CFB 2026 Schedule Draft + CFP Expansion Myths

This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. [Music] Research. Fresh off the printer. The paper is still hot. You guys realize on this Mother's Day, happy Mother's Day to everyone, we are after all merely sons and daughters of mothers, as Mimo used to say. Do you guys realize that the American consumer spent $38 billion on Mother's Day related activities this year? And given the logic that's been thrown around in this sport lately, Jesse, I ask if we're making $38 billion on one Mother's Day, why not expand to three or four Mother's Days? It is, after all, a simple game of revenue, right? We can increase the amount of something and never decrease the value of it. That's how it works, right? Oh, welcome to this college football show on the Sunday, May 10th, the year of our Lord of 2020, we are jam packed, we are high atop, a sparkling downtown Nashville, Tennessee. You know, you may think I'm going to lead off with Playoff Talk tonight. I am not. We're going to bury it deep in this packet of papers, but oh, I do have much more to say. And I do think of very important week as upon us in college football, and I will drop some Easter eggs as only I can do in the show tonight. But no, friends, we're going to lead off tonight with something that we do around this time every year. And boy, it led to much wailing and gnashing of teeth out in, I guess what we would call the newsroom earlier today. The schedule draft is here tonight. This is not merely the biggest games of the year. Now, there's a lot of molten hot lava flowing as strategy in our process. So we'll talk about it. We'll talk about bold predictions. We'll talk about a lot of different things on the show tonight that you would normally think would constitute a laid back show in the middle of May, not around here with jam packed. They're watching us in Plant City, Florida, sunset Texas, Jeffersonville, Indiana, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, subscribe to the channel. If you have not already, it is free. Thank you so much. We are out of here really as soon as the show ends tonight. We're out of here to hit back-to-back speaker series appearances over the next 48 hours. Gonna be some big ones, Jesse. Immunity to all of it, but gonna be some big ones. Look forward to it. Had Kirby and Dabo last week. Whom's the monk's just knows who we could have this week? Here we go. Let's lock in. We like to do the schedule draft every year. Not merely what are the biggest games of the year. We could do that five times between now and August. What we like to do is we like to take all the biggest games from every week of the college football season. And we like to basically create our fantasy tour. And here is the only rule that we put in to make it a little bit more of a fair fight. You can only see a team once in a season. Those are the rules. We're putting together our dream tour with the caveat that we can only see a team once per season. So there's a lot of strategy all of a sudden that becomes involved once we realize, hey, Oregon, got five big games. Ohio State plays like a big game every week this year. George Abama got a bunch of big games, but we can only see him in person once. So how do we formulate this thing? Now I wanna tell you as we kick it off. My strategy is not just look at week one and two and three and so forth and then just see who's left at the end. To me, what you gotta do is you gotta pick a few games and say these are non-negotiables. I gotta see these per year. So that's what I chose to do. Jesse, what did we pick like four games that I just value and I gotta see. And then I'm gonna make the rest of the schedule work around them. Okay, so these are the games that I went with. I took Oregon and USC in week four. I think it's a massive, massive game for Lincoln, Riley and USC to announce to the world one way or the other whether they're gonna be a serious player this year. And that's a huge West Coast game. I took Georgia, Alabama in week six. That's been a game of the year candidate multiple times. Recently it's an SEC championship game rematch. I got Ohio State at Indiana. That's a big tent title game rematch. That's week seven. I'm gonna give you a name on one of the most loaded Saturdays in recent memory in week 10. I'm circling Miami Notre Dame. I've gotta see those in person. And because of what that does to the strategy, you can see the piece of paper in front of me. If you're listening on podcast, it just, it looks like, I don't know, it looks like a clue in national treasure. That's really what it looks like. Insane. So this is what we have. Okay, I'm about to fill in the rest. But week four, Oregon, USC. Week six, Georgia, Alabama, week seven, Ohio State, Indiana. And week 10, Miami Notre Dame. With that in mind, let's go week one. I went Clemson LSU. So LSU's got some big games this year. But if we try and work the entire schedule around instead of just worrying about one team, I figured I don't wanna go to a neutral site game if I don't have to. All right, I could go to Baylor in Auburn in Atlanta. I could go to Louisville Ole Miss in Nashville. Wisconsin and Notre Dame play in Green Bay. But I don't like neutral site games if I can avoid them. Red River Shootout, notwithstanding. No one buy no other name on this show. So I am going to Baton Rouge. It's gonna be like 114 degrees, but I'm going to Baton Rouge. I gotta make sure that I see Clemson not later in the year. Things could or could not be off the rails later in the year. But no, Clemson is full of the biggest chip on your shoulder attitude in the world. I have week one and I get to see Tigers at Tigers. So I'm going Clemson LSU week one. I cannot burn Notre Dame just yet because I'm seeing them against Miami later in the year. All right, week two. Couple of huge, huge out of conference games here. This is the day Ohio State goes to Texas. This is the day that Oklahoma goes to Michigan. Now, I already told you I am seeing Ohio State on the road against Indiana later in the year. So that takes Ohio State Texas out of the equation, which I'm okay with because I got one that if you don't think it's just as big, it's still very, very much in the ballpark of comparable. And that's Oklahoma at Michigan. I was at that game last year in Norman. I am going to choose that game at least for our fantasy schedule draft here. Changes could happen. But I'm going to take Oklahoma at Michigan. And I'm going to save Texas and I'm going to save Ohio State for later in the year. That date, by the way, took a ton of debate like when you look at my piece of paper here and I got multiple squigglys all over it. Week two, I think we scratched it out like three times. Week three was also tough because at the outset, I had a fifth non-negotiable game. LSU Ole Miss was also one of my non-negotiable games, but the more we looked at it and the more we tried to work it out, where we had legitimate games every week. While only seeing each team