harbaugh

was like that but then there's guys like Sharon Moore who look like big name coaches because they happen to be the coach at one of the biggest blue blood programs ever at Michigan right so you look at that guy and you go he's elevated because of where he coached Lane Kiffin is a brand too I put Kiffin in the brand category the Pirate was a brand there are certain coaches who are big brand name coaches Stoops was Bob Stoops not Mark Stoops or Mike's or whatever Stoops not that Stoops uh but then there are guys like Brent Venables, who's a big brand name as a coordinator, but he coaches Oklahoma, and therefore he's elevated. Dabo is a brand. Guys, you get my point.

I can just keep going down the list, but you get the point. Chip Kelly was a brand. There are coaches that are just big brand $10 million coaches. But LSU's got one of them in Brian Kelly. They're paying him $10 million a year. They can't fire him because he makes all that money, and you don't want to pay out another guy. You have to pay him if you fire him. But then you watch what some of these dudes are doing with lesser. You look at Beamer at

South Carolina and you go, they find ways to beat teams that they should not beat. In theory, they shouldn't have beaten LSU and they didn't, but they, it's weird to say this, they shouldn't have beaten LSU, and they didn't, but it's weird to say this. They shouldn't have beaten LSU, but they should have. On paper, LSU should have beaten them. It's LSU, Blue Blood Program, tons of talent, five stars everywhere, and then there's South Carolina. But South Carolina should have beaten them in that game. Then you look at what they do against Clemson. Beamer in South Carolina shouldn't beat Clemson at Clemson,

but they do. Then you watch Sharon Moore. Now, I don't know that Sharon Moore is the reason why Michigan won that game against Ohio State, but they did something they weren't supposed to do. They beat a team they weren't supposed to beat. LSU doesn't do that. That's happened once. That happened when they beat Alabama a couple years ago. That's it. When you watch a $10 million a year coach, you'd like to think that you're going to win games you're not supposed to win. Maybe they weren't supposed to beat Ole Miss, but you weren't a

heavy underdog against Ole Miss. You're at home. It's night. You should beat Ole Miss. Ole Miss is still your little brother until proven otherwise but you watch guys at South Carolina and you watch Sharon Moore and you watch some of these guys who are somehow getting more out of less now mind you Sharon Moore's had a bad season but they beat Ohio State how often do you see a team like LSU do something they're not supposed to do how often did you see uh you know Texas A&M do that they never do that Texas A&M never goes out and beats somebody or wins a game they're not supposed to. That's just not what they do. Yet they were paying Jimbo $10 million a year,

and that dude never won games he wasn't supposed to win. But then you watch Beamer doing what he's doing in South Carolina. To me, South Carolina should be there. If you gave me an option, you could say, Josh, you could watch Alabama or South Carolina. I want to see what Lenora sellers can do in that spot over what Jalen Milrow can do. I've seen the Jalen Milrow party. I've experienced it. I don't want to see it again. I want to see my man Lenora in his glasses, go out there and see what he can do. Cause if you give me the option of like tired ass blue blood with three

losses or an upstart that's got a good young coach ready to go like come on who would you rather see fucking Alabama or South Carolina and of course you got uh you know Lane Kiffin bitching about it as well they're all gonna bitch that's the beauty of it everybody thinks you add teams to this playoff and it fixes things it doesn't it just It just leads to more bitching, but whatever. Now, I'm going to play a couple commercials, and we'll talk about this planting the flag shit in college football that's got everybody worked up to. We'll do that after these words from whoever these people are.

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Limited time offer. See terms at pick6.draftkings.com slash promos. All right, so what we do have is planting the flag in these rivalry games. Let's start here. Some of these places truly have, like, hate rivalries. You know, like Ohio State and Michigan's been going on for 100 years. There's hate there. There's legit, real hate.

Your season can be won or lost by whether or not you win that game. Sharone Moore's had a bad year, but guess what? Sharone Moore beat Ohio State and kept them out of the Big Ten championship game, and that's a victory. That makes the season. I'm an LSU guy. We don't have a game like that. We don't have a blood rivalry like that.

We own the state of Louisiana. We don't have a rivalry where it's like, oh my God, as long as we beat blank team, it was a successful season. Alabama's the closest thing to that, but we're not Alabama's rival. We've built this sort of rivalry, kind of, but it's not a rivalry like that. It's a rivalry based on we want to be Alabama. We've never been Alabama. We will never be Alabama. So we shoot up at them kind of like Ole Miss is and Arkansas is with LSU. Now, Ole Miss and LSU used to be rivalries, you know, before the civil

rights movement. Like I get that argument from LSU people all the time, like Ole Miss is our rival, not my generation. And Ole Miss has been largely irrelevant. So maybe in your old fuddy-duddy days of, you know, the Montgomery bus boycott, maybe they were rivals. But I don't view Ole Miss as a rival, like a blood rival. Like, as long as we beat Ole Miss, the season was successful. No, we beat Ole Miss and finished eight and four. The season fucking sucked. Therefore, I don't care that they beat Ole Miss. Same with Arkansas, which is a manufactured rivalry. But that's neither here nor there. There are legit rivalries.

