Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Brandon Marcelo in studio with us as he is every Wednesday. Got a lot to get to around college football. Let's start here, Brandon.
I feel like there's two games this year where if the clock is adjudicated properly, you have a different outcome potentially at the end of a game. Two very high profile games between Michigan, Western Michigan at the beginning of the year and the Notre Dame BYU the other night. We know Western Michigan would have won if the clock was, was properly, you know, placed in that game. We don't know if Notre Dame would have beaten byu, but they would have had another chance to run a play from the eight yard line which the way that offense was moving down the field, you think there's maybe a pretty good chance that they would score. It feels to me like there's going to have to be a really long conversation had at the end of the season about the home team conference having control over the clock and the replay process during these non conference games. Because that's the Big Ten that gave Michigan the extra second to win the game at the beginning of the year and that's the Big 12 that allowed Saturday's game between BYU and Notre Dame to end early. It just feels like this is when there's not a lot of trust in the process as it is.
I feel like you've got to be able to put some things in place that's going to at least give the public a feeling that the games are going to be officiated probably properly and fairly at the end.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: Yeah, it's funny you mentioned transparency and trust.
The process is more transparent than ever with us seeing and hearing the replay reviews among some of these conferences. The one holdout really among the major conferences is the sec, which there hasn't been an issue yet, but at some point there will be. There always is an issue everywhere you go. But you're right, there will be a conversation of some sort. There's a lot of distrust in the process from conference to conference among coaches especially, I could tell you that.
And also there's always been this talk for the better part of the last 10 years about like trying to nationalize officiating, like why do we do this by conference? Why don't we have a central organization? Heck, why don't we pay the referees full time? So they're not, you know, But a lot of these guys, they have full time jobs anyway. A lot of them are lawyers in fact. But it's not just the clock issues at the end, it's just the officiating as a whole. This past weekend, man, big moments. Florida State, Miami, the ACC referees there at the end talking about tie of possession on the last catch. Was it just a straight up interception? Did Deuce for, for Florida State, did he actually have his hands enough on the ball for it to actually a tied possession to where it should have been a touchdown? There's a lot of questions about that.
And sure, the ACC provides transparency in their process. They should, they, they provide video access and audio access in these replay reviews.
But there needs to be some type of uniformity among all these processes. I mean, it's, it's, it's as big as college football has obviously become and how much more attention is placed on the ending of games and big moments.
Then also most of these are happening with power conference teams. You know, certainly there have been some issues with some FBA group of six officiating this year, but I think people want this to be more uniform because the moment you have any conference doing anything differently, even when it comes to the replay review. So, for example, the sec, as far as my understanding from just covering everything and watching the games, the SEC is the only power conference that does not provide like video and audio access to their replay reviews on their television broadcasts, which automatically, and I'm not saying this is, it's not, I'm not saying this is true, but automatically it puts in the back of your mind, so is their process different from the other conferences? Because you just don't know. And then the conspiracy theorists start coming out and all that. So all it's going to take is for the SEC to have a moment like this with the clock or something late in the game, and we don't have access to that. And we go, and the casual viewers are going to watch and go, why aren't they showing the replay review? I see it on the other, all the other games, but they might not know that the SEC is the one that doesn't do that publicly.
Long story short, I believe just from talking to people because of the outrage and just the questions, concerns, there's going to be some very hard conversations when we get into January and February when all the NCAA committees get together, when the AFCA gets together. The afca, I think, has done a very good job. The American Football Coaches association has done a very good job the last three to four years in particular, bringing up topics in their annual meeting in January and actually getting that pushed across to the notable subcommittees and committees in the NCAA structure.
They really have pushed across things that have changed the calendar. When we talk about Transfer portal, for one, shrinking it down when the transfer portal opens and closes, whether to have two transfer portal cycles, all that stuff, this is something I think that maybe organically you might have to see. Kind of start that way from the afca. They're usually the first folks to meet in January and then push that across. And as much as the coaches I've talked to, I would assume that's just going to happen naturally because a lot of them are just very concerned.