once, I realized I need to do LSU Clemson in week one. And I need to scratch off LSU Ole Miss painful though that may be in week three because I think I have a big 12 game of the year candidate in week three. We are very high on Houston here. It was really hard to find another Texas Tech game that warranted being considered for our fantasy tour stop for that week. But this is the week we can do it. Houston at Texas Tech. This is in the middle of Florida at Auburn. FSU Bammo, we probably weren't going to pick that one. Like I said, LSU Ole Miss was the other really big one. That's going to be the marquee game that day. We're not going to choose that one. We're going to choose Houston at Texas Tech and just pray that we get a really, really good game there. Week four. That's the date we chose for Oregon at USC. This is one of my non-negotiable dates. And there are some big ones this date. Texas goes to Tennessee, Oklahoma goes to Georgia, Ole Miss goes to Florida, Texas and him goes to LSU. Look at that Saturday in the SEC. Those are four heavyweight matchups and we're going to none of them. Big SEC show here. Big SEC show. No, we chose Oregon, USC, and we're leaving LSU because we already took them. But we're leaving Oklahoma, Georgia because we already took Oklahoma so we can't choose Oklahoma, Georgia. That one was really, really hard and believe it or not, that's not even the most loaded Saturday of the year. So to get you caught up so far, week one, Clemson at LSU, week two, Oklahoma at Michigan, week three, Houston at Texas Tech. All eyes on you, Willie Fritz and to a certain extent, Joy McGuire, week four, Oregon at USC. All right, where we going week five? This is where it gets a little weird and you've got to be strategic about this. So, Jesse, I know later we're going to put a graphic out on social and people are going to see schedule draft on it. And Prez is going to put in much smaller letters can only see each team once. Now knowing the internet like I do, the internet will not see the small letters. So they will see that I have selected Florida at Missouri in week five. And you know all the hateful things they're going to say about me. Never mind the fact that we didn't go to any of those SEC games in week four. We're going to have home or claims thrown our way. Why aren't you going to, for instance, Miami Clemson? Well, because we already took Clemson and Clemson could get body back that day. Could happen. Ohio State at Iowa. Ohio's 16 may be enough to win for Ohio State that day. Washington, USC, you could sell me on it except that I've already burned USC. Vanderbilt Georgia is not going to be one. I'm not taking Vandy Georgia over Georgia, Alabama. That's my Georgia bullet I'm going to use later. Auburn at Tennessee is okay, but we've already assigned Tennessee elsewhere. So we are actually going with Florida at Missouri. Now it's early enough in the year where if either of their seasons come off the rails, it probably hasn't happened yet. Missouri, Florida both probably fringe top 25 teams if not just inside the top 25. But more importantly, I'm saving Miami, I'm saving Georgia and I'm saving Ohio State here. So I'm not burning any of those. Week six is a big one. Week six is Georgia, Alabama. We've already fixed that one. Now as much as I say, we already fixed that. It did not come without significant debate. Week six, let's see Jesse, we marked it out four different times. So we had four different games filled and look at this disaster of a notepad. Week six at one point, we were going red river shootout. I believe we had the white out potentially USC Penn State. We were going to go there and then we kept moving things around. It was like, well, if we use this game in week seven, well then we got to mark out week five and if we mark that out in week five, we got to mark out week six. I challenge you guys if you're listening to this and you think it's easy, it's not. So we're taking Georgia, Alabama. That's a marquee game. That's a game of the year. SEC championship game rematch. But yeah, we got to miss OU Texas or Texas OU that day. It depends on who I'm talking to. You get scolded depending on which team you say first. USC Penn State. Jesse, what time you think that game kicks off? Are they throwing you noon? Is Joe Clack going to let you play prime time game? Or is he going to make you kick off at noon? He's probably going to make you kick off at noon. Joe Clack hates you. He hates you. He hates you, Jesse. All right, Georgia, Alabama week six. Let's take a look. Let's just get up to date. So Clemson LSU, OU Michigan, Houston, Texas, tech, Oregon, USC, Florida, Missouri, understand the game here. People understand the game. And then we just filled in Georgia at Bama week six. And of course, we're doing Ohio State Indiana week seven. So that's a big 10 championship game rematch here in week seven. That was one of the non-negotiables I chose week seven. We could have gone Florida, Texas. I'm telling you, man, if I didn't circle Miami versus Notre Dame later in the year, Notre Dame at Brigham Young would have been a great opportunity here. Great opportunity. It's one of the biggest games, biggest home games in Brigham Young history. Third Saturday in October, Bama, Tennessee is this day. We actually had that one for a little while until I realized, no, man, we got to be at Ohio State Indiana. This has got to be the biggest home game in Indiana history. There are two teams on this slide. Brigham Young and Indiana, like depending on how the season shake out to this point, you could be talking about a couple of biggest games on home campus and history type vibes. So week seven, I'm going to Ohio State Indiana week eight. This is so crazy. So I'm choosing Ole Miss at Texas in week eight. I wrote down this is a random top 15 matchup. Most of the time, no top 15 matchup is random, but when you just throw it in the midst of that SEC schedule, Matrix this year, where Texas has other bigger games that stand out, even Ole Miss, like that LSU game stands out, even above and beyond the Texas game. But because of the way we had strategically placed things elsewhere, we ended up going with Ole Miss Texas here. Texas A&M, Alabama, got serious consideration for a long time. It was going to be Houston, Utah. But then we switched things up where we could do Houston, Texas Tech in week three. Indiana isn't Michigan this day. The game you're trying to play there is I know Ohio State will be viable wire to wire. At least, I think I know that. I hope Michigan will be. But maybe if Michigan's lost a couple of games here, Indiana coming to town loses its lustre a little bit. So, you know, we're just kind of, we're trying to play the percentages here. Ole Miss at Texas in week eight. Week nine. I would say what we did for the Florida Missouri game earlier in the year in the SEC, this is where we have to turn the other side of that coin and do it in the big 10. Because we can't burn some of these bullets or because we already have burned