The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Brian T. Smith On Big 10 Decision To Play Only Conference Football Games

Episode Date: July 10, 2020

Brian T. Smith On Big 10 Decision To Play Only Conference Football Games

is the Matt Thomas Show. All right, 201 on Sports Talk 790. It is the final hour, and we always enjoy a Friday visit with our good friend, Brian T. Smith. You can find him on Twitter at Cron Brian Smith. He's also the league columnist for the Houston Chronicle, and he joins us here on the Matt Thomas Show. BTS, first of all, good afternoon to you, friend. I got a question for you. Yesterday at this time, the Big Ten announced.

that they were only going to play conference games. And Joe George and I were talking earlier today that you would have thought that would have been a breath of fresh air, a little finality to, or at least a push towards a college football season. Instead, it's just the opposite. You've got ADs all across that conference and other conferences saying, not only is that that's kind of a pipe dream that we may not even have a college football season, are you a little surprised at what the Big Ten did

and the reaction we got shortly after they announced they got rid of their non-conference games. Number one, Matt, and I love, you always have me on it and always starts with a question, which is fun. Number one, I literally am sitting on my couch in my house, you know, doing the working from home thing, which I've been doing about

four months now. Sure. And I'm almost done with a column that will appear in Sunday's Chronicle about this issue. And you and I have not talked about this. So I had no idea, full disclosure, you were going to ask me about this. This is everything, I think, right now in sports. As much as you want to talk about the NBA

and the bubble and Major League Baseball and all of its issues and the NFL, in a lot of ways, the most pressing, complex, unpredictable of all these sports, the major, the big four, I'm going to throw college football on with a big three for pro sports. It's college football because it's kids, it's young men, it's such a billion-dollar game, it's Saturday, it's also Sunday night and Monday, Thursdays, et cetera. But nothing really drives the conversation in our country across the entire country, whether you're in Washington or Florida or New York or Ohio or Texas, like college football, right? So to me, baseball is one thing, NBA is one thing.

College football is it when it comes to, if they can't figure out a way to make this work, that's the biggest sign that, you know, and I don't want to say this, but 2020, from a sports perspective, it could end up being just very much a lost year, which we haven't really seen since World War II, right? I'm almost done with this column. I think what the Big Ten did yesterday, and some people are going to disagree with that, that's fine. I think what they did is just absolutely stupid.

If you're going, number one, they didn't have to do it right now. Number two, if you're going to do it, do something like, okay, we're only going to play in state, or we're only going to play within a 200-mile radius. Bowling Green, I believe, if I look at the map correctly, Bowling Green is in the same state as Ohio State, and Ohio State was going to play bowling green in the season opener. September 5th, that game's already been canceled. But Ohio State's going to play Rutgers.

Michigan is going to play Maryland because they're in the same conference. Michigan has nothing in terms of geographically with Maryland. Ohio State has nothing geographically close to Rutgers. So again, we just see this struggle. We see the struggle with the NCAA, with the Power 5, and these conferences are supposed to be working together to try to find some way to save the college football season. And you basically have conferences and athletic directors and the heads of conferences acting out of their own on a whim.

Right. And in a lot of ways, throwing a huge, huge monkey wrench into the idea that, yes, we can save the season. It makes no sense to me at all. Because it was really odd. Big Ten, first want to come out and say something. All right. Okay. Kudos to you guys because there's no leadership of the executive at the incident of L. 100%. And then you had AD's going, well, I'm not even sure we're going to do this. This is Ohio State talking, BTS. This is not like this is a little Vanderbilt. This is Ohio State saying, I'm not even sure we're going to do this. And that's why.

Well, and I'll never call it. I'll never, you know, no offense to the people out there, the Buckeye people out there. I'm sure they're all nice people. I was actually born in Ohio. for the most part of the good state. It has some issues. No offense to the Buckeye people. Number one, you don't, you can't, you don't get the the, you don't get the V in front of your name. You just can't do that. Number two, Ohio State's been at the forefront of saying from their perspective, we're going to play. We're going to have fans in the stands.

No matter what it takes, maybe if I have to suit up, I think it was their AD or president or something, said that just a month ago. And then you're going to come out on the same day that you're one of the driving members to say, we're going to only be in conference in the Big Ten. We're going to wreck the entire college football season, college football playoff, rankings, all that stuff. Teams, smaller schools, I mean, millions and millions and millions of dollars are at stake. On that same day, to your point, you're going to say, well, I don't even know if we're going to be able to have a season. It's just like what the bleep is going on. And, Matt, here's the thing.

The season's not that far away. You know, as much as we're talking about baseball, in the NBA and the NFL, college football is not that far away, and you now have conferences fighting each other, I don't know what they're going to do. Is the SEC going to do its own thing and the Big 12 does its own thing? The smartest thing right now would be for Texas, according to the Big Ten, the smartest thing would be for Texas to play Texas A&M because you're going to reduce the risk of corona because they're closer together. That would actually be logical, even if they're in different conferences, the Pig 10's idea to only go stay within its conference

but still have Michigan and Maryland and Ohio State and Rutgers playing each other when they're all so far apart is absolutely nonsensical. So, okay, and I'm going to put you in a very difficult spot. Okay, Graham Puba, NCAA college football, what are we going to do here? We're going to play. Do you want to play 10 games, Brian T. Smith? Okay. Yeah.