[00:05:21] Speaker A: I'd be interested to get your thoughts on the TV process and the replay on two fronts. Number one, I would think that television, if you're espn, for instance, which we know how much power they yield in the sport, I would think that you would want to go to your partner, the sec and say, look, this makes for great television. When you get down to the end and we're able to pitch to the Birmingham office and show what's being said. That put aside on Notre Dame, BYU the other night. I wonder, because, you know, there was all the talk at the end of the broadcast was about whether or not it was a past interference call. They brought their reveal, their rules analyst Matt Austin and Kirk Herbstreet and Chris Fowler were on the broadcast and all they were talking about was whether or not it was pass interference.
I wonder if they would have noticed and brought up on the broadcast that there was a second left if that would have had an impact on the Big 12 replay center.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: That's a good question. I also think just because listen the broadcast and even us watching on television, I didn't realize it watching the game and they were showing it in slow mo replay with the game clock right in the end zone there where you could see it, right where the apparent past affairs or not passive variants happened. So we should have noticed it ourselves.
But my question is, was that conversation actually being had in the Big 12 office? Did they, did they. Did it slip by them completely? They didn't realize it's what happened.
[00:06:42] Speaker A: It feels like it had.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: That's what it feels like.
[00:06:44] Speaker A: The fix was in and I don't think it was.
I think it had to have slipped past.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: I think it slipped past their attention.
You know, last year I spent two days in the ACC's replay center for Friday games and Saturday games. And it was some of the more controversial games that ended up being that season. Florida State and Stanford, late night Florida State gets stopped at the goal line. Maybe they scored and they would have won the game.
The problem there for them was they didn't have camera angle.
I've Heard, for example, this is the other issue, I think, really there needs to be. There's so much money in the system now.
And Greg Sankey, the SEC commissioner, brought this up a year ago or two years ago about the idea of placing permanent cameras in every SEC stadium along the goal line.
So you have like, literally just like a fence post there with a camera on it. That's always there. It's permanent.
That hasn't happened. Like, why don't we have that in major conferences? For example, so many calls several times a year in every conference, there's something at the goal line. And one out of three times, probably there's not a good angle or it's the pylon camera and there's not a good angle there. And we need something more overhead. And it all depends on whether that camera crane that's going up and down the sideline is right there on the sideline. Usually it's not. Usually it's at a little bit of an angle because they're trying to get different angles for the television broadcast.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: Not quite at the goal line.
[00:08:12] Speaker B: They're not worried about, like, we got be here just in case something is officiated.
It's up to these conferences to do that, put some money into it and do it. And as you mentioned, you can make that into more of a broadcast product. I mean, hell, you know how ESPN does Skycast do the official cam? You know, I think the ACC has. Yeah, I think the ACC has been ahead of the curve because they've started putting cameras on the hats of the refs. And the CW in particular has done a very good job just showing action on that on their Friday games in particular, and then the Saturday games, which, like, not a lot of people are watching those. But if you have time, go watch those games because it's fascinating. They show the replays from the ref angles.
That's one other thing. These conferences need to invest more money to do something that there's some uniformity in how they're able to get broadcasts get certain angles when they're reviewing, and the number one place is the goal lines. Why can't they do that? That's. I mean, sure, everything's expensive these days, but that wouldn't be very expensive.
[00:09:16] Speaker A: And I wonder too, how rushing the field in that moment in Provo.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: Oh, I think that had a huge impact. I think it has a huge impact.
[00:09:24] Speaker A: Let's say the Big 12 replay center comes back and says there is one second on the clock. How the heck do you get all those people off the field.
[00:09:29] Speaker B: Great question.
I've seen it happen before, though. Smaller school, Kennesaw State. I remember watching the game. This was two, three years ago.
It may be like Kennesaw State's first FBS win or conference, I can't remember. But then there, there's a final play happens. Fans rush the field. Yeah, we won. Turns out there was still some time left and so they had to clear the field and the field was full. They cleared the field and they got everybody to get off the field and they were all standing pretty much right outside the end zone there. They couldn't get back in the stands at a big stadium like byu. I think that's absolutely impossible. We're seeing now like there are certain limitations to what you can actually do end of game. Because if that happens, it's like, well, meteor just hit here. We can't play football here because you can't move all those people back out of the way. You just can't.
