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Welcome back to the College Football Newsletter, which goes down memory lane this week before turning to the future.

Richard and I started covering college football together full-time in 2016. Over the years, I have maintained an informal list of the Week 1 games that the college football internet overreacted to the most. Here are the top handful of games on that list, though frankly I could go longer if I wanted:

1. 2016: Texas 50, No. 10 Notre Dame 47 (OT): This was the “Texas is back” game. It would take the better part of a decade from there for Texas to approach being back, but Joe Tessitore remains one of the best in the business. Notre Dame went 4-8, a fact that many Gen Z’ers are likely unaware of to this day. The Longhorns finished a far superior 5-7 and fired Charlie Strong.

2. 2014: No. 21 Texas A&M 52, No. 9 South Carolina 28. This is also known as the “Kenny Trill” game. His 511 yards broke a Johnny Manziel school record, and this was still near the now-kinda-sad “Johnny Football” cultural peak. (If you were a college student during these years, maybe even if not, you get it.)

3. 2023: Colorado 45, No. 17 TCU 42. The Frogs were coming off a national title game appearance, and Deion Sanders beat them in his Colorado debut. This was the start of Buffalomania, which ran rampant through our cities for a month.

4. 2017: Texas A&M 38, UCLA 10, but the first half only. The Bruins went on to win this game 45-44 in by far the greatest moment of Josh Rosen’s football career. But if you watched the first half, you were under the impression that Kevin Sumlin was about to lead the Aggies to Valhalla.

5. 2017: No. 1 Alabama 24, No. 3 Florida State 7. At the time, this was the biggest season opener ever. The game was a nothingburger, Deondre Francois got hurt, FSU went 7-6, and Odell Haggins coached out the season when Jimbo Fisher left for Texas A&M. Bama won it all, and this did not even wind up being their most memorable game played in Atlanta, despite the SEC Championship not including Alabama that year. But in the moment, this game felt huge.

Which 2026 Week 1 game has the best shot to join that list? I can imagine a few candidates.

There are no obvious ones this year, because the sport’s biggest non-conference matchups were mostly punted to Weeks 2 and beyond. However:

• Michigan 13, Western Michigan 12. There is a world where the Wolverines go 6-6 and WMU makes the playoff as a 12-1 MAC champion. We probably don’t live in that world, but I wouldn’t rule it out.

• No. 11 LSU 51, Clemson 10. I suspect LSU is really good, but this could still be a roller coaster that makes it look a bit silly that the Tigers were getting some votes for No. 1 in the AP Poll this week. It’s also possible Clemson is something less than totally cooked as a program. We’ll see.

• UCLA 45, Cal 24. Or maybe this is just us? The Bruins are still just in the “others receiving votes” part of the AP Poll. Richard and I are both pretty bought in on this program as a riser.

Any others? I’m curious what you think. Now, to the week that was around here:

Here are some college football podcasts for you

• The Week 2 Tasting Menu is out, with looks at 43 games. I’m back on the mic with Richard here.

• TEAM OF THE WEEK: UMass. Rodger Sherman and Richard have this one.

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We intend to have two paid subscriber-only episodes for you most weeks this season, and likely more than that on occasion. This became a tricky Week 1 because of some personal business on my end. Thanks to Rodger for filling in for me, and thanks to you, the audience, for rolling with us throughout all of it.

We also like to write!

• Richard revisited bunch of other wild endings, on the heels of whatever you’d call the WMU-Michigan thing.

• I also took my crack at putting all my thoughts on Safe Harbor in Ann Arbor into one spot.

• Because they have a fun game against Washington State this week, read Richard’s story on Kansas State’s home-cooked new staff.

• This story isn’t from one of us, and it’s not even in written format. But on the 25th anniversary of September 11, it’s a good time to watch one of the best features SportsCenter has ever done: “The Man in the Red Bandana.”

Thanks for being part of what we do. See you on Sunday.

Thanks so much to our paid subscribers for making our work possible for a seventh season of Split Zone Duo. If you’re not one yet, we’d love to have you.

Welcome to the College Football Newsletter, where we are so back.

We could talk about the news of the week, because it was messy. Georgia’s attorney general suggested that the SEC should kick out LSU if it decides to roster players who were already on an NFL contracts, which it now seems like LSU will be able to do, but we’ll see. We could talk about the concept (which Dabo Swinney denies) of Lane Kiffin feeding Clemson tampering information against Ole Miss. But the offseason is meant to give us something to talk about until kickoff, not to overshadow it. So let’s get to the fun part, which is already underway and really kicks into gear on Saturday. Everything else, especially Congress, can wait.

What matters now is how we’re going to watch our favorite schools and with whom we’re sharing that privilege. Power brokers be damned, every interaction around a game itself is what college football is really about. So if you’re watching at home and posting online about it, or watching in a stadium, just know you’re part of the engine that keeps this sport going.

Keep an eye out on our social channels on Saturday morning, because we’ll want to hear from you. We want to know how you’re watching the games, so send us a photo of your view of how you’re going to experience the first full college football Saturday.

With that said, did you watch UMass-Rutgers last night? Another game?

We have new podcasts for you this week

• Justis Mosqueda, Acme Packing Co. writer, joined the show to talk with Richard about how the new rule changes will affect teams this season. They also spend half of the episode breaking down formations and coverages. You’ll learn something new.

• Remember how Alex hinted in last week’s newsletter about new Split Zone Duo projects that involve guest hosts? Well, we’re proud to introduce a new series called Team of the Week. Entering the week, Rodger Sherman will predict which team we will be talking about that upcoming Saturday. His pick for the inaugural episode: the North Dakota State Bison, who Rodger and Alex both think can win 10 games this season with what is essentially an FCS roster.

• The Tasting Menu is here! Alex is out for a few days, and Rodger sticks around to hang with Richard to examine which games demand more of your attention. They agree that Louisville and Ole Miss could be the game of the weekend. That one takes place on a Sunday, by the way. You can watch the full episode on our YouTube channel.

• New Six Zone Duo! We’ve been so happy about the early response to our national women’s volleyball show hosted by Amie Just and Erin Sorensen.

If you’re still cramming in some season prep, we made a YouTube playlist with all of our conference previews. You can also find them in your podcast app.

Some recommended reading

• You still have about 24 hours to submit your picks for our annual FCS Upset draft. You can do so here.

• Over at Slate, Alex wrote about the SEC! That’s right: he explained how AI companies like Anthropic and SpaceX are making some shocking claims to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

• For CBS Sports, Richard wonders if this will be a narrative-defining season for Deion Sanders and Colorado.

• Sam Khan Jr. of The Athletic wrote about the next steps for the North Texas Mean Green, who are brand new after everyone left for Oklahoma State.

Thanks for reading. Enjoy your first full slate of games this Saturday, and we’ll see you for the first Hurry Up of the season on Sunday.

Welcome to the College Football Newsletter, where you’re stuck with me this week. Hector is planning for the season and supporting our new volleyball podcast.

Split Zone Duo is starting its seventh season. That’s not such a long time that I want to brag about it yet, but I was thinking about it this week for a reason. Richard, Godfrey, and I started SZD in the dead of the pandemic when we didn’t have much else to do, and then all of you gave us the gift of making it into a real business. But the circumstances of SZD’s founding were very “nothing to lose,” given the state of the world at the time. I didn’t feel like we were taking a big risk or betting on ourselves as much as trying something creative in a desperate time and seeing where it led. I feel lucky about it every day that it became a success, and we have to keep earning it every season.

This week represented the biggest risk we’ve taken, spinning up a second podcast that Richard and I will not be on. Richard has the whole backstory in this newsletter and episode. I believe in the plan, but you still don’t know how the world will receive something until you’ve given it to them. I had a few butterflies as we prepared to tell the world about it over the past few days.

Clearly, I shouldn’t have. Thanks to everyone who’s said nice things and provided early coverage of Six Zone Duo, our national volleyball show hosted by the talented Amie Just and Erin Sorensen. I’m very, very excited to watch them build this thing out. If you’re among the millions of people who are showing signs of becoming serious volleyball fans, or you are one already, it’s my pleasure to direct you to various ways to follow 6ZD:

• Subscribe to the YouTube channel

• Apple Podcasts (Listen and leave a review!)

• Spotify (Listen and leave a star rating)

• Any other podcasting app out there

• Follow on Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, Twitter, and Threads.

That’s one reason I was excited this week. The other is that we still have our day jobs, and our long football winter is over.

We are not dialing back our football podcast this year. Quite the opposite. We’re planning to be better than ever this season, and we’ll fill you in on our updated podcast schedule next week. But you can expect to see as many as five SZD podcasts in a week later this season, with four in the regular rotation to start us off. Two of those will be subscriber episodes that you can get for $10 a month, and two of them will be our stalwarts: the Wednesday Tasting Menu and the Sunday Hurry-Up, previewing and then recapping the week with a lot of breadth.

I will provide these hints on some of our other shows this year: Richard and I will be on these episodes, and so will some guest hosts that you’ve told us you want to hear more. One of these will get started next week.