them, like we can't go to Ohio State USC this day. We can't do Florida, Georgia. Clemson, Florida State, we've designated Clemson already in week one. So, that's off the board. We can't do Auburn Ole Miss. I'll tell you what we have to do or do we get to do it? Washington at Nebraska is not even on the graphic here. But Washington at Nebraska, it's one of those games where two solid big 10 programs, you hope the rule rule, which was supposed to kick in last year for our sake. It just kicks in one year later. You hope Jed Fish, you hope to Mawn Williams, you hope they can play well period, but much less away from home and just kind of trying to bank on a sneaky good match up there. Washington at Nebraska, which brings us up to date here and we're really, really getting in the weeds where, you know, this is where a lot of squiggly marks are on the piece of paper because we were trying to make sure we had marquee games down the stretch, but we also didn't do it at the expense of having to just have layup selections in the early part of the season. Okay, so week 10, that one was pretty obvious. Like Jesse, I think anybody who does one of these, if you use my strategy, if you go, I got a few games I gotta be at. Miami Notre Dame is probably one of those. Here's the shame of it all. College football's schedule is like a piece of toast that has random chunks of peanut butter on it or jelly. Choose your condiment, but it's not spread out. There's just massive chunks here and a complete open spot over there. Well week 10 is a chunk of peanut butter type week in college football. We've got Alabama at LSU, Georgia at Ole Miss, Brigham Young, Utah. The big 12 doesn't want us to say holy war, so the holy war is that day. Miami's at Notre Dame and Oregon's at Ohio State. That is all on the same Saturday. We are going, we are selecting rather. Miami at Notre Dame, but it brings me no joy to understand that we'll be missing all of these games in exchange for being there. What I'm trying to say is Mario and Marcus Freeman better not let me down. I need double over time minimum minimum in that game. Week 11, we have to ask who if we not used? We can't do USC at Indiana. We can't do Michigan at Oregon. Texas LSU's out. Ole Miss Oklahoma's out. But we have not used Tennessee and we have not used Texas A&M and this is where we are choosing to use those two. Tennessee at Texas A&M. It's just another one of those random really good games in the SEC. It's not a traditional rivalry or anything like that. But I think that's a really, really solid week 11 selection. Now we get to week 12, Jesse. Week 12, much consternation on this one. It's a card saver week as what it is. And in this case, we had to use these cards elsewhere. And you'll notice there's not a ton of marquee marquee matchups. SMU Notre Dame's on here, but we use Notre Dame already. A&M at Oklahoma would be a really good one, but we've already used both of them. Just like LSU at Tennessee, we actually went with Iowa Illinois. These are two teams with win totals in the like seven and a half range over at Fandall. Very solid big 10 programs. It's another one of those where we've got to kind of let our foot off the gas a little bit from a marquee standpoint. But that doesn't mean we couldn't get a classic game. Probably going to be a low scoring affair. Probably going to be a one possession type deal. And we just hope that we see a really good game there. And then we go to rivalry week. Let's just take a look at where we are so far. Rivalry week. I chose to explore. You know, rivalry week, you automatically think, oh, you get to go to Ohio State Michigan. I don't. I already used both of them. We got Washington Oregon that day, right? Well, yeah, but I use both of them. Egg bowl already used Ole Miss. Iron bowl already used Alabama. Texas and Texas A&M are both off the board. I'm going to go to a game. I've never been to Jesse. I'm going to go to a venue that I've never been to at least for a game. Virginia Virginia Tech in rivalry weeks, a little bit off the radar. But when you consider the strategy that was necessary here, this is the best we could do. Now, this is it in totality. And if you're listening on podcast, here's what we accomplished. It took like an hour. But here's what we accomplished. We are going to see the entire what top 18 Jesse, the top 18 teams in the college football playoff odds. We will see all of them. Now, you may think to yourself, well, of course you will. You'd be surprised how many iterations of this we went through where you look at it and say, wait a second, Texas isn't on here. Or like, wait a second. LSU's not on here. It gets tough. You may want to take a five minute break for your eyes and your mind. because it is a lot more difficult than it looks. But if you think this looks stupid, that's okay. Show me yours and make sure-- I gotta be careful here. Make sure yours is better than mine. I showed you mine. You show me yours. Yours better be better than mine before you hate on mine. To whom's the monk's this hasn't been there before. Let's move on. A lot of people watching. I don't know how we'll get feedback on that, Jesse. I think people are gonna have to take pictures of their submission and just send it to us. Because the comment section could be an utter disaster if people try and type that. I know mine is and I wrote it by hand. Appreciate you guys joining us live, by the way. I see a lot of you rolling in over there. Okay. College football playoff talk. Been a lot of it over the past 72 hours, 96 hours now. I have never seen a major proposal in College Football this unpopular. I'm not sure the powers that be understand exactly how unpopular this is. This is not a 3070 issue. This is like a 1090 issue for versus against. And for once in my life, there is a college football playoff related topic that I get to hang out in the majority on. It feels great. This must be how expansionist feel all the time. Up until recently. Because now recently, a lot of former expansionists have seen the light and they've come over to our side, Jesse, which makes you wonder, did they come over to the dark side or did they leave the dark side? Or do we not even need to use that terminology because we're all friends now and we're just going to forget about the past? The feedback I got from the Thursday show, where we spent 37 minutes off the top of the show just trying to bat down every bad faith, college football playoff expansion argument there is, has been unlike anything I've seen in the past year. The last time we got this much feedback on a topic on this show was when Nico Yamaliava left Tennessee. 'Cause a lot of Tennessee fans weighed in but a lot of people outside of the Tennessee fan base weighed in. 'Cause they viewed it as an issue that was bigger than just Tennessee. And yeah, it was. But not since Nico bailed out on Tennessee, I got this much feedback on a single topic. And I'd say 80% of it has been in support of. But that just means one out of every five is still a dissenting voice. So I want to talk. 