The Right Time with Bomani Jones - Pat Forde on Chauncey Billups Gambling Scandal, College Football Coaching Chaos | 10.24

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

Pat Forde of Sports Illustrated joins Bomani Jones. First, they discuss the recent arrests of Chauncey Billups & Terry Rozier, and how there are likely more gambling scandals coming down the pipe. Later, they discuss the latest in the College Football coaching carousel. Will Lane Kiffin take the job at Florida or stay at Ole Miss? And will LSU, USC, or Florida State move on from their coaches sooner rather than later? 2:00 - NBA Gambling scandal 26:00 - Which Coach gets fired next? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time, a wave original. My name is Beaumani Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. It is 40 Friday.

Pat 40 of s.i.com. My man, how are you? I'm doing great, Beaumonti. Good to see you again. Great to be on with you. I got to tell you, I don't know. I just realized. I was like, I have no idea.

last time I did something with Pat, and I do this to embarrass him because he doesn't like it when I do it. But I always tell people I'm not here without Pat Forty. Ford was the first, like, legitimate person that I recall to really, like, put an arm around me and help me out through this and encourage me when I lost jobs and all of those things. So I get, I always say, one of my most, I feel legit moments ever is at the 2007 ACC tournament, sit next to you, watching Selection Sunday filling out the bracket. Like, that is an all-time highlight of me doing this. So it's like, I'm thrilled to have you on with us on this one. Well, I got to give some back story there, Bo. I was working at ESPN.

And you freelanced, I believe, a piece for us from North Carolina. It was in a press conference, I think. And I was like, holy shit, who is this guy? He's a great writer. We need to use more from him. And geez, things have worked out pretty well for you from there. But yeah, I remember also seeing you at that ACC tournament. And you looked at me and you said, I think we're probably both tolerated.

and we thought the other one was. Yeah, that's what I saw you at the D-dove on that one. And I was like, yep, that is exactly what checked out. We were definitely in the front court in that room. Yeah. But so I originally had wanted to have Pat on to talk about like the changing basically personnel structure in college football coaching where everybody seems to get fired really fast.

And then as we were getting ready to do this and preparing to record, the world set on fire. And we get this report that, Damon Jones and Chauncey Billups have been arrested also Terry Rozier. And I think Rozier, actually, for the sporting part of it, is the most interesting one. Because Rozier has basically been accused of shaving points, providing insider information to gamblers. And, you know, hey, my foot hurts come out of the game. A whole lot of people had bet the under. Damon Jones is in a similar place because he has been accused of trading on insider information to gamblers because he had a gambling problem.

but he was also participating in illegal poker games where Chauncey Phillips was also participating in illegal poker games. And that's how these two things are tied together. And I need you to understand that the illegal poker games are accused to have been rigged and run by the five families. Like we're not talking about like a movie. We mean the actual five mafia families that I would be honest with you. I didn't know it still worked like that. Like I didn't know that they had all like persisted and it remained just five. Like you know, it used to be the power six. and now it's like really the power four conferences, but it's really the power two.

I thought that by now there would have been some sort of mergers. That's the only place where we haven't had realignment, I guess, is in the mafia in New York. It's a wild story. Incredible. Been following it since March of 2024, when all of a sudden we started getting word about suspicious bets on a temple UAB basketball game.

And lo and behold, Temple lost by 28 and was getting housed in the first half. And there were all these bets against Temple on the first half spread. And that was kind of this first inclination of, hey, there's this gambling ring out there. And it has rippled from there. And then we started finding about the NBA impact on it. And obviously, Jonte Porter, his situation, getting banned from the NBA and being charged. and it's believed, Bonnie, but money, obviously that the people involved in the NBA game fixing

are also the people involved in some of the poker game rigging and in the college game. Now, the college game charges have not come out yet. That's being run by the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The rest of this is Eastern District of New York. So it's going to be a little while before we know more about that. But this is all interconnected, and it's an incredible bombshell headache for pro basketball and college basketball.

I mean, this sounds like Jack Molina's 1960s sort of stuff. Like, am I wrong or is that too simple? Yeah. It's like throwback to the, yeah, like CCNY, 1950s, mobsters running around New York, fixing stuff, rigged poker games. It's an incredible vivid story, which is probably why we had some of the, the character's grandstanding in Brooklyn that we did today at this press conference. That was a circle jerk of epic proportions. Like if you did not see that press conference,

I'm convinced the director of the FBI, that's just I got to be there for it, right? Like, there's going to be pictures. There's going to be all of this. I've seen people who have raised the questions about whether this is like kind of targeted by the Trump administration or this is somehow cooked up by Cash Patel. And I suppose that's possible. But I think as you just pointed out, people have been in on this for a while. Like the timing of the announcement may be its own thing, but this is something that predates this current regime. Absolutely.