Meanwhile, our season preview slate is now in your podcast feeds

• The latest is our preseason time capsule prediction special, featuring our cofounder and host emeritus Steven Godfrey. He’ll continue to join us this season on the same basis as last year.

• The Big Ten and SEC previews arrived this week, too. You can find them in your podcast feeds, or you can get all 10 conference previews in this YouTube playlist.

• Still time to join the FCS Upset Draft. Paid subscribers can win a prize at the end of the season, and everyone else can join for love of the game.

See you soon. We are almost there.

The season is almost here, and Alabama and Tennessee put some icing on the almost-baked cake to get me even more excited. The Vols and Crimson Tide announced that they will both wear their home jerseys in their 2026 and 2027 games. We need more of these color matchups, and not just in college football. In the NBA, seeing the Lakers gold jerseys next to the Celtics green just works.

But it has to be the right matchup. I asked Richard for his thoughts on the uniforms and which teams should follow suit:

So, Bama and Tennessee are doing this because they used to play the game in Birmingham, a not-really “neutral” site. Florida and Georgia did the color-on-color thing for a few years in the 2010s, and it was really cool. Then they just stopped and didn’t really explain why. I’ve been crashing out over the fact that they stopped doing it ever since, honestly. It was a great idea.

USC and UCLA also do the color-on-color thing, which makes sense because they’re literally playing in their hometowns when they get together. Texas and Oklahoma could do this too in Red River. It would be a cool look. There are so few durable college neutral-site games in this day and age that I think highlighting the couple we have left with a color-on-color matchup is just a neat aesthetic nod.

I don’t love the fact that the NBA has bastardized what a home jersey really is, especially in the Finals and the playoffs. Home jerseys should be home jerseys, and road jerseys should be road jerseys. Enough of the statement, icon, whatever the hell they call it, business. The NFL is getting this way too. I am a very old man yelling at clouds when it comes to traditional uniform aesthetics.

One of the dumbest things in college football is how everybody just says, “Well, the recruits like it,” as a way to hand-wave away traditional schools going to alternate uniforms. I’m sorry, but Ohio State should not ever wear black. Notre Dame’s Shamrock Series jerseys are universally awful. Nebraska’s new stock set this year is terrible too, and I could go on and on.

Richard even made a video about how Florida should wear its home jerseys against Georgia. You can check it out here.

Which other college football rivalries do you think deserve the home jersey treatment?

Here’s what Alex and Richard dropped into your podcast feeds this week:

• Are you ready for MACtion? We are, which is why we previewed the Mid-American Conference this week. Miami University has an influx of money this season, but that doesn’t necessarily make the RedHawks the favorites in the conference. Take a listen to learn why.

• Which FCS teams will knock down an FBS opponent this season? That’s what Richard, Alex, and host emeritus Godfrey are trying to figure out in this year’s FCS Upset Draft episode. If you’d like to play along this season, submit your own picks right here.

• Three episodes in one week means the season is inching closer and closer. Our Thursday episode is the Mountain West preview, where Alex and Richard talk about the newest conference members in UTEP, Hawaii, and NIU. Alex also specifically calls his shot on the next FCS-to-FBS transfer we might be talking about on Sunday mornings.

Some recommended reading and watching:

• For Slate, Alex wrote about how AI detectors might be making our writing worse.

• For more battles between Alex and computers, check out his Opta Analyst piece where he sets his predictions against their prediction model.

• Over at CBS Sports, Richard surveyed anonymous front office employees to give their predictions on the upcoming season.

• Richard is also asking the important questions this week: is John Mateer so swole now that it might mess up his throwing motion?

• Speaking of John Mateer, he is also one of the topics discussed in the College Football Happy Hour with friends of the show Lucy Rohden and Jessica Smetana. Subscribe to their YouTube channels for more.

• The Protect College Sports Act went from positive momentum to essentially DOA, at least until the midterms. Over at Extra Points, Matt Brown offered an alternative — at least in the interim.

• Turfman’s College Foot-ball Almanac is available for purchase, and it includes articles from a lot of your favorite people in college football. It is a different kind of college football preview magazine, and the designer worked very hard on it. (It was me.)

Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk to you next week, possibly with a surprise.

Like this newsletter? Get it every Friday-ish for free.

Welcome to the College Football Newsletter, where incoming Purdue athletic director Tommy McClelland said something that is so perplexing, I had to make sure the summer heat wasn’t getting to me. Watch here, or here’s an embed:

One more time, that’s: “We’re here to win championships. If you don’t want to win championships, go to Indiana.”

Let’s focus on the good part first. Purdue is here to win championships. That’s the right mindset to have for any program. Elsewhere in the Big Ten, head coach Pat Fitzgerald said he expects Michigan State to win every game. Great! The Purdue men’s basketball team won the Big Ten championship this year. Great job having high expectations and a recent example of what that can look like.

But the latter half of that sentence: Who’s gonna tell him?

Strictly from a rivalry perspective, I understand why an athletic director is incentivized to say these kinds of things. Throw a little jab at your opponent to show the alumni base that you’re serious about what it truly means to be a Boilermaker. Get some excitement brewing as you enter this role. You’ve got to say something. Maybe be a little more specific or pick a different jab, though, given recent events.

Purdue faces the Hoosiers in the last week of the regular season. Now I can’t wait for the petty postgame social posts that come from this.

Here’s what Alex and Richard dropped into your podcast feeds this week:

• We’re previewing the American with Godfrey. Our host emeritus stops by to hype up the ECU Pirates and to figure out the state of this conference since most major players in 2025 were successful enough to move on in 2026.

• Mailbag time! Alex and Richard discuss superleagues but without mentioning the Power Two. There’s also a great discussion in here about which schools you get to root for if you got a postgraduate degree.

• Who’s winning Conference USA? Unsurprisingly because of their money, it’s probably Liberty. But Richard and Alex discuss the low-key game of the year in this conference, and that does not include the Flames.

Some recommended reading and watching:

• Do you follow Alex on Instagram? He’s been posting videos on the most embarrassing losses in college football history and some other fun gems. Follow him for more.

• ESPN released a list of the greatest college football supervillains. Since we’ve been talking about self-awareness here in this newsletter, number seven here is great.

• The Athletic has a list of sleeper teams who could make some noise in the Playoff race.

• Holly and Spencer announced they’re working on a college football preview magazine called Turfman’s College Foot-ball Preview Almanac. A lot of your favorites are involved, including me. More soon.

Thanks for reading and we’ll talk to you next week.

This is the situation: On a normal offensive play, five guys have to wear numbers between 50 and 79. These guys are called “offensive linemen,” and they stand next to each other. They are not eligible to go downfield to catch passes. This works fine for everyone. You don’t want most linemen catching passes.

It gets weird on kicks and punts, though. Special teams coaches like to have fast guys covering punts. Take Ohio State on this play in last year’s Playoff:

The Buckeyes could do that because of the “numbering exception,” which lets kicking and punting teams put non-linemen (i.e. guys not wearing numbers 50-79) in the central line positions. Like always, teams have to have seven men on the line, and of those guys, only the two on the ends of the line can run out to catch a pass in the event of a fake. But if you want to put fast coverage guys on the line, you can do it, and you don’t need to go through the hassle of getting a smaller No. 52 jersey for some running back or safety.

Football coaches are creative geniuses, and sometimes also big assholes. So in the 2000s, some high school coaches figured out that if they lined up in scrimmage kick formations (i.e. with “kickers,” “punters,” or “holders” way off the line) on every play, they could confuse the defense about who was eligible. Nobody would wear 50 through 79, and players could line up a few steps off the line, and the defense would not know for sure who was eligible.

The high priests of high school ball outlawed the “A-11 offense” in 2009. But little remnants of it have lived on, as punting teams look for ways to keep the defense off balance. Ohio State was one of those teams, as the above formation became this:

Oh no! What are they doing!?

Well, you can’t do that anymore. This year, the rule says this, with my bolding:

In a scrimmage kick formation at the snap (Rule 2-16-10) Team A may have fewer than five linemen numbered 50-79, subject to the following conditions:

• The snapper and two adjacent linemen on either side of the snapper, not numbered 50-79 who are lined up in (or touching) the tackle box are ineligible receivers by position and become exceptions to the numbering rule when the snapper takes his position.

• Any and all such numbering-exception players must be clearly on the line of scrimmage, and all backs must be clearly in the backfield. Otherwise, Team A commits a foul for illegal formation.

The football rules committee said the exception was creating confusion. Look at Miami’s players responding there, and you can see that they’re right.

Now, once the snapper takes his position over the ball, those four Ohio State players closest to the snapper are locked into their alignment, unless they’re wearing numbers 50 through 79. I’ve learned that special teams coaches in the South have asked the SEC’s officiating supervisor if they could circumvent this rule by having the snapper take his position after everyone else, and the league’s officiating supervisor told them that they could not. Sorry, coaches.

