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The New Mexico Lobos have a long and mostly bleak football history. A former coach one said you could fit the fanbase in a few rows of bleachers. The list of UNM players the casual college football fan remembers watching is zero player long. But right now, under coach Jason Eck, UNM is one of the most exciting turnaround stories in the country and has a real chance to make the playoff. The Lobos are doing something no one else is doing, and Rodger Sherman joins Alex Kirshner to talk about it on this SUBSCRIBER SPECIAL:

• 0:16: New Mexico’s moment

• 9:51: The Jason Eck story

• 19:26: Remember a Lobo (Brian Urlacher edition)

• 25:20: Why winning at New Mexico is ultra-difficult

• 36:48: The defense and the turnovers

• 42:50: What happens after Eck?

Producer: Anthony Vito

TEAM OF THE WEEK is a subscriber series where Rodger Sherman and SZD hosts talk about a college football team doing something no one else is doing

We’ve already covered the following:

• Week 1: North Dakota State

• Week 2: UMass

• Week 3: Oklahoma State

• Week 4: Arkansas

• Week 5: Mississippi State

• Week 6: Charlotte

• Week 7: Oregon State

• Week 8: Utah

This series will continue all season.

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Florida Atlantic University at North Texas (00:02:37)
Baylor at UCF (00:06:08)
Arizona at Texas Tech (00:09:50)
Notre Dame at Navy (00:19:32)
Wisconsin at Iowa (00:24:06)
Florida at Georgia (00:31:22)
Miami at North Carolina (00:52:40)
Ohio State at USC (01:00:28)

Those are just a handful out of the dozens of games we cover this week. Produced by Anthony Vito.

THANKS TO OUR SUBSCRIBERS AND PARTNERS

• Quo, a business phone service! 20% off your first six months using this link

• Enter to win a set of Nokian Tyres

• Shop for college sports apparel at Homefield

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Cohost emeritus Steven Godfrey joins Richard and Alex on this episode for a discussion what the player pay market has done to coach expectations.

• 5:07: The price of the brick (or of Jesse Legree or Kamario Taylor) goes up: What does a mid- or low-budget program do when a superstar emerges?

• 13:47: How much longer can coaches use NIL as an excuse?

• 22:01: Why different people in the same program will give you a different number for their roster spend

• 32:36: If coach pay isn’t going down, what does that say about what we can reasonably expect from coaches without a ton of roster cash?

• 43:23: Dissecting the season’s three big-budget disasters so far: Oregon, Michigan, and Texas A&M.

Producer: Anthony Vito

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Richard Johnson and Alex Kirshner take you on a 30-ish minute journey through yet another really wild weekend in college football. This episode covers 43 games, including:

• 1:25: UCF 39, BYU 31 (2OT)

• 3:13: Cincinnati 37, Texas Tech 24

• 5:27: Utah 21, Houston 13

• 11:02: Texas 34, Ole Miss 27

• 13:59: South Carolina 27, Tennessee 24

• 19:13: Indiana 13, Michigan 6 (OT)

• 25:00: Wisconsin 24, USC 7

• 28:23: Miami 52, Pitt 23

• 34:46: FAU 51, Rice 49

• 38:33: New Mexico 21, North Dakota State 16

Producer: Anthony Vito

If you like this episode, you’ll love a paid subscription. For $10 a month (or you can get a free month with an annual subscription), subscribers get about twice as many Split Zone Duo podcasts, as well as our coach carousel reporting, deep dives on college football history, Q&A opportunities, and many more goodies as we think of them. You also help keep this show independent and ensure we’re making a podcast that puts our listeners, not anyone else, first.

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Welcome to the College Football Newsletter, where we found out about Mike Locksley’s firing in the middle of recording a podcast episode.

That actually happened. While Richard and Alex were recording this week’s Tasting Menu, Richard stopped podcasting for a minute to take a call where he learned that the Terps would dismiss Locksley from his head coaching duties. Because content is king, we clipped that moment and put it on social already, so please do go check that out. It’s even funnier since Alex pondered a season where zero coaches get fired just moments before. So much for that scenario. The dream of 138 returning FBS coaches must wait for another year.