Yeah, this goes back and I think they've said maybe like four years, that they've been looking into this. And the genesis of it, as I understand it, and we don't have complete information at this point. But these were guys that were attempting to rig games and making bets offshore. And the offshore places started shutting them down. Then they go domestic.

here and get a little over aggressive and all of a sudden where the regulators and the watchdogs can monitor your bets more easily. Oh, there's problems here. What's going on? And things start getting examined more closely. So this does go back. It does predate certainly the election. It certainly predates Cash Patel's work as the FBI director. He was standing there front and center and he got the microphone and talk. I can't imagine he had much to do with this. I think this was largely run by boots on the ground in New York and elsewhere that predated his entry into the bureau. I mean, I watched that press conference, and I guess the first 12 minutes or so, maybe even get around 15 were useful.

And then as you said, after that, it was just people making sure that they were on the program. Like, it was almost like the funeral of a dignitary where everybody's got it. Like, this is your chance. And the world is going to see you where the preachers come from all the other churches. And now they're going to show out. and I wonder if you enjoy this as much as I do. So I got a buddy of mine that used to sell a bunch of weed, right? And they got popped for something.

I can't remember what, but he decided to fight it. And so he took some law classes and started, you know, putting in the paperwork that you can get to look at, you know, look at the documents that they have for these different cases. And I remember a point that he always made was they really impressed themselves with the names of these operations. Like somebody always sits around and comes up with a cute name. And the cute name in this case is Operation Royal Flush.

They had all these betting metaphors. They were using it and everything that they were saying. Like people knew that this was their opportunity to be on television. Without question. Yes, Operation Royal Flush was the rigged poker games. And Operation Nothing But Bet was the, yeah, the Terry Rozier part of this thing. I mean, you know they were very pleased with themselves. And did they sit around workshoping these?

these names, you know, what's the best pun we can come up with, the best play on words. And I would love to know, yes, who was the speechwriter and who was the copy editor that went into this of like, yeah, let's see if we can slip in a little sports analogy here, a little betting analogy there. And, oh, they were very pleased with themselves at the microphone today. And there's somebody that walks around the office in is like, hey, that was mine. Like, for example, and I'm not exaggerating. I know the dude who in the meeting at the office came up with the term Wi-Fi.

And he'll let you know. Like just so you know, this imagine that. Like somebody says Wi-Fi, every time you hear from a new person, hey, you know, that was me. I came up with that. No, that's, yeah, this guy, or a woman, whoever, whoever came up with these names, they're having rounds bought for him tonight at some bar in Brooklyn after them. So as this goes, and I feel confident saying that this is only the beginning. And it's going to have some very interesting offshoot that I kind of, I'm doing my best to wait,

you know, before talking about some of the things. Some of them seem fairly obvious, but we have to be careful here. But it's shocking that this happens. And the day before the NCAA announces that they will allow their players at all divisions. to gamble on professional sports. And look, I've been talking about this for a while, and I acknowledge that I work for people and I put my voice to things that advertise

for these gambling companies. Like, I have spoken to the caution that needs to be had, and I make the point that it's got a warning label, right? Like, we need to be honest about what it is that we're doing, but I also recognize that they're paying the bills in our business. There's a measure of complicity, and it'll be curious to see how people decide that they want to handle this.

But at the same time, how bad, have we lost the plot here? Yeah, no, this is astounding timing. It really feels like, to me, Bo, that, like, that college and pro basketball have been whistling past the graveyard on this for a year and a half. And just like, yeah, well, you know, there's something going on. It's not going to be that bad.

