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know the folk segment. You want to get to know
the Asu Sun Devils on the hardwood. Also talk some
Asu Sun Devil football. What's happening in the transporportal for them.
There's a lot of wild and rockers things going on
in timp Arizona. They're no strangers of the wild and
rockers nature of that great state, in that great area.
Kenny Dillingham was courted. He said, Nay, I'm staying home.
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Speaker 2: Let's get out to the hotline.
Speaker 3: Welcome in ASU Insider representing sun Devil's Digest.
Speaker 2: We got Chris Cartman on the line. Chris, how are you?
Speaker 4: I'm doing great? How are you?
Speaker 2: I'm doing fantastic, Chris.
Speaker 3: Appreciate you joining us in just a correction here Sundevilsource
dot com and two four seven Sports.
Speaker 2: I apologize for that, Chris, Chris. Lots of stuff happening
down there at ASU.
Speaker 3: Has it been a bit of a whirlwind for you
over the last I don't know, a week or a
week or two Shoot even going back to the end
of the season.
Speaker 4: Yeah, kind of tough to remember what day of the
week it is with the holidays, the tram for Portal
Bowl game for AFU, one of the ass coaches thought
that it was a Tuesday on a Sunday to put
that in perspective. So the days they've just been kind
of pilot up with a lot of work and the
transfer portal being just the winter only period this year,
I think that's added to more of the center urgency
and how much is going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, crazy times. Uh, let's let's talk football first. That
we'll get into hoops if we can't.
Speaker 3: The fact that that Dealingham came back to to to Tempe.
How big of a win was that for the this
program that's building something you you think pretty special right
now in temp.
Speaker 4: The massive development the likes in which I don't know
that we've seen in recent decades to be to be honest,
as you sold out every football game this year for
the first time in its major conference history going back
to the nineteen seventies or earlier. The fan engagement even
in a disappointment of a season in terms of the
outcome compared to the expectations given what ASU returned and
an injury plague season that resulted in only eight wins.
The overall sentiment is extremely positive among the fan base,
and Kenny Dillingham being a local product and ASU alumnus,
someone who is held in extremely high regard to retain him,
to get him feeling more confident about the state of
the program in IL revenue sharing in this era that
we're in now, and then how that's carried over to
the early performance in this transfer cycle with ASU landing
one of the top of overall prospects, top ten overall
prospect in the portal of Marion Miller, a wide receiver
from Colorado, UH second year all the twelve last season
and Cover Bowl League quarterback. This is this is a
a time that I can't really recall anything quite like it.
Speaker 3: Special times there in Sam Pee. What's the what's the
weakness right now of the program? Obviously you got your
head coach, but you lose your starting quarterback.
Speaker 2: What happened with Sam Levitt? How did this all come about?
It seemed like.
Speaker 3: Kenny and and UH and Sam were two pieces of
the pod.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Really it comes down to the financial situation and
decisions that are made for how to construct a roster.
Sam Levitt is going to make probably twice as much
money or or nearly that much. He's a very very
top of the market. I've talked to a lot of
agents and and industry insiders who has said that, really
Brandon soreersby going from Cincinnati to Texas Tech, he's going
to make roughly five million dollars. Sam Levitt is going
to be really close in that ballpark and af Youth
Quarterback Cutter Bowl, He's going to make probably half that
much or less. So that money the differential what we're
talking about revenue share and nil, they are two different things.
A lot of people can plait these. Revenue share is
being paid by the schools directly. That's that's about thirteen
and a half million to fifteen and a half million
for football rosters annually. And then nil is something that's
paid for by businesses, benefactors at the university, boosters the
athletic program. That's additional millions of dollars. And they're economic
decisions that are now made so Realik Brown and Sam Levitt,
as you decided to spend that money elsewhere, and that's
I think part of why you're seeing Cutter Bolie come
In who started at Kentucky last year, were a lot
Cheaper and a Marion Miller, one of the top receivers
in the portal, and some other additional players being being
added to make the new look roster.
Speaker 3: You know this, Do you feel like the roster is
going to be better than it was a season ago?
Do you think it'll stay neutral or do you think
it gets worse?
Speaker 4: Well, I think it's very difficult to say right now.