But that leaves us with the Maryland job to talk about. Yes, it’s odd that Locksley was let go on a Wednesday as opposed to right before Maryland’s 30-37 loss to Rutgers. But the firing itself isn’t surprising. Now Maryland has what Penn State had last season when it fired James Franklin—the most amount of time. The university can get first pick at any prospective coaches for the role before anyone else. This is generally a good position to be in, because you can get an early start on the formal work of a coaching search. But it’s also not guaranteed to get you the pick of the litter. Penn State learned that in 2025, when it took 58 days, a handful of names, and one very public rejection to land on Matt Campbell.

And that’s a great move given their position in the sport. The Maryland role isn’t particularly exciting, but it is an open role in the Power 2. Why not increase interest in the job while every other school with coaches in shaky positions figure their situation out? If they waited to be the fourth or fifth team with a vacancy, the market would probably include positions as equal if not better than the Terps. Maryland needed to be first. Otherwise, it would be potentially competing with a Wisconsin—or an Arkansas (I don’t know if I’m kidding about that one or not).

How important is this first-mover edge for Maryland? Here’s Alex:

Pretty useful, I think, but I don’t wanna overstate it. Plenty of coaches will still want to wait to see what’s available. Still, there is something to be said for being able to mount a search without insulting a sitting coach who everyone knows is getting fired. Maryland’s roster is now at slightly more risk of getting picked over while the season is still going on, but that’s eventually going to happen anyway when a coach needs to be fired. I tend to think it’s better for everyone to dispense with the formalities early when a tenure is clearly finished. Get on with it, start planning a search, and give every stakeholder in the program a chance to think about what’s next instead of mourning what’s still spiraling.

Let’s continue with the week here at SZD.

Here’s what we dropped into your podcast feeds this week

• Our Team of the Week is the Utah Utes. Remember when the school pushed Kyle Whittingham out of the job and we were somewhat low on them in the offseason? Well, they’re one of six undefeated teams left in college football. We also noticed that us recognizing these teams may have inadvertently created a Team of the Week curse. (Sorry, UMass and Mississippi State.) We hope the good vibes continue in Utah. But if they don’t, we’re sorry.

• The Tasting Menu for the week is out now. We already mentioned learning about the Locksley firing in this episode but Richard also predicts that Arch Manning will be on a short leash this week against Ole Miss. Texas has to figure this all out at some point, right? Right?

• This season’s first coaching carousel episode is out now. Alex and Richard talk extensively about what didn’t work for Mike Locksley and what won’t work at Maryland in the future. Alex in particular has some great insight as a Terp.

Some recommended reading

• For Slate, Alex wrote about Donald Trump forcing the closure of the beloved East Potomac Golf Course in D.C.and what it means for the accessibility of the sport in Washington.

• We’re talking about the FIU Panthers this week! For CBS Sports, Richard wrote how the program’s top-10 defense came to be and how it is thriving based on the mentality that the unit is “no-name” and “faceless”.

• If you want more analysis about the Maryland job, read Barry Svrluga at The Athletic where he wonders if anyone can be a successful Terps coach.

• Julian Sayin is potentially out for the season. CBS Sports still has the Buckeyes as the top team in the Big Ten for now, and UCLA is ranked second. Check out their full power rankings.

• More realignment coming? Ross Dellenger reports for Yahoo from Miami.

• The 24-team College Football Playoff is basically here already and we unfortunately know that the last spots will be reserved for middling power conference teams. But Jason Kirk knows the fix for that and he wrote about it in the Until Saturday newsletter: include the small schools!

Thanks for reading, enjoy the games, and we’ll see you on Sunday for the Hurry-Up.

To get this episode, make sure you’re a paid subscriber.

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Coach firing season is upon us, and the first ouster of the year comes from Maryland, alma mater of SZD host Alex Kirshner. Richard joins him to talk through the first opening on the market. In this episode:

• The meaning of Locksley’s Maryland tenure, and why it isn’t a failure despite eight-plus years of mostly bad results

• 5:48: Why firing season got a late start this season

• 12:47: What kind of job is this, really?

• 21:50: A very, very early candidate wishlist from a Terp

Producer: Anthony Vito

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This is a free episode. Subscribers will soon get the first episode of COACHING CAROUSEL SEASON, now that we have a firing.