[00:10:18] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a lot of things.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: Unless you want to, like, hey, you know what? Sunday morning, we're going to come back, we're going to run the exact play, same play, no one in the stands, which you can't do.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I will tell you that. Our podcast is brought to you by Eglin's Best in Arkansas. Greatness starts early, before the pads go on. Before the crowd roars, day begins at the breakfast table. Eglins Best deliver superior nutrition with more vitamin D and less saturated fat than ordinary eggs. You can start strong with Eglins Best better taste, better nutrition and better eggs. We're also brought to you by Bentonville Glass. They've been serving their community since 1971. They're committed, professional and versatile. If you're looking for a quality leader in Northwest Arkansas or for skilled craftsmanship, look no further than Bentonville Glass for all your Glass market needs with the highest quality products. You can come by and see them at 507 South Main in Bentonville or online at bentonvilleglass.com hope that you'll subscribe to our podcast wherever you're listening to us. We're on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Search Whole Hog Sports. You can search Whole hog Sports on YouTube and we put this on our social media channels as well.
A little bit of news, I guess, if you will, out of Arkansas today, Ryan Silverfield made some comments, first on the radio down in Little Rock, then in his press conference about just the status of the UA system review into the athletic department and into football.
And his quote was that the review is going quite well.
He said he's had conversations with leadership. He said they're confident that they're going to have the necessary resources to be successful in the future. I got a statement too from the UA system office.
They said that the review is ongoing. They said the president's had several weeks of productive conversations.
They said the necessary resources to increase investment in the football program in the short term have been identified. The president's working with campus leadership on long term success. They went on to say that Razorback football is critical to the university and the entire state. And they said leadership's focused on getting this right. Absent in all of those statements is details on what's going to happen and you know, what kind of details we get when we get details. We'll find out.
Your thoughts though, when you hear all of this, is it just talk or do you feel like there's actual productive progress being made?
[00:12:37] Speaker B: It's been all talk for two years, maybe longer.
So I don't have a lot of confidence in just certain things when I hear that. Not saying it's not true obviously, but just you go off of history and how this has been treated before and things coming up short.
The one thing, because this is the first time hearing all that, the one thing that came out of that to me in the system statement saying that they've identified short term solutions.
If they have and it's short term, what are they like? Just go ahead and tell us.
Is that just financial? Is it certain other resources that can help with recruiting processes? You know, all that.
You know, for example, I'm working on a story now about another school that's identified some stuff. I can't say it yet because it's embargoed, but it's like certain things that some of these schools are doing, you're like, oh, okay, that saves time off of the coach's calendar that they can do other things.
You know, it's not just all about money. It's about time sometimes.
Yeah. I want to know what the short term solutions are. Go ahead and tell us if you've identified them as you said, and we're going to put that in place. Do it. I understand it takes a while to identify the long term stuff, but for the longest time we've talked about this, Matt, and you guys have too. I'm sure. It's just they need to be a little bit more open and tell us as simple as that.
[00:14:05] Speaker A: I feel like the pressing thing right now is finding, you know, and this is a buzz term, top down Alignment.
[00:14:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: That gets Arkansas in a position to have more success when the portal opens. I think that that is the most pressing thing on their agenda, if you will, because, you know, it's October 21st, the portal opens January 2nd or 3rd. But you know, as we all know,
[00:14:31] Speaker B: coaches have already identified like who they're going to go after.
[00:14:33] Speaker A: Exactly. And you also, you have to have the budget to know what you're going to go in there with.
And I think that was something that hurt Arkansas last year. Not really having a great understanding.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: That's the thing when they talk about short term solutions.
The explanation or excuse, however you want to term it earlier was that, hey, our NIL budget was set by the time Ryan got here. It's like he got here in December. So you're saying that, hey, locked in. Sorry, buddy, this is not what you're doing. You know, we may have said something else, but you're not getting it. Like everything's fluid. When money's freaking liquid, you can move that stuff around. Like, why is everything going to be locked in before the coach actually gets into the transfer like I do first year coach, you know, listen, I'm not going to act like I'm the smartest guy. I'm definitely not, especially when it comes to finances. That's why I'm a sports writer. But like some of this crap just doesn't make sense. Sometimes when I hear it come out of suits, mouths. I don't trust anybody with suit, wears a suit anyway. I've always grown up that way. But you know, just give details, give any detail instead of just word. Like any detail would just go, hey, we discovered a way to get $2 million based off this. And we're working on some other things short term, like, hey, there's a number. But you're not getting that.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: You know what's interesting is that I would think whatever this review is, and again, if the football portal is really the most pressing issue, and I think it is, yeah, you've got the system and the university that are actively talking about ways to increase nil, which is really interesting to me because usually their focus is on like the day to day operations budget of an athletic program. But I would think that this is, and maybe it's about finding savings within the day to day program that somehow you can reallocate toward nil. I don't, I don't know. But that's exactly.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: We don't know. And also I would say like if you're trying to find savings in a department, you're in deep trouble.