Our Southern pals are not alone. Coaches all over are angry about this, as a big handful explained to USA Today in April. Among other things, coaches predict:

1. Fewer fakes, because defenses won’t be as liable to get confused over who on the offense is allowed to go downfield. (The ref I asked doesn’t accept that this will be true, but concedes it’ll remove some creativity lanes.)

2. More blocked kicks and injuries to punters, because teams that want to cover punts with better athletes will now have to leave them in the middle of their formations no matter what and hope they can block.

There’s also, of course, the possibility of a lot of early-season illegal formation flags while coaches and players get comfortable with the new rules. Coaches might also object so furiously that the NCAA shelves the change, but it’s held firm on it all summer despite the uproar. (Kirk Ferentz, special teams connoisseur, believes the rule will lead to a “clown show.”)

Personally? I think fewer fakes sounds bad, but the idea of more blocked kicks is a thread worth pulling on. Punting teams could respond to that by simply putting bigger bodies (the ones wearing numbers 50 to 79) next to the snapper, but then those guys would have to cover down the field. That sounds fun! It also sounds like a fair conflict to throw coaches into: You can either have better coverage or more flexibility to move people around for fakes. Pick one!

If you liked this, subscribe free to get more CFB emails from us on Fridays. You don’t even have to be a paid subscriber to get them:

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That’s a little column from Alex. Now here’s what to catch up on from a busy week at SZD.

Hector tagging in!

• It’s time to preview the Big 12. Because we go in order of the standings, we start with the current main character of the conference, Texas Tech, and how the Red Raiders are starting to see the downsides to having one guy be at the forefront of everything. Then we talk about every other team, in detail.

• Jessica Smetana joins to talk about Notre Dame for the independents and Pac-12 combined preview. She explains how CJ Carr could succeed after previously relying on a backfield that had two future first round NFL Draft picks. She also points out that Brian Kelly, who was seen visiting camp, might never get an in-stadium welcome unless most of the people in charge either leave or retire. Richard is surprised at this news.

• We have a special Friday episode for subscribers. Alex is joined by host emeritus Godfrey to talk about what conference commissioners actually do. This is especially helpful now that we’re in the middle of media days.

Some recommended reading

• For CBS Sports, Richard talked to current Stanford players about their attempt to unionize. The piece also includes the recent history of collegiate athletes attempting unionization.

• In the last Sports Business Hour, Matt Brown talked about the tension between the business of jersey patches and football rivalries. He specifically mentioned that Ohio State would never allow a sponsor to put a splash of blue on its scarlet unis even if the company’s logo was blue. Well, he was right.

• Elise Woodward is set to be the first female radio play-by-play announcer in FBS. She’ll be calling games for the Washington Huskies this upcoming season.

Thanks for watching our latest YouTube video

We dropped a video on how October 1, 2016 was one of the wildest days in college football. Based on all the comments on the video and throughout social, you all loved it. Is there another day in college football that is at that level? Let us know. Also, if you haven’t watched it yet, you can check it out right here.

Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk to you next week

Welcome to the College Football Newsletter, and to the home stretch of Split Zone Duo’s Relaunch Week

Relaunch Week is when we officially kick off the season preview episodes, as well as drop in a few surprises throughout the week. We’re so close to the season that we can almost take a whiff of that nice autumn breeze. And we’d like you to come along for the ride with us when the season gets here. In the meantime, we often get questions from listeners and subscribers about how they can support the podcast beyond the most obvious things. We’re honored that people want to help us succeed.

Here’s a long list of ways you can help:

Purchase a premium subscription:

• Just through Sunday, we’re offering 30% off an annual subscription, so now is an excellent time to sign up. You get about twice as many episodes in your feed, and we consider these episodes to be some of our best stuff. If you like the coach carousel or CFB history, or just want a bit more insight during the season, this is for you.

• Gift a subscription to a friend. The sale still applies to gift subs.

Follow these social media accounts and then interact with our carousels and videos on them:

• We’re on Instagram, Bluesky, TikTok, Twitter, Threads, and Facebook.

• Follow Alex, Richard, and Hector (me) on their own accounts. This helps the podcast reach new people, which is crucial to keeping us chugging.

• We now have two YouTube channels: a podcast channel and a channel for special projects. You should subscribe to both. Optionally, you can watch all of our videos start to finish five times and then email them to all of your contacts.

• Leave comments on our videos and shorts when you see them. We love feedback.

• Basically, when you see Split Zone Duo stuff, engage with it in your preferred way.

Tell someone about our podcast:

• Leave a review or star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or anywhere it looks like you can leave a review. If you’re a paid subscriber, leave a comment on your preferred platform’s main SZD feed, as your private feed on Apple Podcasts doesn’t have a review option.

• Tell a friend about us. Drop a referral link in the group chat or tell your buddy in person. College football is always better with friends. You can also get subscription dollars back if people sign up!

Listen to the podcast:

• Grab your headphones or turn up the speakers, and enjoy the episodes. People often ask if it’s best to listen on any particular platform. The answer: nope, just listen somewhere.

Support our sponsors and be loud about it:

Homefield for great college sports apparel, Nokian Tyres for great tires, and more partners as you hear about them on our show.

Send us comments or social media posts about your favorite stuff you’ve gotten from these fine companies! They’ve been amazing partners, and your enthusiastic support also helps us connect with other potential sponsors.

We also have a “name your price” option for people who want to send more subscription dollars than $10 a month. At this time, we don’t offer any special perks at this level, but we offer it because some subscribers feel strongly enough about the show that they want to support it at a higher level. As always, there are no expectations and a lot of appreciation there.

In the meantime, let’s talk about the reigning ACC champs, Duke.

There’s still some juice to squeeze in the proverbial orange that is the ACC’s wonky tiebreaker scenario that kept Miami out of the conference championship and put Virginia and Duke in. And it’s not just limited to intraconference joking, either. At SEC Media Days, new Florida head coach Jon Sumrall used them as an example to prove that the state of college football’s elite is centered on just the Power Two. He told Brett McMurphy, “I’m not knocking any league. And then there’s a couple behind that (the Big 12 and ACC) and the American’s right there. Like last year’s ACC champion was who? Duke. We beat ‘em in Tulane.”

First off, Sumrall is absolutely knocking the ACC here. But more importantly, he’s identifying that last year’s situation was so rare that it presents an opportunity to widen the gap between his conference and the ACC. A five-loss Duke representing the conference as a champion probably won’t happen again, so now is the time to point that out. In a few weeks, everyone’s record will be 0-0 and the new ACC tiebreakers will be in place. But Sumrall’s comparison changes drastically if Miami, an ACC team who won their Playoff games to advance to the national championship, were in the conference championship game instead. Like most things in the offseason, every move is about brand positioning, in the hopes that it might get you a bit better committee consideration later on. That’s the game, until the actual games on the field begin.

Here’s what Alex and Richard dropped into your podcast feeds in Relaunch Week:

• Season previews are here! First up is the ACC. Miami is the team to beat in the conference, but someone else has to join them in the championship game. Could it be the reigning champs, Duke? Probably not.

• Rodger Sherman joins in for an episode of Why You’re Always Bad on the Northwestern Wildcats. He spends a chunk of the show trying to convince everyone that Northwestern has a winning record since 2008, which historical records do seem to support. Still, Alex and Richard don’t buy it. This is a great episode for remembering some guys and really understanding a program.

• Alex is ready to defend his 2025 title in the latest episode of the Coach Departure Draft. Which coach is close to being pre-fired entering the season if things don’t improve, and whose buyout is too big for the school to move on in the immediate future (Pat Narduzzi.) Which one will resign and then join another school, thereby giving Alex something to gloat about for the next season? It won’t be Kyle Whittingham; we can be sure of that. Both Alex and Richard have different rankings. Where do you agree? Where don’t you?

• It’s the 25th anniversary of the 2001 season. Alex and Richard take a look back at one of the most unusual seasons this sport has ever had.

• We’re taking a subscriber episode out of paywall and putting it on the free feed. This one is on the 2001 coaching carousel. Look for it today.

The craziest 24 hours in one college football Saturday:

We have a new video for you over on our YouTube channel. It’s about October 1st, 2016. In the span of 24 hours, we got so many game winners and iconic college football moments. Mack Brown had to abandon doing commentary during that Friday’s BYU-Toledo game because it ran so long. North Carolina started their game with a seemingly insurmountable lead against Florida State. An interim coach named Ed Orgeron won his first game at LSU. Jauan Jennings made a catch for the Tennessee Volunteers. Watch as Richard walks you through every moment. I honestly forgot how many things happened in such a short amount of time.

Have an idea for another video? Drop it in the comments. Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk to you next week.

Welcome to the College Football Newsletter, where we are looking back before going forward. In that spirit, I have a question for you on this Friday:

If you could pick a trio of classic games from the century so far to watch as a triple feature, which ones would they be? You may be reading this in your inbox, but we’d love your comments on the web version of this story.

The games don’t have to be universally beloved. (This might be more fun if they’re not, actually.) You just need to distinctly remember being on the edge of your seat while watching them play out. There are no wrong answers, and your selections might reveal a little about the types of games you prefer.

