Speaker 1: Four teams left standing after one hundred and thirty four
Speaker 1: teams to start the year looking for a national championship.
Speaker 2: It's been a while since.
Speaker 1: We've chatted with our next guest, friend of the program
Speaker 1: has spent some time out here in Salt Lake City.
Speaker 1: Good to have Ryan McGee on the show on a Monday, Ryan,
Speaker 1: Happy Monday, man, How are we doing.
Speaker 3: We're good? You know, it's this expanded COSS Football Playoffs
Speaker 3: is great. But normally I'd be at the national championship
Speaker 3: game like today and we still got like a couple
Speaker 3: of weeks. So that's weird. But the but other than that,
Speaker 3: it's awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's you know, I've been talking about this over
Speaker 1: the past couple of weeks because we're all experiencing what
Speaker 1: almost feels like a new sport together, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: all of the dynamics off the field, all of the
Speaker 1: changes on the field with the expansion of the twelve
Speaker 1: team CFP. I want to start out with a couple
Speaker 1: of local things because you're familiar with Kyle Whittingham, you're
Speaker 1: familiar with Utah football, and we're unfamiliar with this lot
Speaker 1: in our life as this U Tough football fans out here.
Speaker 1: It's been a long time since we've seen this season
Speaker 1: that we saw behind us. Now, of course they've hit
Speaker 1: the transfer portal. Combined incoming freshmen and incoming transfers, they're
Speaker 1: going to be forty one new players for coach with
Speaker 1: year two in the Big twelve. Knowing what you know
Speaker 1: about Utah football, what do you what do you think
Speaker 1: is fair to say about expectations for next year? After
Speaker 1: a rough entrance into this conference?
Speaker 3: You know, it was really I think I was having
Speaker 3: this conversation over the weekend with some of my my
Speaker 3: ESPN dot com colleagues when we were talking about most
Speaker 3: shocking seasons, and everybody kind of wants to go a
Speaker 3: certain way with it, you know, like shocking as in
Speaker 3: I didn't see that coming, SMU or whatever. I didn't
Speaker 3: see it coming. Only anybody did with Utah. And I
Speaker 3: kept saying and when I said it, like everyone on
Speaker 3: our call went, oh yeah, because they just kind of
Speaker 3: checked out on us so early. But listen, I don't
Speaker 3: worry you guys know how I feel about Wit. I
Speaker 3: think he's the man. I don't worry about them long term.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it just doesn't work, and this year was one
Speaker 3: of those years where it just everything went the wrong way.
Speaker 3: The ball literally bounced the wrong way. And so the
Speaker 3: good news is is that these days, if you need
Speaker 3: wholesale changes, you can do it. I mean, we're living
Speaker 3: in a free agency market and so the hope is
Speaker 3: is that you go get what you want. But yeah,
Speaker 3: that's a lot of play. And I know for folks
Speaker 3: that have grown up with Utah football and you just
Speaker 3: get used to guys being around three and four and
Speaker 3: five and six, and in the case of COVID seven
Speaker 3: eight years, you know, into the deal, it feels weird
Speaker 3: to bring in all these different players. But what's been
Speaker 3: really interesting is talking to coaches who didn't want to
Speaker 3: do that and then they did it, and they still
Speaker 3: managed to find the chemistry in the locker room, because
Speaker 3: I think that's the part that we all kind of
Speaker 3: thought would just go away. But when I talked to
Speaker 3: coaches that when I go to the booth, one I
Speaker 3: go to Boulivart and you talk to coach Prime and
Speaker 3: they've had two entirely different rosters with a handful of
Speaker 3: with the exception of a handful of players over the
Speaker 3: last couple of years, that was a close knit group
Speaker 3: this year, and so you can still do it that way,
Speaker 3: just the way that you get there is very, very expedited.
