The Triple Option - Rebel Reunion, NCAA President Charlie Baker Joins, and Vanderbilt Goes Hollywood

Episode Date: May 20, 2026

How does one go from averaging less than a point per game for Harvard to the Governor of Massachusetts to the President of the NCAA? Stick around and find out. Coach Urban Meyer and Rob Stone take a look back at the messy breakup between Ole Miss and Lane Kiffin ahead of the awkward reunion in Oxford when Kiffin's LSU Tigers come to town this fall. NCAA President Charlie Baker stops by to discuss the future of college athletics, pending legislation, why the NCAA Basketball Tournaments needed to be 76 teams, and why he even signed up for the gig. Finally, we cheers the newest movie star in...Nashville?! The newest quarterback for the Vanderbilt Commodores, Jared Curtis, will make his movie debut before every taking a snap for Clark Lea, in Nate Bargatze's upcoming film "The Breadwinner". Chapters 00:00 Show Start 01:28 Lane Kiffin Ole Miss Reunion 13:31 Charlie Baker, NCAA President 42:17 Vanderbilt Goes Hollywood New episodes of The Triple Option drop every Wednesday. Make sure you’re subscribed on YouTube and following on all podcast platforms. Also make sure you’re locked in on social @3XOptionShow on all platforms for highlight moments, bonus content, and to engage with the guys and the TO community. (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tripleoptionshow.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠)   The Triple Option is presented by Wendy’s. Try Wendy's® New crispier than ever Spicy Chicken Sandwich. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://m-wendys.app.link/gm-spicy-chicken-26-display-banner ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Thank you to or additional sponsors Arkay - Arkay Zero Proof delivers the taste, aroma, and even the burn of real spirits — without alcohol, sugar, or carbs. Shop now at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.arkayzeroproof.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ NHTSA - Click it. Don’t risk it. Paid for by NHTSA. ⁠https://www.nhtsa.gov/clickit⁠   #CollegeFootball #CollegeFootballPlayoff #CFP #OhioStateBuckeyes #BigTen #ACC #SEC #Big12 #NCAA #MarchMadness #VanderbiltCommodores #LaneKiffin #LSU #OleMiss #Tigers #Rebels #Massachusets #Harvard #FloridaGators #UtahUtes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We head to north of Boston and bring in the president of the NCAA, Charlie Baker. Why the hell did you take this job? That's a really good question. Everybody said the NCAA is about to break up into a thousand pieces. And I'm thinking, my God, you know, if D1 and the power schools separate from D2 and D3, D2 and D3 are going to be in real trouble. So I took it because I think it's really important. I think it really matters to this country.

And I knew they had a lot of problems. The triple option is presented by Wendy's. Wendy's invented the spicy chicken sandwich, and now we're reinventing it, making it crisper than ever before. Wendy's spicy chicken, we're so back. Welcome to another edition of the Triple Option, presented by Wendy's, Rob Stone, the great Urban Meyer here with you. Coming up, we are joined by NCAA president, Charlie Baker.

That was a fun conversation, coach. How about this? Is Nashville the new Hollywood? And is there ever a clean breakup? I would say no. according to my recent history. Remember, rate, subscribe, throw us your questions. We are on social media, 3x option show, new episodes coming away on YouTube, and wherever it is, you find your podcast. Coach, here we are at 102 days out until we kick off the 2026 football season.

Once it gets to like just two numbers, then it's really close. Now it's breathing down our neck. Time now for a muscle memory. Click it, don't risk it paid for by NHTSA. It may be second nature to root against arrival, right? Like if you're a Michigan fan, you know what it's like to root against Ohio State. But there's a new level of animosity brewing down south between two particular SEC institutions, Ole Miss and LSU.

They've got a bit of a reunion, and old Lane Kiffin's going to be coming back to Oxford, September 19th with his tigers. Listen, Lane has left a lot of places, and a lot of places haven't exactly embraced him when he returned, see Tennessee, see what's going to happen at Old Miss. I don't know. Does that happen to every coach?

Did that happen to you, coach, when you left your Utah's or your Florida's or even your bowling greens? It has. But you've got to say this about Lane Kiffin is that if he was a bad coach, they'd say, see you later. Yeah. There's breakups all the time. Some are really bad when they, you're not good. The second is if you leave. The problem is, and I wish they would fix this, and again, I don't believe this is complicated.

is that there is no contact made until, you know, well after the season. You know, you can't do that. And again, that's an easy fix. But there's a handful of people to me that are not held accountable in all of this. And that's the athletic directors and presidents of universities. You know, if there's going to be a rule, for example, there's been some stuff going on in college sports in the last couple years that how is the athletic director not involved?

