The Ryen Russillo Podcast - College Football Check-in With Andy Staples and Bruce Feldman

Episode Date: June 3, 2020

Russillo is joined by Andy Staples and Bruce Feldman to discuss the important questions surrounding the start of the CFB season, including: protocols, testing, nonconference games, home-and-homes, ticket sales/fan presence, the return of academics, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before we get to today's podcast, I want to talk about Sunday's podcast. And the whole podcast with Bill on Sunday was a miss on my part. I did a bad job, and I'm going to talk about some of those things now. The first problem was that I should not have been the voice that you heard from. You needed somebody with a better perspective, a different life perspective on everything that this country just went through in the past week. I was not that person, and that was a mistake. The second part is my tone sucked throughout most

of that first 40 minutes. And when I went back and listened, I go, okay, this is a problem. You sound like you're more disappointed. You sound more angered by looters than you do the fact that a police officer murdered George Floyd, the whole reason why we were here to begin with. And the mistake that you can make when you do the podcast, at least with Bill and I, because we've been doing it a while, we've known each other a long time, is that we can become very casual, just two guys talking, forgetting that all of these people are listening to you. And I can't make the assumption that, of course, they know I'm more upset about George Floyd

than I am just people stealing from stores. But that's not the way it came off. And it was a terrible assumption for me to make because I come off in the podcast as if I don't get it at all. And so I understand that criticism. And again, I'm sorry for that. And finally, just the execution. I pride myself on always trying to figure out ways to talk about different topics and maybe make it more complicated and add my flaws and be vulnerable and admit to some things and go, well, what about this? Maybe we should think about this mindset. That's a miss and I shouldn't have done it. And it was a really poor job on my part

of trying to add all these different elements to a discussion where sometimes the discussion is very straightforward and it's getting people to wake up to what's happening in this country. So all I can ask is that you trust I'll get better because I believe I will. So thanks. Today's episode of the Ryan Russillo Podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network

is brought to you by State Farm. Just like basketball, the game of life is unpredictable. Talk to a State Farm agent and get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected. I'd actually go with the not unexpected on 22 teams instead of 30 teams. And there's a way of arguing it's safer. You get some of these teams that are 70 regular season games, something we would talk about the whole time. And for the teams that didn't win more than 20 something games and you're left out, there's just not going to be a ton of sympathy for you. I mean, you were a bad basketball team. So the season is moving on without you.

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with you. Reading through everything the last couple months, it's gone from we have no idea to far more optimistic. How have you seen this? When have you seen this kind of change? I feel like it started to turn about three weeks to a month ago, where before it was, okay, are they going to have a season? If they do have a season, is it going to be delayed? Is it going to be started in the spring? Because you could be

reasonably confident they were going to have a season during the school year at some point, but the school year goes from August to May. So you knew they had to have football season, or basically a lot of these athletic departments are shutting down. So when were they going to do it was the question. And I think about three weeks ago, you started to figure out, OK, they are starting to feel confident that they can get players back by late June, early July. They can have them practice. They can probably play games as scheduled.

Now, who gets to go to those games another another story entirely that's a conversation that that they're not having yet because you know remember it's it's not a case where they can go in a bubble like the university of minnesota can't go play home games in orlando they're going to be in minnesota so you know they've got to figure that part out and it's going to depend on each state. You know, do they let anybody in? Do they let a limited capacity in? Do they let everybody in? And that part, we're not going to find out about probably for another month or so. I'd agree with Andy. Maybe the timing was similar in terms of you're like, okay, I think there's optimism and they're going to move

forward. And I know from talking to people within college football, one of the things that's come up a lot is, look, anybody could tell you with certainty of something, they're lying to you because nobody really knows where this is going to head. But the more information, the more data that comes in, the better it is. We don't need to actually have decisions by May 1st or anything like that, and that it kind of moves forward. Now, the hardest part of this, especially talking to people in the last two weeks, has been what are the procedures, what are the protocols, what are the contingencies going to be in place? How are they going to handle testing? It's not going to be uniform. Obviously, as you and your listeners know, college football is not run the way other

sports are run. It is very fractured and fragmented and regionalized. The tricky parts of this, I think, are going to happen where the Pac-12 is saying, OK, we're going to have players are going to report. Everyone's going to report. We're going to they're going to be tested tested and they're talking about testing as a continuing policy. What's going to happen.