Speaker 1: And I will follow up with that because you know,
Speaker 1: the topic of the transfer portal can be exhausting, but
Speaker 1: when you're in a spot like we are here in
Speaker 1: Salt Lake City, it is going to be more or
Speaker 1: less a complete rebuilt. I mean, it's going to be
Speaker 1: a completely different team. It's a new offensive coordinator, and
Speaker 1: ultimately that could go one of two ways. So you know,
Speaker 1: as a guy that's been around college football as long
Speaker 1: as you've been around it, Ryan, do you feel like
Speaker 1: we're getting a little bit closer to putting our arms
Speaker 1: around this new normal? I mean, hell, man, like they
Speaker 1: have free agency when games are being played. It's so
Speaker 1: wild to me where we find ourselves, but it's not
Speaker 1: going anywhere. Do you feel like we're getting closer to
Speaker 1: maybe getting an understanding of exactly the right way to
Speaker 1: go about it, because if you look at twenty different programs,
Speaker 1: it feels like you have twenty different approaches.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's because there's no rules, you know, I
Speaker 3: keep going by I love the movie Tombstone, right, and
Speaker 3: there's the great line from Jason prieflely in tombstones. There's
Speaker 3: got to be some sort of law, and right now
Speaker 3: there isn't any. Now what's gonna happen is when the
Speaker 3: revenue sharing kicks in, which is gonna happen very soon.
Speaker 3: When the revenue sharing kicks in, these kids are signing contracts.
Speaker 3: And when they signed contracts, you know, we already saw
Speaker 3: it this year. I mean, listen, I was at the
Speaker 3: I was at the Citrus Bowl, well my daughter what
Speaker 3: a week ago, and almost every player who would have
Speaker 3: opted out the year before were in the game. And
Speaker 3: I think in the future, we're gonna see guys essentially
Speaker 3: they're gonna be signing the contracts and you get your
Speaker 3: money now, you're not gonna have it if you get
Speaker 3: in a transfer portal and you're certainly gonna lose your
Speaker 3: nil deals and all that's gonna be officially on paper,
Speaker 3: and so you're essentially gonna be as signing a multi
Speaker 3: year contract and if you want to get out of it,
Speaker 3: you're gonna have to figure out way to get out
Speaker 3: of it. So it's all I think that is going
Speaker 3: to force the hand of everyone to come up with
Speaker 3: some sort of actual structure because everyone agrees on one thing,
Speaker 3: and that's you can't keep doing it the way it's
Speaker 3: happening right now, because you know, you look at Georgia.
Speaker 3: Georgia this year was not as good as it's been
Speaker 3: because they won back to back national championships and had
Speaker 3: starters transfer out and Alabama won a national championship at
Speaker 3: twenty twenty had starters transferred to Georgia, and so you
Speaker 3: just can't keep doing it the way that you're doing it.
Speaker 3: So I think that the happy medium or unhappy medium
Speaker 3: what you want to call it, is coming because I
Speaker 3: think everyone can agree and the coaches are the ones
Speaker 3: that created this monster, and now they can all agree, right,
Speaker 3: we can't keep we cannot sustain this, and so yeah,
Speaker 3: there's some level coming. And in the meantime, the good
Speaker 3: news is you don't have to wait three years to rebuild.
Speaker 3: If you have to do an overhaul, like did you'd
Speaker 3: feel like they have to do then the way it's
Speaker 3: structured right now, you can do it pretty quick.
Speaker 1: On the other side of things, before we get to
Speaker 1: the national stuff, for remaining games and your thoughts on
Speaker 1: what we've seen so far. Year two in the Big
Speaker 1: Twelve was much better for Brigham Young after a tough
Speaker 1: year one, and they go to the Alamo Bowl and
Speaker 1: they just put it on Colorado and we saw the
Speaker 1: ratings come out. Eight million people watch that game. It's
Speaker 1: a massive, massive number. And yes, Colorado's the main draw,
Speaker 1: but BYU is a good brand. So Colladi and his
Speaker 1: team to go eleven and two overall, seven and two
Speaker 1: in conference. They beat their eighth conference opponent in that
Speaker 1: Alamo Bowl against Colorado.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Trying to predict what the Big twelve will look like
Speaker 1: next year is a complete exercise and futility.
Speaker 2: But year two, Big twelve BYU not too bad?
Speaker 3: Hi? Right, Yeah, not at all. And it's if the
Speaker 3: college Football tooth fairy had landed in Provo in August
Speaker 3: and said you're going to win eleven games and you're
Speaker 3: going to defeat Colorado and Prime and the Alamo Ball,
Speaker 3: you would have taken that immediately. You would have said, okay,
Speaker 3: thank you very much, we're gonna go straight to that game. Now,
Speaker 3: the context is they're disappointed because they didn't win the conference,
Speaker 3: and they're disappointed because they didn't, you know, obviously make
Speaker 3: the playoff and all those things. But I think that yeah,
Speaker 3: and listen. It's a huge transition when you join a
Speaker 3: new conference. It just is, you know, speaking of the
Speaker 3: Big Twelve. Go down to TCU and ask those guys
Speaker 3: who changed conferences that felt like eight times and ten
Speaker 3: years or something, and it's really really difficult to do.