Here are my quick picks:

• Georgia vs. Georgia Tech, 2024: I think I might have a soft spot for overtime games that last for so long that you convince yourself you’ve become suspended in time. This was the eight-overtime game where both coaches were so spent that they shared an embrace afterward.

• Colorado vs. Colorado State, 2023: This was the Colorado hype at its peak. College GameDay was in town and even The Rock was there for some reason. You had that colliding with Colorado State’s Jay Norvell as the heel. And from the Shilo Sanders 80-yard interception to start the game to Shedeur and Jimmy Horn leading a wild late comeback, this game was sick. This was also one of the last vestiges of Pac-12 After Dark, before CU and many others split for the Big 12. I distinctly remember everyone staying up and being online for this one.

• USC vs. Texas, 2005, otherwise known as the night the sport got me: This was my first proper introduction to college football. In Los Angeles, where I grew up, Trojan hype reached almost everyone at that point. I remember the hubris from one of my teachers during a school day, when they talked about how USC was going to make light work of the Longhorns. I tuned in and experienced an incredible moment and a ton of heartbreak courtesy of Vince Young.

We’re picking only three games here, but Richard and Alex drafted 26 of their favorite games from this century, with a slight twist in one of this week’s episodes. Subscribers can find that right now in their feeds.

Here’s what Alex and Richard dropped into your podcast feeds this week:

● For subscribers, Richard and Alex held the aforementioned Best Games of the Century draft. While we are able to pick games without any limitation, they had two big caveats: if one person picked a game from a season, then that whole season’s slate of games was off the board. Plus, nobody could use two games involving the same team. Our two hosts got very strategic in picking their favorite games while blocking the other from creating their preferred slate. It gets intense. After you listen to the episode, head to our Instagram to vote for the person with the best collection of games.

● Matt Brown joined the show for the Sports Business Hour. There’s so much to talk about, from the Big 12’s jersey sponsorship with Monster Energy, to the blowback from EA Sports adding microtransactions to certain game modes, to the potential shakeup coming up at the University of Michigan. You can watch the video version over on our YouTube channel.

Some recommended reading

● Over at Slate, Alex took a look back at Graham Platner’s campaign, its demise, and the online platforms that made this campaign feel like such an internet war. Alex also reviewed the new Will Ferrell golf show on Netflix. Yikes.

● For every Michigan scandal that Alex and Richard have talked about on the podcast, athletic director Warde Manuel’s job security typically has come up. Just this week, CBS Sports reported that Manuel’s job is in jeopardy. Richard provided an update to that earlier in the week, explaining that while Manuel’s future could be up in the air, Michigan brass won’t make the final decision just yet.

● Matt examined the Big 12 Monster Energy patch deal in detail over at Extra Points.

● For The Athletic, Chris Vannini talked to Rhett Lashlee about SMU and why he stuck around with the Mustangs despite some enticing job openings in the SEC.

Relaunch Week is coming up

Next week is our SZD Relaunch Week, when we officially kick off the upcoming season with conference previews and a lot more. See you soon, ACC.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading and we’ll talk to you next week.

Welcome to the College Football Newsletter, where World Cup fever has hit the Split Zone Duo offices.

We’re talking about the World Cup this week, not just here but also in this week’s free episode. Indulge me while I try to work out this college football comparison. Mexico’s national team always feels like it’s good enough to make a splash early in the tournament, but ultimately fails to measure up against the elite teams. They’re in the conversation for just enough time to be molded into the zeitgeist, not unlike a decent team in the SEC. In World Cups since 2010, the Mexican men’s team has finished 14th, 10th, 12th, and 22nd. That doesn’t stop fans of El Tri from declaring that this is the year they finally get it together. I will say, Mexico is looking great so far in 2026 with a clean sheet in the group stage, mixed in with some strokes of defensive luck that add even more hope.

So my theory is this: Mexico is the Tennessee Vols of the national soccer stage. Both fanbases may feel uneasy about the comparison, which makes me think I’ve hit the sweet spot. Since 2010, the Vols have had above-average seasons in the 9-4 range. They even have a similar rough patch amid those seasons, their own little Jeremy Pruitt/Butch Jones era. And like El Tri, they’ve made their way into the big tournament only to lose as soon as they get there.

You might be thinking to yourself: “Tennessee has Smokey, a live mascot draped in Vols colors. Mexico doesn’t have anything like that.” You would have been correct a few weeks ago. But since then, fans of El Tri have adopted Merlin, a duck in a green soccer jersey that walks the streets of Mexico City. I was at a Mexico watch party where fans celebrated by waving a plush Merlin among a sea of tossed beer and waving flags. The hype is real.

Will the results be as real when Mexico hits the knockout stage? Until one of these two teams exceeds expectations and proves us wrong, the comparison will still stand. (Please prove me wrong, El Tri.) Speaking of other comparisons between soccer and college football …

Here’s what Alex and Richard dropped into your podcast feeds this week

• World Cup! Mike Goodman from The Double Pivot hops on to talk about FIFA’s reputation not eclipsing the joy soccer fans get from this tournament, US Soccer, and the improbable story of Cabo Verde.

• We talk about the offseason through the lens of hope because no one has hit the field yet. But there are plenty of teams who feel doomed from the start. Godfrey joined Alex and Richard for a subscriber episode to talk about which coaches can escape that rut and which ones should already be looking ahead.

Some recommended reading

• Brandon Marcello at CBS Sports wrote about the inner workings of James Franklin’s offseason at Virginia Tech, specifically focusing on how Brent Pry stuck around after being fired as head coach. It’s a peculiar situation but one that can work out.

• Our pals at The Athletic have taken a time machine back to the 1990s and ranked the best coaches of the era. It’s part of a bigger ‘90s package they’ve got going over there. Check it out for a nice nostalgia rush.

• Matt Brown over at Extra Points wrote about .. Jordon Hudson? She’s been filing FOIA requests to UNC. Matt has some experience with records requests! So he gives some advice on how to refine searches. These tips are helpful for everyone.

We’ll see you soon.

Welcome to the College Football Newsletter, where we don’t have to talk about the Texas Tech Brendan Sorsby saga ever again (after this newsletter).

The now former Red Raiders quarterback, who by now you should know gambled against his team while at Indiana (note: by way of a reported “under” bet on his team’s passing yards), transferred to Cincinnati where he gambled some more, and then was temporarily allowed to play in the 2026 season in Lubbock, is forgoing his court ordered college eligibility and opting for the NFL instead. That follows a scandal where Texas Tech, Cody Campbell, and Texas attorney general Ken Paxton got very loud and mad about the situation with little to show for it. There was even a 21-minute long video from Texas Tech brass explaining their decision to back up Sorsby’s return.

If you’re looking for a silver lining as a Red Raider fan, the attention from being the main character of the offseason does have some merits. It’s an unfortunate necessary evil of both this situation and the influx of money coming into the program. People will keep talking about this situation for a long time, pushing the school into the larger college football zeitgeist. Complain all you want about Texas Tech (I have) but there’s also a novelty about them this offseason simply because we are not talking about the Georgias, Ohio States, or Alabamas.

Richard and Alex like to joke that this is an NFL podcast, but we legitimately have a reason to consider the NFL as the tail end of this long story. So, which team will pick Brendan Sorsby in the NFL supplemental draft? Here’s what Richard had to say in this week’s episode:

“Doubtful first round, but probably second round, third round. I joked that maybe a team that isn’t necessarily quarterback needy immediately but would like to have another one could take him. Maybe the Eagles, for instance. Doesn’t seem like the Browns will, at least according to Mary Kay Cabot.”

Sorsby going to a team with an established starter does make some sense. The Eagles in particular have the reputation for getting value in drafts that benefits their short and long term roster plan.

The Cleveland Browns selecting Sorsby would make this already toxic and memeable story even moreso, and I don’t know if I’m specifically talking about the Texas Tech or Browns side of this. The Browns already have Deshaun Watson, Shedeur Sanders, and Dillon Gabriel on their depth chart and have been cagey about announcing a starter ahead of this season. This destination seems unlikely.

Pittsburgh is currently home to the Aaron Rodgers retirement tour, but the Steelers do have some relatively younger quarterbacks in Drew Allar and Will Howard. Could they pick up Sorsby and see which of the three pans out while Rodgers wraps up his career? It could be worth a shot (but don’t tell Alex I said that).

The Rams would also probably have been a good option for this had they not already spent their most recent first rounder on Ty Simpson. Could you imagine Los Angeles using that pick on a Makai Lemon instead and then having Sorsby fall into their lap? Everyone would be so mad. But that’s okay, I don’t think Los Angeles needs any more help with roster construction with the way their offseason has gone.

More realistically: it’ll probably be the Jets who select Sorsby.

Here’s what Alex and Richard dropped into your podcast feeds this week

• Richard recorded a solo subscriber episode on what should be the final show on the Brendan Sorsby saga. He talked about how Texas Tech underestimated how much this would dominate the college sports news cycle and how Cody Campbell is forced to take the loss after being the loudest proponent for Sorsby playing.