'Cause there's some things even in those 37 minutes the other night that we didn't really fully close the loop on. So I just want to encourage everyone. It's almost like a little coaching session here. Since most of you hold the same opinion I do here, and that is that expanding to 24 teams is one of the stupider ideas that you've ever heard in your life. And it would not ruin the regular season entirely. It would greatly damage the regular season. Most of you like me, I think the regular season in college football is unique. It's one of one and it's the most valuable commodity college football has. Not everyone feels that way. Some of you have voiced your opinion that you view the playoff as greater than the regular season. Just means you and I don't view the sport the same. That's fine. And that's basically the end of that. And we probably will not agree on this because of that. But for the rest of you, yeah, I just want to make sure that we understand you got to stay on the main road here. You're going to have a lot of debate over this. You're going to debate your buddies over this. You're going to hear a lot of debate on this. Some of you may even get microphones thrown in your face at some point. Who knows, Jesse, we may have a town hall event. Andy Staples, Andy and Rity are the other day trying to coordinate what would essentially be like live aid, but just for college football. Yeah, far made, but for college football. It would be a we are the world moment, but for college football. And instead of world class singers, it would just be podcasters. But for the greater good of college football, of course. And then you got to come up with a charity. And look, I mean, I don't think we're going to be able to significantly fight AIDS with this movement. But we could save Arkansas's men's tennis team. We could do something. We had some kind of worthwhile charity. So anyway, stay on the main road. As I just got off of mine, stay on the main road. I brought this up the other day, and I'm going to bring it up once more. I have heard a lot of people saying, oh, we should not expand to 24 teams because there aren't 24 teams capable of winning a national title any given year. And listen, you're right. Of course, you're right. I agree with you. You're right. That's not the logic here. That's not the point because I would counter with this. What if there are 24 teams who are capable of winning it? What if there are 40 teams capable of winning it? Now, of course, we know that would never really be true. But just walk it through with me. That's not the point. The point is in expanding to a number like 24, you detrimentally affect a regular season. You see, people like us look at someone who is a pretty good team. Texas last year. Texas lost three regular season games. Texas was like 15th or 16th or something like that at the end of the year. You could sell me that if Texas made it into the playoff, theoretically, they could have made a run. They could have won it all. I don't care. I don't care. They just went through a playoff three months long. It was called the regular season. That was the test for Texas. They failed it last year. Vanderbilt failed it last year. The year before, Bama failed it. Ole Miss failed it. South Carolina failed it. Last year, Notre Dame failed it. You don't think Notre Dame could have made a run if they got in a course? They could. They could have won the whole thing if they got in. That is not an indication to me that the playoff is not big enough. That's an indication to me. The playoff is just the right size to let in teams who are minorly flawed, not many undefeated records in that playoff last year. Don't be selling me on the current status of the playoff is lose a game and you're done. No, it's not. The current status of the playoff is it's big enough for you to slip up a little bit, but it's not big enough for you to slip up infinite amounts of times. You can't be losing a quarter of your games to a third of your games and still having that safety net under you. So I don't really care how many teams could win it. How many teams in this balance we've struck of 12 teams right now? How many teams are good enough to win it that earned their way in? That's really all I care about. You will also, of course, hear a lot of people when you present that that say, well, every other sport has a bigger playoff. Don't care. Don't care. I don't really even entertain that because college football's one of one to me. I'll do respect to any other sport out there. There is no other sport like this. So you cannot compare the template or the blueprint of any other sport out there to this sport because there are varying degrees of major difference between this and that. Bowl fallacy, I did not address the other night. So I got to address it right now. The bowl fallacy is going to be thrown around from expansionists desperate to find a solid piece of logic to cling to. And that solid piece of logic they think they have found to cling to is-- stop me if you've heard this recently-- why'd rather see college football playoff games than meaningless bowl games? Have you heard that? Come on, now bowl season has been rendered totally irrelevant. At least if we're going to have a bunch of games in December, let's make them playoff games. Instead of meaningless bowl games, long time viewers will understand the smirk on my face when I even mention that. Because long time viewers of and listeners to the program will remember when expansion was first floated. And I put a scenario out there. And I said, here's what's about to happen. They are going to expand the playoff, but it's not going to stop. I hope they go to eight, but they went to 12. But whatever it was, I fought hard against it because I said, it's not going to stop there. Because what's going to happen is the last remaining value in bowl season is going to be sucked out. Because playoff access is the currency. It's the oxygen in this sport now. And if you don't make a playoff game, well, then all of your players are just going to opt out of the bowl games. And right on cue, teams that didn't make the playoff saw their players opt out of bowl games. That is a mess created by playoff expansion. And so what was the recourse going to be? Well, it's certainly not to go back in time. We can't do that. Just, that's a lack of progress. This won't backwards on progress. We can't go back in time. So instead, what will the answer be? The answer from the expansionist crowd will be just expanded further. Man, now that bowl games were irrelevant, let's just expand it further. Expansion created the mess of meaningless bowl games. Here's how you don't clean up a mess by expanding more of what created the mess. And also, if I may be so bold, because I did call this a few years ago, so maybe I've got a little equity built up here, if I may be so bold, for those of you who do think that bowl games are meaningless, I have yet to see the law where you're