Speaker 3: So Yeah, once you get settled in and you figure
Speaker 3: it out, I expect to see some of those same
Speaker 3: things from an Oklahoma in the SEC, or from USC
Speaker 3: and some of the West Coast teams you know obviously
Speaker 3: that are in the you know, traveling all across the country,
Speaker 3: play Rutgers in Maryland and all that. I think that
Speaker 3: once they settle into year two and three, I think,
Speaker 3: first of all, we'll all get used to it, and
Speaker 3: second of all they'll get used to it. But yeah,
Speaker 3: if they if you had come to me and said,
Speaker 3: come to anybody wearing BYU gear and said I'll give
Speaker 3: you this right now, will you take this? They would
Speaker 3: have said one percent, thank you very.
Speaker 2: Much, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: And give me a quick thought on the Big Twelve
Speaker 1: because I continue to chuck about up, chuckle about this,
Speaker 1: uh in an ironic way. Ryan, the most popular preseason
Speaker 1: Big Twelve Championship pick in Vegas was Oklahoma State and
Speaker 1: Utah and obviously that didn't go well for coach within
Speaker 1: or Mike Gundy, and so I have zero clue how
Speaker 1: this conference is going to play out. And of course
Speaker 1: there are a number of months until we're playing Big
Speaker 1: twelve football again. But just generally speaking, your thoughts on
Speaker 1: what you know we're learning now Being a former Pac
Speaker 1: twelve City now at Big twelve City is certainly a
Speaker 1: conference of chaos, and get used to.
Speaker 3: It, because this is just how it is. You know.
Speaker 3: I was talking to Steve Sarkisian, who obviously be coaching
Speaker 3: in the playoff, you know, on Friday night for what
Speaker 3: Texas and Sarka was like, we were in a Big
Speaker 3: twelve thirty however many years and he goes, we want
Speaker 3: to think like three times it's just nuts and yeah,
Speaker 3: but what it'll tell you is, and this is encouraging
Speaker 3: for Utah, man, is that you know, it's a spaghetti
Speaker 3: pile and it's a yo yo. And so the good
Speaker 3: news is is that even if you finish toward the
Speaker 3: bottom of the conference one year, you're really not that
Speaker 3: far from the top of the conference. So you can
Speaker 3: you can get there quickly and if you go and
Speaker 3: study what that conference has been certainly over the last decade,
Speaker 3: it's not just crazy games. All those crazy games add
Speaker 3: up to crazy conference races. And so yeah, I mean
Speaker 3: Oklahoma State, they were very confidence they were gonna be
Speaker 3: in the College Fotball playoffs and they finished last in
Speaker 3: the conference. So it's yeah, there's you can make up
Speaker 3: room very quickly these days. And yeah, you guys know,
Speaker 3: I cover NASCAR and I go to Daytona and Talladega,
Speaker 3: where you can be running twenty second with two laps
Speaker 3: to go and win the race, and you can be
Speaker 3: running first and finished twenty second. And that's exactly the
Speaker 3: way the Big twelve has always been.
Speaker 1: All right, moving over now to what we've seen so far,
Speaker 1: I'll start here back at the beginning, because honestly don't
Speaker 1: know Ryan what your opinion is on the new twelve
Speaker 1: team expanded CFP. So I want to start with whether
Speaker 1: or not you're a fan of the format, simply put,
Speaker 1: and then what we've seen so far, beefs about auto
Speaker 1: bid seating, all the things, you know, the deal you're
Speaker 1: you know now now that we have seen a good
Speaker 1: portion of an unfold, are you a fan of what
Speaker 1: they've done, and what are your thoughts on what's unfolded
Speaker 1: so far.