How bad could it barely be? Well, yeah, we need the money from these gambling outfits. Sure, we're just going to keep going down that path. and this is not to say directly that Draft Kings created this scandal. This is a mafia scandal. This is, you know, on a different kind of level to a degree of how this thing has operated. But there is no doubt that the permeation, I guess, of gambling throughout sports is just basically a partner and a society. effect is problematic. And yes, for the NCAA to have just finally announced, and this has been

going on for a few months, but to come out with it this week, that yeah, our athletes can go ahead and bet on pro football, pro basketball. Sure, you know, if you played, I'm just going to throw out this example. This is not to implicate anybody. But if you played with Jace Richardson last year at Michigan State, and now he's in the league, and you call him up, hey, Jace, you know, who's got an ankle, you know, who's got a bad knee there? You know, who's going to play tonight? I'm not saying Jace Richardson would give that information, but boy, there's pathways there. This is, I think you are creating way more problems than you're solving by trying to simply lower caseload. That's what

they're trying to do is like, look, we're tired of chasing around guys that bet $50 on the NFL. I get that. Just don't chase them. But allowing this, I think, just opens up the doorway for so many more problems. Yeah, I think. think you just made an interesting point there because I was talking to someone, and I forget which story, the NCAA brought to hammer down to somebody on some real old school NCAA type stuff. I can't remember exactly who it was, but it dawned on me. They got a lot more free time on their hands now in the investigative department over there because there's not money to chase in the same way. But there would be this. And this would actually, where you talk about the case load,

that's very, very important. The prevalence of betting on campuses is so strong and it's so easy to find somebody that'll do whatever the thing is for you. And then it goes and obviously it gets to these players. And I hadn't quite thought about it the way you did. The interconnectivity of these worlds, all these guys have access to staggering levels of inside information in professional sports. Like never mind the fact how easily it is for them to get strung out on this, especially a lot of these kids who got, they now got some money in their pockets for the first time. In some cases, a lot of money in their pockets. But then also, yeah, I can. call up and just be like, hey, what's it looking like down there? Tell me what it is. And that

becomes full on catastrophic. Absolutely. Yeah, no, I mean, look, I think we're probably all happy the players are finally getting some money. But as most college kids and myself included, how responsible will they be in terms of saving it versus spending it? And then, yeah, you start getting backwards. You start getting in trouble there. And it's like, oh, my gosh, I better, yeah, I better see if I can get some insider information. Or, you know, the, you know, other direction is you start getting into debt and somebody comes in and says, hey, all you you got to do is play a crappy first half against Toledo and we'll get you, you know, we'll take care of you here. And the other thing I would like to bring up with the college part of this thing,

the truly in my mind, evil genius of it, allegedly, is that they went to these gamblers, gambling ring went to players who were involved, who were playing at mid to low level schools, they're not getting much NIL. They don't have much in the pocket. They're like, hey, this is how you can do it. And nobody's going to notice because nobody pays attention to your games or the line movement on your games.

Just dump a half for us. And I think that's where the majority of this, when it comes out from an NCAA standpoint, is going to be at those level schools. But the irony of it to me, and you tell me, if I'm crazy, but the reason that nobody, or you would think that nobody would pay attention is also the reason that you get caught, right?

Like, nothing happens on these games. And now suddenly something happens. Like I think, oh, Rosier, Roseer had some crazy under it. I think so like hundreds of thousands of dollars come in on him with this under in the first half. And I'm like, who's sitting around thinking about putting this much money on an under for Terry Rozier?

Like that seems crazy that in order for this to truly be effective for somebody and maybe a lot more people get away with it than we realize, right? But it sounds to me that for a scheme like this to be effective, you have to give away that it's a scheme. Yeah, no, I mean, that's a great point, is that, yes, it doesn't take much to move the needle if you're going to bet on a Southland conference game, right? Right.

So I think the key is, hey, bet 500 here, bet 500 there, bet 500 over here. Don't bet 5,000 or try to bet 5,000, have the casino say, hell no. But then it does reach a point where it trips a wire. And all of a sudden, it was like, wait a minute, there is way too much action on a personal overunder for a player who doesn't play that much, like a Jonté Porter or Rozier who doesn't play as much as he used to, or, you know, an obscure college game. So, you know, one of the good parts of having so much legalized gambling is the ability to monitor. There is much greater, you know,

and access to technology that will monitor all the bets. I mean, Big Brother knows who you're betting on and knows how much. And if it gets fishy, they can turn it in. Now, on the college level, in your conversations with coaches, what is their level of concern? Not much, because you know how college coaches are? You know how they. They all live in this box that's as big as their eyeballs. And that's it.

Does it affect me? No. All right. Cool. We're done. You know, oh, this is a University of New Orleans problem. This is Mississippi Valley. We don't care.

