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:
Apple Podcasts (Listen and leave a review!)
Spotify (Listen and leave a star rating)
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.
September Maryland is lurking