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Week 8 preview! Richard and Alex start this episode with a quick football digression about Manchester City and then get into the mega-preview of this week in CFB. We cover a bunch of games, some in a lot of detail, some quickly:

• 1:41: Manchester City digression

• 6:10: JMU at App State

• 18:21: Indiana at Michigan

• 26:45: LSU at Auburn

• 35:40: Rutgers at Northwestern

• 39:50: West Virginia at TCU

• 46:48: Oregon at Illinois

• 50:22: BYU at UCF

• 1:04:20: San Diego State at Colorado State

• 1:07:09: Virginia Tech at Clemson

• 1:10:55: Ole Miss at Texas

• 1:13:19: Mike Locksley news breaks mid-show

• 1:23:56: Houston at Utah

Those are just a handful out of the dozens of games we cover this week. Produced by Anthony Vito.

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Subscribe to hear this whole episode!

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Utah placed a big, risky bet when it nudged away Kyle Whittingham so that it could elevate a coach-in-waiting, Morgan Scalley. Rodger and Alex both thought this team would be worse this season. But instead, the Utes are undefeated contenders for both the Big 12 and the playoff, and their decision to show one of the best coaches in recent history the door is looking … pretty good?

• 2:13: Why Utah has surprised both hosts

• 8:18: The two-quarterback experiment

• 11:59: Remembering some Utes

• 15:41: BYU’s rise and the pressure to move on from Whittingham

• 26:24: The coach-in-waiting gamble and why Utah wanted Scalley

• 45:41: Utah’s private equity deal and the cost of keeping up

Everyone can hear a free preview of this episode. To get the whole thing, become a paid subscriber today. For $10 a month (or you can get a free month with an annual subscription), subscribers get about twice as many Split Zone Duo podcasts, as well as our coach carousel reporting, deep dives on college football history, Q&A opportunities, and many more goodies as we think of them. You also help keep this show independent and ensure we're making a podcast that puts our listeners, not anyone else, first.

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Richard Johnson and Alex Kirshner break down one of college football’s wildest weeks ever, in which five of the top seven teams in the country lost and another came awfully close. We start with BYU’s late escape against Notre Dame and continue through the rest of this historic Week 7 in the following order:

• 1:33: Big 12 and Notre Dame, led by BYU 28, Notre Dame 24

• 12:53: SEC, led by Auburn 27, Georgia 24

• 27:58: Big Ten, led by Ohio State 19, Indiana 15

• 36:15: ACC, led by Miami 43, Florida State 35

• 42:40: American, led by Tulane 31, Memphis 17

• 46:04: Pac-12, led by Oregon State 48, Washington State 30

• 47:45: Mountain West, led by Air Force 41, UNLV 31

• 50:20: MAC, led by Western Michigan 21, Central Michigan 14

• 51:54: Sun Belt, led by App State 35, Coastal Carolina 32

• 53:36: Conference USA, led by Jacksonville State 27, FIU 24

THANKS TO OUR SUBSCRIBERS AND PARTNERS

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Richard and Alex react to the College Football Playoff’s expansion to 12 teams, starting in 2027. Let’s talk through this together:

• 0:00: Why this thing we dislike is happening

• 9:12: Whose lot in life just changed a whole lot

• 19:30: The inevitable impact on the regular season

• 30:20: The big winners here, plus a closing discussion about how Split Zone Duo is going to respond to (and be affected by) this change

Produced by Alex in a pinch! Thanks for listening.

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College football forgot about Oregon State. But Jesse Legree, Braden Atkinson, and JaMarcus Shephard are forcing the Beavers back in the national CFB consciousness. Yes, there are anxieties about how to keep the band together, but there is also a beautiful story about how a team is rising from the ashes anew to apparently kick ass in the new Pac-12. Richard and Rodger discuss how the Beavers have become one of the nation’s most enjoyable teams.

• 0:00: Oregon State’s revival under JaMarcus Shephard

• 5:05: Jesse Legree’s unlikely rise

• 17:13: Remember a Guy, and how Oregon State got left behind

• 29:25: Pac-12 title hopes and a possible playoff path

• 40:39: Can the Beavers keep Shephard and Legree?

Produced by Anthony Vito.