[00:16:25] Speaker A: It's hard to find savings.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: You can't find savings all that easily. And then also I can just tell you from the conversations I've had over the last three weeks now, it's just there's not top down alignment in that department.
[00:16:36] Speaker A: Is it possible.
This is something I've always wondered and you may not know the answer. Is it possible though, if you can find savings in your day to day budget to reallocate that money somehow to nil?
[00:16:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:49] Speaker A: With the watchdogs that are in place like sports Commission. How does it work?
[00:16:52] Speaker B: There's ways around that.
[00:16:53] Speaker A: So how does it work?
[00:16:55] Speaker B: Well, it depends on the exact, you know, the exact context and what they're reallocating that money. You know, certain sponsorships and stuff like that. You can go, you can re approach the company you have a sponsorship with go, hey, instead of using it for this, how about we do this and on the back end in three years we give you this, this and this. That's related. You can move the money around. There's creative ways. There's also creative ways outside the system. I know. No, yeah. We got to follow the rules.
There's no rules. There's still no rules, guys. I know everybody. Has anybody been punished yet? Has the college sports commission punished anybody yet? Has the NCAA punished anybody yet over nil?
There are about 10 programs under investigation right now by the CSC.
How many of those you think will end up being punished?
[00:17:38] Speaker A: A lot of.
[00:17:39] Speaker B: I'll give you an over under 1.5.
[00:17:43] Speaker A: Probably a lot of the contracts that you know like, like a real big to an athletic department's budget, you know, an apparel contract, a media right. Multimedia rights, MMR agreement.
You see a lot of schools that are, when it comes time to renew, they are not renewing with the team they were with in the past. Ole Miss, for example, just switch from Nike to Adidas.
[00:18:08] Speaker B: At least two schools have done that too.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: Learfield is, is losing a lot of customers to play fly.
[00:18:13] Speaker B: Yeah. People aren't. Yeah.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: So I wonder, do you think that these new agreements, do they have nil
[00:18:20] Speaker B: components written into them with these new companies?
[00:18:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, let's say Ole Miss with Adidas.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, most definitely they do. Especially, I mean Playfly has made a lot of inroads the last two years. I know I say don't quote me on this, but I'm just speaking.
Yeah, but like Oklahoma I think was working with them and doing some stuff and some other schools where it's just very clear that they kind of on the cutting edge ideas, pushing things across.
You know, you gotta be creative. I've said that over and over again, not just on the football field but off it. You gotta be creative. These days, I will say with the playoff going to 24 teams, everybody, people say they hate it, they don't like it or whatever, but it actually helps programs like Arkansas because there's nothing better to sell than hope.
And now you can sell to these sponsors, boosters, whoever, hey, we're in the playoff race, say the mid season next year. Arkansas only has two losses or one loss. You can go, hey, we're on in the playoff race still. We can afford like one more loss, maybe two more losses and we'll probably still get the playoff. And we need more money. Give us some money to help us make sure next year we don't get into this situation. That's why we are expanding the playoffs. That's why all these ads, including the SEC when the SEC was so hell bent against it. I was reporting for two years that there was ads in the SEC saying we want 24. Why aren't we bringing this up more in our spring meetings and other meetings? We want it because they can sell hope to these folks and actually get money into their departments that they very desperately need.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I feel like Arkansas fits in that.
[00:20:01] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:20:01] Speaker A: I mean they certainly fit within that.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: This is going to an expanded playoff is going to help if it's handled correctly, Arkansas's financial situation.
[00:20:09] Speaker A: Absolutely. So you guys at CBS Sports had a story today about basketball nil. And Arkansas is in that second tier just below, you know, the biggest.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: And they're like just great job. By our. I believe it was Matt Norlander and Isaac Trotter. They spoke to over 100 sources for this piece and just like our football crew did earlier this year and Arkansas is just below tier one.