I asked Neil Brown, this, the coach of West Virginia, what do you think happens when maybe you play somebody out of your conference that hasn't had any, that hasn't tested players are only looking at symptomatic cases. And then all of a sudden it's like, it's not like golf here. I mean, there's,

there's a lot of dudes who are in close quarters and it's a physical sport. And I think a lot of people will say, okay, well, that's only 18 to 22 year olds. And as we've seen from the numbers, those are the people who, you know, it seemed to be very, very low risk that the tricky part of this is, and this is something you hear from coaches, there's a bunch of guys on staffs who are 60 and up. Many of them are not in the greatest physical shape to begin with. And so I think when you hear about, well, this could be a rocky path on things, it's like, what are the things that may cause delays? Is it a quarterback room that all tests positive and they can't play, even though they may be asymptomatic or have, you know, some, you know, no one's at least hospitalized or is it some older coaches who are, who are reeling from it or it's, you know,

we don't really know what the thresholds of this are going to be once we, once we really get into it. But I do think, you know, people are, you know, resigned to the fact that we just can't sit back and cross our fingers and not do anything. Cause I think that's the hardest part for people in the middle of this. Yeah. Ryan, I was talking to Joe Castiglione, the Oklahoma AD the other day, and he was talking about the rabbit hole you go down when it comes to trying to figure out the protocols for what if somebody tests positive on one team what what do you do is it a no contest is it a forfeit do you and and it's really i think they they kind of believe if it's one person they can deal with it you isolate that person from the team the rest

of the team's fine go play but when you get into multiple people then you get into multiple different opinions about how to handle it and br Bruce mentioned, you know, what if one team tests one way and another team tests another way? Are you going to play that way? And Mike Oresko, the commissioner of the American Athletic Conference, said that's going to be a big stumbling block where, you know, because he's going to have a protocol in his league for what they do. have a protocol in his league for what they do and then what if there's a visiting team coming in that has a different protocol and they don't feel like that's up to snuff i think there's going to have to be communication between teams even outside of conferences saying hey look if you want to come play here we need you to do this and this and this yeah i was reading your piece in in

the podcast you had with siglione where it was it was funny because immediately you think of the competitive nature of it it's like wait a minute this guy's going to put it off until july 1st like wait a minute doesn't that mean that you're going to be two weeks behind and all this stuff and i love that joe was like yeah you know what it's probably not the big deal because as you point out and i don't know that i even knew the hours but in june in these voluntary times it's eight hours tops that week and that includes lifting so you're thinking and that's not even allowed right now right right so you know what is what is joe casiglione really getting behind on for the for the ou program i think the the

majority of this though i kind of want to examine over the next few minutes the difference culturally on the planning and we can just look at the country and look at states and florida and how this has become political and then all right this part of the country is like all right we're open for business and other parts aren't so how different has this been for let's say texas tech texas a&m who very early on we're like we're opening up classes this fall which also leads to the debate that different programs have had about, can we have football without students? And then that becomes kind of a gray area, guys.

And then the SEC, like, look, I think we're good versus California, where I'm at and Bruce is at, where we have stay-at-home orders that are supposed to go into August. So how different, Andy, has it been really geographically, maybe even more culturally, the way they're approaching it?

I found it interesting. Remember when the state started forming coalitions about how to deal with COVID-19? They looked like the old conference map, like the 1980s-era conference map. You have your SEC and your Southwest Conference, and here's the ACC over here. But what's interesting is conference realignment has made it where it's tough for most of the leagues to deal with that because they are geographically diverse. The SEC and the Big 12 probably have it the easiest because the states are fairly similar in terms of politics, ideology, everything else. But if you are the Big 10, you stretch from Nebraska to New Jersey. If you're the ACC, you stretch from Florida to

New York. Well, actually, Florida to Massachusetts. So you've got massive differences in how everybody's handling it. So if I'm Greg Sankey or Bob Bowlesby with the SEC and the Big 12, I'm not that worried because all my schools are basically on the same page and they're going to basically agree with what needs to be done. But if I'm Kevin Warren at the Big Ten or if I'm John Swofford at the ACC, I'm John Swofford. What Georgia Tech is dealing with is completely different than what Boston College and Syracuse are dealing with. So I've got to figure out some contingencies. What if I have a team that's in a hot spot and they can't play? Do we still all play the rest of us? Do we give them their share of the TV money so we can help them out?