Here's my issue in this era of college football. Let's start with how the Ohio State game ended, where the Michigan players ran out there and planted their flag at the middle of the field. And this melee starts, and dudes are pepper spraying the players and shit. Here's why this means nothing to me. We are in an era where marquee players are more than likely going to play for at least two schools, possibly three, possibly four. Who knows? We are in the NIL transfer portal era of college football. So if you want me to believe that you're running out there planting your flag because you have all this school pride, like I just love that I play at Michigan. How many of those guys are going to spend four years at Michigan? How many of them

would leave Michigan to go to Ohio State tomorrow if Ohio State said, we need you, here's a million five? They would do it. I can't view college athletics as college athletics anymore. It is the mini pros. And that's fine. Go get paid. Make your money. Get rich. I'm all for that.

I'm not against the idea of capitalism, and I'm not against the idea of players getting paid. Make money off of your name, image, likeness. I think the whole situation is still rife with corruption. But whatever. It is what it is. Go do you. But this is pro football at this point.

I know that not everybody's making a million dollars a year, but dudes are getting paid, and they have the option of getting paid. They have the choice now to go places that will pay them. So just like I wouldn't believe that like, like do I believe that T.O. ran out to the star in Dallas and put the football down because T.O. has San Francisco 49er pride. Fuck no, he has T.O. pride. That's what he had and therefore he played for the Cowboys and he played for the 49ers and he played for whomever. Point being in all of this is that's what you get in the pros. Like I don't view people who play professional sports as people who have true loyalty to the team or the city. They have loyalty to the people who are signing their checks.

And that's what you're getting now. Just like, you know, Jane Daniels has loyalty to LSU because that's the place he went and won the Heisman. But he also played at Arizona State. The last place Joe Burrow played football in college was LSU, but before that he was at Ohio State. Not all of those are, you know, exactly apples to apples situations. But you get my point. So when I see a dude at Michigan run out and plant a flag like, yeah, fuck you, Ohio State, do I really believe that any of those guys really give a shit that they beat Ohio State? This isn't the 1960s. That ain't Bo Schembechler. That ain't Woody Hayes. This isn't dudes that

aren't getting paid, maybe under the table, but in the 1970s, dudes that aren't out there doing NIL deals, doing social media, doing commercials. Back then, you want to tell me those guys legitimately hated each other? I'd believe it because that's what you were brought up in. You were brought up in that you were going to go to Michigan, and if you went to Michigan, you were going to play there for four years, and you fucking hate Ohio State, and that game makes or breaks your season, and that's all that mattered to those people back then. That's all that mattered to the fans.

It's all that mattered to the players. Now it's like the games themselves are just an outlet to get these guys to the pros or it's just an outlet to promote their brand or whatever. So, and that's fine. I'm not judging the concept of that. What I'm saying is I don't believe that those guys are truly loaded with

school spirit. They're loaded with the school spirit for the school they play for today. But that's it. There's no loyalty. So the idea that Michigan kid plants the flag or North Carolina state kid plants the flag, and we saw that everywhere. It's like one team did it and then the rest of the team saw them and they all decided, hey, let's run out there and let's go plant our flag and let's all fight each other. It's all bogus and it's all bullshit and none of it matters. Like, do I believe that Texas and Texas A&M fans legitimately hate each other? Yes. That's like class warfare.

That's McConaughey versus whoever Texas A&M's big fan is. That's McConaughey versus the Goobers at Texas A&M. It's the high-end elites of Austin versus the good old boys of Bryan College Station. It's the Longhorn girls. They're wearing their chaps and shit versus the milkmen and the dudes in their overalls doing the yell leading practice at midnight. I believe that the fans legitimately hate each other. I believe that Ohio State fans and Michigan fans hate each other.

I believe that LSU and Ole Miss fans hate each other. I believe that LSU and Alabama fans hate each other. I believe that Alabama and Auburn fans hate each other. That's real. The fan hatred will never change. But what has changed is what I believe to be the true passion for the commitment to the school. And it's because this is now a huge business that now also benefits the dudes wearing the uniforms, not just the dudes wearing the headsets and the dudes in the press box and

the dudes in the suites. So when I see that, I just kind of laugh and go, yeah, like give it up. No one buys it. No one buys that. Some kid that plays at Michigan gives a fuck that they lost Ohio state other than the fact, or that they beat Ohio state because it's Ohio state. They don't care about that. That's dead. That's over. Like I used to watch all these documentaries about these great rivalries, like the, and this is a pro rivalry, but like the Yankees and the Red Sox. And I was brainwashed into thinking that this really mattered. Then as an adult, I watch it. I'm like, who the fuck cares? Unless you root for the Red Sox. And I was brainwashed into thinking that this really mattered. Then as an adult, I watch it. I'm like, who the fuck cares unless you root for the Red Sox or the fucking Yankees?

Why the hell do I care about this rivalry? Same with Carolina and Duke. When I was in high school, you had to rush home to make sure you'd watch J.J. Redick and Duke take on North Carolina. Now I'm a 38-year-old man. I'm like, why the fuck do I care about this? These aren't my teams. I'm not even going to turn this shit on. But there was a time when people, that was the mindset of people is

you were told by TV and the media that these mattered and you cared. Now I don't. And you want me to believe that dudes that are now getting paid and making their school selections, you want me to like a Bryce Underwood who literally took the most money to go to Michigan. You want me to believe that Bryce Underwood has true real hatred for anybody or Ohio State? No, he went to Michigan because they paid him the most money. So just start being honest about this shit. Please. Thank you.