Speaker 1: It's time to celebrate the fretest team sport known to man,
where modern day gladiators collide for all the glory on
the grid. I let's talk some college football on Cougar
Sports with Ben Kripple.
Speaker 2: Welcome back Cougar Sports one of three nine ninety eight
point three ESPN the fan. I've been for the broadcasting
from our band or Wealth Studios Batterwealth dot com. Please
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a little college football talk with a college football insider,
get a delvint all the nooks and crannies, all minutia
of college football, the broad overarching themes of the college
football season, and then talk some Big twelve football BYAU
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Speaker 3: When you mentioned myself for ESPN the Fan.
Speaker 2: All right, let's get out to the hotline. Welcome in
the host of one of my favorite national sports show
talking college football, Crane and Company on the Real Daily Wire.
We got Jake j Boy Crane on the line. Jake,
how are you living, brou.
Speaker 4: Oh Man? What a college football season so far?
Speaker 5: From coast to coast, top border to bottom border. We
got a bunch of action and just excited.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 5: I'm We've had football on like every night for the
past two weeks, and we got it on for HEK
at Lisa every night for the next thirty thirty five days.
Speaker 4: So sign me up for that.
Speaker 3: It's been awesome. I've loved it.
Speaker 2: One thing that I've talked to a lot about over
the last five years in college football, as we've seen
the landscape change a little bit, this free market, capitalistic,
no guard rails system that we haven't placed the unreg
regulated system. I said, look, the pendulm's going to swing
and it's submitting aggressive. But there's gonna be a lot
of people saying this is bad for the sport. Everyone's
going to leave and no one wants this, YadA YadA, YadA.
And I'm like, look and it like it's gonna have
to swing back to homeostasis and mid center. But for
the time being, it's actually going to create parody in
college football because look, the NCAA and the power brokers
of college football have operated as an oligopoly as a
college football club ball for too long, and now we're
seeing what happens when everybody gets to play by the
same rules and isn't ultimately you know, cater to with
the rules and regulations. And so I really like the
college football product as is the parody. Want to get
your thoughts on everything that's accurt over the last five
years and what you think of the product now as
opposed to the past products.
Speaker 4: Well, I tell you, you know.
Speaker 5: Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder, and
if you were one of the teams that had a
monopoly on college football, then you're probably not liking what
you're seeing across the board because you're a monopoly and
the ability to create a monopoly. I think in college
football has really been hit by this. But if you're basically.
Speaker 4: I'm kidding, look, I mean again, no, no, no, I
mean he was and power to him. Credit to him.
You know, he was able to do it. I think
that's one of the reasons that he ended up getting out.
Speaker 5: And we're kind of seeing that in a lot of
you're really seeing in college basketball with some of these
coaches that have had monopolies for a long time, and
it's kind of shifting there. But this has been And look,
do I want regulations and rules and to be able
to set precedent and it be more organized, Yes, But
I don't know how you could argue with the product.
Not only that, look at the viewership. You know, for
all these people that were like, oh, people are just
gonna stop watching college football, well that's nuts to think regardless,
but viewership is actually somehow even going up when you
look across the country. So you know, in those two aspects,
in the aspect of popularity and then the aspect of
it being more fun to watch it. I love not
knowing the end of the movie while I'm watching it
for the first time, and it seemed like for so long,
for so many years, we're like, all right, well there's
this one team or two team teams that have stacked
so much talent, they're way better than everybody else, and
outside of an act of God, nobody has a chance.
I'm looking at it right now. I mean, we did
our college football playoff rankings today. We do them every Tuesday,
and I'm looking across the board and the representation and
the matchups and not knowing how it would work out.
Speaker 4: Is at an all time high.
Speaker 5: I have a feeling that the longer this goes on,
this playoff is going to start looking more and more
a little like March Madness, where really, legitimately anybody could
beat anybody on a given day, which makes it a
lot more fun.
Speaker 4: In my opinion, I love it.
Speaker 2: I want more of it, and it's been entertaining from
my perch. I love seeing SMU come back from the
dead after the death penalty for doing what everybody else
was doing in the eighties, right.
Speaker 3: I love to see that, and I love c BYU.
Speaker 2: Obviously there's a you know, I have a horse in
this race, Like I covered every single day. Like look,
BYU has been on the outskirts for so long, stiff
armed by the power brokers of college football, the PAC
Twelve due to in my mind, religious bigotry, stiff armed
the BYU Cougars. The Big twelve finally came calling because
Texas and OU went to the SEC and By's benefited
from it. So and they haven't made a colle football
playoff yet, but they may be knocking on the door
of a college football playoff this year.