It's a projection based upon they're going to probably add
another twelve fifteen players over the next week and a
half two weeks. This is transfer portal Toaluza, and until
you really understand what the roster looks like when the
music stops, you can't have an answer for that. But
I would be surprised if it's better because ASU had
returned two thirds of its starters in twenty twenty five,
so the team that a year earlier had won eleven
games and being the Big twelve champions, so they just
they always were going to have to replace a lot
of starters irrespective of their decisions with Levitt and really
Brown from a financial standpoint, So I don't think they'll
probably They probably won't be as good of a team
in twenty twenty six, but I don't think that they're
going to fall off as much as what some people
might think given what they're losing. They have a you know,
the rankings continue to update, but I think they're nights
in the transfer in the country in the transfer portal rankings,
which is quite high. That's, of course, that's what enabled
Texas Tech to be so has a great team this
year was how how great to deport in the in
the transfer portal. I don't think a SU is going
to match Texas Tech in that respect necessarily, but it's
going to be uh competitive, you know, broadly, uh, in
a way that I think translates to the field.
Speaker 3: Let me ask you this, what's the deal with uh
these A s U quarterbacks ending up at L s U.
I mean, Sam Levitt probably Crystal Balld essentially to to
l s U with Lang Kiff and Jim Daniels went there,
uh not too many years ago. Uh, prior to jumping
into the NFL doing great things in the NFL.
Speaker 2: What's that?
Speaker 3: What's up with Tempe and I guess Baton Rouge being
linked together here with high level quarterback play.
Speaker 4: Well, they have tremendous athletes and offensive line play from
the South Louisiana Houston, that's just an extraordinarily talent rich area.
That translates to their ability to surround quarterback with with
high potency weapons that wide out and a lot of
protection along the offensive lines. It's if you are if
you're an A list quarterback transfer like a stores Bea
or Sam Levitt, you want to go to a place
that has weapons in abundance all over the place because
it makes it easier for you, and then that helps
the way that you're perceived from a draft standpoint working
to the NFL level. So noally are they going to
get paid the most, but they presumably, I mean the
idea of it would be for them to also be
surrounded by tons of talent. Le Kiffin's not going to
go to LSU unless he believes that financially that school
is not going to take a back seat to anybody.
That's why he left. It's easy at LSU with all
of the support and resources that exists there to be
able to build extremely potent teeth. Event the added benefit
for him is he has a great track record with
quarterbacks and with high, high powered offenses, and so that
that's why that is such a enticing thing for somebody
like Sam Levitt.
Speaker 2: Talking know the foe.
Speaker 3: In this segment, b yu as U Big Twelve conversation
with Chris Cartman, owner publisher for sundevilsource dot com via
the twenty four to seven Sports Network.
Speaker 2: Let's pivot over to some hoop talk. If we could b.
Speaker 3: Yu ASU on the dock at this ASU team nine
to five on the season own one in Big twelve
play b Yu a heavy favorite in this game at home.
Should be a Wild and Rockets one at the Marriage
Center tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Seven pm on January seventh.
Speaker 3: For those that aren't going to be going to the game,
it'll be broadcast on Peacock and NBCs.
Speaker 2: And give me a little preview.
Speaker 3: What is what is a AU doing on the hardwood ride?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 4: Well, they had a really great non conference relative to expectations,
at least until they lost to Oregon. Stayed at home
to conclude right before the Christmas break that was a
bad loss. Before that they had been saying really well,
Bobby Hurley had to replace essentially his entire roster only
had one scholarship player returning he's in the final year
of his contract with a kind of a lame duck situation.
He needs to perform seemingly for him to be able
to continue beyond this year, which is eleventh season in Tempe.
And he added a bunch of pretty impressive pieces, led
by Maurice Odom who's a point guard transfer. He had
been at Pepperdine. He was third or fourth nationally in
a last year. As you lost. It's the twelve opener
at home to Colorado, very close games in the second half.
Cuder gone either way. They have a sluggish first half.
Otum had I think like fifteen second half points or
something like that, along with a ASU high of a
dozen assists.
Speaker 5: So he's the.
Speaker 4: Engine that kind of drives everything for the sun levels.
And then they have a big man named Masamba Jopp
who's from Senegal. He's a freshman and he's been quite
an impressive revelation who's played very well in recent weeks.
He continues to get better. He's mobile, he's fluid, he
runs before, he's a big passer, he's got hands, feet,
plays above the rim. So he's somebody that's formidable and
increasingly so, I would say on the interior. They're going
to need those guys to play at a very high
level to be able to compete with BYU or really
most of the Big Twelve, which as is still not
one of the one of the top half of the
teams in the Big Twelve. But they're good enough that
they could be a tournament team or at least a
team in consideration for the NCAA Tournament if they're able
to have a successful Big Calls schedule.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems like I mean, look the scattering report.