Like in fact, I believe they wrote you could have probably actually included Arkansas and a couple other teams in that Tier one based off of what they're actually spending and what's potential there. Arkansas's roster is a little bit cheaper than the tier one just because everybody's so young. There's not a lot of huge, huge contracts that you usually give to veterans though Billy Richmond, as it's mentioned in the story is one. And if you got the story up, I do. At the end of that tier 2 there's A. Says a quotable or whatever and it's from Cal.
I think you ought to read that out loud because I don't want to misquote him. But that Stood out so much to me.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: Yeah. He said I'll never speak on it again in my life. I'll go raise more money for my teams than anyone else and we'll go about our business and I'll pay whatever I've got to pay. He's talking about if the Protect College Sports act doesn't pass. He said, I'm telling you, when they start cutting sports, I'm not going to say anything.
I told everybody this is where this is going.
[00:21:29] Speaker B: And he's saying if the Protect College Sports act doesn't pass and there's not really a lot more holding me back, I'm going to go raise even more money and spend more money if I have to.
So if. And guess what? Protect College Sports act is most likely not passing before a new congress is installed in January. So, you know, warning shot, I think from Cal.
[00:21:52] Speaker A: There are some teams in this, in this tier one of. What is this, 20 million plus. That shouldn't surprise you. Duke and Kentucky and North Carolina. There's a lot of teams in here that I think it is kind of surprising to see them and maybe more so Brandon, the teams. Well, you know, I mean, you got St. John's Michigan maybe not a surprise.
Illinois maybe that's a little bit of a surprise. Texas Tech, just given where they're trying to reallocate, they're trying to allocate so many resources to football, but softball, I
[00:22:18] Speaker B: mean they, they've been.
[00:22:19] Speaker A: And I mean, will they pay a million for a softball pitcher?
[00:22:21] Speaker B: Yeah, a couple years ago. I mean, Tech's going to spend money in every one of the front facing programs to get it up on top.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: But it was that the Tier 2 includes Arkansas, Kansas, Yukon. These are schools where basketball, Indiana schools where basketball is really big.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And Kansas may end up actually going up higher because of the.
[00:22:38] Speaker A: They just signed somebody some of that
[00:22:40] Speaker B: and you know, the players being eligible and all that and which is complicated but you know, it's in fact, like I said, I think they were discussing whether they actually include Tier two into Tier one because it was so close.
I think the separation they said in that was like only like a million dollars. And then from tier two down it's much larger than a $1 million spread. So. But they ended up doing that because. Just. Because Tier one was actually a little bit bigger, I think than they were expecting.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I've heard Caliperi say it a number of times. He said in recruiting, we tell them if you're looking for the biggest paycheck, don't come Here we're not going to be able to give it to you. There's always going to be somebody out there that can give you more. You know, they're selling their development, their track record of putting people into the NBA, things like that. And then I think they're taking care of their players, you know, and it basically comes down to you, hey, is you know, X number hundreds of thousands of dollars more important to you than, you know, is it worth missing out on an opportunity at a program like Arkansas with a coach like Calipari, over 50 to $100,000?
[00:23:42] Speaker B: Think of this way, like you're a student. Say you want to be, you know, like I'll just say just me like a journalist, right?
And you got to choose between Arkansas, Missouri and Arkansas is offering more than Missouri, but Missouri is like, we're going to offer you a little bit less here. But our job placement is pretty, pretty good. It's pretty stellar. Like you're going to end up getting a great job and that's what would Arkansas flip flop it. Now Arkansas is very much in that place because Cal just, he has so many connections to the NBA. He's coached so many guys are on NBA rosters currently and formerly he's, I mean, what, over a billion dollars in salaries that he's like, it's 5 billion. I mean it's insane.
[00:24:25] Speaker A: So number he plugs, you got a
[00:24:26] Speaker B: track record and you got the connections, like, yeah, pay me a little bit less because I know if I come here you can make me into a first round guy and I'm going to get a lot of connections. So yeah, I mean, makes a lot of sense.
[00:24:40] Speaker A: Michael Oxley was fired at Maryland today. How active do you think this season is going to be in terms of coaches being let go? I can't imagine it's going to exceed what happened last year.
[00:24:48] Speaker B: I don't think so. I think it's going to be pretty light. Unless there's a huge domino we're not expecting. There's always like one, I think.