Speaker 4: Well, well without a doubt.
Speaker 5: And I mean, look at BYU at least has some
really good tradition in the past. It's a brand that
we know that has had power at some point. But
look at Vandy, look at Indiana. Yes I could, I
could make you want to talk about like losing fifty
pounds during the summer, going into your junior year of
high school and walking in day one. Now the girls
are looking at you twice. It's just it's a new
look in college football right now. And I'll do you
one better, I think, And look, I know Memphis also
UA B. It's a absolute race right now in the
group of five. But I think there has never been
a year where a group and I'm including Cincinnati when
they were a group of five making the four team playoffs.
There has never been a year where I feel like
the group of five team has a chance to win
a college football playoff game to the level like I
think we're gonna have this year. Seeing how it plays out,
So it's gonna make for better watching.
Speaker 4: You're gonna have different people involved in.
Speaker 5: The more different fan bases that get excited about a
certain sport, the better that sport will be. Because it's
not like Alabama fans are gonna stop caring, you know.
It's not like Georgia fans are gonna stop caring, or Michigan.
Speaker 4: Fans or anybody like that. So again, I think all
in all.
Speaker 5: It's gonna win for if you really love, wholesomely love
the sport of college football, I think it's against all odds,
been a win so far.
Speaker 3: Love it.
Speaker 4: Jay.
Speaker 2: What topics have you guys been broaching specifically on your
show recently? What have you guys been delving into And
then I want to transition over to some big dwell talk.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, obviously the coaching carousel that's going on
with all these time jobs that are open at the
same time. That's something you always got a monitor, especially
when coaches are getting let.
Speaker 4: Go mid season.
Speaker 5: But it's really we've never had a year where we've
had to cover as many teams. And when you look
at our power rankings, when you put out we put out,
when you look at our previews of these games, when
you look at our college Football Playoff projection that we
just put out literally fifteen minutes ago, it.
Speaker 4: Has never been this deep. So we're talking.
Speaker 5: About everybody, whether it's BYU, whether it's Alabama, whether it's
usc whether it's it doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: There's so many teams that are still in it right now.
Speaker 5: We're really being able to evaluate teams for longer than
we've had to in the past, which is more work,
but it's a lot more fun. I mean, I worked
in a steel mill. I can tell you more work.
Talking about college football is a whole heck of a
lot better than that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, love that breakdown from a coaching carousel standpoint. I
don't know where you stand as far as the opinion
is concerned on these firings, right, I mean the fact
that Penn State deciding to move away so rapidly after
a CFP bid and win and you're a playaway, a
score away from from going and winning a national championship.
Possibly even Brian Kelly to a certain New York we
can all agree Brian Kelly's been a very good college
football coach over the last you know, two decades. It's
not even it's not even a conversation. And like, look
like they had two games in which they lost by
one score. Yeah, they got demolished by.
Speaker 3: Texas A and M. But Texas AM is literally having
their best season.
Speaker 2: They're the most overrated team in college football over the
last thirty years in the eightp pole era, and they're
finally having maybe their best team than the best season
in their history. And it's like, okay, Like sometimes you
just like the knee jerk reaction here is and I like,
I can give you my theory on this. I think
it it's because of the NIL era maybe one of
the negative things. Right, you have more power brokers, you
have no more equity stakeholders that are paying for personnel,
and then they just are fanning and they don't know
a ball and they're like, we got to fire everybody
and start all over again if we want to win
a national championship.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, look, I try and take a stance individually
for what's going on, because obviously programs are in different spots,
but when you look at LSU and Penn State, there
is some crossover.
Speaker 4: They're obviously really big brands. They're not afraid to spend
money hiring and firing. But I think the overarching.
Speaker 5: Theme is good, being really good isn't good enough anymore.
And I think NIL has something to it to your point,
because you have a lot more people that are now
paying right that are that are relying on getting a
return on their investment for what they're giving these codes.
It's not just about the coaches contracts and the money anymore.
It's now about well, wait, we gave you fifteen million
dollars for this roster, and A and M just pulled
your pants down and spanked you in front of everybody
at Walmart like it's and look, one game. This wasn't
a one game thing for James Franklin. It wasn't a
one game thing for Brian Kelly. I just think, at
some point, and you know, and maybe I'm in the
minority on this, kudo's the Penn State and LSU for
saying good isn't good enough. And for Penn State, you know,
they've been beating the teams they were supposed to beat,
couldn't really ever win the big win or get over
that hump, and then you start losing to the teams
you're supposed to beat.