Screw them. You know, it's uncanny to me the lack of curiosity, the lack of concern from the coaching fraternity about this sort of thing. And it does just go to show, you know, college sports are so every man for himself or every conference for themselves that's like, eh, that's a mid-major problem. I'm at a high major school. Let's just keep going. Yeah, and for the NBA, Adam Silver will always have that op-ed he wrote in the New York Times in 2014

saying the sports gambling should be legalized. And maybe he was right that this improved monitoring and everything else. But he's always going to have that one on his back. Because to me, the issue is, and I've been doing a lot of doom and gloom reading about the Internet that informs us to a degree. but the truth is, is having legalized gambling is one thing, allowing you to gamble on a cell phone is another.

And that is a greatly complicating factor in all of this. It makes it very easy for people to get behind in all kinds of ways. But the real issue is, is one thing if you have to go to the casino or you have to go to the OTB, or you got to go wherever it is to meet the bookie, when the casino follows you around, the stakes of all of this have just changed completely. Totally.

Yeah. When the casino's in your pocket, pocket and sending you alerts. Hey, you know, I mean, boy, it's right there. No doubt about it. And if you go to games now, somebody pointed this out to me last year. And especially you look, student section, but otherwise too. During the games, there's a lot of people that are on their phones placing in-game bets. They're not looking at the game as much as they're looking at what the line movement is and where can I get down and try to make some money. So the availability of it all is a major amplifier in this.

Do you have any concern? Because basketball really had to fight to save its reputation coming out of like the 40s, 50s, and 60s, and people kind of almost believing like it was wrestling, like it was a game that could not be believed in. Is it dramatic to say that that's a concern that we'll have in this game going forward with if there is, if more, if we have more of these? Yeah, I don't think it's. that dramatic. I really don't. I think this is a major

reputational hit and it gives some people the fodder they want to have for how they feel about NBA players or even college players to a degree. You know, irresponsible prone to problems, that sort of thing. And

you are feeding ammunition to people who, generally speaking, are wrong, but you're giving them ammunition for preconceived notions that they may have. And that's out there. And yeah, we'll see where this goes. And if there's a bunch of other players involved,

but, you know, whether, how much is acknowledged or not? I don't know. But, you know, there is a lot of gambling that goes on the NBA amongst the players. Most of it's legal, I believe, you know, but, but like big poker games in casinos in Vegas. And some story, you know, like people. losing lots of money. And it's just, it's a concern, I think, if you're the leagues, like, hey, you know what?

Yeah, rich people of all persuasions can go to Vegas and do the same damn thing. But if everybody's out there saying, oh, the NBA is full of gambling addicts, that's bad. Right. I'll tell you two things right fast before we go to break. One, I was in Vegas this summer. And an NBA player I will not name was at the same table as me. But he was kind of blending in, just playing blackjack. And I tried to acknowledge him.

without blowing his cover. And he was dedicated to holding on to his cover, right? And then the pit boss comes over and says, nah, he's here a lot. And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's number one. Number two, there's a video going around of Get Up on Thursday on ESPN. And while they're talking about this story, the ESPN bet logo is in the bottom right quarter.

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All right, welcome back. We are here with Pat 40 of s.i.com. Ryan and I were talking just before we got on the air. were just saying it is so interesting. Firing season now starts in September, and it literally did. Like used to have back in the day, Jack Crowe gets fired because he lost to the Citadel. And then something crazy like that happens. Now we've got the James Franklin firing, even if understandable, firing a guy like that after 34 of his last 42 games were wins in the middle of the season is kind of crazy. Now it feels like the predominant story. And I guess this is a side effect of the playoff that people didn't think about. I haven't given that much

out to who the 16 teams are, I just spend all my time trying to figure out who's going to get fired. You know what? I'll tell you this much. Readership is very high for coaching carousel stuff, not as high for the playoffs. So that tells you you're not alone in that. It's wild. It really is. And it's funny. So late 20 teams, we were trending this direction where you were getting some guys. Willie Taggart got fired early at Florida State and a few other guys. but then that kind of cooled down. Maybe that was pandemic related. And then it virtually stopped last year because everybody was scared to death about what the house settlement was going to do to their budgets.