You know, we were talking on our show College Football Insiders Monday about what one of those big dominoes could be because I don't think everybody's very happy still with what's going on in Michigan with Kyle Whittingham.
He's always been a short term solution there and so say if they were to make a change there for some reason that would be a huge domino that could really light things up and maybe affect four jobs or three jobs out there. But right now there's just there's just not a lot of push. I mean, here it is, late October, we finally had our first change and it's one we were all expecting in the preseason. Mike Loxley, he's 2 and 5 this year. I think he's only.
Anyway, his record is abysmal here the last three years.
The candidates there, they've got a good candidate pool. You know, people talk about getting had the first job open. It gives you more opportunities. I don't necessarily believe that because another better, A better job comes open in three, four weeks, it's going to overtake you.
[00:25:49] Speaker A: I mean, it didn't happen last year. Oklahoma State and Arkansas were two of the first open and I don't think they got the highest, you know, coaches.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: Oklahoma State got who they wanted. I think.
[00:25:59] Speaker A: You think that's who they wanted from the get go.
[00:26:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:00] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:26:01] Speaker B: Eric Morris. Yep.
You know, with Maryland, look at guys like, I think like last year was Will Stein and Bob Chesney.
I think this year it could be Jake Deckert at Wake Forest.
[00:26:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: If someone's able to pull him out of there. And Wake Forest has got money, but it's about opportunity. I think potentially for him it'd also be his three, three, third job, excuse me, in the last three, four years.
So I don't know if Maryland could get him to go, even though it's Big Ten. But you know, it's not.
It's a very much a right below middle tier job there.
Charles Huff, another guy who's had a lot of jobs recently, but he's just successful everywhere he goes and a Maryland native.
So Maryland's going to, I think potentially, if they do this right, get a very, very good coach.
[00:26:51] Speaker A: You talked about like what the move could be that would cause the domino effect.
It made me think about when Calipari was hired at Arkansas. Like the move was Rob Lanier being fired at smu. And then Andy Enfield goes from USC to smu. Musselman leaves, Calipari comes here, Pope leaves byu. Like who could have imagined though that like you would have this crazy domino effect because Rob Lanier is fired at smu. Sometimes it's the job that you never see coming.
[00:27:20] Speaker B: You're exactly right.
And that's, that's why anybody tries to predict what's going to happen. But you know, I will say, like, I covered this long enough, like going into last year and others we said this is probably going to be a record breaking year because there were so many. The SEC was sitting there and they hadn't made a coaching Change.
[00:27:38] Speaker A: Oh, people were just itching and it's
[00:27:39] Speaker B: just like they're going to. Something's going to happen. But now everybody's so concerned about money.
There's coaches out there that would usually be fired this year that aren't going to be fired.
[00:27:50] Speaker A: So it feels a little bit like the 2024 season.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: Because in 24 everybody was worried about the looming house payment that was going to be due the next year. So they didn't want to get rid of anybody.
You know, I mean, if you were, I think there's probably two or three programs or more out there that they probably would have liked to have gotten rid of their football coach at the end of 2024, but they couldn't do it.
So you think that like maybe we're back to where we were two years
[00:28:14] Speaker B: ago because just because money component, it's all reality now. They're looking at their balance sheets and
[00:28:19] Speaker A: go, oh, Florida State would probably the chief among them, right?
[00:28:21] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:28:22] Speaker A: Given the reports about their debt, I
[00:28:24] Speaker B: think they're looking for any reason to keep Mike Norville and man, if he had beaten Miami, I think they'd be all going, whew, all right, win a couple more games and get us off of this. But yeah, money is just.
It's one thing to try to predict it, like you said after 2024 or whatever, but now it's on the balance sheet and you look at it and go, holy crap, we don't have the money. And I don't know where to mine some money to get this done.
[00:28:51] Speaker A: It feels like for. So college athletic departments just will find the money.
We don't know where it's going to come from, but we'll find it.
[00:28:58] Speaker B: Spend as much as you get.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: It kind of gotten to the point that I don't know that they can find it like they used to.
[00:29:02] Speaker B: No, they don't.
[00:29:03] Speaker A: They can't come close to it because of the payer play.