• Last week, we asked you what your biggest worries are for your college football team. We compiled them and aired out every grievance we could for the free episode this week. Listen to Richard explain the bleakness of the Boston College situation under Bill O’Brien and Alex agree with everyone who submitted questions about the Pitt and Maryland situations.The episode isn’t all pessimism, though. They did manage to quell some overblown worries from other fanbases. Watch the video version here.

Some recommended reading

• For CBS Sports, Richard chronicled the Brendan Sorsby saga through the eyes of the biggest winner of the situation: Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark.

• Matt Brown went to the FOIA machine to find out which program generated the most revenue. No surprise: football and basketball dominate, but check out which departments punch above their weight.

• If you haven’t already subscribed to Rodger Sherman’s Sports! Newsletter, what are you waiting for? The most recent entry is about Cape Verde winning the hearts of soccer fans with its 0-0 win over Spain.

• If you’re still looking for someone to root for in the World Cup, Holly Anderson and Spencer Hall have you covered over at Channel 6.

• Did you watch Donovan McNabb play football either at Syracuse or in the NFL? Well, his son has just committed to UNLV. Please remember to take your vitamins after you finish reading this newsletter.

Thanks for reading and we’ll talk to you next week.

Welcome to the College Football Newsletter, where Congress has finally produced something that everyone in college sports can agree is interesting. No, it’s not a comprehensive bipartisan law or anything like that, though we might be getting closer to that with the introduction of the Protect College Sports Act, the subject of this week’s Sports Business Hour with Extra Points’ Matt Brown.

What I’m actually referring to is NIL data from the tail end of the last college football dynasty. Under oath on Wednesday in front of the Senate Commerce Committee, Nick Saban revealed Alabama’s NIL budgets going back to 2021, including the changeover period from Saban to Kalen DeBoer.

Let me give you the history. My first year we had a collective at Alabama: $2.7 million. Next year, 7 million. Next year, $10 million. I retired. Next year $17 million. Next year, $24 million. Now you have schools that have close to $40 million rosters.

This mostly matches the rumors around Alabama’s rough level of spending the past few years. But in a space with little transparency, it was striking to get someone as public as Saban giving specific, year-by-year numbers. And doing it under oath!

Saban’s goal was to demonstrate how high the bill has become to run a successful college program, and to explain what he sees as the resulting threat to other sports. And that argument might work for the committee members sitting at the hearing. But you, the reader, know that money is just a piece of what makes a good team on the field.

For example, we can now compare 2025 Alabama to another school with a similar budget. Luckily for us, we don’t have to look far to find the Indiana Hoosiers, which Alex and Richard have reported had a budget pretty close to that same $24 million last year. These teams faced each other in the Rose Bowl. How did that turn out for the Crimson Tide? 38-3.

The difference was coaching and player development, but you probably won’t hear anything about payments in those departments being too high — not even if a head coach is the highest paid public employee in the entire state. I wonder why that is.

Because it’s the “wild west,” at least according to the people at those congressional hearings, the amount of money for players will go up. Will Alabama’s player development follow? We have to wait until the players hit the field in a few months. Until then:

Here’s what Alex and Richard dropped into your podcast feeds this week

• For subscribers, the crew has a vibe check for Year 2 coaches. Who is already on the hot seat and why is it Bill Belichick?

• A new Sports Business Hour with Matt Brown went live on Thursday. They talk about the new bill that aims to regulate college player payments, the troubles with staging international games, Utah’s private equity deal, and of course, the latest Brendan Sorsby news.

Some recommended reading

• On the topic of Alabama player development, Richard wrote about Ryan Coleman-Williams and his expectations in his third year as Crimson Tide receiver.

• Over at Slate, Alex interviewed LA voters who are supporting reality star Spencer Pratt for mayor.

• For The Athletic, Michael Silver talked to Maurice Jones-Drew about the NAACP’s boycott and how we shouldn’t underestimate player collective action.

• Some college hoops venue news: rather than playing at Madison Square Garden, Michigan and Duke will now play … at the Miami Marlins’ stadium?

Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk to you next week.

Welcome to the College Football Newsletter, where there are no rules, according to Mike Elko.

Earlier this week, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey announced that the conference would stop scheduling FCS and Group of 6 opponents, starting in 2027. He referred to the league’s “cupcake weekend,” whereas you and I have long called it “SoCon Saturday.” The move is partly due to the SEC expanding its schedule to nine conference games.

But because this is the SEC and it just means more, you also have to remember that this move means less money for the Mercers and Citadels of the world. Those schools gladly accepted an inevitable 70-7 score in exchange for the money that could ultimately help them amongst their own contemporaries. (Just one example: FCS Eastern Illinois lost 56-0 at Bama last year. EIU got $560,000, out of a total revenue pot that usually settles between $14 and $18 million. Not a small deal!) That delta between the larger institutions and everyone else has been the story of the offseason. It keeps growing, bit by bit.

Even worse, we’re going to miss those moments where the underdog still managed to get one over the SEC team. We wouldn’t have the objectively funny trope of Diego Pavia beating Hugh Freeze’s teams if it wasn’t for that initial 31-10 New Mexico State-Auburn game.

Pavia and Jerry Kill may not have gone to Vanderbilt had it not been for that showing, which also means then No. 1 Alabama may not have lost to the Commodores in 2024. Those Vandy goalposts could still be in the end zone instead of going through Broadway and eventually a river. Kalen DeBoer’s reputation amongst Bama fans would have been overwhelmingly positive still. I am just highlighting one domino effect here, but there are countless others out there.

So while we have one more season of cupcakes, let’s treat ourselves and remember a game from the penultimate week of the season. What was your favorite? It could be an upset, or it could just be a random blowout that you remember watching back in college. I asked Richard for his:

SEC-SoCon Challenge Saturday has a very interesting and almost soft spot in my heart. Yes, the games were bad. But I do remember growing up as a kid, before the SEC Network was a thing, that games used to be on pay-per-view. And those were the types of games that would be on that.

I remember the SoCon Saturday the year the Gators won the national championship in 2006. I had a bunch of friends over for a pizza party, and we bought the game. I begged my mom to buy the game. I think I actually may have paid for it with my own money.

I remember that being a big deal. I later found out that late in the game, a walk-on running back scored a touchdown. That walk-on running back ended up being one of my high school football coaches and a teacher at my high school.

But I also remember this week going poorly for the Gators when they lost to Georgia Southern. Georgia Southern threw three passes that game. I had a former high school teammate who was on that Georgia Southern team, and I remember how inexplicable the whole day felt. The game was not going well, and it was capped by the infamous highlight of the two Florida players blocking each other.

And the whole time you’re like, there’s no way they’re actually gonna lose this game, right? They’re not playing well, but in the end they’ll pull it out. Well, they didn’t. Rest in peace, SoCon Saturday.

Here’s what Alex and Richard dropped into your podcast feeds this week:

• The Ringer’s Joel Anderson joins Richard to talk about the NAACP’s Out of Bounds campaign, which encourages Black football players to reconsider playing for SEC schools (among a few others) in favor of HBCUs as Southern states consider dismantling Black representation. Is that a lot to ask for these young adults? They discuss collective action, generational divides, and the need for more political education. This is one of my favorite recent episodes. Take a listen or watch over on our YouTube page.

• Godfrey is back to reminisce about the summer of 2016. Everyone was playing Pokémon Go and the Big 12 was flirting with expansion. It eventually happened in some respect, but that year was marked by a lot of public flirtation with the BYUs and UCFs of the college football world.

Some recommended reading:

• Over at Slate, Alex chronicled some use cases for AI tools that are not using it to write or brainstorm for him.

• Richard takes us inside Florida State’s offseason and examines whether Mike Norvell can turn the Noles’ luck around this time.

• Remember how we quickly eulogized the SCORE Act in last week’s newsletter? Well, a couple of senators have now introduced the Protect College Sports Act. Matt Brown shared his thoughts on it over at Extra Points, and it seems like this one should be taken seriously, at least more than other legislative efforts.

• David Covucci at FOIABall wrote about Marc Andreessen’s father-in-law. How is this related to college sports? He’s a big donor at Stanford, for one thing.

Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk to you next week.

Welcome to the College Football Podcast, where we’re going to create the most tanned, athleisure-wearing staff ever concocted.

If one thing has defined this offseason, it’s been eligibility lawsuits. As we all know, billable hours are undefeated. We’ve seen Trinidad Chambliss defeat the NCAA for a sixth year of eligibility to play at Ole Miss. More recently, Brendan Sorsby has asked a judge for his own injunction to play this season.

Sorsby claims that the NCAA banning him for betting on his own team is both illegal and hypocritical, because the NCAA makes money from sports gambling. (This is not directly true, and the NCAA doesn’t sell sportsbook sponsorships. It does help the NCAA somewhat if gambling boosts viewership or commercial rate for March Madness.) Sorsby sued in federal district court in Lubbock, so it wasn’t surprising that the judge who got the case was a Texas Tech alum.