Like, no, we got to save our acorns for the winter, you know. Now, oh no, we're back. We're back. Every time you hear an AD say we don't have enough money, they find enough money to do something like this. So it is wild. This year's really pretty shocking. But I guess we could, to a degree, see it coming because there were so few fire. last year. And, you know, I think they're obviously, look, it's a copycat industry. And it's like,

oh, somebody else is getting ahead. They're being proactive. You know, they're getting into the market early. We better do it too. And so you've seen Virginia Tech and you've seen Arkansas, you've seen UCLA, and now you've seen Florida State. I'm sorry, Florida and Penn State. And those jobs are going to, there's going to be domino effects from there. And it is just amazing how fast people want to give up on the current season to get to the next season. Now, I feel like the catalyzing agent was when they got that bright idea about the early signing day, right? Because now it became a matter of we got to do this because once the recruiting class doesn't look like it's going to be good and the guys have a greater chance

of being off the table, then we started like what we've seen more of, and I think Florida did this twice firing your, no, Florida did it. Florida did it. No, no. Okay, have it to Jimbo at Texas A&M. We fire you after a win. You beat Mississippi State and we still decide to fire you because actually we had decided to fire you already, but we just need a little time to pass the hat and actually make sure that we got the money together. And then it goes from there. And so I am interested in your thoughts about kind of the jobs and what is available. So the Florida job, which I think you and I would have agreed 20 years ago, the Florida is one of the two or three best coaching jobs that you could have. It doesn't feel that way anymore. And it's interesting because

10, 20 years before that, you also wouldn't have said that about Florida. Where do you think this stands? Because I think, look, man, we all want, Lane Kevin seems to be the spiritual successor to Steve Spurrier. But I don't know how great an idea that is for either of them. Yeah, real quick, I have to say, yes, beating Mississippi State ain't what it used to be because it gets you fired now. They used to be a losing tool got you fired. Yeah, right. So Mr. Krum got a bunch of people fired because he kept beating them. But now, yeah, it's gone the other way, and now you get fired even if you win. The Florida job is fascinating, Pomani, and you bring it up.

There's a debate, and I don't know what's right between it's a phenomenal job. They've won three national championships with two different coaches versus, it's not that good a job, and it took two of the greatest coaches ever to win there, and everybody else has been kind of mid. So what's the right answer? I don't know. Look, if we look at the theory of what makes a good job, Florida checks every box, right? They have, you back out of the driveway and you go past a five-star. There's players all over the state of Florida. You have a massive, rabid fan base, you seat 90,000 in the stadium, you have membership in one of the two richest conferences.

So all those things are there. It's just a question. Now, one of the amazing things about the Florida, flattening of the sport. Is Indiana now a good job? I mean, maybe it is because all you need is NIL money and a great coach. And they've apparently got both. Vanderbilt, if you get a great coach in NIL money, can it be as good a job? Maybe not for the long term, but if you're trying to win a national title in three or four years, is Florida that much better than somewhere else? I still think it probably is, but you could argue the other way that now anything could be a good job in the right circumstance. I got a whiff in that that you're still coming to terms with the reality that

Indiana is what it is right now, huh? It hasn't really landed with me either. Dude, I've been covering games there since 1990 and the apathy was incredible. The teams were terrible. They couldn't get the students to come in the stadium. They would go tailgate and then they'd go back to the dorms or go to the bars. None of them would come into the stadium. So for them to be this good, like Kirk Signetti may be the greatest single coach in the history of the human race. I don't know. I cannot figure it out. Well, I mentioned Florida.

I am shocked that Florida State put out a statement that said that they would not evaluate, they would evaluate Mike Norville at the end of the season. And look, that is clearly over, right? Like, the one thing I will say is, it's the Jeremy Foley quote from 2004, that which will be done eventually should be done immediately. It is clear that Norville is not going to stick around. do you understand why Florida State would decide that they were going to wait? I think the subtext to that is we ain't got that much money right now. We're hoping we'll have that much money by the end of the season,

but this one's going to take a while. We don't have the Texas Oil Man booster. You know, this is just going to waive $50 million and tell him to go away or something like that. So that's my sense. They have spent a lot of money on facilities here recently, which I think is a very bad decision because facilities don't win you anything anymore and everybody could see this day coming

when, well, you know, for the last couple of years, the House settlement, eventually you were going to have to start paying players a lot of money. They blew through all the warning signs and said, now we're going to keep building things and refurbishing and whatever. But I do think that you're right, it's done, right? There is no, you can't go back and massively reboot

again after you did that last offseason. Blow out the coordinators, bring in new ones, bring a new transfer portal class, and say, here's new Mike Norville. You can't do that twice. But I think that it is a matter of we need to find the money or Mike needs to find another job and help us out. I really think a very underrated part of college sports

that we don't talk about is the idea of we have to find the money, right? Colorado, when they hired Dion Sanders, that famously didn't have the money. They're just like, okay, we'll work that part out later. We saw that in the early, more unstructured NIL days. Like, do we have the money? Yeah. Kind of not really.