I don't know if you've chatted with the coaching staff
of ASU and in the media availabilities that have occurred
down there, But you know what, what is the buzz
and the scattering report on this BYU team? And how
do they can how can they slow down the trio
of aj rob Ryde and Richie Saunders.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So ASU's biggest flaw, two flaws, I would say,
have been transition defense and then especially when they're not pressing,
and then eliminating second chance points and offensive rebounds from opponents.
They've been re is only good actually in the half court,
even spending out to the three point line, but they
they let too many possessions get a second look at
the basket, and their sense of urgency isn't good enough
in transition. So my sense is that they're probably going
to play more. It's hard to do because they're not
super deep, so they'll have to be smart about it,
but they'll probably have some more extended three quarter court
actually trying to get them more intensely evolved. And then
they're going to try to make sure that they secure
the glasses, you know, byus the potent and you can't.
You have to. You have to make those possessions be
one shot now with contested shots, and ASH hasn't always
been able to do that successfully enough against the better
opponents that it's face on its schedule, of which by
you probably gonna be one of the top four or
five to this point.
Speaker 3: And see, yeah, it's definitely an intriguing matchup. B YU
extra talented, well coached, well resourced. How would you describe
the resources being allocated to ASU basketball versus a SU
football right now?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say it's last year. Bobby Hurley had
a lot of resources on his roster, but that didn't
really materialize in the way that he and the program
had hoped between Jayden Queen and and jofun San and others.
There was a big nil spend, and they had some
injuries and they were kind of unlucky with some things.
But they also just didn't play nearly as well, and
their freshmen ended up transferring. And I think what happened
as a result was the school decided from a revenue
year standpoint, Okay, they're going to have to prove it
this year. We need to prioritize making sure that football
and other things are our resource. I'm going to have
a new basketball. Women's basketball coach, Baldi Miller's done a
great job of it. In her first year. They only
lost one game to this point, which you know, so
I think it's not it's not an easy situation that
Hurley is in right now, and there's a lot of
eyeballs paying attention to whether or not he's gonna be
able to come out of this thing unscathed.
Speaker 3: Why is Bobby Hurley the guy that is supposed to
lead this team? I mean, how would you describe the
Bobby Hurley era starting back what it was about a
decade ago?
Speaker 4: Well, that's ah, that would take a whole other segment probably,
So they had to guard you kind of early on
in his tenure, they had. He built up a lot
of momentum and and success. They were selling out the
arena and there are a lot of positive things, but
then I think the administration did a poor job of
turning that into more resources. They have a one of
the more outdated arenas in the conference, if not the
most outdated, and I think that they've been sort of
challenged administratively, and it's not it wasn't really. Also, Bobby
Hurley's personality type or tendency to be out there drumming
the beat to try to raise more money in things.
I think he's done a better job of that more
recently as he's as he's revolved to this idea of
what caused basketball has become. So there's plenty of blame
to go around for why AFU hasn't ever been passed
the round of sixty four in the NCAA Tournament. In
the Hurley's ten prior seasons, I think that they've tended
to not be good enough shooting the ball from the
perimeter and not as efficient as they should be with
shot selection and their ability to execute at a really
high level on the offensive end, and then I think
this year they've been better at those things reasonably compared
to the average historically, and a bunch of European and
international players, like half of their team are more than
international players who who arrived with like a very good
feel I think for how to play the game together
in a way that maybe wasn't president in earlier periods
at all times. But then they've had some of the
defensive issues and just physicality maybe on that side. That's
that's held them back this year. So there's there's just
really so much that goes into answering that type of question.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm intrigued about the future of the Big Twelve, right,
is what I'm getting at. You're looking at the resources
being allocated to football and basketball, and you wonder, Okay,
you know, what does future the Big Twelve look like?
How how potent, how how how successful would these Big
Twelve teams be comparative to the other power conferences?
Speaker 2: How do you see it? Obviously, Brett Yormark is a
great leader.
Speaker 3: I like where he's uh, he's taken this conference from
my perch, But how do you see it?
Speaker 4: Well, there's so many schools around the Big Twelve where
basketball is ultra important, like even more important than football
in a lot of cases. You look at Arizona in
Kansas and some of these other schools, right, so there's
going to be a huge disparity in how some of
these schools decide to allocate resources in the revenue sharing.