forced to watch them, by the way. But for those of you who do think bowl games are meaningless, and expanding the college football playoff will replace meaningless games with meaningful games. Just a nice little one-to-one trade off. Could I ask you, does that rid us of meaningless games? Does expanding the playoff to get rid of meaningless bowl games and exchanging them for meaningful playoff games. Does that mean we don't have meaningless games anymore? Are you sure about that? Or could it be much as is currently the case even in a national football league that we get towards the end of the year with a glob of teams that know their guaranteed playoff access probably by early November, but especially the second, third weeks of November. And what happens if I'm just going to play my quarterback for the first half of this game, Jesse? Or early, early second half? I mean, I know I've kind of got my range of spot in the playoff locked up. I'm pulling starters. What does that do to the integrity of those games? But here's the problem now. I'm no longer talking about postseason games. I'm talking about regular season games. No one ever really walks this through to its illogical conclusion because no one thinks that can happen in college football. You just fooled yourself into thinking, oh, that's a pro sports problem. You know, the very one-to-one, the apples to apples comparison they always want you to make. Well, the NFL does it. Well, the NBA does it. Why can't college football do it? Well, okay, let's ask ourselves. Are there any negative ramifications from a playoff field that big in the national football league? Every single, what is it, week 16, week 17? I watch it all the time. I watch it because we're in here doing work on our Sunday show and I'm looking at updates on ESPN, countdown to kick off and it's who will start and who will rest today. And you're telling me that we're just immune from that college football. Yeah, we're all we're doing when we expand is we're getting rid of meaningless games. We're never just reassigning meaninglessness to other games. It's a fallacy. Just like most of the arguments that expansionist made. And I would encourage you because I've been doing this all weekend and I'm still batting a thousand and cause any idiot can do it once you understand the totality of the situation. If someone wants to argue that the 2014 playoff benefits college football make them defend their point with what is sure to be flawed logic. Now, I got a lot of people who I respect. I got a lot of buddies, not a lot. I got a few. I could probably count them on a couple of hands, but I got a few buddies, a few holdouts who are still pushing this nonsense. And to them, I ask this, are you telling me that expanding to 24 teams is a net positive for college football? They will say yes. I ask them why. Their answers are your biggest weapons. So keep asking questions and I ask them why and they inevitably say, well, it gives more access. And more access means what, of course, well, it means more playoff implications on more games, which means according to these people whose only currency is college football, playoff ramifications. That means there's more meaning on more games later in the season. Make sure you have them repeat that because your next question is going to be just like mine is. So if you're telling me that expansion and a bigger playoff field means more access, more meaning on more games, why would we stop at 24? If it's just all positive, if the bigger the playoff field, the bigger the benefit to college football, why would we stop at 24? Why would we stop at 44? Why would there ever be a limit? Why would we not full Lindsay Lohan this thing? Just the limit does not exist. Why would we not do that? What's the magic number? Hey, the threshold for me is 12, okay? So I'm giving you my number. Don't go past 12. Well, once they start to get a little squeamish there, he said, well, you can't just expand forever. Why not? And if you can't, what's the number? Is 24 the number? Hey, question. Why 24? Cause that's what Tony Petiti told you. What if he said 28? Would that have been the magic number? What if it was 32? Did you come up with 24 on your own? No. And the biggest lie of all, and this is probably something I'm going to have to wait and talk a lot more about once the cards are on the table. I've talked for a while on this show about what I think really is the biggest lie in all of this. The biggest lie in all of this is that we have to expand the playoff even if some of us don't like it. Cause that's the only way we can get the revenue we need for life to continue on as we know it. Not just for college football, but for non-revenue generating sports. And I have sat here and told you, and I'll tell you once more, that is a lie. That is garbage. It is one way to increase revenue that you need. It's not the way, nor is it even the best way, but it's certainly not the only way to increase revenue. It's just that the alternatives and the aggregate make certain power brokers in this sport relinquish a little bit of a percentage of that control that they currently have even if it means more money in their pockets at the end of the day. Crazy times I know, but this is not Lollipop and Unicorn land. This is not five years down the road stuff. This is days down the road stuff. So I think the picture on other options for increasing the revenue necessary to run this sport and other sports properly may come a little more into focus in the next couple of weeks even. Let's all hope. Don't have to wait weeks. Don't have to wait days. Don't have to wait hours to go to PaystateMaterial.com right now and get that really, really classy, but also fun and relaxed new Paystate Material Summers shirt we have. The football is coming shirt, hat, sleeveless options. They continue to be our best sellers. Thanks to me. Yeah, Jesse, you haven't said a word about them. I'm the one pitching it. So therefore it is my idea. PaystateMaterial.com would have made a great Mother's Day gift and still could, but you know, Father's Day is coming up. So if you missed today, just look, I'll pretend like it's a shipping issue on our end and you ordered it in time. But you can get way ahead on Father's Day. Let's move along. We still got some stuff to get to and we have travel to get to tonight as well. It's time to just lick our index finger, put it in the air and find out how good these coaches in the big 10 have been doing. Looks like they've been doing pretty good, but what we're trying to do is gauge the fan base. What would the job approval rating be on these head coaches? Ryan Day's pretty easy. I guess he's pretty easy at Ohio State. I got him at an A at Ohio State. It's hard not to be, it's hard to be a plus if you're not coming off a national championship because you're just supposed to win it every year. So Ryan Day could only be a plus if he just won the national title. He is merely an A right now because they did lose their last two games