Speaker 4: So I can understand that move there.
Speaker 5: That Brian Kelly one shocked me a little bit more,
not just because Brian Kelly hasn't been at LSU as
long as James Franklin was, but this thing spiraled quickly.
This wasn't you know, if Brian Kelly was gonna get fired,
ninety nine point nine percent of the people, including people
on the inside LSU, thought it would be after the season.
I mean, this thing just absolutely spiraled, and it felt
more knee jerk than the Penn State one, probably just
because James Franklin's been there for so long. I would rather,
at the end of the day, though, want the program
I root for to have so much pride that just
being good enough isn't good enough. So in a way,
I think it just goes to show you that with
the transfer portal now and with nil money being shoveled
in from everybody because it's legal now, it has done
nothing but add to the pressure, and you know what,
I don't want to hear anybody else complain about how
unfair of an advantage coaches have over players now when
these guys are getting knocked down left and right mid
season who've won a lot of games in the sports.
Speaker 4: So in that sense, I actually think it's a good thing.
Speaker 3: Is it.
Speaker 2: Is there enough coaching talent pool though, to go find
someone that's gonna do a truly better job, knowing that
the free market, this is one of the most competitive.
Speaker 3: I'm in corporate America.
Speaker 2: I'm an entrepreneur, Like I see what private equity has done.
I've seen what these major corporations doing when they're competing
with bohemos, which we're talking that's what we're talking about here.
We're talking about the best of the best competing on
the highest playing field. Like I think this is more
NFL than people are realizing. There's gonna be three lost
teams in the college football play going forward.
Speaker 3: I think not just two.
Speaker 2: Loss If you're gonna see some three lost teams, maybe
eventually get into the college football playoff. With how much
cannibalism is occurring, I just don't know if you can
get much better. Don't expect your team to be undefeated
or even one loss at the end of the season
if you're in the Big ten, SEC, Big twelve acc.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but yeah, and look, I agree with you. Obviously
you have more lives than you did in the past.
But I think there's also a negative side on that
coin when you look and say, wait a minute, we're
paying you how much a year and you can't make.
Speaker 4: A twelve team playoff.
Speaker 5: Like you look at LSU and look at at the
talent that has been through there that did not make
the college football playoff. I think in some ways now
Penn State is different because obviously Penn State's the playoff.
They've had some success in the playoff. That's why I
don't think the circumstances are exactly the same. But you
look at Brian Kelly and LSU and this is supposed
to be the team ness Meyer came back. You spent
what eighteen million dollars on the roster something like that.
When no, you go and you beat Clemson on the
road in the first you know, win your first game
for the first time in six years and it's a
big one, then you're gonna miss the college football playoff again.
I actually think the expansion in some ways has sped
up the timeline of coaches getting fired who don't make it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're probably right.
Speaker 2: I just don't know if it's wise for these essentially
the front off scared money.
Speaker 4: You know, you know, scared money don't make no money
at the.
Speaker 1: End of the day.
Speaker 3: So who are they gonna Okay, how are they hiring? Then?
All right, that's fine.
Speaker 2: You better have some you better have an expanded hiring
pool then, or you better be willing to take a
risk on a young, aspiring, talented, hard working, tenacious Kelly Kenny,
Kelly Dillingham, you know type of thing, right like that?
Speaker 3: That's the Dan. Are you gonna find the next Dan Lanning? Right?
Speaker 2: Because you ain't taking them from Oregon? You're probably you
may not take Dillingham from ASU like that. That's what
I'm getting at, Like, who they hiring? Who are they
going to go after?
Speaker 4: Yep?
Speaker 2: And don't say Nick, Yeah, well, don't tell me Nick
Saban's coming out of retirement or Urban Myers coming out
of retirement.
Speaker 3: I don't see it.
Speaker 4: Well, let's let's take those two guys off the board.
Speaker 5: Then, now I would call them I mean, Nick Saban
would have to get a cease and desisorder sent to
my house, the amount of time if I was the ad,
the amount of times i'd call them. But look, I
don't think you fire a coach with that big of
a buyout to go bargain shopping.
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 5: And most ads, at least the smart ones, have a
plan before a move gets made. That's why again, these
mid season firings are kind of jarring with some of these.
Speaker 4: Guys, because you're like, all right, well, if.