Speaker 3: Well, I I have been on the record since the
Speaker 3: jump that they should have started at sixteen out of
Speaker 3: hate buys. I hate first round buys. That is so NFL,
Speaker 3: you know, if you want to be the NFL. I
Speaker 3: got good news. They're playing every Sunday, you know, I
Speaker 3: just don't. I don't like buys in the playoffs, and
Speaker 3: and clearly that did no one any good because you know,
Speaker 3: if you had a first round buy, you're gone. And
Speaker 3: so I love the on campus games. I was at
Speaker 3: Ohio State, the Tennessee Ohio State game. I think you know,
Speaker 3: I'm from North Carolina, right, I'm not used to the
Speaker 3: Highland being eighteen. That wasn't any fun. But I love
Speaker 3: the fact that the playoffs started in Austin, in South Bend,
Speaker 3: you know, in Happy Valley, you know, in the Horseshoe.
Speaker 3: That was amazing. And so those are the things they've gotten,
Speaker 3: right people, As you said when we started talking, we've
Speaker 3: all kind of learned about this, you know, as we've
Speaker 3: gone along. You know, the seeding obviously is a problem.
Speaker 3: I mean that was a mess. You know, I think
Speaker 3: that and I appreciate the fact that they want to
Speaker 3: reward conference championships, and that goes back to day one
Speaker 3: of the college football playoffs. If you've ever done one
Speaker 3: of these mock selection committee exercises, which I have three
Speaker 3: or four times, there's not much criteria, but of the
Speaker 3: four things that are listed, they want you to reward
Speaker 3: a conference champion. This goes all the way back to,
Speaker 3: you know, eleven years ago when this thing first started.
Speaker 3: So I think the receding has to be considered. I
Speaker 3: think they need to go to sixteen as soon as
Speaker 3: they can. I want everyone to play the same number
Speaker 3: of games. Clearly there's no advantage, certainly based on this year.
Speaker 3: But I've enjoy I mean, you know, but I think
Speaker 3: what we're what we've learned though, is is that you know,
Speaker 3: it's still going to come down to it's pretty obvious
Speaker 3: who the best handful of teams are. And the good
Speaker 3: news if you got in twelfth or eleventh or tenth
Speaker 3: or whatever, you know, congratulations you're in the playoff. But
Speaker 3: you know, as we learn with four teams, you know,
Speaker 3: the semi final games for the most part, for the
Speaker 3: last decade haven't been great because the two best teams
Speaker 3: are way better than the third and fourth best teams,
Speaker 3: so I'm curious to see how it plays out this weekend.
Speaker 3: I love the fact I'm writing a column for ESPN
Speaker 3: dot com for tomorrow about the fact that we have
Speaker 3: these four programs that I mean, Ohio State won it
Speaker 3: ten years ago. You know you're talking about Notre Dame
Speaker 3: in Penn State nineteen eighty eight, nineteen eighty six, since
Speaker 3: either one of them won a national championship. So we
Speaker 3: got plenty of storylines. But I want to I want
Speaker 3: to get the sixteen teams as quick as we can.
Speaker 2: And there's you know, probably no perfect solution.
Speaker 1: And I've always believed that the powers of be in
Speaker 1: college football enjoyed the discourse around the tournament no matter what,
Speaker 1: even if it's knocking on the whole thing, It's like, hey,
Speaker 1: they're talking about us.
Speaker 2: I do want to kick the tires with you on
Speaker 2: the beef that I think is real.
Speaker 1: If you're Oregon, you're a fan of Oregon, you know,
Speaker 1: you handle your business all year long, you enter that
Speaker 1: tournament undefeated, and your gift for that is facing what
Speaker 1: most people believe is the most talented team in college
Speaker 1: football round two in Ohio State and the current favorite
Speaker 1: to go win the thing. Like I said, there's no
Speaker 1: perfect solutions, but if you're an Oregon fan, you feel
Speaker 1: hard done.
Speaker 2: I kind of understand where you're at.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you're an Oregon fan and you've been number one,
Speaker 3: they were number one, what soul second half of the
Speaker 3: season and being And I love James Franklin. I think
Speaker 3: the Penn State story is a great story. But it
Speaker 3: doesn't surprise me that they're playing on Thursday night because
Speaker 3: of the schedule that they were handed in the playoffs.
Speaker 3: And so again, the seeing is a problem. There's no
Speaker 3: there's no excuse for the fact that Oregon had to
Speaker 3: play the game they played and Penn State. It's not easy.