Some people got excited about this. Surely, the Red Raider alum on the bench would put the QB back on the field. But then the judge filed to recuse himself.

It’s not just in college football, either. College basketball had its own big case this year with Charles Bediako, who briefly rejoined Alabama’s roster after playing in the G League. Bediako was ultimately ruled ineligible, but before that, a judge granted him a temporary restraining order that allowed him to return to the court. That judge turned out to be a six-figure Alabama athletics donor, and he recused himself before the preliminary injunction ruling.

And there’s the game within the game in all that. A player suing for eligibility is bound to get a judge from the area, and major sports programs tend to come from big universities with a lot of law school alums. And if they’re lucky, that connection to the university could be fairly significant. But does a judge who is an alum make it likelier that the ruling will fall in the favor of the player, and therefore the school? It doesn’t seem clear. Here’s Alex:

I think this is my favorite bit of cliched lore on the college football internet right now. Maybe it’s not quite to the level of fans confidently making coaching search predictions based on flight trackers that often have nothing to do with the ongoing search, but it’s still really good.

You think, as a college sports fan, that your fellow fan who is also a judge is going to compromise his reputation to help your favorite coach or quarterback get back on the field. I’m not saying this never works, and obviously the last thing I’d ever do is impugn the Ole Miss judge who granted Trinidad Chambliss his final year of eligibility. I’m just saying that the batting average here is not high enough to get anyone to the all-star game.

Other recent examples of “the alma maters of the lawyers and judges involved in the case may not save you”: a Michigan alum judge (who was also a lecturer at the school) declining to step in and block the Big Ten’s midseason suspension of Jim Harbaugh, and an NCAA lawyer and Vols alum beating Joey Aguilar in court. Sometimes, unfortunately, lawyers just do their jobs.

Here’s what Alex and Richard dropped into your podcast feeds this week:

• Should we be taking UCLA seriously? It’s a real question, at least for a few months. The Athletic’s Ira Gorawara joined Alex to talk about the good vibes from the first offseason under Bob Chesney. They talk about the alumni base and about what the Bruins’ expectations will be once they hit the field in a few months.

• The free episode dropped on Thursday, and it’s a Memorial Day mailbag. Godfrey hangs out for this one to talk about which head coach is on the hot seat. The trio also has a great conversation about cookout tips, just in case you need a little motivation ahead of the long weekend. You can watch the video version of this over on YouTube.

Some recommended reading:

• We’ve talked about the impending 24-team playoff and what it means for future seasons, but Matt Brown over at Extra Points chronicled what past seasons would have looked like under the format.

• Remember the SCORE Act? Well, you can forget about it (for now) because the House of Representatives pulled it from the voting schedule.

• We might get twice as much football in the coming years and it has nothing to do with CFP or NFL expansion. The NCAA is hoping to move women’s flag football to varsity status as soon as 2028.

• Oh hey Ed Orgeron is back at LSU lmao. He’s joining Lane Kiffin’s staff as a special assistant to recruiting and defense. The news dropped in the middle of Game 2 of the Spurs-Thunder series. A masterful news dump by LSU brass, not that many people wouldn’t be happy to see the news. I’m sure Richard and Alex will have fun talking about this one next week.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the long weekend

Welcome to the College Football Newsletter, where an expanded playoff is begrudgingly closer than ever.

It feels like the walls are closing in on this iteration of the College Football Playoff, especially after this week. We saw the American Football Coaches Association put out a statement in favor of a 24-team playoff expansion. The ACC wasn’t shy when it announced its preference for the same thing. Commissioner Jim Phillips claims that an expanded playoff would give more teams “hope.” The Big Ten has financial and perhaps competitive motivations for the same format, but the SEC would prefer a 16-team bracket.

Still, no matter what the outcome, all signs are pointing in one clear direction, and it’s “more.” At this point, it may not be a matter of whether expansion will come, but how it will look.

Not everyone is a fan of expansion, however. Steve Sarkisian was vocal about his disapproval for a new format in an interview with USA Today. He said, “We don’t think about the unintended consequences of decisions we make. It’s all knee-jerk reactions.”

He also points out that expansion would make the selection committee’s current job even harder, since they won’t have enough time to watch all the games to accurately judge which 24 teams make the cut. Based on his comments, Sarkisian doesn’t believe they have the time to fully analyze the 12 best teams right now, so what would doubling the number of slots improve? It will obviously increase revenue for some, but you’re not getting a ticket rebate or a discount on your season tickets. There’s an apparent disconnect between what administrators and coaches want right now and what fans want. Did you ask for this?

Sarkisian’s critique aside, the institutions behind this all seem coordinated in their own way to make this happen. Richard was at the ACC meetings in Jacksonville, so let’s ask him for a firsthand account of things:

The most surprising thing to me from ACC meetings was not necessarily that the ACC had gotten on board with 24 teams, but the coaches being unanimous about it. This isn’t just something coming from the suits and the bureaucrats. The coaches are on board with this here, and they’re not bucking.

You might see that happen in another conference like the SEC, and the coaches are dismissing the stuff about the regular-season devaluation. Now they’re doing it because they want to say that more access creates a more compelling November.

But in any event, they are doing it, which is very interesting to me. So the ACC not tearing itself apart and actually being united was a welcome change for ACC meetings. I mean, two years ago, we were at ACC meetings and half the league was about to sue to leave. So it’s interesting what they can accomplish when they’re together.

A unified ACC. Who’d have thought this would be what did it?

Here’s what Alex and Richard dropped into your podcast feeds this week:

• Godfrey joined to talk about where Alabama is now that it’s firmly in its post-Nick Saban era. They talk about Kalen DeBoer’s extension and also about how the old way of Bama team-building is squarely in the rearview mirror for reasons bigger than the university. Godfrey is on a roll in this episode, highlighted by his comparison of Bama to a recently divorced 40-something re-entering the dating scene.

• This week’s free episode dropped in your feeds this Thursday. Richard and Alex talk about Lane Kiffin, who made some comments about the racism at Ole Miss that sound incredibly insincere. That’s just a small bit of a more than hour-long show, though.

Some recommended reading:

• Alex has some bad news about air travel: with Spirit shutting down and higher gas prices, your next plane ride is only getting more expensive. He writes about it at Slate.

• At CBS Sports, Richard checks in on Florida and how the tone has shifted now with Jon Sumrall leading the Gators. The change in mood is exemplified by one word: good.

• Listeners of the podcast this year know how much we like Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele. The Athletic’s Antonio Morales wrote about Cal’s effort to keep JKS on the roster for the long term.

Thanks for reading and we’ll talk to you next week.

Welcome to the College Football Newsletter, where money doesn’t grow on trees. But there is money in Boise’s blue turf.

Brian Kelly is using AI. In a video interview with USA Today, the former LSU coach says he’s using Claude to give him potential questions to prepare him for the next time he talks to an athletic director for an open job. He’s creating a job coach of sorts, a role that undoubtedly has a human equivalent Kelly could easily find. For as long as Kelly has been in college football, he should have a rolodex of people still in the industry whom he can talk to in order to be well prepared. Which raises the question: Why tell us this?

More important than Brian Kelly’s AI use is him informing people that he’s using AI. He has already learned one thing: if you slap a mention of AI onto an existing entity, you’re bound to get some sort of advantage in the attention economy. That’s partially why his interview was aggregated by other sites and partially why I’m writing about it now. By the way, did you hear that Allbirds and TOTO are shifting their focus into AI? If a former shoe company and a toilet manufacturer can rebrand for attention, why can’t a former head coach? (Editor’s note: Long live Allbirds, aka the Salesforce 1s.)

Broadcasting that to potential athletic directors is Kelly’s attempt to show that he’s on the cutting edge of … something, though depending on the line of questions being generated, that may not be football-related. He could develop great interviewing skills while also not adapting his coaching style to what his contemporaries are currently doing. And sometimes that might be enough. This is adjacent to not firing a coach or a coordinator because they’re a good hang outside of the workplace. That happens fairly often, though I haven’t seen any public instances of Kelly being a good hang. Whatever AI’s capabilities may be, rehabbing Kelly’s image would be the technology’s greatest trick yet.

Also interesting about this: how Kelly is using AI. Interview prep isn’t the first use I would think of when trying to figure out its application in college football, especially because Kelly has been a head coach for a long time. He already knows how both the interviewing process and the modern game work. Elsewhere, schools have used it to improve ticketing revenue. More than likely, data and roster analysis would be a more apt use of the technology than a coach thinking Claude could get him in an AD’s good graces. Especially with the increased player moves via the transfer portal, it can be hard to keep up and AI can theoretically handle some of the analysis. That carries risks, though.

And luckily for us, we have ESPN’s Bill Connelly on the show this week to talk about all this.

Two podcast episodes for you to catch up on

• Bill joined the Wednesday show to talk about how data is harder to analyze now that more players are entering the transfer portal. That, in turn, has teams like Notre Dame at the top because they are retaining production from the previous season. Bill, Alex, and Richard also spent some time talking about databases and how AI is (and probably isn’t) helping schools and administrators do their jobs. You can listen to the episode here or watch the video version on our podcast YouTube channel.