You know, that's his job to oversee the athletic department. You see some of these violations or see some of these. you know, whether it's not cooperative or something like that with the NCAA, that to me, the ADs, that's your job is to do that. So I would somehow, in this new legislation, if it gets antitrust exempt,

I would certainly make it be part of it that they are hands off until after the season is over. The breakups that I had, I left Bowling Green and I went to University of Utah. I did not have any conversation with Utah until after the season. And it was, but it didn't have. happened as much back then because it wasn't, you know, especially, you know, I wasn't certainly

the high stakes guy back then. But it was after the season and our season was over and they asked if I had to interview and I did. Then I went to Utah and Jeremy Foley was the head, was the athletic director at Florida. I was at Utah. We finished on the feed his season. Our last game, we were waiting for a bowl and I got the phone call and he came to see me again with permission of the athletic director. It was done. There was none before the season ended. And then that was it. So Utah. And all of your moves made sense, Coach. Like, if you were an outsider, you're like, you have an opportunity to go from Bowling Green to Utah, fair. Opportunity to go Utah to Florida. Best of luck. It's not these like parallel moves. Quick story about that.

So Utah wasn't Utah that. So people were pissed off. I mean, and I thought, you know, we took a team What do you mean Utah wasn't Utah, though? What do you imply by that? They were a 500 team in the Mount West Conference. They were not at top. They're not what they are now. Right. A national power.

But I saw it. You know, when I did some research, I'm like, wait a minute, now this could be a monster. So we turned around, I think at the time, the number one turn around the history of college football. It was two and nine, or one in ten. And I think we won eight and three and nine and three the first year. And, you know, Utah just, you know, I just felt like, you know, I was a, you know, attracted to Utah, and I remember I took the job. And the student body, I would go eat lunch with the students all the time.

I went to every fraternity, every sorority, talked to the, you know, trying to get people in the stadium. And so I'm thinking, you know, what, the cool thing is we turned around BG. They're in great shape. And, you know, we'll be able to come back. And then I'm driving home from emptying out, you know, put some stuff on my car and I'm driving home and kind of an emotional moment because I love those players and I love that place. and I look up, you know, I have all these great feelings about the students, and they wrote FU Urban on the, like, sheets hanging down from the dormitory.

As I'm driving right by, and I'm, you're like, damn. They moved on fast, didn't they? They moved on real fast. Faster than you would think of Bowling Green. The one about Ole Miss to LSU, I don't know if that's ever been done before. You know, you're at the team that's one of the greatest run in the history of the school at Ole Miss. And to a place that's struggled a little bit in LSU. and, I mean, a rival.

So, yeah, that's going to be... Now a big rival, big time rival. How about this coach? I'm ready for that one. What advice would you give Lane Kiffin as he makes that trip into Oxford? Be his respect. All you do is say, you know,

I made some recent comments about the racial profile. You know, I don't know if you should have went there. You know, I don't... You shouldn't have. You start going places and, you know, just say great names about the school you're at. They gave you a chance when, you know, Coach Kiffin has some issues now.

I mean, for people to take chances on them, obviously he's a heck of a coach. But, you know, just all positive. Your staff just say all positive and just go try to win a game. I know that probably won't happen. Put that head down in the tunnel. Just avoid things.

Just get first downs, man, and tackle. Just get first downs tackle. By the way, take care of the ball. That's it. For sure. Real quick, you talk about, you know, you're blaming ADs, you're blaming school presidents

about, you know, trying to poach these coaches while they're still playing. I would argue, I agree with you. I would argue that is their job right now, right? Because there are no guardrails. So absolutely you go and you try to find the best candidate you can't. Absolutely. I'm saying if there is a rule. But there's been other stuff happen.

I'm not blaming about that. Oh, I know you're not. I just want to clarify. I'm blaming about other stuff, sure, certainly. Yes. So what is the rule that needs to be put? You say until the end of the season, is that until the end of the potential? of the potential candidate season, right?

So you can't talk to Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss last year until Old Miss's season is complete. That's a great question. I don't know that. I think they have to redo some of the calendar. I know that's on the amount. What would you do? I'd make January 1st.