Speaker 3: There's no bad teams left in this thing. But when
Speaker 3: you looked at it, it certainly felt like it was
Speaker 3: like we were looking at a basketball tournament and in
Speaker 3: a blind taste test, you would have thought that Penn
Speaker 3: State was a number one seed based on what the
Speaker 3: bracket was. So yeah, again there needs to be a
Speaker 3: reset on the seating and yeah, if we're going to rule,
Speaker 3: if you really want to reward the teams for winning
Speaker 3: a conference championship, and for being you know, number one
Speaker 3: the whole second half of the year, and for winning
Speaker 3: games against Ohio State and doing those things they did.
Speaker 3: Then if you really want to reward and reward them
Speaker 3: and U and it was they did not do that. No,
Speaker 3: they didn't.
Speaker 1: And I will ask you about Arizona State because of
Speaker 1: course Big twelve market and you know, Kenny Dillingham my goodness,
Speaker 1: like herme doe respect left that thing for dead.
Speaker 2: You know, three wins the year before.
Speaker 1: Kenny takes over and does a great job of adding
Speaker 1: talent that most people overlook.
Speaker 2: There's not a five star kid on that roster, and
Speaker 2: he turns it around really quickly.
Speaker 1: And if not for what I perceived to be a horrible,
Speaker 1: horrible missed call with the targeting situation down the stretch,
Speaker 1: Now I ask you had kicking issues all year. There's
Speaker 1: no guarantee that they go win the thing, But that
Speaker 1: call that was missed I think really really really hurt.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: It was a heavy pill, you know, big pill for
Speaker 1: ASHU fans to swallow. But the way they played against Texas,
Speaker 1: if you think that answered any questions about the Big twelve.
Speaker 2: As a whole, or is that just kind of being
Speaker 2: over dramatic about the whole thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, listen, I went out to I went out to
Speaker 3: Tempe and spent the day with Dillingham during the week
Speaker 3: leading into the first round of playoffs. And I'll be
Speaker 3: the first one to say I had watched them plenty
Speaker 3: on television, but when I watch them, I'm sitting there thinking,
Speaker 3: I don't know if they're big enough and strong enough
Speaker 3: and certainly not deep enough to keep up with the
Speaker 3: big money fosters at Texas, Ohio State whoever. But once
Speaker 3: I went out there and I watched those guys practice,
Speaker 3: and I spent the day with with you know, with
Speaker 3: that staff and with Kenny Dillingham, who's like twenty years
Speaker 3: younger than I am, and I was like, it was
Speaker 3: I became a believer. And so it doesn't surprise me
Speaker 3: that they did what they did. And I don't care
Speaker 3: what level of football it is. You give me the
Speaker 3: old scataboo. I got a chance that dude. That dude
Speaker 3: can play, and so it was really fun spending time
Speaker 3: with them. And it's fun watch spending time with Kenny
Speaker 3: Dillingham because I think that he set up to me
Speaker 3: in his interview for College Game Day He's the first
Speaker 3: one to admit he's made big mistakes. Is you're talking
Speaker 3: about the kicking game. He embarrassed himself when he called
Speaker 3: out the kicker publicly, and you know, after they've missed
Speaker 3: a big kick, you know, early in the year, and
Speaker 3: he announced it gonna have open trials for kickers, and
Speaker 3: then he realized he just bashed a teenager on television,
Speaker 3: you know, And then then he said, I have learned
Speaker 3: so much this year. I mean the fifth that he
Speaker 3: pitched at the end of the BYU game. He has
Speaker 3: admitted that was an immature mistake, and so it's been
Speaker 3: interesting watching him and plusant, I love those stories. That
Speaker 3: guy grew up fifteen minutes from campus, going to games
Speaker 3: as a kid, sitting in those stands at Sun Devil Stadium,
Speaker 3: went to college there, met his wife there. He still
Speaker 3: lives in the same neighborhood where he grew up. He
Speaker 3: shares a backyard with his sister. His parents lived two
Speaker 3: doors down the street. I want those guys to succeed.
Speaker 3: It's why I was sad that it didn't work out
Speaker 3: at Nebraska for Frost. It was why I wanted Matt
Speaker 3: Luke to work out at Ole miss It's why I
Speaker 3: love watching Kirby Smart win at Georgia. The dream is
Speaker 3: to go back to your alma mater and the school
Speaker 3: that you grew up rooting for and when and Arizona
Speaker 3: State has always been at the top of the list
Speaker 3: of how are they not better at football? And so yes,
Speaker 3: I thought it was a big, big vot of conference
Speaker 3: with the Big Twelve. And listen, Colorado was for real.