The revenue share, twenty point five million is being paid
to athletes except for schools that have scholarship expansion from
like football eighty five to one oh five. Not all
schools had to do that, but if you did, you
have to commit two point five million to scholarships that
twenty point five million. So then the rest of that money,
like eighteen million in the case of ASU, around seventy
five percent of that's going to football. But at some
of these schools, they're having that split be a little
bit more generous to basketball and maybe less so to football,
and they're trying to make that up in nil so
there's strategy involved depending upon what are the most important
things at these schools to the fan bases, and then
also depending upon the booster ability to deliver additional resources
through nil SO, and then also overlaying all of this
is you have this new entity called the college Sports Commission,
which doesn't really have teeth yet from an enforcement standpoint,
But all these schools are supposed to be signing off
to an agreement to allow the College Sports Commission to
determine fair market evaluation of nils, and if that happens,
that also could change the way that some of these
teams are resourced in basketball versus football. I would say,
to directly answer it, the Big Twelve is one of
the best basketball conferences in the country and I don't
anticipate that changing because it's too important to the school
stand bases at the spots where basketball is just so important.
Speaker 3: When you look at the bowl records conference versus conference,
what conclusions can be drawn about where the Big Big
Twelve stands amongst the other power conferences.
Speaker 4: Not too much. It's you're not necessarily playing it's not
all equivalent or fair. And then you have a lot
of variable like the opt outs and the transfers and
the early NFL declarations stuff that makes it very I
think difficult to tell. The Big Ten and I think
was the best conference in football this year, followed by
the SEC, and probably the gap from the SEC to
the Big Twelve, or at least the better teams in
the Big Twelve and the better teams and the ACC
wasn't as much as maybe some people fought would be
the case. They've had a lot, they had a lot
of great quarterbacks in the Big Twelve this year. That's
why you're seeing some of those quarterbacks be the top
of the market in the transfer portal. I think that
helped a lot. People tended to kind of think that
the SEC was really superior to the Big Twelve, and
it probably actually wasn't that superior in terms of the
actual product on the field. I think the Big Twelve
with a highly competitive conference, and you know that's I
think that's going to continue to be the case. Coaching
is very good, the schemes are very good. The SEC
tends to have you know, bigger, stronger line play, and
also really good athletes, but maybe not quite as much
of the skill and finets that exists in the Big Twelve.
I think the Big Ten was the best conference in football.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think most agree there.
Speaker 3: The fall from grace has the SEC fallen from grace
as the college football capitalism landscape, the uh, the you
know this free market is that even the playing field
and the SEC will no longer have its foothold on uh,
the the college football you know power.
Speaker 4: Structure a little bit. I think it's too early to
say that because this evolution is still like this was
the first year of revenue sharing, so I think the
SEC they still have a lot of basing advantages and
we'll have to see what happens with NIL and the
rules around that. You know, a year from now could
be a lot different than they are as we're having
this conversation. And what impact that might have I think
is I think it's a little bit got to read
the tea leaves, but there's more parody across the top
of the food chain in college football. We saw that
for sure this year. And then you have you have
untraditional programs that have arisen like Indiana. I sort of
knew Indiana is just extremely well healed with boosters. I
saw that with basketball first early at the NIL and
then they made a phenomenal higher with Kurt Sinnetti. He's
a great coach. And then they have a lot of
resources now, but they're not the only ones. Like Vanderbilt
has a lot of resources that it didn't used to
that makes it a lot of much better team and
Texas Tech, between Cody Campbell and other billionaire benefactors, is
not getting out spent by almost anybody in terms of
its roster roster building, and in fact, the Texas legislature
and Tennissee legislators they've been the least willing to sign
off on the this new college Sports Commission. I think
because they're concerned about getting up an advantage that they
have financially with n IL. So ultimately, this is probably
trending toward collective bargaining and players becoming employees. I just
don't know that that's for sure, but I also have
very low confidence on how long that might take for
us to get between here and there.
Speaker 3: Chris Best, Chris Best. Way to support you, what you do,
how you do it. For all of our listeners that
want to consume more of your content.
Speaker 4: The Yeah, you can subscribe at sun dovel Source dot com.
We've had a really great, uh, like fifty or more
new paying subscribers since the new year started because people
are fired up about the transfer portal. But even if
you just check out our stuff on social media, it's
on Novel Source for wherever you go or or me personally.
Chris Cartman I'd be appreciated as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you guys do great work over there at Sundevilesurce
dot com, the twenty four to seven Sports network, And uh,
I can't wait to see, uh you know what happens
with this, uh this transfer portal era, right this transfer
portal season. It sounds like ashe's gonna to try to
swing big and hit big. You guys have already picked up,
haven't you guys already picked up some pretty good prospects
already through the portal.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know. Cutter Bowley is seventeenth rank quarterback in
the portal. A Marion Miller is number two at wide
receiver and number nine overall. That's like massive. He's actually
higher rated than Jordan Tyson was when when as he
got Jordan Tyson, also from Colorado, Tyson moved down to
the number two. Mamaron Miller's a little bit further along
than when ASU got Jordan Tyson, and Tyson was coming
off a pretty catastrophic knee injury. So that that's that's
a big development. And as he is going to end
up again with probably like eighteen to twenty players, they
need they have some big time visitors that are on campus,
including Noah Carter, who's a defensive end from Alabama who
was originally from the Phoenix area. I think he was
the number three ranked prospect two years ago in his
high school class in Arizona. And they have they have
a wide receiver from Boston College on campus right now,
Reed Harris, who is I think the number four wide
receiver I want to say, in the transfer portal. So
they have a chance to put together a pretty impressive hall.