Any contact made, your athletic director loses his job. You're fired. If you make contact. There's still a lot of football after January 1st these days. I know. That's a tough one. Maybe push it February 1st. think that's a fairer that gets you at least, for the majority of teams, it's over January 1st.

Correct, correct. So there's only an elite few programs that are still playing in July. So I would say January 1st is the first contact you can make with an agent, because it's all third party then. Yes. Contact your agents and all that kind of stuff. But I just, that's not fair to the players during a playoff run, during conference championships. Some of these smaller programs, I mean, they were going on historic runs and all of a sudden. Because I know I was getting, you're just getting inundated. with, I mean, very serious offers and very serious conversation. That's all off limits until January 1.

Does getting permission from your athletic director to speak to somebody else, is that worthwhile anymore? Does that even carry any water? It was. I know, but what about now? I don't think so. I don't think so either. It's almost like a courtesy, right?

Yeah, of course it was. Right? And there's not a lot of... You walk in the AD. I got this phone call. call. I'm not interested. I got this phone call. I might take a look at this. And then the AD's like, oh, well, let's talk. That's my understanding the way it was done. And it gives that AD maybe a little bit of a heads up, like, okay, I need to start planning. But by the way, if you're a really good AD and

you've got a great coach no matter what the sport, you should have a special drawer that has a list of potential top three, top five candidates for whatever the job is, particularly if it's football or basketball. And that's one of the things everyone has agents now. Rob, you understand back when I first started, no one had agents. I really never had one until later in my career that, you know, that was more not to offset the relationship with my AD. I had great athletic directors and we had great, you know, I had four of them and we were, I mean like this, talked about everything, even potential job offers. Yeah. Fascinating world we live in. I would love to see guardrails for the coaching because it got ugly last year, right? Like that,

To me, what happened at Ole Miss was a black eye on college athletics, not just college football. And this transfer portal, again, I keep saying, like, just wait, just like the coaching portal, make the player portal open after the season is back. That'll be easier to done if they, if they reassess the calendar and move it up to week zero, which I agree, move everything up. Yeah, and that'll start solving more problems. It'll probably create a few more here and there, but I think it's going to solve more than it'll create. Speaking of creating problems and trying to solve problems, boy, Charlie Baker, the president of the NCAA, stepped into a whole lot of stuff when he took the gig. We're going to ask him, why in the world do you want to be the president of the NCAA? He's got some fascinating remarks coming up next on the Triple Option, presented by Wendy's.

Welcome back to the Triple Option presented by Wendy's, Rob Stone, Urban Meyer. What a guest we have for you right now. We head to north of Boston and bring in the president of the NSW. NCAA Charlie Baker, a former student athlete himself at Harvard University. Charlie, and we appreciate the time. I know so much is going on in college athletics. We have a ton to get to. I'll let coach bat lead off first. Yeah, I know you're busy, Charlie. Thanks for spending the time with us. Last time we saw each other, we were in the not the Oval Office. I can't remember. Was it the gold room or? I think it was the, I think it was the Washington room. Wasn't, didn't we have George Washington and his wife

in paintings in that room. So that was in the White House, which was pretty amazing. Yeah. So we had President Trump. We had Rubio Speaker Johnson, Condoleezza, Rice, Governor DeSantis, and the four commissioners amongst many, many people. We had Cody Campbell from Texas Tech. And I thought, first of all, I really appreciated everybody being there because they realized

that college football has never been better. on the field. It's as a coach watching the tape and the execution. You're seeing rosters made up of grown men instead of just college kids. I mean, these guys are, you know, Ohio State,

the Wolverines in Indiana. They had, you know, these rosters of seniors and they played great. You know, Fox television is way up in percentage points. And they're, you know,

it's incredible, but we all realize there's some issues. So after that day together, What expectations do you have and what are you looking for from Congress to assist? Well, I think one of the best things that came out of that was a renewed focus on the Score Act in the House, which is a piece of legislation that's designed to deal with some of the stuff that currently ails college sports generally. And a room full of pretty influential people who I think walked out, believing that there was an opportunity here to help push this thing forward, maybe get it

over the goal line and begin a conversation at the same time with the Senate about how they might want to approach this. And I give the president credit for this because there's a lot going on in Washington. There's a lot going on around the world. And I do think by getting that crew together, he got this issue and some of our issues back onto the agenda, which was very very helpful. So the SCORE Act, you know, there's a couple things I'd love that. I told our group and I've told people because I get asked all the time, I couldn't spell antitrust until about two months ago and realize how, first of all, I've done a lot of homework on this and the meetings we've been in and on my own is how hard it is to get antitrust exemption and what exactly

