Welcome to the College Football Newsletter, where we are never in a lame-duck period.
The midterm election has passed, and Democrats took over both houses of Congress. The national result was almost surprising despite the already-high expectation that things would go well for them on Tuesday. Much of the South is now blue, including Texas and South Carolina.
This was a big college sports story, too. The chances are now much lower that the Protect College Sports Act becomes law. It’s important to note, as Alex did in this week’s Tasting Menu, that lower chances of the bill passing do not mean zero. The nature of a lame-duck session is that some things get passed just under the wire, and this bill did pass the Senate with some bipartisan support. But now there are major logistical hurdles (if you just lost your seat, as many Republicans did, are you going to fly back to D.C. to handle this?) and there’s also a wrinkle on the Democratic side: With momentum on their party’s side as we collectively enter 2027, will they be less likely to support the Protect College Sports Act right before they gain a lot more power to shape a bill to their liking? Would they want to hand President Trump a win at a time of defeat? Ross Dellenger at Yahoo explains some of these dynamics here, in a lot of detail.
Is there a backup plan? As Richard mentioned on the Tasting Menu, the Big Ten is already setting in place new, PCSA-like rules that focus on self-governance. But those don’t come with a national standard or an antitrust exemption. Where will that go? We’ll see. This is just one example of how the election doesn’t make sweeping change in its own right but sets impactful, corresponding actions in motion. The Big Ten adopting those rules just a few days before the midterms does not feel like a coincidence.
Here’s what we dropped into your podcast feeds this week:
Time to talk about the Noles. We had a new episode of The Job for subscribers, where we discussed what went wrong for Mike Norvell at Florida State and what the power structures around FSU look like these days. Richard provides some great insight and reporting on this one.
Chat, we’re doing live streams now. Jessica Smetana of The Echoes and College Football Happy Hour is joining Alex every Tuesday evening over the next month to react to the College Football Playoff committee rankings. Before the rankings are out, we’ll be hanging out and answering your questions. Then comes a live podcast. You can find the stream on your preferred social platform, but the best way to keep track of it is by subscribing to our podcast’s YouTube channel. And don’t worry if you can’t catch it live; we’ll be publishing a portion of it in your feeds the morning after.
The Week 10 slate is looking more bountiful than any previous week’s, so naturally we had to stuff the Tasting Menu. This bad boy easily crosses the hour mark to get you ready for whatever happens during the Holy War, Ole Miss-Georgia, Notre Dame-Miami and other games that grace your quad box this Saturday. We also kick off the show with a segment examining what the midterm results can mean for the trajectory of college football.
Our Team of the Week is Toledo. Rodger and Alex discuss how the Rockets became the MAC’s most consistent team and whether there’s any other team in the conference that can pull this off. 🚀
Some recommended reading:
Alex interviewed Miami’s Darian Mensah for GQ Sports. He teased that he was working on this in an earlier episode of SZD when he mentioned a player told him he would like to earn “as much as God allows me to.” There’s also a fun exchange between Alex and Mensah about attending classes at Miami.
Over at CBS Sports, Richard explained how the head coach buyout numbers are not really as big as they initially seem, but also that the entire buyout premise is more complicated than that.
Utah is enjoying a bit of a resurgence, and that’s great. What isn’t as positive is what David Covucci at FOIABall reports here: “Two LLCs in Utah’s private equity rollout are tied to an accountant who served two separate federal prison sentences for financial fraud.”
Will Leitch at The Athletic wrote about something a lot of college football fans have been asking for a while now: Who is this version of College GameDay for?
Google them: Curt Cignetti said the quiet part out loud this week when he said the SEC gets a lot of love from ESPN. Kirk Ferentz was on this, too, in his own way.
Robby Kalland at CBS Sports tallied some of the upsets happening in 2026 and compared them to the fabled 2007 season.
Thanks for reading, enjoy the games, and we’ll see you on Sunday for the Hurry-Up.