Do you want to play the schools closest to you? Do you want to scrap the conferences? Because when the official announcement first came out, we were kind of like, okay, so we're going to play some football. And we're going to space it out. If there's an outbreak at one of the campuses, you can at least play. And look, even though you're right, Maryland and Michigan are worlds apart, there's nothing more or less safe than flying on an airplane that would be able to put a bunch of kids on a bus. I mean, it's still going to potentially contract things from each other. So how do you do this when there are still so many people in America that want to see some sort of college football this season?

Number one, you have to have coordination. I think this is why disruptor is a huge term right nowadays in our modern tech world. You're a disruptor. The big thing with Kyrie Irving yesterday, you have to have communication. You have to have coordination. baseball for all of its issues, it's the players and it's Manfred and it's the owners. The NBA, for all of its issues, it's silver and the players and the owners and the teams, the same thing for the NFL.

What we're seeing, Matt, in a time of chaos and sports and the U-word unprecedented over and over, I'm not sure if it's going to be able to work in the NCAA, and maybe yesterday was the first real proof that we've had because there's no communication, There's no coordination. In a lot of ways, it's survival of the fittest. Everyone's out for themselves. And as much as we get this whole image of the Power 5 and the SEC and the Big 12 and the NCAA, what the Big 10 did yesterday wrecked in a lot of ways.

Now, they could solve the season, but yeah, what are you going to do? Do you have to play at least 10 games? How do you make the college football playoff work? How in the world, if I'm Ohio State, and obviously the part of the – if I'm an Ohio State fan, I would be so bleeped off right now because you can't talk straight to schedule anymore. The best games you're going to play are already taken off your schedule. So the NCAA or the college football playoff committee is going to have to come out and say, you must play at least 10 games.

You're going to have to be some type of qualifiers. But, Matt, if I'm an SEC fan, if I'm a big 12 fan, if Texas or A&M or LSU or whomever, if that's my favorite school and we're going to play out of conference and we're going to keep our schedule and play some of the best teams in the country on the road, why in the world would I even look at the Big Ten this season? They're not even in our stadium. They can't even get on our field because they're playing Redkers. They're playing Maryland.

Don't talk to me about rankings in the top 25 if you're not going to play out a conference. Yeah, especially Notre Dame's in a big spot too because they've got no conference go-to. All right. Before I let you run. Notre Dame is going to play BYU 12 times or something. like that. Yeah, Houston Cougars supposed to play BYU this year.

Houston is supposed to play Washington. That's what I'm kind of waiting to see what the Pact 12 says, because I feel like that part of the country is even worse shape than even other parts of the country. Hey, good news. 100%? Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. I was going to say, we got some good news.

Major League Baseball, incredibly low test results. So I would ask, BTS, that the NFL, except for the logistic delays they had over July 4th, is whatever the Major League Baseball folks are doing, Make sure that the NFL can do it as good if not better because it feels like the low report we got today from MLB is a very good sign for that sport. Yeah, and I love being positive and optimistic during time of corona, right? 100%. And we said this a couple weeks ago about the NBA's initial report. It was actually better than expected.

Major League Baseball. Now, we'll have to see, right? When they actually start traveling, that'll be the test. But JJ Watt mentioned it this week in a conference call. And this is a point I've made in a lot of my columns. The NBA is going to learn from MLS. Major League Baseball is going to learn from the NBA. The NFL is going to learn from Major League Baseball and the NBA and MLS.

And hopefully college football can learn from all of those if it's smart enough. It's going to – I mean, it's – it's absurd if these leagues aren't on daily conference calls, you know, just one person meets league, what are you doing? What's your best practice? What isn't working? What is working? How are you handling when you have a positive? How are you secluding players?

How are you dealing with food? All those things. I don't know. I still don't know if we're going to have real sports the rest of this year, Matt. I mean, MLS is going on. It's a tournament. We already had two teams to bow out. Are we going to have baseball and are they actually going to play all 60 games?

Are we going to actually see the NBA finals in Orlando? And when we have a full NFL season and a full college football season, season on some level. Nobody can answer that. I think the only way they make this work is to continue to communicate, use best practices, and kind of borrow and steal in a good way from each other. And just behave yourselves and don't get out of that bubble, especially for an NBA player. Brian, thanks for the inside. As always, have a great weekend and we'll talk with you again next week, friend. Thank you for the time. Thank you, Matt. Take care, man. You got it, Brian T. Smith from the Houston Chronicle, a Friday contributor here to the Matt

Thomas show. 2.13 is our time. We are back in 15. minutes with the fantasy five you're going on a four-hour plane ride you're bringing five food items with you what you bring in joe george and i will debate that in 50 minutes on sports talk 790