last year. Now the year before they did win the national title. Also last year they erased the streaking against Michigan. So I would put him at an A. It's a model program, maybe the model program in college football. They've won a title and beat Michigan in the last two seasons is the best way to state that. They have never under him finished outside the college football playoff top seven. I don't need to defend Ryan Day. There was like a brief five minute period in time where I had to defend Ryan Day on here on this show. And that was post Michigan game pre-playoff 2024. Since then it's been a lot easier to defend Ryan Day. I'm going to give him an A. Matt rule, not getting an A. Matt rule, not on the honor roll right now. That rule, not according to me, remember we're trying to gauge the Nebraska fan base here. What kind of job approval grade would the Nebraska fan base put on Matt rule right now? I think they'd give him a C. Just a flat C. Five and seven, seven and six, seven and six. Those are the first three years. Lot of us expected an uptick last year. I think they expected an uptick last year. I know the fan base expected an uptick last year and they didn't get it. The other question, you got to ask about Matt rule three years in now is what's the big win? What's the one he hangs his hat on? Is it the Colorado game when Deon came in there, Jesse? That's the only one that we could really think of. Had a shot against Michigan last year, we were there, didn't get the job done, got overwhelmed at the line of scrimmage really. It's not happening last year. I think really burned a lot of equity. But then at the same time, remember what happened afterwards, the Penn State job came open and Matt rules name was in it. So you come off what was viewed as kind of a failure of a season and then you have to pay a ton of money to keep him. I think it rubs some folks the wrong way because like you're sitting there having to have an edge grand and bear it and you're having to give him an extension and give him more money, which is good. If it goes into the proper coffers and they got a bigger NIL war chest, which I think he got accomplished, but I think it just rub people the wrong way. I could see it rubbing in the wrong way rather. It's not too late, man. Maybe it's just delayed one year and the rule rule kicks in in year four, but I'm going to give him a seat because I think that's what they'd give him for now. Brett Belema over at Illinois, Brett Belema's got to get an A. I mean, let's be rid. This is Illinois football that had done nothing for a minute. And at this point, I don't know how you complain. What would the complaint about Brett V? We were up there for a game last year. They went walk off field storming against USC. 19 wins the last two years. He's been getting it done. 10 and three, nine and four the last two years. Couple of bowl wins over Tennessee and South Carolina. So Brett Belema, once upon a time, I had coach in the SEC, has just gone whack him all on a couple of SEC teams and also not that it's necessary to have, but it's a bonus when you do have it. He's kind of got the kind of attitude that you'd want your head coach to have if you were at Illinois. Dutton, run around bragging about recruiting classes. Dutton, brag about how much money they can spend because you're really not going to be top tiering either one of those. All he's doing is just winning. Those are the recruiting rankings they've had. 70th, 53rd, 40th, 50 second, 45th, 20 second. And still doing it, man. 19 wins over two years. So Brett Belema's got to get an A. What about Kirk Farence at Iowa? Been there a long time, man. He's I think 71 now. I have the Iowa fan base given Kirk Farence a straight B. And I think looking at what's happened to Wisconsin is important here. And I think the Iowa fan base is obviously they're really mature in their view of him because he's been there forever, but they look at Wisconsin and they understand how much they should appreciate Kirk Farence even if they don't have to love everything about the state of the program. I got like if I'm an Iowa fan, of course, there are days where I look around and say, man, I wish we'd take some risk. I wish we'd try and push the pedal to the ground a little bit more. And on that same day, maybe even that same afternoon, I think, you know, Wisconsin tried to do that and look at them now. Wisconsin was so set in their DNA and their blueprint and their identity and they tried to go and be something. It turns out they weren't and Luke Fickles paying the price for it and he's on the hot seat. Now, at least Kirk Farence has not done that to us. We've been the model of consistency under him, but that model comes with a ceiling. And so we're probably not winning a national title with him, but we will never be a laughing stock with him and we'll be a lot closer to the former than the latter with him. I'm going to give us a B. I think that's where they'd be on Kirk Farence. Interested to see what I would fancy about that one. They're watching us in Daphne, Alabama, Rose Hill, Kansas, Zenia, Ohio, super outbreak city. That's what we call Zenia. Remind me to tell you about 1974, Jesse. All right. We move on. Bowl prediction season continues. Not mine. These are the things that you guys believe. And if any of these bold predictions rate 9.5 or higher on the boldness scale, as decided by me, you win a childless of supremacy. Let's go first up from Pekipsey, New York. No first year head coach under a new program will even make the playoff this year. So who are we talking about here? We're talking about Lane not making the playoff. We're talking about Ole Miss. We're going to count Pete Golden. He's not making the playoff. He got Matt Campbell at Penn State, pretty workable schedule. He got delicious at Auburn. You got some role at Florida. How winning ham's not going to make the playoff. Morgan Scali at Utah is not going to make the playoff. There are 17 power four teams with a new head coach this year. All of them have to miss out on the playoff in order for this to hit and Eric Morris at Oklahoma State, just because I keep throwing his name in there. Not a top 18 odds team, but I'm still throwing them in there. Toshleopoy at Cal. Will Stein. It can tuck you. They're not going to make any noise. James Franklin going to have to wait at least one year to make the playoff. I put this at a nine. Twelve teams this year. Remember they haven't bastardized this thing beyond recognition yet. So only 12 teams, I cannot believe those words just came out of my mouth. Yeah, only 12 teams. Blink twice and you'll miss the playoff this year. That's how small it is. LSU and Ole Miss are tough to keep out of there. Outside of that, I can see it. Gotta keep LSU Ole Miss and it's a mathematical fact that one of them is going to have a big win in week three. So whoever wins that week three game, I need them to lose three games. At least I think to keep them out of the playoff. I'll give it a nine. Next up, Jordan