There's a lot of questions that they've got to go through. Now, I think the further along we get, the more it feels like most teams can play. I think the last kind of big red flag was Mark Schlissel, the president of Michigan, talking to the Wall Street Journal and saying, hey, I haven't decided if students are going to be on campus yet, and I don't see them playing football if we don't have students on campus. So that's something that it is still a possibility that all those leagues have to think about right now. And I think we'll know a lot more in a month where this is going to be at. Look, because even, you know, Ryan, we're out here in California, you know, things have opened up. You can go to the beach. There

is more people. It's not like everyone is, is staying at home. So I think after a month of this, plus, I think people will look at it. Even if you look at a case of like, let's say there's a, I remember that photos or video from wherever it is in Ozark, Missouri of people out and about, you know, if it's after a month of that, you know, a month from that, I think people will look and go, okay this is a virus and there's been a lot of tragedies, obviously, but I think people don't, you know, it's like we're still learning about it. Right. And so I think that's going to tell a lot for also the leadership in college football. You know, like I, you know, Andy and I have talked about this a little bit and I'm not

sure where this fits, but you'd hear a lot of people talk about a second wave of this potentially. And you can also see, you know, Notre Dame, South Carolina, they've kind of tweaked their academic calendars to prepare for it to some degree. And I don't know what that, you know, how that would impact it. I feel confident that we're going to be starting. I think the hardest questions on this really beyond just the testing protocols is going to be starting. I think the hardest questions on this really, beyond just the testing protocols, is going to be are there really going to be fans in the stands and are there going to be full capacity stands?

I don't doubt that there could be some, and I think Andy did a story on how they would try to sort out who those people are if you're trying to get your season ticket holder and how that works, but there's just so many variables up in the air right now yeah i think uh you look at you look at the deal and there's some places where it just seemed like it it's gonna start on time and the second wave thing

is something that is just in the back of everybody's mind. But I think one of the reasons why they want to start on time is because of the second wave, because they're afraid, hey, if we decide to start the season in January, what if that second wave is going on now? Because that was one of the more surprising things to me, Ryan, in talking to people. I just kind of assumed at first, oh, they'll postpone the season in January. That way they can say, here's a definite start date. We can sell tickets. There'll be fans in the stands. But the more people I talked to, the more they were adamantly against that.

They said, no, no, no, there's too many unknowns to do that. We're better off just starting on time and then seeing what happens. Yeah, if every decision is based on could a second wave happen, I don't know. Forget football. I don't know how anybody can do that and you know like everybody else i saw the ozark pictures and you go okay and then it turns into look like look at all these idiots you know like okay maybe and then i saw headlines like what person tests positive with coronavirus and i went all right well is there any way there's a positive out of that if right now we only know of one person or are we saying that it should be like you know that was

this was just an open-minded assessment of what this is and it's like is do we know that okay these people are idiots for doing this it feels like that but how does that impact like what result could we get from that that maybe we go wait a minute maybe maybe if we only had one positive test for this like maybe something's happened here or maybe there's some sort of development that makes programs feel better about having people actually in stands and i've argued with friends depending on kind of where you're at right where i just go hey i don't think you guys understand the sec i go if they say they're over for business today there'd be a hundred thousand people in the stadium Saturday night. There just would be.

And I think people that push back on that don't understand. Well, I, I speaking from sec country as a guy who went to an sec school, I think you're right. There'd be a lot of people in the stands. I don't think everybody would show up. Really?

Yeah. I don't know. I think there'd be, I think it'd be a good chunk that don't show up and and it's not that it's just human nature and i think you'd find that everywhere you'd find a significant portion of every fan base it's like you know what i'm not quite ready to do that yet now i i do think in most sec states uh the idea is, let's get back to normal, get the economy moving again. And I'll tell you right now, I'm in Florida. We've got some rules in place, like the county I live

in, they want you wearing a mask and everything. But everybody's moving around. Everybody's going to work. On Memorial Day weekend, we went down to Fort Myers. It was basically business as usual. Memorial Day weekend, we went down to Fort Myers. It was basically business as usual. So it's not – there are parts of the country where it feels different, and it certainly feels different here than it did three weeks ago. Also, I would wonder of the people who – let's say it's 100,000, and I don't know what percentage this is of the fan bases that show up at games are 65 and up. I would

guess it's, it's probably under 10%. But when you talk to people, and I'm not even just talking about talking to people in football, but one of the things that I feel like has come up a lot is, yeah, they're going to have to, they're, you know, they're going to have to quarantine, or it's like almost like it's the default. And I don't know how many people who are of that factor into the hundred thousand. My guess is it's not that it's not a huge number. I mean, on the alumni side, there's there are quite a few that skews old. So I can imagine there's there's some 40 somethings that are telling their parents, hey, don't you go don't go to that game. You know, and I don't go to that game.