that means. Maybe for the listener, can you, I can, but I think people rather hear from you. What what does antitrust? Why is that important and how the different state statutes are really restricted what the NCAA is trying to do? So the simplest way I can describe it, and it is really hard to get because it's a really big deal. What it would basically do is in certain areas of rulemaking, give the NCAA the ability to write a rule that for all intents and purposes has the force of the rule. of something pretty close to a law, because it basically means that if the NCAA,

as a group, decides that it's gonna have a certain rule, challenging that rule in court, for example, would be extremely difficult. And I think that we're not looking for broad antitrust exemption. We've basically been talking about two or three things. One is to create rules around eligibility. Anybody who follows college sports knows that We've had eligibility rules in place for a very long time.

And when they get challenged in court, which they do on occasion, we win more often than we lose, but it creates an enormous amount of confusion among student athletes, coaches, schools, and everybody else about what exactly the rules around eligibility are. Transfer portal is a good one. The NCAA used to have a rule around how transfers worked, which was basically you could transfer once and play right

away. If you transferred a second time, it needed to be because of some exigent circumstance, like your coach left, or somebody died in your family or something like that, because the NCAA is very proud of the work that's happened in enhancing student-athlete graduations, which basically now happen at a higher rate for student athletes than they do for non-student athletes across college, no matter how you split it. Divisions, gender, race, doesn't matter. It's a, really great story. But every time a kid transfers, they fall behind with respect to their ability to graduate. So we had this rule, and there was a basketball player who wanted to transfer for the third time to West Virginia. He was way behind academically. And when West Virginia sought an opportunity

to have this kid play right away, the NCAA said no. And so the AG on behalf of the University of West Virginia took the NCAA to court, was joined by nine other AGs and the Biden Justice Department. And they eventually, and the judge ruled in favor of the University, West Virginia University and the student athlete and the AGs and the Justice Department and basically created what we have now in the transfer space,

which is anybody can transfer every year. And And if you talk to most of the folks who are involved in college sports, including the kids, they'll all tell you that that is just chaotic and it's going to ruin the capacity of many student athletes to ever graduate from college. And I think there's a lot of remorse about that out there, but nobody can change it because it sits there as a consent decree. And that's the kind of thing that if the NCAA had limited antitrust protection, you could write a rule around transfers that people would have to live with. So it's really more about creating predictability.

It would also preempt state laws, which, as you point out, Coach, we have 40 of them around NIL, and they're all designed to make sure that the schools in every state do better than the schools in any other state, which makes it not just a challenge for us, but also a challenge for conferences in terms of sort of a level competitive playing field. So we're an aspect. organization, we've always been a national organization. It's basically about giving us in certain limited circumstances the ability to write rules and maintain them for predictability and competitive equity purposes. Do you think you can get that to antitrust exemption without help from the government? No. They're the only people who can grant one. And it's one of the reasons why, as the coach said before,

it's such a big deal because it's it's not something that they normally do. They usually take the position, well, just let the courts sort that stuff out. The problem with doing that in our world is it can take four or five years through the courts, even if we win and we're right to sort out issues that really matter with respect to decisions that student athletes, families and schools and coaches and programs have to make all the time. This eligibility question, for example. You know, we've been in court a lot on eligibility issues. They're usually a single player or sometime with group of players.

We win more often than we lose. But the process associated with that, I mean, we have cases that were started on the eligibility front in court in 2026. They probably won't get all the way through the court system until 28 or 29. So it just creates this incredible confusion and also a real sense of, unfairness across the system because, you know, somebody looks at some kid who got the, got the additional year and we appeal it. We went on appeal. They appeal our appeal. It's still going on, but the kid's playing. And then other schools look at that and they say,

why are they getting that opportunity and we're not? So the whole issue here is to create what I would describe as one standard that can be enforced and applied to everybody. And And that standard is basically made by the membership. I mean, one of the things I say to people all the time is, you know, when I was governor of Massachusetts, I had a lot of authority that came with the job. I had influence, but I also had real authority. And this job, I have influence. But at the end of the day, the decisions about the rules get made by the membership.