They need defensive ends, they need defensive backs. They're gonna
definitely need to hand on some guys to help them
replace out going starters. Day Lost, keep aving me and
Jamie Robinson av he's going to the NFL Draft. He
and Robinson is transferring to Wisconsin again financial decision, and
they probably need a couple of alignment offensive alignment also.
But they have twenty a young impressive players that are
returning that are going to combine with these transfers and
they're probably end up with the top twenty transfer class
in the country.
Speaker 2: Love your work, Chris, appreciate your time today.
Speaker 3: We invite everyone to follow you on x as well
as subscribe to sundevilsource dot com.
Speaker 2: Thanks Chris, my pleasure.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 3: That's Chris Cartman on our publisher of Sun Devil Source
dot com and the two four seven Sports Network Debtch
segment that know the FoST segment was brought to by
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Let's talk some college football on Cougar Sports with Benfrim.
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Speaker 3: For a little college football segment with one of our
college football the insiders. Got to get into all the
knicks and Grannity's all the news notes coming out of
the college football world. What's happening out there in the
wild and wacky world of college football. It's going to
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zero eight zero eight seven. Let's get out to the hotline.
Welcome in aeron Torres, college football, college basketball insider. You
love to follow them on Fox Sports radio and online.
Speaker 2: What's up erin.
Speaker 4: Good Man? How are we doing today? Everything's gonna go
with you.
Speaker 5: I mean, b whyew teams that I call and never lose,
So you must be doing good.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The last two years have done BYU pretty gosh daying good.
Speaker 2: Power four.
Speaker 3: The Power for Labor label combined with the frame market
has allowed BYU to thrive. And I remember we wandered
the wilderness of independence for over a decade.
Speaker 2: We were stiff farmed by the power brokers.
Speaker 3: And the conferences for almost fifty years after winning a
lot of games on the hardwood and a lot of
games on the football field.
Speaker 2: So we're finally finally.
Speaker 3: Reaping some rewards with the you know, being involved in
the club.
Speaker 2: We finally got invited to the club, and now we're winning.
Speaker 5: Brom Well, I'll tell you, I think I'm uniquely built
in some ways to understand that, because I am an
alum of one of only two FBS FBS football independence
and it's not Notre Dame, it's the University of Connecticut.
And not to make this a Yukon segment, but.
Speaker 4: The reason that Yukon.
Speaker 5: Is in this situation is because they were in a
power conference, the Big East at the time. The Big
East disc bands, they go to the American They dominate
basketball everywhere they go. They just came off a nine
win football season back to back nine when football season
as a matter of fact, and they just lost their
head coach. Because because that, you know, there's not really
a spot in any of these power conferences for them
to join in all sports, and so they're kind of
in this weird middle ground, So I understand, but it's
funny you bring it up because you know, you and
I I think connected really right around the time that
Kevin Young got the basketball job, and I interviewed him
for the first time, probably about two months after he
got the job, when that first rollster that made the
Sweet sixteen was basically set, and I said to him,
I said, you know, what do you say to people
that say the only reason d why he as good
is because of Nil? And I just explicitly remember him saying, listen,
you know there's my MBA background. But he said the
other two things. He said, We're not going to deny
the role that Nil is playing. But he also said,
we're in the Big twelve. And if you're you know,
in his case, you're a basketball player, why wouldn't you
want to play in the Big twelve Arizona, Houston, Iowa State.
And I think it's certainly transitioned to football as well,
where you know, you guys can donate me to tell
you about the success of the football team, but you
know you can't undersell the combination of those two things.
Nil with the Big twelve, and in the case that
Kevin Young in basketball, the Big twelve with his NBA background.
Either way, just from a distance, it feels like a
great time to vi a coop agan.
Speaker 4: It seems like a fun.
Speaker 5: Time to be following those two teams. Specifically, How do you.
Speaker 3: Feel about the Power conference structure right now? We got
the bowl games under our belt. Now we see how
the the individual conferences performed against each other.
Speaker 2: That's why we like bowl season.