Speaker 5: You're gonna make that big of a decision, there has
to be a plan behind it that's already been in
the works for a couple of weeks or something.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: I don't know the answer to that. I would assume
that there is.
Speaker 5: But when you look at the names out there, and
I want to make sure, I think sometimes fans and
schools fall into the trap of, oh, well, we hired
a guy who coached in the group of five, so
we can't ever do that again.
Speaker 4: You need to go hire the best guy.
Speaker 5: I don't care if he's an NFL guy, if he's
a group of five guy, if he's a guy that's
already been at power for and had success or whatever.
You don't need to box yourself in. You need to
go hire the right guy because at the end of
the day, you want to know how crazy coaching is.
Les Miles won a national championship at LSU, ed Orgeron
won a national championship at LSU.
Speaker 4: One guy ate the grass, the other one smoked it.
Speaker 5: Yet Brian Kelly, who's won more games than just about anybody,
couldn't even sniff it there. So there's not like there's
a perfect formula or recipe, but the names. If I
was LSU, i'd obviously give Lane Kippen a call. We'll
see how that works out. The Florida jobs open too,
would he take it. I'm not one hundred percent sure.
I would definitely give a call to Eli Drinklewitz at Missouri.
Speaker 4: I think he's.
Speaker 5: Worth giving a call to. But then a guy like
Joe Brady, right who was there when LSU was really
really cooking, who's really I think, reinvented himself in the
NFL as you know, kind of a guy that was
very one dimensional in what he he did. He's really
kind of opened up himself, and you know, the coaching ranks,
even in the NFL. They're going younger and younger. If
you haven't realized that yet, that's that's where it's going.
So I again, there needs to be a plan. I
would be shocked if there wasn't a plan. But these
schools LSU and Florida and Penn State, I mean, how
do you not call Clark Lee right now? I mean
he's a guy that I mean if he can do
it at Vanderbilt. And then it's funny because I hear
Penn State fans that are like, well, well, you know,
James Franklin came from Vanderbilt, so we can't hire another
vand guy. Man, That's not how this works. That's like saying, oh,
I dated a blonde in high school and we broke up.
Now I'm in college, I'm never dating another blonde. That's
not how it works.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm wondering if you know.
Speaker 2: So let's let's take a transition over to BYU real quick, right,
Klonie Stocky's building a championship program in his tenth year.
I don't think there's any amount of money that would
take Kilanne away from BYU for a number of reasons.
I think he looks at what Kyle Whittingham ended up
building at Utah and and Kyle turned down a lot
of offers right to create a sustainable, sustainable culture, a
foundational one that allows you to at least compete for championships. Now,
did you Tiver get over the hump? Maybe not. But
he's made a good enough living. He doesn't need to,
you know, make more money necessarily, and he had a
little bit of what I would deem as balance in life.
And I think there are a lot of college football
coaches that would like maybe a little bit more balance
in life. They may get a little fatigue unless they
got the the you know, two three four year burnout
and then they get paid out right the burnout to payout,
which is fine and dandy too, But I'm wondering if
there's more coaches that are in this new competitive environment
that like at Vanderbilt, for instance, is he gonna stick
it out because he's seeing finally that Vandy can pay,
Like they have an alumni base that has plenty of money. Right,
they just have always operated within the rules, it sounds like, right,
they haven't been the ones willing to cheat in order
to win. And so I wonder if he sticks it
out a lot of these programs that have rich from
the dust and their coaching staffs. I wonder if they say, look,
I have a little bit of balancer. Matt Campbell is
a good, good example. He's one at a high level, right,
the modern day type of Schneider. You know at Kansas States,
if you will, that state long term and Bill Culture Foundation,
and you're actually receiving a lot of gratitude from the
fan base rather than always trying to fire you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, look, I think you know, obviously, age has something
to do with it. You look at a guy as
young as Clark Lee, I mean, it was his goal
getting into coaching to end up coaching at Vandy for
twenty years or does he really want to.
Speaker 4: See what he can do?
Speaker 5: Yeah, when he goes to a powerhouse that already has
all that stuff built in, that's not having to go
through that process. It's a little bit different with a
guy like Lane Kiffin, who is still relatively young in coaching.
Speaker 4: But Lane's already had all these huge jobs he's been
on that.
Speaker 5: I mean he look, he was the head coach of
the Raiders, he was like thirteen, and then he goes
to ten to see and then he goes to USC
and then he finds a perfect home and old miss.
So he's been out there and been a part of
those big brands and and he's kind of changed his
personality a little bit as far as it comes to
off the field, and he may like that fit better.