Don't worry. We'll work that out later. And I guess that's it with the timing on some of these moves. Because I think we've seen some other schools with the, yeah, we'll just wait until the end of the year. And it's just like, oh, you guys just don't have the money. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's Arkansas.

I'm sorry, Wisconsin right now. Yes. Same thing. Like that's unsalvageable, I think, for Luke Fickle. But, and they're numbers smaller. It's like 27 million. But Arkansas, God, I keep saying Arkansas. is kind of a frugal athletic department.

They've never been lavish spenders. And so for them to come up with 27 million, I think it's going to take a while to figure that out. But I would be shocked if we see Mike Norvell or Luke Fickle coaching at those schools again in 2026. Do you think Lincoln Riley will be coaching a USC in 2026? I do. That's a buyout number that's crazy. And USC does have rich people, but that's like 90 million.

I mean, that's plus Jimbo. Yeah. Yeah, it's higher than Jimbo. And so it's almost impossible to go there. You know, he hadn't delivered on what they thought he was going to be. But he also has not been a complete train wreck. And so, you know, where do you land in the middle of that, especially when you owe that much? I think that they're kind of, they're stuck with each other for the time being.

Not what they want him to be, but not a train wreck seems to be the description of my buddy Ryan's LSU Tigers head coach Brian Kelly. With the added component being, and we talk about this all the time, people don't like him. Like, I think LSU actually is a bit underrated in the sense that that is not an impatient job. They give people time to get themselves out of things. And it's been okay with Kelly. It's honestly been around the gym. level of LSU success outside of a couple of outlier seasons, but nobody seems to be having a good time. No, they don't.

They don't. And, you know, it is funny. Yeah, they played in the SEC championship game. Jane Daniels won the Heisman trophy. It's not like they're just, you know, horrible. But they've kind of decided to a degree, yeah, we're done with this guy. His likability is a factor as well. It's interesting.

You bring up him and Link of Riley. that was the same time in the cycle. If you're mad, they, you know, these bombshell moves, Lincoln Riley going from Oklahoma to USC, Brian Kelly going from Notre Dame to LSU, and the belief was, and I was probably in that camp, geez, these guys are going to win huge. They're going to be winning titles.

They're going to be in the playoff every year. Guess who was the best coach out of that cycle? Marcus Freeman, the defensive coordinator who hadn't been a head coach who moved up at Notre Dame. So you never fully know, especially when you make a big swing and that big an investment. But a huge game for Brian Kelly Saturday,

huge against Texas A&M at home. Can't lose that one. And then you got to turn out and play Alabama in Tuscaloosa after that. So he better win. I would say if you are at the point where you are at, you better win against the number four team in the country. It is over.

Yeah. You can absolutely make that argument. Yes. And I think the fans there have kind of hit that saturation point. You know, I, I think that they've certainly got very good talent. They absolutely do. I thought Garrett and Usmeyer's always been a little bit overrated as a quarterback,

and they just haven't quite fitted in around him. Young offensive line this year and now an injured offensive line. The defense gets better. The offense gets worse. They just haven't done a complete program, you know, rebuild with Kelly. One of our running topics here on the show is, how fast the Alabama hot seat gets and that saving was so good that there's an entire generation that doesn't understand how Alabama actually works.

They started to get a whiff of it after the Florida State loss. But Ty Simpson apparently now looks like he's the number one pig in the draft. They are rolling, but all it would take is that LSU game, huh? Yeah, I mean, look, that's a great point. The underrated insanity of Alabama fans. And here's a good story for you on that front. So this is Sabin's third season down there. First season, not that good.

Second season, they break through. They play in the SEC championship game, nearly beat Florida. Third season, they're undefeated, and they're playing Tennessee, the huge rivalry game. It's in Bryant-Denny Stadium. It's a complete slog.