TEAM OF THE WEEK is a subscriber series where Rodger Sherman and SZD hosts talk about a college football team doing something no one else is doing

We’ve already covered the following:

• Week 1: North Dakota State

• Week 2: UMass

• Week 3: Oklahoma State

• Week 4: Arkansas

• Week 5: Mississippi State

• Week 6: Charlotte

This series will continue all season.

GET THESE SHOWS, AND SUPPORT THE WORK, BY BECOMING A PAID SUBSCRIBER TODAY

We appreciate you. See you soon.

Read more

This is a free episode. Many of our shows are just for subscribers. To get those, join us by navigating to this nice green button:

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Richard and Alex take you on a preview of Week 7, starting with the weeknight grab bags and continuing through various blockbusters in places like Columbus and Provo. We cover dozens of games on this show, including these:

• 13:55: Florida at Texas

• 20:02: Kansas at Kansas State

• 24:38: Mississippi State at LSU

• 33:53: Ohio State at Indiana

• 42:19: Western Michigan at Central Michigan

• 43:51: Alabama at Tennessse

• 51:36: Missouri at Ole Miss

• 55:04: Penn State at Michigan (who should be more upset?)

• 1:05:37: Florida State at Miami

• 1:09:38: TCU at Baylor

• 1:16:05: Notre Dame at BYU

• 1:34:56: Nebraska at Oregon

Producer: Anthony Vito

THANKS TO OUR SUBSCRIBERS AND PARTNERS

• Quo, a business phone service! 20% off your first six months using this link

• 10% off a set of Nokian Tyres with code SPLITZONEDUO

• Shop for college sports apparel at Homefield

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Steven Godfrey joins Richard and Alex to talk about some stories we’d already planned to mark the halfway point of the season. But first, we’ve got a REALIGNMENT INTERRUPTION, brought to us by James Madison leaving the Sun Belt for the American Conference in 2028. In this episode:

• 0:26: JMU’s move to the American

• 9:44: Roster management people and coaches seem to think it’s impossible to find good backup QBs now. Do we agree? And is there a statistical way to see if anything has really changed? (It’s hard because defining a “backup” in a robust statistical way is impossible in modern college football.)

• 29:09: A change to punt formation rules was supposed to chaos special teams chaos this season. What actually happened?

• 39:48: Alex expands on FOOTSHOT, his blunt-object stat that elaborates on how often teams shoot themselves in the foot. Hello, Buffs!

Producer: Anthony Vito.

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Richard Johnson and Alex Kirshner guide you through the best college football week yet this year, led by Georgia’s big win in Tuscaloosa and a Red River upset and then bouncing through dozens more games. Including:

• 1:33: SEC, led by Georgia 20, Alabama 17 and Oklahoma 27, Texas 24

• 14:40: Pac-12, led by Boise State 38, Fresno State 31

• 16:23: Big Ten, led by Indiana 20, Nebraska 17

• 25:59: Big 12, led by BYU 24, Iowa State 10

• 29:14: ACC and Notre Dame, led by North Carolina 21, Pitt 17

• 33:43: American, led by Army 20, Tulane 17

• 35:48: Mountain West, led by UNLV 13, North Dakota State 7

• 36:58: MAC, led by Eastern Michigan 25, Akron 23

• 38:49: Sun Belt, led by James Madison 27, Georgia Southern 24

• 43:01: Conference USA, led by FIU 22, New Mexico State 3

Producer: Anthony Vito.

THANKS TO OUR SUBSCRIBERS AND PARTNERS

• Quo, a business phone service! 20% off your first six months using this link

• 10% off a set of Nokian Tyres with code SPLITZONEDUO at: https://www.tires-easy.com/brands/nokian-tires

• Shop for college sports apparel at Homefield

This is a subscriber episode, made up of questions asked by paid subscribers. Join us now and get our subscriber shows throughout coach carousel season and all year. Ahead of Week 6, we’ve got Alex doing a solo mailbag:

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Alex Kirshner answers subscriber questions ahead of Week 6! Why does Lincoln Riley always put mediocre defenses on the field? There are three pretty good theories from people who know him well. Is there a surprising reason to think Texas’ offense will turn things around? Does Michigan have a “culture” problem or something more simple? Can Kane Wommack tell us anything much about how the coaching carousel works today? Would the Protect College Sports Act be a bad thing for portal-heavy head coaches? Are stadium renovations over? And plenty more in this mailbag, which is edited by Anthony Vito.