And I think, you know, the membership has to live with those rules. So on some level, I think that's a good thing. But when people challenge those rules through the courts, you know, you eventually get to an answer, but it takes a really long time. So in 1982, I started in, no, 86 as a grad student in Ohio State. And then there was a feel, Charlie, back in the day, that when you committed a violation, it was hell's fire. It was, I mean, the rulebook was that thick. you had meeting after meeting with your compliance people and it was made perfectly clear if you did not cooperate and if you lied you're done and i i've been saying this for years after witness and some

of the things i've witnessed is that the NCAA without subpoena power with the reasons you just said you get litigated immediately as the enforcement arm you know how do you have do you feel the NCAA as far as power? And I've always looked at enforcement as, it should be enforcement equals risk reward or enforcement should be greater than risk reward. And that should be because we're all human beings and you're in competitive environment. Why can't the NCAA go back to the old days? And if you, if I was king for the day, if you lie or if you don't cooperate, you and your athletic director are banished from college sports. You're done.

You're finished. Why can't we do that? The investigative process would be like this. If I'm a coach and I know we did something wrong and I refuse like, it's happened. There's people refuse to cooperate with you and they still coached. I'd understand that. I think some of it is, that's a really good question. I think some of it's probably just cultural and the changing nature of how we think about some of this stuff.

I think the, and what I would say to you, point blank, is that, you know, we had, just take eligibility for a minute, we had 1,500 waivers for another year of eligibility from D1 student athletes last year. And we granted two-thirds of those waivers, which means that basically a thousand of those kids got another year for one reason or another. They had an injury, you know, family situation, whatever it was. So we have about 500 where the waiver was denied. Of the 500 that denied it, you know, less than 50 ended up in court. So 90% of the people who had a waiver that denied an extra year of eligibility accepted it, right? So the whole fight comes down to the 10% that chooses to go to court and to fight that.

And as I said, we win more often than we lose, but it creates this enormous uncertainty and this sense of unfairness. around the membership. And so what I would say to you, Coach, is I think the difference between then and now is more about, you know, a little bit about culture and the world we're in generally. And, you know, there's always been the desire to win. You know that better than anybody.

But, you know, back then, I would bet, I could be wrong about this, I would bet that the NCAA had never 86, would have been right around the time of the Supreme Court decision around who televises college football, right? That would have been the first time the NCAA lost the case. They were 50 and zero in cases up until that point in time. And so I think one of the things that's also changed is what the heck, let's take a chance we may win, which I don't think people were doing prior to sort of that mid-80s, early 90s.

period of time just based on the history. Programs are falling by the wayside right now. We hear it almost weekly that a golf team or a track team or a swim and diving team is being disbanded on very short notice. How can we change that? Well, I think the one thing I would tell you is that there's usually a lot of news about the programs that get dropped. There's not a lot of news about the programs that get added.

I mean, if you look at like, if you go from, say the last time I looked at this data, I call it 2020 to 2020-6, okay? There were, I don't remember the exact numbers here. If you want them, I'll get them. But the bottom line here is there were a lot more sports that were added in D1 than were canceled. And I promise you, no one wrote a story about any of the sports that were added. And people wrote a lot of stories about the ones that were canceled. And when I got to the NCAA, we had about 520, that was three years ago.

We had 520,000 people playing college sports. So now we have about 556,000. So I think the, I pay a lot of attention to this question and I care a lot about it. And I know a lot of folks in the membership do. And we will continue to do that going forward. But isolated incidents are, you know, decisions that schools make for a whole variety of reasons. And in some cases, they may make them because they just say, you know what, we're never going to be competitive in this sport. So we'd rather take the resources we're spending on this sport.

and put them into another sport where we believe we can be competitive. Meanwhile, somebody else will get into that sport because they think they can be competitive in it. And to me, it's sort of the totality of the system across all three divisions that I pay attention to. And in that case, for the most part, across all three divisions, you got more kids playing sports now than you did when I joined the NCAA. So, Charlie, my last question, and this has to do with a hot topic of the roster evaluations, and this number is being thrown about $50 million when the revenue share, I believe, is 21.3. And this just comes from colleagues.