It goes down to the end. Tennessee has a field goal to tie on the last play. Terrence Cody breaks through, blocks it, wins the game. game. 90% of the stadiums in euphoria, but I'm walking down to the field and some old guy grabs me and says, Saban ain't going to cut it. We can't come that close to losing to Tennessee. Bear wouldn't do that. Saban cut it pretty good. But that's that's that's exactly who you're dealing with there. And DeBoer, I mean, I think getting Ryan Grub back matter. The offense,

like those two guys, you're running an offense together, right? That that is a thing that goes. and when I've watched them, it's not like the old days, but they do still have players. Oh, they do. They've got really good talent on this team. I mean, it's a very talented team, probably the most talented, I think, in terms of experience and ability in the SEC. And bringing in grub has been huge. Ty Simpson has been tremendous. Defense has been very good. You know, I think Kalin-Dabor can and will win a national championship, you know, and it'll happen at Alabama. don't know when, possibly this year. But remember the woman that got interviewed after the Florida State game that was going to try to play the power ball. And she said if she won, she was going to

use the money to buy out DeBoer and then get on with the rest of her life. I don't think she needs to do that anymore. So staying in that world, a point that I've made many times. And if you only like kind of follow college football, you don't realize this. At Alabama, you got two outcomes. Greatest coach of all time, or they're going to run you out. Like there's really kind of no in between. Like Ohio State is a job. You're going to get fired.

Nobody really gets to. Even Urban Meyer didn't really get to walk on his own terms. Woody Hayes got fired, right? Jim Tressel got fired one way or another. You're going to get fired. At Auburn, you are guaranteed to leave in one form of disgrace or another. So which form is Hugh Fries going to leave in? Because that one also appears to be over.

Disgrace is inevitable. They should write that on the top of your contract when you sign it. He's going to go down this year for not winning. That's another one. I think that's inevitable at this point. It's year three. It hasn't happened. They're bad on offense, which is supposed to be Hughes thing.

They made a bad decision to make Jackson Arnold their centerpiece at quarterback. And they've got several more losses to come. So I think Hugh Freeze gets blown out at some point this year. Do they let him go through the Alabama game at the end of the Iron Bowl? We'll see. But I think that's another one where the writing is on the wall. That Jackson Arnold, that Oklahoma told Dylan Gabriel that he needed to find a new place to play because Jackson Arnold was coming.

And then this is what happens if Jackson Arnold gets to Auburn. It's incredible. You know, it's not easy to look at 18-year-olds and say you're going to be really good or really bad. but it's amazing how often they miss considering the money, the brain power, and the effort put into finding the ones that you think won't miss. But look at who we're talking about right now.

Ty Simpson was a big time to do, but Fernando Mendoza, maybe the second quarterback pick. He was committed to Yale at one point. And then ended up at Cal. He was a three-star at best. He was the number 134 quarterback in the class of 2022. So it's hard to do to figure out who these guys are. All right, we got a couple more things for you.

I have not gotten to my old stopping grounds, North Carolina, and what is going on with Bill Belichick. They just have to find the money, right? Like, this just has to stop. It's astounding. It really is. Like the, not just the level of bad play, but the chaos that seems to be going on,

the sloppiness, the disorganization, the arrogance, the hubris, the complete, whiff on personnel decisions and player grading, you know, and deciding who could play. It just, it's unbelievable. But that's another place. I don't know. Do they want to have the money? You know, I think there's some people that have enough ego invested.

They're like, we got to bring him back for another year and see if it can get better. But there's so much negativity and so much apathy. I mean, I went to the first game. Fans were flying out of there in the third quarter of the first game. Oh, it takes nothing. It takes nothing. At the first side of trouble, somebody can hear a basketball bounces somewhere. Like, don't you worry about that. They're going to be upset, but they're not necessarily going to stick around. The thing is, one thing that I know is going to have to take place at some point in the not distant future around that athletic department is they're going to need to figure out something for a new basketball building.

And I wonder how all that ties when you start talking about we're going to need to pony up $30 million. remembering that that's a building that they built with private funds. They did not build that with state funding. I don't know how they're going to do it when it comes down the line. But needing to come up with $30 million to get Belichick out of there, I wonder how that's going to be. And I wonder how well Bill Belichick can withstand pain of just being in an obviously miserable situation.

Well, that's the other thing is, you know, I mean, talk about a guy with some ego is if he can, if he can pull the rip cord and save some face out of this, as opposed to, you know, coming back next year as a punchline, I wouldn't be shocked at all if he made the move as much as North Carolina did. But we'll see. I could not. I watched the first possession of that game against TCU. And I was like, hey, man, these guys look like they're executing.