from Coconut Creek, Florida. Darian Mensa wins the Heisman. Formerly at Duke, now at Miami. I think it's an upgraded quarterback for Miami. Unfortunately, I've already bet this. So I'm only going to put an eight on it. Producer Jesse allegedly has some of his hard earned money in on this as well. He has the seventh best odds to win the Heisman. He was seventh in the country in Passyards per game last year and he's in a better situation now and brought Barcai with him and got Malachai Tony down there and got a good ground game and what I think will round into a really good offensive line. He's in a great system. Remember Cam wore a couple of years ago finished second in the country in Passyards per game and Darian Mensa can do that. He is a really good player. He's going to be a really good player from Miami. Look, I'm not going to call him the favorite. Arch does exist, but I think Darian Mensa is going to be way up there. So I'm only putting an eight on that. The next one is bold. We haven't gone above nine and a half yet. That's about to change. Out of Dallas, Texas comes the following. Texas A&M and Texas are both undefeated entering Black Friday. So 11 and O versus 11 and O, they of course play each other on Black Friday. This would be the game of the year in college football. If this were to happen, this would probably be number one versus number two. If this happened in a rivalry game on a Friday, no less, we have Texas playing the number one toughest schedule in the country this year. We got A&M playing the fourth toughest schedule in the country this year. But if you don't care about our strength of schedule metrics, here's another one to hit you with. Take the top 18 teams at Fandall to win the national title. Texas will have played seven of them by this point, not counting this game. A&M will have played five of them. So that is 12 combined games against the top 18 playoff odds teams in the country. And I'm asking them to go 22 and O in that stretch. That is not happening. 9.75 on the boldness scale there. But if it did happen, oh man, where's that game? It's at Texas, right? Jesse or no, it's at A&M this year, right? Oh man, can you imagine? Next up, this is going to be debated or rating on this one's going to be debated. Sean from Hotto, Texas. Brigham Young and Miami to miss the playoff. So don't miss what he said there. They lose at Brigham Young, they lose to Miami and they miss the playoff. Now that's not difficult to see. Those are Notre Dame's two big games. The SMU game as well. But if they lose those games with that schedule, I have a hard time seeing them in the playoff. Although it's not impossible, you would just have to know what happened around them. Brigham Young is Notre Dame's seventh straight game. And it is a tough road game, obviously. There aren't not many road games like going to Provo Utah. So that is not a gimmie for them. Everybody keeps talking about this thing like it's a one game season. It's not. Going to Brigham Young is going to be a very, very difficult task, even if you had a bi-week before you went out there. And then, even if they lose that one, which I don't think is a major upset. It's an upset, but it's not a major upset. Then they got to come home, revenge-minded against a team that ended up costing them a playoff spot last year. And they got to lose it home to Miami too. It's tough to see both of those happening, but it's not impossible. I'm only putting a 9.25 on that. Now, allegations will pull in that I'm a Notre Dame hater. At which point, I feel the need to remind you, they exited spring as my number one team in the country. So take that somewhere else. We don't have lines on those games yet at Fandall. We do have odds to win the national championship. Oh, by the way, FDM, Fandall Mike the other day, hit us up as all of the 2014 playoff expansion propaganda was in the air. And he said, Hey guys, you know how we put out odds to make the playoff? We're like, Yeah, Mike, it's Friday, man. We're busy. What do you want? We don't talk to him like that. But he said, Well, I got the traders, fancy name for odds and makers. I got the traders to generate what the odds would be to make the playoff if the playoff was 24 teams this year. And do you know that there were four teams with odds better than minus 1000 to make the playoff? Jesse Notre Dame's odds to make the playoff were minus 3000 over minus 3000 pure insanity. Now, fortunately, those odds are not available at Fandall right now because this is hypothetical. And hopefully it'll be a moot point and we'll never have to actually look at a market like this, but just show everyone's aware for all the expanding the playoff doesn't damage the regular season nonsense. That team right there in Notre Dame would enter the season with minus 37 nearly minus 3800 odds to make the playoff 14. teams. Nearly five teams would have minus one thousand or better odds to make the playoff. Uh, I don't know in what were, how would Notre Dame miss the playoff, Jesse? They would lose Miami, Brigham Young and SMU and still be in, right? They would still be in. I, I guarantee you that still be in because they'd be close games. I don't know how Notre Dame would miss the playoff. I'm prepared to say it. I'm prepared to say the L word. Notre Dame would be a lot to make the playoff. And I don't ever say that word because even if there's like a one percent chance something does or doesn't happen, that means I'm not saying lock. We could be looking at a one hundred percent chance of Notre Dame to make the playoff. Statistically, I know that doesn't track, but in my heart, it makes sense. So yeah, there are many things that are currently on the board at Fandall that you can go away, Jerome, or look at. If you don't bet, then go, you can go look at it. It's very good information gathering. This will be 21 plus in present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas, Starkisino or 18 plus and present in DC. First on my real money wager only $5 first deposit required bonus issued as non withdrawal bonus bets which expire seven days after receipt, restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fandool.com gambling problem call 1-800 gambler or visit fandool.com/rg. Call 1-888-789777 or visit ccpg.org/chatincanetogate or visit ndgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-32750 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-8778-HOP-NY or text Hope-NY in New York. Let's roll on and let's conclude with a really good question we got that I haven't spent enough time on. John from Wheatley, Texas hit us up and said who are the most important coordinator hires you're looking at this cycle like one of those this better workout or else sort of deal. I'm glad you qualified it like that or modified it like that John because that's where my head would go on this. I'm looking at situations where a new coordinator got brought in and if it doesn't work out then there could be really really big trouble. South Carolina is one of those. Kendall