And I don't think that matters where they live. Because the thing about where I live, the messaging has been, hey, look at the numbers. Be smart about this. If you're 70, don't be doing this stuff. But if you're 20, you're probably fine. So I think you're going to see some of that in terms of if they say hey you can come now if they don't say that if they say you got to be you you've got to go by the social distancing guidelines i talked to somebody at one school where you know they took their state social distancing guidelines and try to figure out okay how many is a quote-unquote family i'm using air

quotes here because obviously they could sit together. And they got to about 20% of stadium capacity. And I tell you what, you're gonna have some mad people if only 20% of the ticket holders get in, because how do you then divide that? Do you say, okay, well, all you that paid the most money, you're just getting tickets. Or do you do, you that paid the most money, you can have tickets to the best half of the games and the next group will get the tickets to the next best half it that's that's where i'm ready for booster thunderdome to figure out who gets tickets i'd imagine the best way to do that is just a lottery you're like all right this is this is how it works and then if your team gets into the playoff they have a they have a point system where these are the people who would get the tickets to the bowl game.

So they actually, unlike the pro leagues, actually have a system in place that could handle that. More with Bruce and Andy. But first, during this time of social distancing, connecting with friends over a beer today looks pretty different. As the original Light Beer, Miller Lite has always been there to bring people together in real life through Miller Time. Miller Time is a moment for people to come together in real life, to connect over a few beers, but having Miller time is tough when you can't be with your people. Um, I'm just excited to go outside. So that's, uh, the Miller light is there also great news. Miller light is the beer that makes Miller light time possible. Miller light is the original light beer that

tastes great and is less filling, which means it won't get in the way of enjoying time with your people. Miller Lite, the original Lite beer. While you're home, enjoy a classic available for delivery today. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces. So you had mentioned Michigan and their president had said essentially, and Emmert had said this before too, and I think Emmert was doing it because he knew this quote would play better because there's no way Emmert could say, hey, we don't care if there's no students, let's get these guys back playing football. Because Emmert can't do anything without it being destroyed in a lot of circles. everything without it being destroyed in a lot of circles. So Michigan says, we don't want to come back and have our kids come back until the students are back. And then as you start to go

deeper into that, and this isn't really Michigan, but it's like a bigger thing where you go, well, what does students back actually mean? Like lab students back or online courses? Like how much can you play with the fundamental belief that students need to be back for athletes to be back and then you look at the fact as you have that a piece andy that the big 10 schools the 13 public ones make over 960 million in football related income so uh i i think they're going to get real loose with the definition of what students back actually is to kind of cover themselves on earlier thoughts that just sounded good. You know, a month ago, it sounded a lot better to say, hey, we need colleges to be operating before we can ask students to come back and represent these teams. Yeah, I think the definition got more flexible as you went on there was a a call with the vice

president i believe that was late april maybe early may where somebody had said if there's no students there's no college students there's no college sports and then the commissioners got kind of upset about that because they said whoa hey we that's not entirely true. And yeah, so maybe medical students and nursing students are in their labs and maybe this group of students is on campus, but the big business school classes are done online. That's, I think, what's going to happen. You're going to get that really flexible definition of who's back and who's not. And I had a cynical thought and look, Mark Schlissel, who's the president of Michigan, by trade is an epidemiologist. So I doubt this is what was going through his mind. But if I'm the president of Michigan and I'm trying to get this done and figure this out,

threatening football is the surest way to activate the the political levers in the state you know ohio state's back they're working out as of june 8th and michigan's not this is the first thing i thought of when i saw the differences there so so and if you're the if i'm the president university of michigan and people are calling bitching to me about that i'm going call the governor talk to her let's we'll get this straightened out. Bruce, did you want to follow up on that? Or, I mean, I would, you know, I, I agree with it. I just think that, you know, like a lot of people I think right now are getting their names on the record and they're going to say, here's, here's what I thought about this. And, you know, at the end of the day, I mean, the money is so is so staggering that we're talking about that's involved.