I think this is going to be okay. I've never been wronger. I was there in the stadium and I said the exact same thing. Yeah, I was like, man, these guys are rolling. They seem to be making something happen. they they did not before we let you go we have talked a lot on this show about the the idea of the big 10 taking money from private equity and my line always is show me the thing the private equity has ever made better but it is worth noting the two schools in the big 10 that have stopped this

from happening are the ones that have the most money Ohio state in Michigan do you think that this is inevitable that the day is just going to come where this money gets taken and what do you think happens if it comes down to that well and yeah USC too which also has more money than God is against this. I keep having people tell me private equity is inevitable. It's smart. You need to do it. There's so much unrealized potential.

Da-da-da-da-da-da. But I'm with you. The people that welcome in private capital, does it improve your actual product of what are your businesses? Almost never. Sure as hell hasn't in the media world. And probably a lot of other places as well. I just, you know, it just bothers me, I guess, that we have the Big Ten,

which signed by far the richest media deal in history three years ago, $7 billion, and continues to rake that in and continues to fill stadiums while charging more for tickets and more for parking and more for popcorn. It's still like, oh, we need the money. Oh my God, we need the money. It's insulting, I think. It's indicative of completely irresponsible fiscal leadership. But they might do it.

Yeah, they'll probably do it if I had to guess. If you've got 16 out of 18 schools or 15 out of 18 saying, we need to do it, you probably wear down the other ones and eventually it happens. And by the way, they have a media deal where they are fleecing their network partners. Have you seen these numbers that have shown that like with the highest rated games are all SEC games. games basically. You know, mostly games that are on ABC and ESPN. The Big Ten partners are not, maybe they're getting their money's worth, but they are not getting nearly the steel of a deal that Disney is getting over on the SEC. It's true. I mean, the SEC, like you got to be sitting

there with one hand saying, gosh, we are killing it. And the other hand saying, we're giving them too good a bargain. We need to renegotiate here. Yeah, no, this is, this is a while time. And you know, you and I have been talking about these things. You've covered. you know, college football, obviously longer than I have. But we've, it is amazing to watch now where we are, where the stakes feel so high around your actual winning and losing, but it generates a world where our conversation is barely around the actual winning and lose. It's true.

You know, I mean, like, I can't believe the amount of time I spend listening to people talk or covering, you know, or researching things like private equity and media deals and sponsorships and, you know, how much you pay a GM now to run your front office staff in a college situation. It's just, it's, it is, you know, very, very bottom line driven now. And I, you know, I get it. I understand it. I also like writing about like North Carolina versus Duke or Alabama versus LSU. You know, I mean, that's fun. I like to cover the games. I'll also note, and this is something I wonder if the powers that be over there kind of understand it. And maybe these things don't transfer over as neatly as my brain says.

But one of the chief criticisms of the NBA in recent times, and it's fair, is that it became a league where we covered the transactions and the scuttle butt more than we covered the actual action. And here we are. And by the way, I don't feel bad about having done this for this show. This stuff is really interesting. But it can't be like that forever, one would think. I don't think. You know, I mean, and I do know there are people that still want to hear about the games. But boy, oh, boy, yes, we spend a lot of time.

I guess you would say the market on speculation is through the roof. Okay, who's going to be the next coach? Who are we hiring? Who are we firing? When's it going to happen? Same as it was with recruiting. Are we getting the five star, you know? And then is the five star going to be any good?

And da-da-da-da-da. There's so much more that energy, and especially on the college level, that seems to be put into projecting what's going to happen. And who, you know, are we going to be better with this new coach? Are we going to be worse? I like to, again, like sit there on Saturday and actually watch the games play out and then say, oh, maybe Arch Manning isn't as good as we thought. Or, golly, Fernando Mendoza is unbelievable.

Where the hell did he come from? You know, that sort of thing. Well, but at least we're not where the NBA is right now, just wondering who might go to jail next. Take the wins as you get them. That is my guy, Pat 40. Check him out at s.com. My man, I can't believe this is the first time that we have had you as a right time guest.

I apologize for waiting so long, and I thank you for everything, my man. My pleasure. Always happy to talk to you, Beaumani. Pleased to be on with you. All right, man. And ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us here on the right time. We do this three times a week. Ryan Brumley handles everything behind the scenes.

Thank you, sir. Hit the voicemail line. 323-9667767. Whatever you want to talk about, I'm up to hear about it. 323-59677-67-67. Remember, follow the right time. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. And what's on to you guys in a couple of days? Take it easy.