• New Sports Business Hour for subscribers! Richard and Alex ask Matt what the deal is with ESPN moving some Duke games to Amazon Prime. They also talk about [checks notes] The Rock’s greatest contribution to pop culture.

Some recommended reading from our crew + friends

• Spirit Airlines is shutting down. And even though folks in Washington would have played a political blame game, the real answer is that the budget airline succumbed to a litany of economic and political forces, as Alex outlines over at Slate.

• Over at CBS Sports, Richard chronicled what went wrong at Texas in 2025 and how the Longhorns can improve heading into the 2026 season.

• Richard is also doing a video series over on his Instagram about teams that can bounce back this season. This week’s topic is Clemson. If you’ve been a subscriber for a minute, you might already know some of what he’s going to bring up.

• We brought this up in the Sports Business Hour, but if you want to go more in depth on what the Duke games going to Amazon Prime mean (and don’t mean), read Matt Brown’s full analysis over at Extra Points.

• Three-star recruit Duece Jones-Drew committed to UCLA this week. If you remember seeing his dad play for the Bruins, don’t forget to do your stretches before getting out of bed tomorrow morning.

Thanks for reading and we’ll talk to you next week.

Let us know in the YouTube comments, or here, which game you’d like to see next.

2. Subscribe to our channels, especially our new one.

Two YouTube channels? What will they think of next?

We’re changing our strategy a bit over on YouTube, an important platform for getting podcasts out into the world. We started an episodes-only channel where you can get full-length video versions of every free episode we put out. Our old channel will now be dedicated to special video projects. Subscribe to both!

• Podcast episode channel

• YouTube exclusives channel

We are especially eager to get people subscribed to the new podcast channel, because we can monetize that channel after we cross 1,000 subscribers.

Back in January, Richard and Alex wrote about how YouTube fits into what we do here. tldr: We are not pivoting to video and will always be a podcast, but we think we can discover new listeners by doing more video. Your views and subscriptions help!

Now, some thoughts on this week’s much more serious CFB news

On the free show this week, Alex and Richard went in-depth on the story surrounding (for now) Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby, formerly of Indiana and Cincinnati.

Placing a bet on your own team’s game is a cardinal sin in sports. But what comes next? Will NFL teams consider him in next year’s draft or the upcoming supplemental draft? The Shield hasn’t been immune to gambling stories. Calvin Ridley bet on NFL games in 2022 and was subsequently suspended for a season. He later admitted he was in the wrong and has gotten back on the field. Sorsby’s talent could lead him down the same path, but we’ll see.

If he makes an NFL roster, his journey will be unlike most. Going through rehab for gambling and then immersing yourself back into football in a league that is inundated with gambling ads is its own challenge. (As Alex and Richard discuss at some length on the show this week, this podcast has also aired sportsbook ads in the past.) Instances of fans harassing players on social media because they lost money betting on a player are only increasing. Sorsby would have to deal with a whole separate genre of those comments while attempting to separate himself from any semblance of gambling.

It’s going to be difficult, and there’s no tidy way to package all this. It’s a convoluted situation for Sorsby, and for the people who have had their lives consumed by the unregulated world of sports betting and prediction markets. All we can do for now is throw ideas at a wall and hope we collectively figure out a way to rein in at least some part of the gambling apparatus.

Here’s what Alex and Richard dropped into your podcast feeds this week:

• Richard and Alex spend a lot of the free episode talking about Sorsby’s reported gambling and what it means for him, the policies behind why gambling is so easy now, and how you should not fall for Texas Tech trying to play the victim in all this. There’s also an NFL Draft postmortem at the tail end of the show, which includes Cade Klubnik fulfilling his destiny as a late-season starting QB for the New York Jets. Alex called it a month ago.

• Godfrey joined the pod for a subscriber-only show to talk about a big batch of offseason stories, including the potential move of Week 1 to the current Week 0.

Some recommended reading:

• Alex talked a little on the podcast about the policy aspect of the Brendan Sorsby gambling scandal, but he goes into additional detail in his article over at Slate.

• The current state of gambling has made a lot of facets of life notably worse, especially war. Alex wrote about the abuse of prediction markets earlier this week.

• 2025 Clemson had more NFL Draft picks than wins last season! At CBS Sports, Richard explains why that should motivate the Tigers to improve their evaluation and performance for the upcoming season.

• Arkansas dropped men’s and women’s tennis, which is a surprising move since it’s in the SEC. Did the programs generate a ton of revenue for the school? Not really. But the school also wasn’t in a dire position to cut the programs. Matt Brown explains how messy the process and math was over at Extra Points.

• The Big Ten has been the recent conference of champions, but the SEC still has them beat in one category — NFL Draft picks.

Thanks for reading and watching, and we’ll see you next week.

Welcome to the College Football Newsletter, where we have never tampered with an opponent’s podcaster, nor would we ever, because we have honor.

It has been a while since the last newsletter went out. Since we last hit your inbox, Michigan won a championship in [checks notes] basketball? UCLA won the women’s tournament and six of their players would be drafted in the WNBA Draft. With Indiana rounding out the championship bona fides on the football side, the Big Ten is dominating among the power conferences. In this episode snippet, Alex says he doesn’t expect fans to be chanting B-1-G like they’re SEC fans, but it would be very funny if we see that at some point.

Not everything in the Big Ten has been positive, however. The NCAA recently vacated some of Iowa’s wins from 2023 due to tampering involving QB Cade McNamara. While a member of the Michigan Wolverines, McNamara would learn he would have to compete for the starting job with JJ McCarthy. Rather than seeing that path play out, McNamara got a jump on conversations with Iowa and eventually joined the Hawkeyes. He produced the following line:

The number of vacated wins (four) is negligible, especially because McNamara’s injury that season minimized any further punishment. But it does raise the question of how often tampering happens in college football. Dabo Swinney recently accused Pete Golding’s Ole Miss staff of illicitly poaching linebacker Luke Ferrelli. This is just going to keep coming up.

As Richard points out in this week’s free episode, the jokes were flying when news broke that the NCAA issue a ruling regarding the tampering. Yes, the jokes have been funny, but how do we actively regulate this? The long answer is: We probably can’t at this rate. The McNamara tampering happened in late ‘22, a lifetime ago in college football. Back then, NIL was in its infancy. The influx of money since then probably means conversations between players, team, and third parties have only increased. Players getting paid is always great, but if we’re talking about a tampering problem from 2022, the NCAA will probably address whatever has happened between Ole Miss and Clemson in 2030.

I’m not holding my breath that some sort of legislation will fix it either. That’s a whole other can of worms that smarter people like Extra Points’ Matt Brown can explain. Speaking of whom:

Here’s what Alex and Richard dropped into your podcast feeds this week:

• Matt Brown joined the gang for the Sports Business Hour. They discussed the $2 billion Learfield sale and how it’s not as foreboding as it initially seems. And they go in depth about how Donald Trump’s executive order is both a distraction from everything else going on and an annoyance to senators who have been working to pass their own legislation that might more seriously address college sports’ difficulties.

• We have an April mailbag episode for you this week as well, out this morning. Richard and Alex talk about the perils of the coach-in-waiting and also reveal which non-college football sport they would most like to cover.

Some recommended reading:

• Over at Slate, Alex chronicled the latest chapter in Anthropic’s journey and how the AI company’s relatively positive reputation from refusing the Pentagon’s wishes might not be enough to generate enough happy consumers.

• Pour one out for Slate’s Hang up & Listen, which had its final episode this week. Alex and company were joined by guests who helped them predict the next 17 years in sports.

• We’re not going to let April pass us by without mentioning The Masters here at least once. Richard wrote about the college football connections at Augusta for CBS Sports.

Soon: The EDSBS Charity Bowl

Our friends over at Channel 6 are about to kickstart the 2026 EDSBS Charity Bowl supporting New American Pathways. Starting on Monday, donate to the cause using your favorite college football score or stat to see which university raises the most money at the end of the week. For example, if you’re an Indiana fan who wants to continue basking in National Championship glory, you can donate 27.21 in honor of the Hoosiers. You’ll hear more about this on SZD next week.

Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you next week.

Welcome to the College Football Newsletter, where we have calculated our 40 times and verticals for the combine. It turns out that Alex has a vertical like Spud Webb.

What makes a good athletic director? That all depends on the hierarchy of the school’s athletics, its location, what it wants to achieve in the future, and, of course, the effectiveness of the AD itself.

If you’re in the Power 4, chances are that you want an AD with a good read on where college sports are going, who can help you get into whatever the “superleague” of the future looks like while navigating issues like NIL at the largest scale. Maybe you want someone who can politic their way into state legislatures to ensure that you’re ahead of the game in whatever new frontier the industry is about to embrace. If you’re a MAC school, you might just be looking for an AD who can keep your budget above water while everyone figures out what’s next.