Like I think Andy said earlier, at some point in the academic year, they were going to get a football season. They may not get a lot of other stuff in, but they were going to find a way to get that in. Now, whether it's going to be a full season, there's just so much uncertainty to that. But I think what you're having is a lot of people, I think, who want to say, this is how I felt about it before it happened. Just be known that this is what I voiced. And I think what's happened, I mean, Ryan, you mentioned Mark Embert. I feel like we've seen

a real, not shocking, but a real absence of leadership from the NCAA when it really would be needed on this. And that's unfortunate. It's not shocking, but that's unfortunate. Here's my question, Bruce, because they tried to, they tried to make some unilateral decisions early on when they canceled the NCAA tournament and then they canceled the spring sports championships, which that is their prerogative. They run those things. It's like the college world series and the women's softball College World Series.

But then the commissioners of the leagues got mad because they're like, why weren't we consulted about this? I'm with Ryan on this, talking about everything Emmert says gets destroyed. I don't think whoever's in that job is ever going to be viewed as a strong leader. I think that job is basically you to be viewed as a strong leader. I think that job is basically, you're a heat shield. You're supposed to take all the slings and arrows for the commissioners who actually do the business of running this stuff. Yeah. And as I always point out too, like when Amber first came on the scene, he was really accessible, talked all the time, wanted to talk it out, wanted to talk about all the problems. And then he was like, all right,

this is pointless. There's literally like, like it's pointless and there are people that just hate me so much that there's there's nothing i can and i'm not even sitting here saying like i'm taking embert's side it's just a very clear observation we had him up at espn constantly you can always get him on the phone and then he's like there's no point there's no point in any of this okay so let's let's have a little bit more fun with the specific stuff that you've heard on kind of like but have Bama USC game Bama's convinced they're playing it USC's trying to say they're playing it but we don't know and then it turned into could Alabama play TCU because TCU has the Cal game and then it starts turning

into bigger things of like well what does this mean because we have a college football playoff we still have to worry about which I can't wait to get to what kind of arguments are going to be created, real or fake, about what this has done to some of the different positioning, what the committee sees with all these different things. So, Bruce, I'll start with you kind of on the Bama-USC thing and then maybe some of the more specific stuff that you've heard and how crazy this could be. Yeah, so about a week before that story broke,

it started to get a little bit of legs in the South, and I had reached out to somebody I trust on a lot of stuff at USC who had said, this is the first time I'm hearing it. That's not true. And this is a person who would know. And then maybe like five days later, I think Paul Feinbaum discussed it. And then Coward went even further with it. And at that point, I don't think there weren't enough people. It was a small circle of people who actually could have said, this is what's going on. And I think right now, like a lot of things, social media and everything else, there's just a lot of misinformation is probably too strong of a word, but just a lot of stuff

gets floated around and it gets retweeted and then people discuss it. And it's like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, let's bump the brakes on that. That's a little, um, I don't think that was as real as people thought it was, you know, like I, again, and this, I come back to something I've told some of my, you know, talk to some of my Fox sports, uh, you know, higher ups that, you know, we've talked some things and what are you hearing? And one of the things I've heard a bunch is that people are trying to tell you they know something for certain, you know, in early May, they're kidding themselves or somebody's lying to them because it's just, you know, there was just too big of a big TBD going on.

And I think that's, that's kind of how that, that horse got out of the barn there. And then, like you said, I think, I think there was a bunch of other stuff that people kind of ran with after that. Yeah. And, and this, there's still so much unknown, like I'm sure if you're Ohio state, you're worried, Oh, is our Oregon game going to get played? Because that that's week two in Eugene, you know, Oregon's governor has been on the record saying, well, I'm not sure there are going to be any crowds, but maybe it gets played with no crowds. I'm going to raise my hand right now and say no piped-in crowd noise, please.

I want to hear everything the coaches say. I need that. That would be great viewing for me. Yeah, but almost every coach disagrees with you. Yes, I know. And that's why I want a parabolic mic right next to them. Well, six feet away, of course, social distancing. But no, I want that.

But yeah, there's going to be some weird playoff arguments this year. Because what if there's a game that gets wiped out because there's an outbreak on a team? I mean, and look, it's not that unusual for a game to get wiped out. We've had hurricanes wiped out games over the last few years. These things happen. It hasn't happened in a game that had playoff implications. I think that that's the issue. And it might not happen this year with a team that has a chance of making the playoff. But yeah, the randomness aspect of this is on the charts. Can I step in on Andy's point there?