And after that meeting, I had about four or five athletic directors I know very well. It's some really big schools call me and say there's two ways that this is happening. When you're following rules, it's called money laundering. They take money that is set aside or that's, you know, eight, I'm throwing out AT&T, Verizon. Yep. They pay the school a certain amount of money and the higher-ups redirect part of that money towards the roster member. And then the other one is just flat violation of the rules. And did you ever think 10 years ago or even when you first became president that donor givings will have a direct impact on Wednesday loss,

not indirect through facilities and all the stuff that I was used to, but I mean direct. involvement on winning games. And the discomfort that gives me as a former coach, like, wait a minute. Is there a way to get these collectives the hell out of there and have the university? I believe in collective bar. I think that's really good, the way that the revenue share, I'm sorry. I think that's really good. But get that other stuff, NIL, make it be really NIL. Get it out of there. That's not the job of a coach and AD to fund NIL. That, in my mind. That's called marketplace. That's called capitalism. Is there a way to do that? That seems to me an easy fix. I think that one kind of comes down to some extent to the,

to how the membership wants to handle that issue. I will say this, that when we settled all those lawsuits around NIL and created the so-called house injunction, which made it possible for schools to do revenue sharing directly with their student athletes. Part of that was the creation of a college sports commission that is in charge with enforcing all the rules around revenue sharing, roster cap management, and third party NIL. And that's governed by the four power conferences. And that's where the majority of the authority

to get at the question that you're asking resides. And I do think that, and I do think that's a conversation that those folks are having right now, and at some point they're probably going to have to come to some sort of deal, for lack of a better word, on how they want to handle that stuff going forward. But that's a good example of where we created that construct specifically so that the power conferences would be the primary overseers of how those things got decided

because that's where most of the traffic and most of the activity is. And I'm hoping that they'll come up with a plan, that they believe can work, both from a transparency point of view, as you point out, and from a sort of legitimacy with regard to how the money is being collected, distributed, and supporting student athletes. I will say this. I was a big believer in creating a rev share program directly for schools, because when I got this job in the spring of 23,

the only people who couldn't talk to kids about money were schools, which I thought was crazy. And the good news, to the extent there is some on this, is the traffic in the football portal this past year was down 20 to 25%. And I think the reason the traffic was down was because kids could talk to their schools directly and schools could talk to them. That wasn't something they could do in the previous years. I also think there's a lot of things we can do now that we got a couple of years worth of activity around this to create a more transparent view into what actually happens to kids that go in the portal. I think kids are being badgered all the time.

I talk to kids just like you do. They're being badgered all the time about getting in the portal, getting the portal, huge opportunity for you. In many cases, there isn't. There's somebody who just wants the kid in the portal so they can try and ship them and sell them somewhere else. And as a result, significant number of kids don't land in another NCAA institution, which is a tragedy.

I think we can do some things to create some data sets that will make it easier for kids, coaches, and families to really understand whether or not what somebody's saying to them is true or not when it comes to some of this stuff. Because I think people are in many cases being misled with regard to the stories I've heard from kids about what people have said to them is their opportunity if they go in the portal. And I think we can help with that. Charlie, we know your time is valuable. We have so many more topics we want to get to.

But we could be here all day with you. So I'm going to propose a little bit more of a rapid fire. type segment to the best of your ability that you can answer them in a briefer time, which may or may not be fair. I totally get it, right? I'm just trying to give you a whole answer. Are five layers deep. But listen, you're a former governor.

You can do big boy things. All right, we can handle this. All right. So why was the decision to expand the NCAA basketball tournament to 76 teams, the correct decision? More opportunities for kids to play in the tournament. Doesn't change the calendar for all intensive purposes. is still starts on men's, men start on Tuesday, women start on Wednesday.

First round still starts on Thursday for the men, Friday for the women. And also gives the teams coming out of that first round, some momentum going into the first, or out of that opening round into the first round of the tournament. Last year, the schools that were playing in that first round, 15, 16, 15, 16, 14 seeds, they all, 15, 14, 13, 13, 13, 13, they all lost their opening round games two years in a row. And the other thing it does is it gives schools that participate in that open round

a chance to earn a unit, which is worth about $2 million to the conference programs, and it will also give them a chance to play a second game and earn a second unit. I would like to me, part of it is about creating some ways for some of the mid-majors and other programs to access resources that they can invest in their programs. And I'm telling you, we're going from 19% participation in the tournament of all D1 basketball programs to 21%, which is not much. And it's going to give a whole ton of kids an opportunity to play,

and it's going to give a bunch of schools and conferences an opportunity to make some money, which I think is good. Do we have a sports gambling problem in college athletics right now? Not on the kids' side, but I think the gambling thing generally has become incredibly abusive for kids. You know, we're the only league I know of that actually tracks abuse that's being directed through social media to players, coaches, and officials during our major tournaments. And the stuff that shows up there is brutal. We can get people, we can notify the