Speaker 3: Some say bowl games don't matter, but when you really
get down to it's like, well, no, they do matter
because we're going to be comparing power forwards versus power
fowards more often than not.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, we actually did this on my radio
show the other day of you know, especially with the
set struggling, is bowl record indicator any more of conference success?
I don't think that it is necessarily, But what I
will say, you know, one, we can't deny that in
the Big Ten they are certainly having more postseason success
than they ever have, and not just because there's a
twelve team playoff but whatever. But also, you know, I
thought it was an important thing for Miami to be
having the success that they have because you know, I
think even BYU finally being in the Big twelve, it
feels like the real power brokers in these sports are
trying to almost make this a big two, big ten
SEC and then you know, essentially another two after that
with the Big twelve in the a CEC. So I
think Miami being relevant is important.
Speaker 4: Listen.
Speaker 5: I know it didn't go well for Texas Tech, but
I think we know that they're going to be a
factor going forward. You know, I still think BYU could
have made noise that they had made the College Football Playoff.
You know, Notre Dame is kind of a unique situation
in their own right, but I think they could have
made noise. So I think the whole ecosystem is important
to kind of you know, status quo is not really
the right word, but to just make sure that we
are not going towards this again NFC AFC model where
one hundred percent of the power is is in just
those two conferences as opposed to the Power four and
maybe an independent like Notre Dame.
Speaker 3: Do you think that the SEC has fallen from grace?
Speaker 2: Do you think that they will.
Speaker 3: Take a third or fourth seed in the power conference
structure in the years to come? Right they was in
Bruce Feldman did an article recently I don't know if
you've read through it, but he quoted a number of
anonymous coaches, some in the you know, all around the country, right,
And I think one of the quotes essentially said, isn't
it interesting that when paying players became proper?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Because I always said it was legal to do it,
is just improper to execute it. The batman of the
SEC no longer could just do it without any They
were just better cheaters, essentially, is what they're they're alluding to.
Now everyone can do it, and now the playing field
is ultimately leveled.
Speaker 2: You wonder how far will at the SEC fall.
Speaker 3: Now that everybody can do what they were doing for shoot,
the last thirty years.
Speaker 5: Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: And I know this isn't you know, necessarily applicable to
a BYU show, But you know when last year in
the playoff when Georgia lost to Notre Dame, when the
final four was Ohio State, Penn State. As crazy as
that sounds, but it was Penn State Notre Dame in Texas.
You know, I remember on my doing a deep dive
of you know, you look at just alumni bases, you
look at you know, living alumni, you look at endowment,
and it's like, you know, I think we are headed
towards a world where you know, I don't think the
power is going to be instructured. You know, in college football,
maybe more than any other sport, it just goes through
cycles where different things matter at different points. Right. I
think the SEC had this great run because there was
this you know, one, there's what you said, but two,
you know, it really did. I think for a while,
just mean more, they were paying players. You know, there's
a concentration of really good players in the South, and
there was no transfer portal whatever. Well, now and I
was talking to somebody who basically runs a collected today.
Now it's basically like, you know, how much are you
gonna pay me? And can you help me get to
the league? And and I think it's less important now
than ever before of the name on the front of
the jersey as opposed to you know, all of those
other things, you know, And it was kind of in
reference to you know, Lane Kiffen the whole, you know,
posing in front of the exact quote. Let me put
it this way there, you're gonna kick out of it,
you know, they were saying, you know how Lane Kiffen.
He wants to have all his recruits pose in front
of a Bentley. He goes, you know how these kids
probably have a Bentley at this point. Okay, so it's like, well,
you know, what are you going to do for and
once they get to campus. And so I do think
it's just an interesting dynamic, and I think to take
it to by you, to take it to the Big twelve.
You know, I think a lot of these schools are
positioned really well in these two sports going forward. You know,
Texas Tech certainly has set itself apart in football. You
know you would know better, but I do know publicly
what is and said about kind of Kolonie Sataki's restructure
contract or what it will mean for BYU football, and
then in basketball, you know, BYU in great shape. Texas
Tech obviously, you know, I think Arizona will have what
it needs on an annual basis to compete. And so
I know you were asking about football specifically and kind
of the three nil nil that the SEC may have
been doing ten fifteen years ago, But I think it's
a great point overall as to how the dynamics of
what matters to recruits have changed, and maybe it's fading
away from the SEC, and I do think we're seeing
the impact of that on the field right now.
Speaker 3: I'm sure many in the Big ten would still love
to get the call up right there or sorry, the
Big Twelve. Many of the Big Twelve would like to
get the call up to the Big Ten or to
the SEC right they want to be a part of
the power to structure. Who would be the most likely
brands to get the call up? Utah fans say it's them,
you know, if any BYU fans think it's it's them.