Yeah, go for it. The game being wiped out is one thing. It's the other part is, let's say that there is a position room that has a bunch of positive tests. That team plays, they lose. Then it's like, is there an asterisk there? Because the star quarterback who didn't play

and his backup who didn't play and his backup who didn't who couldn't play uh weren't eligible to play because of positive tests so the third or fourth string or emergency guy went in there and they lost then all of a sudden the playoff committee's gonna go yeah i know they lost but and that's to me that's more of a of a plausible hypothetical than well the game didn't happen. So, you know, we have a 10-team schedule instead of a 12-team regular, 12-game regular schedule, regular season schedule. Well, and now the committee says they have stuff in place for that. And that is why, one reason why they have a human committee instead of just a computer ranking is because that sort of thing is supposed to be taken into account.

And we haven't really seen them have to do that yet. The example everybody brings up is the basketball committee with the Kenyon Martin injury on the day before the committee got together and seeded the bracket. got together and seeded the bracket. So I would imagine that that would be, let's say Oregon's offensive line doesn't play against Ohio State and they lose by two. Well, guess what? I think that would be taken into account pretty heavily.

I mean, if we're freaking out about the transit of property on this team beat this team, beat this team, beat this team, beat this team, but it was Saturday, but it was at night and it was the cbs game and it was all these different things the amount of gymnastics that we'll see for arguments on what was real or what i can't even predict what some of those would even be like do you guys think that the non-conference games despite what we just talked about with bama and usc we don't have an answer to that necessarily do you think we could see a version of it where all the non-conference games are done which then also leads to the debate about the imbalance between

schools that play nine games and don't um like do you think that that's actually on the table that it could just be eight or nine games for these teams. Castiglione mentioned that when we talked, that it's still something that they're talking through, but I've not gotten a sense that that's a real possibility from anybody in the last few weeks. The last few weeks, it's been the season will go forward as scheduled. The games that are scheduled will be played. So I think that is an absolute last resort. And as someone who hates the conference superiority argument, who thinks it's really stupid most times, that would be the worst season ever. If teams only played within their conference

and suddenly had to figure out how to seat a playoff without anybody ever playing it at a conference game. Yeah, and I just think, Ryan, there's just too much money that people wouldn't leave on the table. The problem, I think, that may come up here or there goes back to the thing about if there's a team that doesn't test or there there's a school that's like, Whoa, the protocols in this school is doing. And, and that wouldn't be in an Alabama USC kind of game, but it could be in a, like I talked to a defensive coordinator at a school that is a group of five school and he explained to me kind of some of the things that they thought they were going to try to do when they came back.

And he pressed it by saying, look, I'm not in a leadership position, but this is some of the things that we're hearing on our Zoom calls. And it comes back to who can afford to have some of the procedures and protocols and who can afford, who can't. can afford to have some of the procedures and protocols and who can afford, who can't. And that, when it comes back to money, and obviously everybody knows that the SEC and the Big Ten are making huge amounts of money, but some of the teams they play, especially in September or in that, whatever it is, in the SEC's case in November for a weekend, those schools are going to struggle financially with a lot of this because they're already struggling

with the ramifications of it. So that's the part where I think it also fits into the category of a TBD on maybe you may have a 10-game season or an 11-game regular season, not a 12-one, depending on some of that stuff. More with the guys, but first, Whoop is a fitness wearable that

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and enter the code RUESSILLO, R-U-S-S-I-L-L-O at checkout. That's boxofawesome.com. Code RUESSILLO, R-U-S-S-I-L-L-O for 20% off your first box. Andy, I saw in your mailbag too, there was a really good question about home and homes. And you could use the Ohio State Oregon example where the revenue is usually whatever I make, I make. And then next year you make what you make. And that could be a major, has that been discussed by anybody? Or

I would imagine that's pretty low on the priority list right now yeah just kind of preliminarily because nobody knows exactly what's going to happen but yeah if let's say Oregon's in a situation where they're not allowed to have any fans I wouldn't be shocked because Gene Smith just seems like this kind of guy Gene Smith is Ohio State's AD I wouldn't be shocked if Gene Smith went to them and said hey look let we'll give you a slice of our gate for next year just to try to kind of help make you whole with this deal. Because it wouldn't be fair because if you're going into next year and things are normal, then yeah, the other team's going to get a full stadium and you're going to get nothing. So I would imagine if somebody's affected by that, they probably have some conversations with the other AD and they probably come to some sort of agreement where, hey, you know what, maybe we just split this way

or this is how much you would have made and how much we would have made and we'll just kind of get the percentages right and get you some money. I haven't actually been a little surprised at how collegial everybody has been through this sort of thing. The people really do seem interested in working together to make it work. And you think about, because we always talk about them in terms of all their money grubbing and they're trying to take all this money. And I rarely fall on the sides of the schools, the NCAA in this deal. But you think about how much money they just gave up

at the drop of a hat because they were concerned about safety. And now that you can say, Oh, they're concerned about liability and everything else, but the NCAA basketball tournament makes $770 million in television revenue. They just gave that up and they had insurance, but only for about 200 million of it. So that's a, that's half a billion dollars they just left on the table. So I do think most people's hearts are in the right place on this. So as they go forward and some more questions get answered,