CATCH UP ON THIS WEEK AT SPLIT ZONE DUO

• Listen to the Week 6 Tasting Menu, our preview of the weekend. Alex and Richard Johnson cover all of the week’s most interesting games and stop along the way to talk about a few big stories and ask some questions. Such as this one: Is South Carolina actually too broke to fire Shane Beamer?

• The Charlotte 49ers are the worst team in the country. They are also Split Zone Duo’s TEAM OF THE WEEK. Rodger Sherman talks with Richard about a program whose potential remains completely theoretical, and about how an ambitious move into FBS football can go horribly awry.

• We’ll see you Sunday for the Hurry-Up, landing by early afternoon.

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Week 6 preview! Richard and Alex talk about what’s interesting to them in the big college football weekend to come, while stopping to cover a handful of big stories along the way.

• 32:43: Is South Carolina actually too broke to fire Shane Beamer?

• 47:31: Can Oklahoma score an offensive touchdown in Red River?

• 1:07:27: When it comes to Cal coach Tosh Lupoi, Richard is … vindicated?

• 1:10:35: Are Ohio State fans in the “Lunatic Fringe” right to be worried?

• 1:18:47: Is UNLV a genuine trouble spot for North Dakota State?

• 1:21:05: Are we fully aligned on Alabama being all the way back, before the Tide host Georgia in a potential hurricane game?

• 1:27:50: Who wins: Penn State’s stoppable force or USC’s movable object?

• 1:30:54: Could Fresno State spoil Boise’s run to an unbeaten Pac-12 slate?

Producer: Anthony Vito

THANKS TO OUR SUBSCRIBERS AND PARTNERS

• Quo, a business phone service! 20% off your first six months using this link

• 10% off a set of Nokian Tyres with code SPLITZONEDUO

• Shop for college sports apparel at Homefield

Subscriber episode! Join us to hear the whole thing.

The Charlotte 49ers are quite possibly the worst team in FBS in 2026, so why should you care? Rodger Sherman explains it with Richard. Part of Charlotte's story is the actual cautionary tale of moving up from FCS to FBS and the old thing Richard never shuts up about: Winning is not a business model. But there are nearly 1:1 examples of Charlotte-style programs that have found success. We dive into what gives in the Queen City. In this episode:

• 0:00: Why Charlotte gets the nod this week despite being so bad

• 5:15: A rapid climb from startup program to the American

• 16:31: “Winning is not a business model”

• 30:33: What UTSA got right that the 49ers very much did not

Producer: Anthony Vito

TEAM OF THE WEEK is a subscriber series where Rodger Sherman and SZD hosts talk about a college football team doing something no one else is doing

We’ve already covered the following:

• Week 1: North Dakota State

• Week 2: UMass

• Week 3: Oklahoma State

• Week 4: Arkansas

• Week 5: Mississippi State

This series will continue all season.

GET THESE SHOWS, AND SUPPORT THE WORK, BY BECOMING A PAID SUBSCRIBER TODAY

We appreciate you. See you soon.

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Richard and Rodger Sherman take you on a 30(ish)-minute journey through Week 4 of the college football season. We begin with Missouri beating Florida to a pulp and waltz through the rest of the CFB schedule.