But you know, who would be the next to get
the call up to the Big ten or the SEC
to create this power two structure that the SEC and
Big ten seemingly want and maybe even ESPN and Fox
wanted as well.
Speaker 5: You know, it's a great question. The one thing I
would say, there's so many power dynamics at play, right,
you know, to nerd out for a second on old
school realignment. You know, fifteen years ago the Big twelve
almost broke up and Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, we're gonna go
to the Pac twelve with Texas and I think it
was Texas, A and M. And so I bring it
up because you know, if Oklahoma State gets hot with
the new coaching staff Eric Morris and you know Drew
Mestimaker and what they're doing, could they you know, they
could become the best team in the Big Twelve. But
if Oklahoma doesn't want him in the SEC, what does
that mean for them? If Texas Tech, If Texas and
Texas A and M don't want Texas Tech and the SEC,
what does it mean for them? So I just bring
it up because I think it's hard to say. I
will say I do think bigger picture. You know, we
kind of know who are some of the programs that
have kind of separated themselves in the current Big Twelve
the last couple of years. And so again I hadn't
really given it much thought, but listen, I think anyone
that would be hypothetically, you know, putting out offers to
certain teams in certain programs, they'd want to see winning success,
winning results, and so you know, you can kind of
put together from there who those teams could hypothetically be.
Speaker 2: There was a quote from Joel Klatt.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you saw this recently, he's attacking ESPN,
you know, the mothership this is.
Speaker 2: I know he's attacking him love Joey. I know, I know,
it's pretty crazy.
Speaker 3: Joe Klatt has been a hiss and a byword in
kugarnation at times, especially as he had a love fest
with other.
Speaker 2: Teams not named BYU.
Speaker 3: Finally came a little bit of He came around a
bit right towards the end of it, but I don't
know if he was ever really sold on b Why
you getting into the college football Playoff?
Speaker 2: It is what it is.
Speaker 3: But I thought this was an impactful commentary from Joel Klatt.
Not very happy about what's going on with the ESPN
exclusive college football deal, he said this, they chose the
wrong path when it comes to the presentation of this playoff.
There is no playoff that should be a single television partner.
It just shouldn't because the presentation is important, in particular
when you're down to this point in the sport where
you're trying to showcase games. Let's face it, it'd be
better if every network was given an a level broadcast
versus a single presenter, in particular when the single presenter
has a deep relationship with just one conference within college football.
Speaker 2: Your thoughts, you.
Speaker 5: Know, I love Joel, I do think that's probably a
little bit self serving, given that you know he would
be on the call for one of these games.
Speaker 4: But I will say it is an.
Speaker 5: Interesting point because and this was one of the things
when ESPM got the exclusive rights to the twelve team
expanded Playoff. And I know that they've since sub licensed
out a lot of these games to Turner. But the
whole point of expanding, if you remember, it was right
after the Big ten signed that deal that with CBS,
BOTS and NBC, and it kind of had an NFL
feel to it. Multiple networks, cross promotion, this and that,
and the understanding at the time was type, when we
expand the college football Playoff, we're going to involve different networks,
going to evolve different this, We're gonna involve different debt.
And so I just bring it up only to say
that to me, it always felt weird that the second
that this thing expanded to twelve that it was solely
an ESPN property. And so, you know, I don't have
much more on that, but I find it interesting, and
like I said, it was always weird to me that
this is where we ended up once we expanded the playoff.
I think there's probably something.
Speaker 3: To that with what you s Yeah, well, where does
the Big Big twelve standard all news? How do you
feel what's the level of optimism? Uh should there be?
What level of optos should there be amongst the Big
twelve members right now about their future?
Speaker 5: Well, you know, I think it's certainly would have helped
if Texas Tech had shown a little bit better. And
I think, you know, I think America got to appreciate
how good that defense is, but they needed a little
bit more offensively. I think the good thing is it
is very obvious with the Brendan soorsby you know, transaction
if you will, that they're not flowing down. And just
because they had success, and just because we have this
this house settlement that you know, they you know, they
don't seem to be abiding by a million dollar house settlement.
And you know, I'll leave it up to them as
how they disperst their money. I really don't care, you know,
but I do think it's important that BYU continues on
the trajectory that it's on. I do think it's important
that you know, frankly, you know, the guys across the
state continue to have success. As Kyle Winningham starts at
another job, and I think that's really what it is
is I think having year in and year out, multiple
teams or at least one that can really compete at
the highest level. Right. It's funny how we talked about
how bad the ACC was all year. Now all of
a sudden, Miami you know, punks Texas A and NS
Texas A and m punks Ohio State, all of a sudden,
it doesn't seem to be as much of a talking point.