I think they will probably try to figure out how to help each other out through the process. Bruce, do you think it would even matter if there were one singular voice? Because I know people do love committees. If there were one singular voice, I don't know that that one voice could get any more done because he would still, he or she would have to be sympathetic to every single state, like everything that we're talking about here. So even if there was a commissioner that just said flat out, hey, this is what we're doing in college football, it wouldn't be realistic that

all 130 teams could follow the same orders that that person would give out. Well, you'd like to think that if that person was in that position, they would, I mean, that would be their job to understand the varying needs. I mean, earlier, Andy talked about, look, there are different parts of the country were affected significantly differently by COVID, especially like, you know, when it first really hit here. You know, one part of the SEC country that really did get hit hard was Louisiana, especially in New Orleans.

And, you know, so you had people who were directly impacted their families and everything. But then I would go to the other part of that. And that's something I brought up a minute ago, which is the finances of it. There is such a gap between the haves, the have-a-littles, and the have-nothings of those 130 that that makes that decision really, really hard, however you're going to decide it. I mean, early on, I remember talking to a coach who thought you would have to test everybody in your program almost daily in camp because of the worry about an outbreak. And it wasn't just for the players, it was for staff as well. And thinking about the money that would be involved.

Now, look, there's more access to testing, but the testing, it's not like the testing is free, right? And so I think those issues become very, very problematic for whoever is going to make the decisions because this especially, become very very problematic for whoever is going to make the decisions because this especially we're all we're all in uncharted waters with this especially the NCAA because you know like this is this is the worst case scenario it's a pandemic and it's like you talk about cruise ships you can talk about you can

talk about you know seniors homes but about uh you can talk about um you know seniors homes but now listen you're talking about 150 dudes around each other right and it's like what do we do to try to keep keep not only keep them safe but also what andy was talking about with with the liability involved as you're as you're going forward on a daily basis it's just you know we're i mean honestly as as a country right now we're not there because you know we haven't even you know, we're, I mean, honestly, as a country right now, we're not there because, you know, we haven't even, you know, we just saw a golf, you know, foursome play golf. And it was like, great. Everybody loved to see it. But this isn't golf and this isn't that.

And it's just different. So I think that's why it's so complicated for everybody to kind of power through. complicated for everybody to kind of power through. The other problem with centralized control is, you know, look, the Carolina Panthers play in North Carolina, but they're not run by the state of North Carolina. They're run by David Tepper. And if you're Roger Goodell, you can go talk to David Tepper and have a conversation. The University of North Carolina and NC State and Charlotte, they're run by the state of North Carolina. And that's not just talking to the governor. They've got state legislatures that have their own desires and everybody trying to kind of do their own thing politically. So this is where it gets really

complicated because I think we counted, there's 43 states represented in the FBS. And there's public schools from 43 different states in the FBS. So you're talking about states that have skin in the game here. And it's very different than Roger Goodell or Adam Silver going to a billionaire and just talking to them about it because you're dealing with an entire state government and a much much bigger bureaucracy which that's what makes that centralized control impossible there's two more things that i want to get to including kind of like what the day is like what's the real day but how bad do you think this is going to get because of that lost revenue whether you're talking about the nca NCAA tournament whatever revamped version of college football that we have I mean it's still going to be trying as much as they can to possibly protect

the TV money maybe there's less inventory but there's going to be less money there's just going to be less money how concerned are ADs with you guys or coaches when they have to make those decisions of which sports to cut because it's going to happen at some of these programs and a lot of it too I would say isn't directly related to this. It's that these guys have been spending like freshmen with brand new credit cards with all of this extra TV money, trying to find more ways to spend that money before they give it to any of the players. So some of that's coming back to Burnham as well. And they're going to lose programs. I don't think there's any debate about that. Well, they already knew they were going to probably have to make some of those decisions though. I think what's also factored into this,

you know, a lot of people looked at last winter and said, Oh, there's going to be next year is going to be a huge wave of coaching turnover. Don't be so sure about how many people are going to be able to buy out coaches now, not only buy out coaches, but also be able to afford to bring new staffs in. That's money that probably won't be there for a lot of, a lot of programs, the money for, uh, for so many other things that people are going to look at be there for a lot of, a lot of programs, the money for, uh, for so many other things that people are going to look at and go, wait a minute, this football coach is making $9 million. Yeah, that football coach is, but they're, they can justify to some degree where the money, you know, if you have a great football program, certainly the guys who are making eight, $9 million a year, whether it's Davos,