Speaker 3: BYU is for real. There's a lot of teams on
Speaker 3: that Big twelve lineup that people don't want to play,
Speaker 3: And so I thought it was an encouraging year for
Speaker 3: the Big twelve, even though they exited quicker than they
Speaker 3: wanted to in the postseason.
Speaker 1: Let me circle back real quick, because your reference BYU
Speaker 1: lot of BYU fans and look, it's always and I
Speaker 1: enjoy doing radio from a perspective of diagnosing and not
Speaker 1: prognosticating because this stuff is impossible to predict. But after
Speaker 1: the fact, I think there's a case to be made
Speaker 1: that maybe BYU should have received a little more attention
Speaker 1: and potential opportunity to qualify for that twelve team CFP.
Speaker 1: They had to win over SMU, a loss over another
Speaker 1: playoff team the Kansas lost really really hurt them, strength
Speaker 1: of schedule, strength of the record, quality wins. I mean
Speaker 1: BYU did have more of a case than I think
Speaker 1: they were given credit for. And interestingly enough, Ryan, over
Speaker 1: the final couple of iterations of the CFP rankings, you
Speaker 1: didn't even hear much about them, didn't hear that they
Speaker 1: were even in the conversation because they did lose two
Speaker 1: of their final three, and probably the timing of their
Speaker 1: losses is ultimately what killed them.
Speaker 2: But do you think BYU has a bit of a bee.
Speaker 1: For not getting at least more recognition to potentially get
Speaker 1: in that twelve team field.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was surprised they weren't in the conversation. But
Speaker 3: timing is everything, And the reality is, you know that
Speaker 3: committee starts meeting in what early to mid November, and
Speaker 3: the only time they watch football together, like you all
Speaker 3: sit in the room and watch football together, is championship
Speaker 3: game weekend, and so the biggest conversations that they have
Speaker 3: are during those last couple of weeks that you're talking about,
Speaker 3: and so timing is everything, you know. To me, it's
Speaker 3: why everybody kind of forgot that Notre Dame lost in
Speaker 3: Northern Illinois week two. You know, get that stuff out
Speaker 3: of the way early. And it's always been that way.
Speaker 3: I mean even back in the poll the poll era.
Speaker 3: You know, if you're gonna trip over yourself, do it
Speaker 3: in September and then make them forget about it when
Speaker 3: you get to October or November. So yeah, the time
Speaker 3: of that for BYU is bad. But you know, again,
Speaker 3: you know, get one or two plays back and you
Speaker 3: know they can't ignore you. And so you know, Kansas
Speaker 3: suddenly turned to tell me the teams that were favored
Speaker 3: to win the Big twelve Kansas on a lot of
Speaker 3: people's list, certainly in the top two or three. And
Speaker 3: when Kansas suddenly decided to play like Kansas again, that
Speaker 3: was bad timing for the Cougars. But yeah, I think
Speaker 3: that the bad news is they didn't get the the
Speaker 3: recognition they should have. The good news is I think
Speaker 3: they've got a lot of momentum, and I also think
Speaker 3: they got a chip on their shoulder headed into twenty
Speaker 3: twenty five.
Speaker 1: You referenced something earlier I wanted to follow up on
Speaker 1: because I believe college football should be played on college
Speaker 1: of campuses like period, right in my opinion, and Joel
Speaker 1: Klattz floated out of this idea that the Rose Bowl
Speaker 1: becomes the super Bowl.
Speaker 2: Of college football.
Speaker 1: Is there a way we can format this thing where
Speaker 1: every game is played on a campus, maybe outside of
Speaker 1: the actual final national championship game.
Speaker 3: No, I mean, it would be great, but the problem
Speaker 3: is the balls are still the balls, and there's still
Speaker 3: too much money. And listen, I'm a bold guy. I'm
Speaker 3: the first one to admit that I've written so many
Speaker 3: columns defending bowls. I just my daughter's a sophomore South Carolina.
Speaker 3: I took her to Sift Bowl even though they lost.
Speaker 3: My dad was, as you guys know, it was a
Speaker 3: college football official. I spent all of my holidays at
Speaker 3: bowl games that seen BYU a couple of times back.