But one constant for all athletic directors is the desire to keep the university president and the fans happy. So we asked you on our various social media accounts: Do you like your school’s athletic director? Here’s what you said. (You can also peruse our Bluesky replies here, if you want to see where many of the below responses came from. We’ll embed a few later on.)

Here are some schools whose fans gave us really interesting responses.

• Oregon State fans gave absolutely scathing responses about AD Scott Barnes. One Beaver fan called him an “unmitigated disaster” and said: “Doesn’t fundraise. Totally fucked up our NIL program and then lied about it. Hired a GM in August, fired him in Oct, said we didn’t need one, then hired a new one in Dec. Our rev sports are tanking. He isn’t funding them like he promised, either. Another fan just said “no” and pointed to this tough local radio segment on Barnes.

• Ohio State fans have their issues with Ross Bjork. Asked if they like him, one of our followers merely replied, “no, because he’s ross bjork.” But how about this person finding a silver lining? “Ross Bjork is way too private equity-curious for me But I love that Warde Manuel is Michigan’s AD.” Manuel has had big problems at Michigan, ones that we’ve covered on the podcast in the past. In fact, Alex and Matt Brown bring up the latest scandal tangentially related to Michigan to Richard in one of this week’s episodes.

• Iowa fans are the real window into how strongly fans can feel about an AD, though. Current Hawkeyes athletic director Beth Goetz gets mostly positive reviews from fans, in our admittedly small sample. She is relatively new to the job, starting in January 2024. But much of the goodwill is not for the things she has accomplished in her short time there. Instead, she gets a thumbs up because she is not former AD Gary Barta, whom Alex talked about (negatively) on the show this week. Just a sample:

Not all that scientific, but we’re proud to be a podcast whose listeners have strong takes on athletic administrators. We’ll never take it for granted!

Here’s what Alex and Richard dropped into your podcast feeds this week:

• Matt Brown of Extra Points joined the gang for the Sports Business Hour. They talk about what it takes to be a good athletic director. We already covered bad ADs here, but they also list a few examples of good ADs throughout the years. There’s also a great segment towards the end about how Mississisppi’s no-tax NIL bill is mostly loud and unhelpful for everyone involved.

• Godfrey joined Richard on Thursday to talk about a specific type of coaching carousel: the coordinator one. Which assistants are head coaches-in-waiting and which ones will intentionally not make a move right now to reap the benefits later.

Some recommended reading:

• Alex talks about the fallout of the State of the Union and USA men’s hockey over at Slate.

• Arkansas came to an agreement with Tyson Foods (a Razorback alum company, of course) for a new on-field jersey sponsorship. It’s one of the first of these announcements since the NCAA approved the patches back in January. According to CBS Sports’ Brandon Marcello, 90 percent of the money from that deal will go to the players.

• Grace Raynor at The Athletic wrote about Washington State tight end Nathaniel Salmon, who is 22 years old and has never played football. But he’s athletic enough that the Los Angeles Chargers were interested in him prior to him joining Wazzu. Salmon might be the perfect subject for a Pac-12 After Dark performance.

We are so close to March Madness that I can almost picture myself skipping my work obligations to head to a bar with the fellas to watch two teams I didn’t care about until five minutes ago like I have been a lifelong fan. Be on the lookout for some football-centric college basketball podcasting from us next week.

No word yet on whether Alex is picking Gonzaga to win itallthisyear. I have watched Zags games with him before and, reader, I still cannot tell if it is a bit or not. But I respect his tenacity. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you here next week.

On Thursday, the NCAA Football Playing Rules Committee proposed a new set of rules for the upcoming season. Among them are reasonable changes pertaining to the game itself. Even if you didn’t necessarily agree with making offensive pass interference calls a 10-yard penalty (one of the proposals), you can at least see where the conversation started: The NFL has a 10-yard rule rather than college’s 15, and it’s worked fine in the NFL.

A more ticky-tack proposal deals with enforcing a rule that’s already on the books: Call it the too-much-leg rule, violated flagrantly by many players over the years. Last season’s most notorious shorts criminal was Oklahoma’s Lou Groza Award-winning kicker, Tate Sandell:

What gives, then? As The Athletic’s Chris Vannini points out, college football does not have specific officials to enforce these uniform violations. In the likely event that this new proposal becomes the law of the land, officials will make players leave the game if their pants don’t cover the knees. One offense is a warning, followed by five- and 15-yard penalties. That should do it.

If anything, we need more leg in football. Show off more thigh! What else are the squats for, then? It feels like the real machination behind all of this is professionalizing more facets of the college game to make them more NFL-like. That can be fine—like when players get paid instead of working for scholarships—but do we need it here? Just two seasons ago, the NFL fined Jalen Hurts for wearing mismatched shoes.

I’ll let Alex and Richard tell you their thoughts in a future SZD episode. (There are some early concerns that Alex may support the shorts crackdown.) As far as this week is concerned …

Here’s what Alex and Richard dropped into your feeds this week:

• What would you do with the power to add or subtract 24 points across the history of college football? Do you help a team who was on the cusp of greatness but eventually came up short? Or would you channel your inner hater and retroactively make a great team disappear into the ether of the college football almanac? Alex and Richard talked about how they would change the fates of teams, including Florida. Think of this exercise like the old Madden Rewind feature but even bigger.

• Godfrey stopped by for a subscriber episode where he talked with Alex and Richard about the 2012 coaching carousel. They chat about the surprising run of coaches at Arkansas State in the 2010s. Godfrey also tells the story of how Todd Monken, current Cleveland Browns coach, abruptly quit Southern Miss because the administration failed to keep a promise.

Some more recommended reading and listening:

• At the top of this week’s free show, Alex talked about the history of hockey for a minute. If you want an extensive conversation, check out this week’s Hang Up and Listen, where he explains how the United States men and women’s teams captured Olympic gold.

• For Slate, Alex wrote a major tech fight: Anthropic vs. the Defense Department.

• Last Friday, Richard published a YouTube video explaining why Sacramento State’s economic impact number for its move to the MAC was inflated. He reported out the specific details over at CBS Sports, which resulted in the college consulting company doing a lot of explaining.

• Friend of the show Mike Craven wrote about DJ Lagway’s new yet familiar journey as the Texas native heads to Baylor to play quarterback.

As always, thanks for reading and we’ll see you here next week. Only 20 days until spring.

Welcome to the College Football Newsletter, where our consultants have estimated that you reading this will result in $1 billion of economic impact. You and I won’t get that money, but someone somewhere out there will, maybe.

North Dakota State did not get a long runway as the newest FBS program. The Sacramento State Hornets have finally gotten their wish and are joining FBS and the Mid-American Conference. Sacramento State had made it clear for months that they intended to make the leap from the Big Sky (via a quick stopover as an FCS independent) to an FBS conference with the help of new money. SacState figured that would be the Pac-12. Instead, it’s the MAC.

This move will generate about a billion dollars, according to Sacramento State, in something called “economic impact.” We hope to see the math one day soon.

Sacramento State’s contract with the MAC is also very explicit that the move is for a five-year period. The Hornets may well expect to be in and out of the MAC by 2031. That departure could arise from any of these scenarios:

• The Hornets, who are 330–414–8 all-time, are so successful in their short stint that they draw the attention of a more geographically sensible conference.

• The MAC declines to renew SacState’s membership once the school stops paying for teams’ plane travel to California.

• SacState gets tired of the geographic hassle of being in this conference.

• The MAC ceases to exist in its current form and its teams get rolled into some new league with other Group of 6 and current FCS teams.

In these scenarios, the Hornets could just become FBS independents—which they’d be fine with, as compared to trying and failing to get a waiver to move up.

We love the MAC on this podcast but we have also pointed out its struggles as the tides have shifted against them in media rights, the transfer portal, and the coaching carousel. Just this week, Thomas Hammock left NIU (which is still technically in the MAC for a few more months, then goes to the Mountain West) for a Seahawks assistant job. Sacramento State’s football success isn’t necessarily tied to playoff opportunities, but not being eligible for the postseason for two out of the five years doesn’t inspire any additional confidence.

Here’s what Alex and Richard dropped into your podcast feeds this week.

• Alex and Richard talk about the Sacramento State move in detail and also cover topics like how the NCAA thinks Diego Pavia’s case to keep playing college football technically could mean other players are entitled to an 18-year collegiate career.

• Part 2 of the big offseason-opening mailbag dropped this week for subscribers. Thank you to everyone who submitted questions. As a bonus, you get to listen to Alex and Richard react to the tail end of the Czechia-Canada men’s hockey game.

Some recommended reading and listening from our hosts:

• At Hang Up and Listen over at Slate, Alex talked about the NBA’s tanking problem

• Richard graded every new FBS head coach hire for CBS Sports.

• Montana linebacker Solomon Tuliaupupu is prepping for his (probably) final season. Because injuries have derailed his previous years, this is his ninth season in college football.

If you’re reading this on Friday, be on the lookout for a new YouTube video narrated by Richard. Thanks for reading and we’ll see you here next week. Here’s our YouTube.