So I think, you know, you look at a guy
like Colonie Sataki, for example. I'm not saying Colonie's old,
but he has built a reputation as BYU's head coach.
They've had success there. It's not a guy that's gonna
get fired after one terrible year, and you know he's
going to be looked at a guy that really resurrected it.
And you're playing at a really high level. And look,
a couple of years ago, I came out and said
Utah is the most underrated football state in the country.
Speaker 4: And it's sure as looking like that.
Speaker 5: I don't know what wea were states doing right now,
but I'm looking at Utah and BYU that are that
are both cooking, and it's it's like they it's like
y'all out there love football a ton, but not enough
to wear You're as nuts as some of the people
that I grew up around. Here in the South, like
there is a good balance to where you're gonna have
support even when it's going bad. But you give those people,
you give them some success and they're gonna love you
for life. And that's why kind of resurrecting BYU to
what they are now has.
Speaker 4: Been such a big deal.
Speaker 5: And that's why I think Colonie Sataki should be the
coach of the Year this year so far when you
look at what happened at quarterback and then being able
to basically, you know, put a guy wearing forty seven
at quarterback and it still works.
Speaker 4: It's just hilarious to me.
Speaker 5: And you know, again, the staff obviously really likes each other.
Speaker 4: They get along well.
Speaker 5: And I'm just so happy for Kalana because he does
it the right way and BYU does it the right way.
Speaker 4: And it's good to see good things happen to good people.
Speaker 2: Who do you expect to be in Arlington in the
Big twelve championship game?
Speaker 3: And why.
Speaker 4: Look this one?
Speaker 5: You I knew it was going to be fun to
keep up with the Big Twelve this year, you know
at this point looking at the rest of the schedule,
and I'll be honest with you and I think some
BYU fans will agree with me. I wasn't sold on
BYU until the last couple of weeks. And again, I know,
the schedule feels like it gets progressively harder.
Speaker 4: You got to go to Texas Tech, this, that, and
the other.
Speaker 5: But at some point we're going into week eleven, all right,
there's no surprises anymore, Like nobody's sneaking around for eleven
weeks and all of a sudden they're fraudulent or they're
they're just really really good. But yeah, and again you
don't until you do, and now you have, and we've
seen the result at home and on the road and
finding different ways to win.
Speaker 4: To me, right now, I would say I would probably.
Speaker 5: Lean towards BYU and Cincinnati are Texas Tech, and since
Cincinnati is another team that I don't think Saderfield's getting
talked about enough and don't forget they and I know
if it's the nuts were or if it's some butts
for candy and nuts, we'd all have a merry Christmas.
But they really gave that opening game to Nebraska. Cincinnati
should really be eight to no right now, so it's
gonna be fun, you know, Utah, I know still in it.
I'm as excited to watch the rest of this Big
Twelve season as any other conference out there. But I
will say this, I do think the Big Twelve only
gets one team in.
Speaker 3: You son of a motherless go you scum suck sucking, I.
Speaker 1: Know, I know.
Speaker 5: Well, Well, here's the thing, Big twelve fans. You need
to be rooting against Virginia. You need to be rooting
against Georgia Tech.
Speaker 4: Uh, you need the ACC to get one, or.
Speaker 5: Be rooting against Notre Dame to get that third loss,
because right now, just doing the math, it really feels
like the Big Twelve is only going to get one in.
Speaker 3: Jake.
Speaker 2: Best way to support you what you do? How you
do it? For all of our listeners that want to
tune into your show.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, first thing, you just do something kind for
somebody today, Open a door, do something like that. But
if you want to keep up with our stuff, go
to YouTube. It's Cranting Company. See our AI n N company.
Speaker 4: We're talking a.
Speaker 5: Lot of by U obviously because they're at the forefront.
We just they just made our power rankings as well,
which which you need to go see. And uh, we're
really excited about whether the state of Utah is doing
right now. So yeah, come we don't just talk SEC
or Big Ten. We talk everybody. So come over and
hang out with us. I'll be the good looking one
in the middle.
Speaker 4: That's right, more than the other two.
Speaker 2: Boom, shocka locka Craning Company's very own Jake ja Boy Crane.
Check it out at the Real Daily Wire and subscribe
to the YouTube and the podcast.
Speaker 3: You're gonna love his content.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Jake, appreciate you hopping off for a
little college football segment.
Speaker 4: Hey, appreciate it, guys. Good luck to rest of the way.
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, much love to you. Appreciate you.
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