So I think it's on the Big twelve keep doing
what they've been doing. You know, Like I said, I
think there, especially in football, I think there's probably three
to four schools that can spend at maybe a different level,
that can put together a different caliber of roster. And
then I think you just got to have success once
you get to the postseason. I think as importantly, you know,
success in out of conference games. And actually, then I
have one more thought. I don't want to go along,
Can I Can I expand on one thing really quick?
Speaker 4: Or are we short on top?
Speaker 2: No? No, you go ahead, we got some time.
Speaker 5: Okay, what I was gonna say was, and you and
I didn't talk during the whole playoff, uh situation? You know,
BYU being left out. One guy that I was pretty
disappointed in throughout the process was brett Or Mark, And
you know, I vividly remember him at Big twelve media
day all the way back in July saying we expect
to have two teams in the college football playoff and
for about three weeks, you know, I don't know how
you feel about it or how you did feel about
it then, but you know, for about three weeks you
could see the BYU saying coming of they're here now,
but if they lose to Texas Techa second time, and
you know that's assuming there's no crazy upsets late, you know,
Notre Dame doesn't take a weird loss in Miami, whatever.
You could see the scenario where BYU was going to
be left out if they were if they lost in
the Big twelve championship game.
Speaker 4: And you know, it was something.
Speaker 5: That I kind of fought on my platforms, but I
was disappointed that brett Or Mark, who for months was
talking about we deserve multiple teams, We deserve this, we
deserve that. All of a sudden, you're on the cusp
of having multiple teams and you got guys like Aaron
Torres and I'm not comparing myself to this guy, because
he's got a way bigger platform than I have. But
Dave Portinoy, why why is Dave Portannoy advocating more for
the Big Twelve than than Brett Ormark was. So that
to me was a disappointing thing, especially because he was
so vocal about how he believed that the conference as
a whole played good enough football where they should have
two teams in the College Football playoffs.
Speaker 2: You think Brett's just positioning himself to enter the.
Speaker 5: Portal Conference USA, you know, I'm I heard Dee Gottlie's
complaining about the commissioner and their conference and whatever, you know,
whatever conference he's in. So maybe that's what freye ormark.
So then maybe that's where he's transitioning. I don't know, man,
I just you know, listen.
Speaker 3: I think he's sixty one. Sank sixty one? What he said,
I said, Greg Sankie's sixty one years of age.
Speaker 2: He's almost to the right time and age.
Speaker 5: Well, all I'm saying is, you know, I think he's
done a lot of very savvy stuff in terms of,
you know, creating the brands of the Big Twelve and
you know, basically positioning the League is the third power
conference of the four. But I thought he really dropped
the ball without publicly coming out and support at by
you until and I couldn't be wrong what it was.
It was either the day of the Big twelve championship
game or afterward, when it was really a two or
three or four week story that you could see coming
up your pen attention.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, I agree with I think there's some
constructive criticism that could be laid on the shoulders of
Brett Yormark really wasn't a vocal advocate, what I mean,
or his teams that were trending in that direction. Maybe
he didn't buy into what they were building. Apparently there
you have it, say erin Taurus, Aaron, best way to
support you? What you do, how you do it for
all of our listeners.
Speaker 5: Yeah, man, the Air Torris podcast every morning, YouTube you
know podcast you know wherever? Host the Fox Sports Radio
National recap show on Saturday nights. Aaron Underscore Tour is
on Twitter. You want to support me? I actually talked
BYU a.
Speaker 4: Little bit on the show.
Speaker 5: I guess it would have been yesterday kind of recapping
the YU basketball opener. I think that they're the most
underdiscussed team in America thirteen and one.
Speaker 4: It just feels like nobody's talking about them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the power couple of football and basketball at BYU.
Speaker 2: They got to be at.
Speaker 3: Least a top a top ten, top five team with
those two teams combined. When you combine both of them,
they are trending in the right direction, no doubt.
Speaker 5: I can't think of anybody who would be ranked higher
right now. But we'll see if Ky and the boys
can keep it up. But I think they will. They're
playing really well. I think just because they don't have
that super signature win, I don't think they.
Speaker 4: Get enough credit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally get that. Aeron Torris, Ladies and gentlemen, Thanks
so much for joining us today.
Speaker 5: Brother, all right, Ben, we'll do it again soon.
Speaker 4: Brother, Thanks, you appreciate you.
Speaker 2: They go erin Torre.
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Still plenty to get you. On a Tuesday edition January
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