Certainly the guys who are making $8, $9 million a year, whether it's Davos Sweeney, Nick Saban, those guys, the money also goes into the local communities and everything else. I think where it gets really hard for them is the money from the rest of coaches has kind of shot up with it. And I think those are going to be really hard decisions. We've seen people already take some pay cuts. But I think as they're looking at it, the conversations I've had with some ADs has been, this is like the elephant in the room to them, where they're going to make some really hard decisions, but you also have to factor in the TV money is one thing. But then all those other things that we don't know about, the money that goes into a community, the money from the gate, all those other things that they think about, not to mention the cost that it's costing to make changes to handle the COVID protocols and procedures, that's another thing that's really significant for them that they're going to have to shoulder that obviously they didn't factor in when they were doing budgets months ago. Yeah, and they're going to have to cut other sports.

That day was coming because if the whole goal was to spend every penny you made, which it has been for years and years so you don't have to give to players, then you're eventually going to hit a dip and they're going to figure out what to do. Now what's weird is, and we've talked about this amongst ourselves at the athletic, some of these sports that are getting cut, your school's not going to be particularly happy with you. We were talking to, don't ask how we got started on this,

but the Furman lacrosse team got cut. And I actually am fascinated to how you got started on that. But well, I think somebody knew somebody whose kid was playing there, but that had a fairly limited number of scholarships. But what it did have was a bunch of full tuition paying students. There were walk-ons on that team who wouldn't be going to Furman if not for there being a lacrosse team. So it actually like the school will be mad because they're going to lose that tuition money.

Because those kids are going somewhere else. So it is a weird, the economics of this are very bizarre. But at the Power Five level, the schools that, you know, most of these people listening to this podcast are going to care about, if they play football this season, they're probably going to be fine. There was enough money in the system. Some schools had enough money in reserve that they could get through this

without anything particularly painful. It's below the Power 5 level where you see the really tough stuff. Okay, final thought on this. What do you think is the date the decision needs to be made by? And even then, they can theoretically have one, and maybe it's extended beyond that. Which date?

Either the decision needs to be made by, or we'll have a better understanding of what kind of version of college football we're getting this fall. I'm thinking mid to late July. So somewhere between July 15th and July 25th. And that gives you a month out from the week zero games to, to decide this is exactly how we're going to handle this. It also gives you at least another six weeks from now to possibly seven or

eight weeks from now where the world could be looking very different then. I mean, I think back to the six weeks, six to eight weeks ago from here, the world looked different. So I think that everybody I've talked to said the biggest luxury is time. The more time you can take, the better decision you can make. So I think if you get within a month, you've got enough time to make some contingency plans to figure out what you're going to do and say, yay or nay, we're going to do this or we're not going to do this.

And at the rate they're going, I think what they're going to say is they're going to play a season. It's going to start on time and then they'll adjust from there. Yeah. And I think that, that all is going to come back to, if they get thrown some curve balls in here, they're going to have, and those discussions I think are kind of, are kind of ongoing, but I think that's the, that's the, that will be the harder part for this, not the starting. It's the, what happens if, or when something, and, and I don't think they know, I don't think, and I haven't heard anybody give a strong answer to this

on or off the record. I have not heard anybody say the kinds of things that would, that would make them push pause or, or really shift course in the middle of it. Um, and hopefully it doesn't happen. I mean, obviously we're all, we're all very optimistic and excited that we could get the sport we love back among, you know, and other things, but, um, you know, we'll, we'll have to see as this, you know, we're, like I um, you know, we'll, we'll have to see as this, you know, we're, like I said, we're in such uncharted waters with all this. You can check out both Andy and Bruce's work on the athletic and hopefully see Bruce at a game this fall with his coverage with Fox. Um, as always guys, can't wait to see you out in the

road and, uh, hopefully that's, that's a reality at some point so hang in there thank you ryan thank you as always i appreciate you listening and especially at the top and we will uh be back soon so thank you Thank you.