SEC

• Missouri 45, Florida 17

• Georgia 38, Vanderbilt 14

• Alabama 56, Mississippi State 23

• Tennessee 24, Auburn 14

• Kentucky 35, South Carolina 34

BIG TEN

• Ohio State 31, Iowa 14

• USC 25, Washington 21

• Purdue 24, Illinois 17

• Michigan 20, Minnesota 14

• Nebraska 48, Maryland 23

• Northwestern 34, Penn State 13

• Wisconsin 31, Michigan State 3

BIG 12

• BYU 17, TCU 10

• Texas Tech 29, Colorado 7

• Houston 27, UCF 17

• Arizona 34, Cincinnati 7

• Baylor 55, Arizona State 19

• Iowa State 45, West Virginia 42

ACC

• Notre Dame 37, North Carolina 26

• Miami 41, Clemson 13

• SMU 25, Boston College 16

• Florida State 38, Virginia 7

• NC State 31, Louisville 28

• Pitt 35, Virginia Tech 33

• Wake Forest 57, Stanford 3

AMERICAN

• Memphis 59, Charlotte 8

• UTSA 16, Rice 14

• Temple 17, USF 13

• North Texas 45, Tulsa 44

MOUNTAIN WEST

• Air Force 14, Navy 9

• San Jose State 20, Hawaii 16

• NDSU 28, Wyoming 0

• UNLV 39, Cal 31

MAC

• Toledo 39, Ball State 24

• WMU 20, Buffalo 17

• Ohio 13, Kent State 10

• Eastern Michigan 35, UMass 14

• Bowling Green 24, Miami (OH) 20

SUN BELT

• James Madison 45, Marshall 17

• Louisiana 23, Arkansas State 20

• Louisiana Tech 31, Army 29

CONFERENCE USA

• New Mexico State 34, Western Kentucky 13

PAC-12

• Oregon State 56, Colorado State 26

• San Diego State 31, Texas State 29

FBS INDEPENDENTS

• Syracuse 42, UConn 41

FCS

• Idaho 35, Montana State 34

• Harvard 20, Colgate 17

• Yale 41, Merrimack 28

Producer: Anthony Vito
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Welcome to the College Football Newsletter, where we can all agree that Jeremiah Smith is an all-time Ohio State wide receiver. Even Jaxon Smith-Njigba, the best receiver in the NFL, says we haven’t seen a guy like this come out of Columbus.

We’re four weeks into the season, which means we’re getting our sea legs under us. Fans at tailgates are getting closer to perfecting their routines for the season. Previously murky depth charts have now been sorted out. Coaches are understanding their rosters’ potential. And your humble podcasters are releasing episodes at astronomical levels.

In just six days, we here at Split Zone Duo LLC are releasing five podcasts for your listening pleasure. We’re talking about Relaunch Week levels of content this week. We feel great about it knowing we can produce at this level as we near the middle of the season.

We’re just happy to be getting in all these reps, Coach!

Here’s what we dropped into your podcast feed this week

• Kamario Taylor might have singlehandedly made Mississippi State this week’s Team of the Week. Listen to Rodger and Alex discuss the immediate future of the Bulldogs and why they could make the Playoff.

• Time to taste it. Alex and Richard break down Week 5 games, including an Iowa vs. Ohio State game which has potential after the Hawkeyes’ game against Michigan. There’s also a very good conversation about how Friday night college football games are a good time, even with all the TV rights fights happening.

• Can you believe a third of the season is already in the books? That’s enough time to notice some patterns that we didn’t think would be there at the first kickoff. Host emeritus Godfrey stops by to examine the things that have surprised us this season. Despite their early success, Texas makes the list for Richard, for good reason.

• Last but not least is Friday’s mailbag episode, where Richard and Alex answer questions about both the Oklahoma Sooners and the United States Senate. It’s out now.

And, of course, the Hurry-Up arrives Sunday, with Rodger joining Richard this week.

Some recommended reading and watching

• Alex joined The Paul Finebaum Show to discuss the Protect College Sports Act. Listen to the full segment here, or watch clips of it over on our social channels.

• Richard looked at the new quarterback-offensive coordinator pairings and graded them at CBS Sports.

• RJ also covered the Auburn trade secrets story over on his Instagram.

• Over at The Athletic, Pete Sampson breaks down the intensity level of all of Notre Dame’s rivals according to Wikipedia. Hello, Georgia Tech, at No. 17.

• Jared Curtis looked to be headed to Athens until the five-star quarterback ultimately made his way to Vanderbilt. Austin Nivison chronicles Curtis’ journey that resulted in him picking Nashville.

Thanks for reading, enjoy the games, and we’ll see you on Sunday.

Mailbag time! Alex and Richard answer subscriber questions on three broad topics, which sometimes meander into new areas:

• 0:53: Oklahoma has two losses heading into Red Vier. Who do we blame, and what would we do about it?

• 11:43: What keeps college football fresh for us, given that it’s now “work”?

• 17:19: How much has Col…

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