Speaker 3: The first six S ball I went to was BYU
Speaker 3: Ohio State back in the eighties, and it's I still
Speaker 3: think there's a place for the bowl games, and I
Speaker 3: like the fact that they're trying to find somewhere for
Speaker 3: the bowl games. But I'm telling you right now, I
Speaker 3: have not experienced anything quite like I did being in Columbus,
Speaker 3: Ohio for that first game, and Tennessee was overmatched and
Speaker 3: quite frankly, just weren't ready for the game, but there
Speaker 3: were thirty thousand Tennessee fans in that stadium because they
Speaker 3: rated stub Hub right, they got all the tickets, and
Speaker 3: a lot of the High of State fans were mad
Speaker 3: because they lost the Michigan and put their tickets online.
Speaker 3: And the atmosphere in that building was unbelievable. And from
Speaker 3: whatever was told me, it was the same way in
Speaker 3: South Bend. It was the same way at the other
Speaker 3: three venue. So it's I love it and and I
Speaker 3: and I would love to see some format to make
Speaker 3: that happen. But again, to me, if you go to
Speaker 3: sixteen and you get rid of the buys, now you're
Speaker 3: on the great legendary college campuses and we get that
Speaker 3: for an entire weekend and then we can head off
Speaker 3: into whatever the next rounds are going to be. But yeah,
Speaker 3: in a perfect world we have both. But I'm just
Speaker 3: happy to have that first round right now, and I
Speaker 3: hope they keep it that way because that was crazy.
Speaker 1: All right, Before I say you lose a couple of
Speaker 1: games coming up this week. Thursday is going to be
Speaker 1: the the Notre Dame Penn State game. That's the Orange Bowl.
Speaker 1: Then Friday is Ohio State, Texas. That is the Cotton Bowl.
Speaker 1: Four of the seven winningness programs of all time, all
Speaker 1: four have won national championships. Well, we will have a
Speaker 1: first time national champ coach, which is cool. I'll just
Speaker 1: ask you both games. Who do you like and why
Speaker 1: who do you think March is on?
Speaker 3: Well, you know we said it earlier. It just it
Speaker 3: feels like a basketball tournament where you know, even if
Speaker 3: you're not, even if you're a number two seed, and
Speaker 3: even if you know didn't championship will region or a
Speaker 3: conference or whatever, there's always that team no one wants
Speaker 3: to play, and right now, no one wants any part
Speaker 3: of Ohio State. And I get that. You know, in Texas,
Speaker 3: I think can hang because Texas is a great defense,
Speaker 3: and when quinn Ewers is really good, he's really really good.
Speaker 3: The problem is when he's bad, he's bad. And so
Speaker 3: I think Ohio State wins that game, and I think
Speaker 3: Notre Dame probably takes care of business against Penn State.
Speaker 3: Penn State's got a couple of key injuries that we're
Speaker 3: all tracking and we'll see if they've got their guys
Speaker 3: out there. But Notre Dame, to me, what do you
Speaker 3: look like coming off the bus, and right now Notre
Speaker 3: Dame in Ohio State, they look pretty good coming off
Speaker 3: that bus. But but it isn't amazing though. And that's
Speaker 3: again I'm writing a column by it for tomorrow for
Speaker 3: ESPN dot com. You know, it was twenty fourteen for
Speaker 3: Ohio State. It was of course the legendary two thousand
Speaker 3: and six Rose Bowl for Texas, and then it's nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty eight for Notre Dame, in nineteen eighty six for
Speaker 3: Penn State. I think I looked this up earlier today,
Speaker 3: but your head coach at Notre Dame had just celebrated
Speaker 3: his first birthday when Penn State won last one in
Speaker 3: national championship. So it's been a minute, and there's a
Speaker 3: lot of redemption going on, whether it's Ryan Day or
Speaker 3: whether it's James Franklin, Notre Dame trying to prove that,
Speaker 3: you know, I don't have to tell BYU fans about
Speaker 3: living life as an independent, Notre Dame trying to prove
Speaker 3: they should be in this conversation with everyone else, and
Speaker 3: it's and then Ohio State. It's just the storylines abound.
Speaker 3: But I think we'll probably see the Buckeyes and the
Speaker 3: Golden Helmets in the National Championship Game in Atlanta.