[00:29:05] Speaker B: I mean, I don't know if you saw the Forgive me, I don't know what coach it was in the Mac. I think yesterday going off on the expanded College Football Playoff had a great points on that. Just about how this has become. Everybody's looking for any way to get money now and they're prostituting the system is what he said. They're just selling everything and at some point the fans are going to rebel. He compared it to boxing in the 1920s, Major League Baseball in the 1930s, where they just started charging fans and just pretty much just saying, screw you. We know you'll still come. And he thinks at some point, you keep doing this stuff, they're going to turn on you at some point.
The question, I think there's just so much cachet built in there that it might take like 10 years for college football fans to actually completely go, okay, we're done with this.
[00:29:52] Speaker A: And then would they ever be completely done? No, because I kind of get the emotion.
[00:29:56] Speaker B: It's not just like, oh, I have a team in this town. It's, I went to school here.
[00:30:00] Speaker A: Even if you, even if you stop coming to games, there's a pretty good chance you're not going to stop watching the games on television.
[00:30:07] Speaker B: I don't know. I think it's possible that people just tune it out.
I think it's possible. I mean, listen, you see television ratings for, you know, baseball over the years and NBA. I mean, the NBA was so hot in the mid-90s, of course, or early 90s.
You know, things change.
College football has been really on the rise for the better part of the last 20 years, since the mid 2000s as far as contracts, media rights, television ratings, and they're still setting records this year.
But if the product is diminished and it's very clear to people, and then you keep asking them for more money, at some point it will affect it. It certainly will. So that's why it's so important for these, these schools to find other revenue streams that maybe don't necessarily are tied to the fans asking them for money.
[00:31:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Before we get out of here, we talked about the playoff last week and the 2014 playoff. That was on Wednesday. I think Friday was when they more or less approve that.
Any big changes from in the last week in terms of playoff in your mind?
[00:31:15] Speaker B: No. I mean, what's been reported and what we've been reporting for months is going to happen.
24 teams, 8 first round games on campus, 8 second round games on campuses, 8 first round buys.
Power conferences are assured a birth. Highest ranked G6 assured a birth. Everything else goes in from ranking. One of my big questions, I asked this back in, gosh, last year, a year and a half ago, year ago, hey, if you guys go to 24, what's the top 25 rankings gonna look like? Do you want to expand that to 30? 35 for myself, every Monday you can see this. I do a top 30. And I've been doing that for two, three years knowing that they're probably going to go to 2014 playoff. Because those folks that are just on the outside of a 2014 playoff, they're going to want to know where they stack up. They want to know who the first four out or whatever. So they're going to have to expand the rankings. There's going to be a lot more pressure put on that committee and there's a lot of heavy discussions, I'm sure they're going to have to happen about that selection process going forward.
I'm honestly kind of surprised that they're going to start this next season. There's so much they've got to do and figure out. But everybody wants the extra money and
[00:32:36] Speaker A: the hope is there going to be extra money because there have been some reports like for the sec, they may actually lose a little bit of money, at least in the short term from losing the conference championship.
[00:32:45] Speaker B: Big 12's thinking about doing some type of event. Bret Yormark's an event guy. He likes doing things. He likes putting glass basketball floors on the in the Big 12 tournament and having to remove them.
But yeah, you know, there was always that talk about flex scheduling the final week of the regular season.
Pac12 is doing it this year where you move, say let's say Boise State is like just behind James Madison in the rankings, right?
And they want to get into the playoffs. So flex scheduling the final week of the regular season. Go, hey, Boise State, you're going to play whoever the second best team is in the Pac12 right now.
That's what they're doing this year. So maybe the Big 12, ACC, maybe they do that. Or maybe there's a possibility there where the ACC and Big 12. I'm just putting this out there. ACC and Big 12 in the final week of the regular season or somewhere else on the calendar near the end of the year, they put their best teams against each other to help each other.
[00:33:48] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:33:49] Speaker B: That may or may not have been discussed.
[00:33:51] Speaker A: The logistics of that seem like a nightmare.
[00:33:53] Speaker B: Terrible. But yeah, everybody wants to be in the playoff.
[00:33:57] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. Brandon. Appreciate you being in here. Brandon Marcelo, you can read him CBSSports.com we appreciate you being with us. Hope that we see at our website wholehogsports.com this afternoon or back here on the podcast tomorrow. Have a great day, everybody.
