Would You Rather Be a Penn State or UNC Fan This Week?

The College Football Newsletter returns, with a recap of the week in anxious fanbases and Split Zone Duo.

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Welcome to the College Football Newsletter, where we have the full support of the department of athletics and university.

If you’re a regular reader of this newsletter, you’re already familiar with our new series, The Job, where Alex & Richard talk about a head coaching position that just opened up. The good news is that no head coach lost his job this week, although the special teams coach at Oregon State wasn’t so fortunate.

The bad news is that you might want your coach to lose his job, and now you’re being kept waiting. UCLA embarrassed Penn State at the Rose Bowl. James Franklin’s job may be safe for now, but it also might be time for him and Penn State’s athletic director to sit down and talk about next steps. After all, his approval rating must be near zero at this point.

@splitzoneduoJames Franklin should be looking for greener pastures if this doesn't get fixed

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And then there’s Bill Belichick, who after losing 38-10 to Clemson, has North Carolina in a panic. Richard reported on this saga for CBS Sports, and then Alex and Richard had a long talk about the situation on a subscriber episode. This is right after the news that the Hulu series about Belichick’s journey into college football has been scrapped.

The general consensus pegged the pairing as odd from the start, but the speed at which we went from grand opening to grand closing is surprising. Still, both Belichick and the university want it to be very clear that everything is fine. Just fine. They even went so far as to release a joint statement online to make sure everyone knew they were on the same page.

Both situations seem bad, but which fan base would you rather root for with these scenarios? I asked Alex:

North Carolina fans have basketball season to look forward to, and Penn State fans do not. (Technically they play basketball at Penn State, but let’s be adults here.) Belichick is an enormous embarrassment who could set UNC back a few years by the time they’re done with each other, but the crime of turning an eight-win program into a bottomfeeder for a few years is less significant than putting Penn State fans through the psychological experiment of the James Franklin years. Really, what I am saying is that UNC fans should see this as a good story and a character-builder.

Here’s what the SZD crew dropped into your podcast feeds this week:

• A fresh subscriber episode: Our midseason news roundup became mostly about UNC. But we also talked about Auburn’s controversial movement of a home game to Atlanta, plus the new NIL snitch line and portal changes.

• The Nittany Lions losing in Pasadena merited an extra episode where the gang sat down and analyzed what Penn State (and more importantly James Franklin) should do now that their chances at the national championship are probably in the rearview mirror.

• The Week 7 Tasting Menu is up, where Alex and Richard talk about the upcoming Texas vs. Oklahoma game among many others. It’s a good helmet game with lots of questions at QB.

• The Main Course presented by Modelo features friend of the show and host of The Solid Verbal Dan Rubenstein. He’s a big Oregon Ducks fan, so naturally the conversation led to the White Out game and the upcoming Oregon-Indiana game. You can watch the full segment over on YouTube. (We have now crossed 6,000 subscribers there. Would love to have you, too!)

Elsewhere in the college football world:

• Alex has two pieces over at Slate this week. The first one is about Paul Finebaum, who is dipping his toes into Republican politics.

• Do you fly basic economy? Well, Alex has some bad news for you.

• Once more: Richard chronicled the week that was in the world of Bill Belichick and UNC, which seems like it’s collapsing at the time of this writing. Will something else happen by the time this gets published? Maybe!

• Electronic Arts is being sold to private equity (and the Saudis) for $55 billion. There’s a good chance you play the EA CFB video game. Matt Brown at Extra Points broke down what it all means for the company and for the consumer.

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