platforms and get people kicked off the platforms for the rest of the tournament. Some cases, we have to notify law enforcement because some of this stuff is so ugly. We have a program with Venmo, where if somebody's pinging away at a kid and saying, you owe me money, Venmo will shut down that person's ability to access the kids' account. If you'd pick like the number one thing student athletes talk to me about, it's the way they get harassed, not just by people they've never met, but by people on their own campus who are looking for them to help them, quote unquote, make money. I think we should get rid of all prop bets for college sports and in a minimum get rid of

all the negative prop bets because those put tremendous pressure on kids and it really sucks. We've seen an influx of foreign talent coming to American schools, and I've seen it in men's soccer. You see it in men's basketball now more than ever, and certainly tennis and other sports. Ice hockey. Ice hockey, absolutely. So listen, they're fabulous human beings. They're coming for an education. They're coming to play a sport as well.

But they're taking time. They're taking opportunities. They're taking scholarships away from American athletes. Is that a problem right now, or is it okay the way it is? I'd say two things about this. the demography in the U.S. with respect to the number of kids who were coming out of high school, just to begin with, has been going like this for about 15 years. So it's not clear to me that it's fundamentally taking slots away from American kids because the number of kids we've had

going to college has been going down. But I do think the bigger issue that we are wrestling with and need to wrestle with is the level of experience the kids from foreign or international playing environments, what kinds of leagues have they been playing in? We have very strict rules around pre-enrollment with respect to playing professionally, right? We need to make sure that we have rules in place that deal not just with playing professionally in the U.S., but playing professionally in other countries, because that does create a disadvantage. The other thing we need to do is make sure that whatever kind of data we're getting from kids who are coming from other countries, that it's legit and real. And if we move to this age-based eligibility standard, which I really hope we do,

that basically says you get five years from the time you graduate from high school, and that's that, I think that creates a really significant opportunity for us to do a much better job of managing the front door when it comes to international. Because a lot of kids from other countries are coming here at the age of 21 or 22, 23, and saying they're a freshman, that can't happen. I agree with that. Preach. Last question. Why the hell does that? Did you take this job? That's a really good question. I think about that one a lot.

I wasn't going to take this job. I was going to do something else when I finished being governor. I got asked to interview by a friend of mine. I care a lot about college sports. It meant the world to me. It meant my wife's the best athlete in the family. She was a gymnast at Northwestern. As I said, our two kids played D3 football.

I have friends growing up, and my kids have friends who wouldn't have graduated from high school, much less gone to her graduated from college if it wasn't for sports. And as good a parent as I think my wife and I are, the football coach in high school had more to do with our kids getting good grades and behaving than anything we said to them because they wanted to play. And the lessons they learned and the growth in the development and the family that are created for them, it is the best human potential development machine we have in this country. And part of the reason I took the job is everybody said the NCAA is about to break up into a thousand pieces. And I'm thinking, my God, you know, if D1 and the power schools separate from D2 and D3, D2 and D3 are going to be in real trouble because they need the brand and the resources of the power schools to have championships and to be able to make investments in their programs.

And so I took it because I think it's really important. I think it really matters to this country. And I knew they had a lot of problems. I don't really think I appreciate it. First two, kind of still the same as I always thought they were. Third one turned out to be more problematic than I thought it was going to be. You know, as we close here, your time is so valuable. Appreciate you being here.

But I want to reiterate what you just said. My daughter's played college volleyball, and I've said this. I said this in front of the president that day. I remember. She did an interview and was one of those proudest moments of my life. She said, I learned more in a volleyball court than I ever learned in a classroom. And I said, you get that. You know, on team sports, if not.

on revenue, team sports at any level start to go away. The fabric of United States of America will be hurt. I think every kid should play team sports. I just, I've seen it, I've witnessed it. You learn about commitment, dedication, you learn about diversity. You learn about all things on a team. And I just, I'm supportive of what you guys are trying to do because, and that's why I was really supportive of the president and his assistants who were there.

he made it clear that this is really important for women's sports. That's really important for non-REV. This is not about paying people, you know, you got to be careful why you say this. But I just think the fabric of America would change in a extremely bad way if we start losing team sports. You are so right. And it's not a coincidence or an accident that over 90% of the women in C-Suits in America play college sports. Absolutely. This is, sports is the educational.

value of sports and the developmental value of sports is wildly underappreciated in many quarters and it's too bad. Perfect spot to wrap things up. Charlie Baker, President NCA, thank you so much. Continue with that influence, try to get some more authority and good luck with those commencement speeches. Do you have an opening line? Yeah, I do actually. I start my I start by saying I've been to, I graduated from college, I graduated from business school. Somebody spoke at Both of those, I don't remember who it was or what they said. So I'm not really expecting you to walk away from here and remembering much about me or what I say. We're going to remember this to you all.