Briles is coming in as the offensive coordinator at South Carolina now his three years, this last three years at TCU they never finished outside the top 35 offensively and I want you to keep that number in mind because these were South Carolina's offensive numbers last year 104th in points per game, 109th in total yards per game, 67th in pass yards per game. That's with Lenoris Sellers as your quarterback. They were 119 in rush yards per game. They were 97th in explosive plays. They were 131st in sacks allowed per game. It's got to get better or it'll be up to someone else to get better over there. Like I don't think you can afford another four win season or five win season even like they got to turn this thing around and be on the plus side of 500 at the very least. All of Lenoris's numbers regressed last year that's got to be turned upside down and it's got to happen quick. They have a couple of winnable games and then if you're going to get a conference game in week three to start the slate Mississippi state to good team to come to town you got Kentucky in week five so they could get off to a four and one star three even if they lose it Alabama. They could get off to a four and one star who knows maybe they start five and oh but it's got to be much better than it was last year. One thing kind of for USC, USC saw Danton Lynn leave and go to Penn State. All right and a lot of people freaked out when that happened. There are some people at USC that had a lot of respect for the fact that Danton Lynn took their defense from 119th to 77th to 49th. I think there's some people there that like the vibe. Maybe that Gary Patterson brings a little more and if you haven't been paying attention to Gary Patterson is now the defensive coordinator at USC has not filled that role for anyone since like 2021 but now he's back on the sideline or the booth wherever they keep him back with the headset on in four losses last year. Southern cow gave up 34 27 35 and 30 and this is straight up a playoff or bust season. So that's fair to me. Those are fair expectations for Lincoln Riley at this point in his tenure there. We got a good enough team. They got to have a good enough defense. Chad Morris went to Clemson. We just sat down with Debo last week. He talked about in 2010 how they had high expectations and then things crashed and burned and what did he do? Well he had Chad Morris and hired him as his offensive coordinator and now all these years later that's what they're doing. They're getting part of the band back together and bringing Chad Morris back as offensive coordinator. Last year was a massive failure. I don't need to tell anyone that. They were 64th in total offense. 70 second and points per game I think unless I wrote that down wrong. It was bad. Yeah there it is right there. Total yards per game was 64th. You know what? They won double digit games every year that Morris was there as offensive coordinator the time before. And if they figure out how to run the ball again, it's not out of the realm of possibility. The ACC still very much in the state of flux. They were 105th running the ball last year. Abysmal, Debo on our show the other day paraphrasing but he said it's a miracle we won seven games. It's a miracle even one seven. The wide receiver room is still good there. So it's not like Chad Morris is walking in saying wow look at these bear cupboards. No you're going to have a new quarterback starting for you. Some offensive line transition but you got guys to throw it too. You should be plenty good enough. Should be plenty good enough. Jim Knowles went to Tennessee. Jim Knowles was busy winning a national title at Ohio State a couple of years ago. Went and hung out at Penn State for a few minutes and then the staff got fired there and he chose to go to help out Josh Hyple in Knoxville. They had a top 10 defense at Tennessee two years ago. They fell off into the 90s last year. They allowed 30 plus and three of their five losses. It hurt to watch. And so there had to be transition there. This is going to be probably an offensive style this year with a new starter at quarterback in a good run game where they are they are run heavy not that they aren't run heavy normally. They run the ball. That's what they do at Tennessee but probably a little bit more dependent on defense this year. Dependent on a complimentary ground game. Good defense. That just means defense has to be their year one. And that hasn't always been a staple of Jim Knowles. Normally the book is it takes some years at least one for Jim Knowles defense to fully take root. Now the way they were going to shortcut that was we'll bring some of his players with him pending. They don't get homesick. We'll bring some of his staffers with him and they did that. We talked to Hyple the other day about that when he was on the show. They did that. Let's see if it pays dividends in year one which they need. And then lastly Jason Bex at Michigan. So Jason Bex I don't think is in a situation where man if his offense doesn't pan out his coach is going to get fired. Of course his coach is getting fired. He just got hired. They all just got hired. This is like a Bryce Underwood special. So it's like a different designation here. But you don't you don't invest the way they have in Bryce Underwood and take multiple years for him to get up to speed. That's the old way of doing things. That's not the new way of doing things. And last year he was a 60% completion guy. 11 touchdowns nine picks. And in the big games like the Oklahoma game, the Ohio State game, 17 of 42, 205 yards combined, no touchdowns one pick. Just got to get more production out of him. So first off he's got to have the supporting cast and secondly he's got to get put in a better position. So I got to think that there is some form of net upgrade just from a more stable situation that he's going to be in. How much? How much in one year can they improve him? Told you I'd get it in under an hour Jesse. All right, we got a big week coming up. Speaker series multiple stops. Make sure you're following on the socials for a sneak peek there at Josh Pate CFB. We'll be back Thursday. Got a busy week ahead. Until then for director Bradley, producer Jesse, I'm Josh Pate. Take care. Have a great start to your week and God bless. Must be 21 plus in present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas, Starkicino or 18 plus and present in DC. Next on my real money wager only $5 first deposit required bonus issued as non with robber bonus bets which expire seven days after receipt restrictions apply see terms at sportsbook.fandool.com gambling problem call 1 800 gambler or visit fandool.com slash rg call 1 888 789 7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit and decambling help.org in Maryland hope is here visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 800 327 50 50 for 24 seven support in Massachusetts or call 1 877 8 hope and why or text hope and why in New York. This is an I heart podcast guaranteed human.