There you go. We're going to remember this interview for a long time. Charlie Baker, President of the NCAA, thank you so much for joining us. Enjoy your summer, Charlie. Thank care, folks. That was Never Cutting Corners presented by Wendy's. Wendy's new spicy chicken sandwich is crisper, crunchier and more flavor pack than ever. Wendy's, we're so back.

Coming up next, we cheers the newest movie star in Nashville. That's when the triple option, presented by Wendy's returns. Light it. From the pitch to the stands to communities around the world. The beautiful game is coming to our beautiful country, uniting fans around a shared passion. Now you have the opportunity to hold this chapter of Canadian soccer history in the palm of your hands.

score the FIFA World Cup $2.26, $1 coin today. Look forward in your change. Welcome back to the triple option presented by Wendy's, Urban Meyer, Rob Stone back here with you. Time now for Cheers of the Week. Presented by RK Zero Proof.

RK Zero Proof delivers the taste, aroma, and even the burn of real spirits without alcohol, sugar, or carbs. Coach, this is a fun one, and I can't imagine you ever thought in your history of coaching and analyzing college football that this is a topic we would be having.

But here we go. All right, so we are going to cheer Vanderbilt quarterback Jared Curtis. He's set to make his movie debut before even taking a snap in Nashville for the Commodores. He is appearing in Vanderbilt fan Nate Bargetse's movie, the breadwinner. It is part of his NIL deal. Curtis, a five-star recruit, chose Vandy over Georgia. Wow. Over Georgia, right?

So Clark Lee, he's got his replacement for Diego Pavia. And here we are where a role in a movie might have played a role in getting a five-star to Nashville. I say, if you got it, want it, use it. And Vandy did it. Oh, I give the guy, Ray, whoever the assistant coach who set that up, I call him, and it said, hell of a job. Here's a race. I mean, that's incredible.

You got it, use it, and I think that's incredible. Think about how far. So 2004, Shelly Meyer, written up by the NCAA and was reprimanded because she made cookies for Brandon Warfield that made Mountain West Conference Player of the Week. And now you've got guys being promised

spots in movies. So this is one that I think, God bless me, I think that's fantastic. Yeah, I love the creativity and getting outside of the box. And guess what? Fun is hell for the kid, right? Like everybody loves to be.

I'm all into Vanderbilt, too, man. That coach and the, the back, you know, because I was there when Vanderbilt was, you come walking in that stadium, it was a win. It's all your fans, and it's a win. And they've had some good coaches. But what they've done there now, they got something. You beat Georgia on, say that slowly.

On a five-star Cuban. On a five-star Cuban. You know, it's interesting, coach, too. Indiana sucks all the air out of the room with their remarkable story the last couple years. But if there was in Indiana, we'd be talking a lot more about what Vanderbilt and Clarkley is doing in national. Certainly is. Nice story. So it got me thinking, Coach, who would play you in a movie?

Any thoughts? I don't know enough. Harrison Ford? John Hamm? Gene Hackman? I'm a big Gene Hackman. Rest in peace. Josh Brolin?

Bradley Cooper, anybody? I don't even know those. I don't watch lots. I don't know these guys. I'll let you handle that, Rob. All right. That's why you get paid to big bucks, pal. Coach, who would play me?

Who would play Rob Stone in a movie? I mean, there's the obvious ones, George Clooney and Brad Pitt, but anybody else come to mind? This is where we need Mark Engram. He's up on this kind of stuff because he'd fire stuff right at you. Oh, man. All right. So you know what this says?

This says your move, Matthew McConaughey at Texas, right? My guess is he will. For sure he will. My guess, he will. And he's probably a little P-Oed at himself that he hasn't done it already. I can promise you if I was Sark, Sarkesian, I read that. I'm calling Matthew McConae right now. Your move.

Welcome to the brand new world of college football. That does it for the Triple Option this week. Follow, subscribe, rate us on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify. Wherever it is, you find your podcast as well as across social media at 3X option show. As always, thanks to our wonderful sponsors. Wendy's RK Zero Proof and NHTSA. We'll see you next time on the Triple Option.