College Football Eyeing College Hoops Renaissance

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There's a summit meeting this week aimed at curing all of the

ills of college football.

We are skeptical to say the least.

Basketball we are not skeptical of.

College basketball is enjoying a resurgence in spring practice is upon us now.

This is the college game day podcast.

We are recording on March 2nd, a Monday,

Restavist, Pete Dammel, Dan Wetzel here.

And Pete, I'm going to tell you, you and I were in Gainesville.

And I know that there are teams that have separated this year.

I think Florida is as good as any team in the country.

They might win the national championship again.

But it's almost indicative of a big picture thing.

We've had this kind of resurgence of the sport.

You've had a resurgence of interest in football and

traditionally basketball laden areas with Indiana being the new power in the

in the college football world.

It's a really interesting time right now.

And I think it's given fans something really grab onto here in March.

Not only just trying to fill out the brackets to see if you win your

a tournament pool, which we don't endorse by the way.

Only for it.

Only for entertainment purposes, not for competition.

So please no wagering.

No, I'm not a chance.

Games of chance we don't believe in those.

So other than that, people just get to enjoy the games right now.

So I think it goes hand in hand and has really been an entertaining time of year.

I mean, anytime you can get two high profile coaches, one in the Hall of Fame

and the other who has a national championship to MF each other across the

sideline amid a high stakes SEC basketball game with first place on the line.

Like sign me up, all right.

This isn't John Cheney going after Calipari, but that's a pretty good

theater in in Gainesville, Reese on notice Todd had reinforcements there on the side

when he when he started is just, you know,

Cheney, Cheney went in alone.

Cheney, he doesn't need a role.

He was going to be everyone's asses.

Yeah, no.

Well,

well,

Karlin Hartman was, yeah, Karlin Hartman was holding everybody back,

but he would have won the battle royal if you turn them on the ring.

So it was, yeah, but they would I just think that like moment,

which was obviously amid a another dominating Florida victory, just kind of

spoke to the spark that that this season had.

I feel like there's more high stakes games.

Look, I think the the Dow of this season is that there are 10 or 11 great teams

and there's a dozen great players, right?

I think there are when you go through there are a couple high high high end teams,

but there's also a bunch of really excellent teams that could find their way to the final

four to find their way to Monday night and that depth and breadth of talent in strong teams

has separated this thing.

I think it's the best season that I can remember in at least the last 15 years.

Dan, you obviously from your days at hoopstv.com and CBS Portland as a college basketball

reporter, not to mention the Daily Collegiate Dan was in the building the day,

Calipari went after, I'm sorry, the Cheney went after Calipari.

Were you in the room, Dan?

Were you in the video?

In the video.

You could see that she's young.

Dan's daily collegiate was on it.

We were on the story there.

We were right there.

All right, that's probably why I became a sports writer.

I'm like, this stuff's awesome.

Like, there's games and then the coaches try to fight each other after.

What else would I want to do with my life?

How do you think that fight would have gone?

And I'd want to make it one way, man, one way.

I'd like to know in that moment.

If you ever really watched Cheney didn't discharge Calipari,

there were three players in the way.

Derek Kellogg became a coach.

Mike Williams, who was tough as nails.

You'd not want to fight him.

I think maybe just two.

He was willing to take them all on.

I mean, I, I, I love John Cheney.

I love that man.

And he was, he was always great to me.

And, but he, what a character.

But he was willing to go one on three, including two players.

I mean, he put his hands up.

He would, nowadays, they would have,

I mean, they probably would have fired him in two seconds.

Back then, whatever.

But he put his, he put his hands right up in the face of,

he would have got hands to the face in football, 15 minutes,

15 yards.

He didn't care.

He's like, I'll take the whole UMass team on if I got to.

I don't care if I'm 62 years old or whatever he was.

So, um, but look, I, I agree.

And I think it's, it's, it's one of the best seasons in years.

But so was it last year, I would have said it in the year before.

And, um, I, I got to say, I, I think a couple things have happened.

I, I never saw this renaissance coming on college basketball.

I thought it was somewhat over and it was just going to be what it was.

The only, the sport to, you know, you go back to the 80s, 90s.

Guys, playing four years, right?

You get a recruit you're going to have them for four years and you build these teams.

And then that started slowing with the great players were going pro.

And then when they were just not even showing up, that hurt the sport.

Whether it was LeBron James or it was, you know,

down the line of guys that were never even going to make it,

just choosing not to go to college.

And then they had the one and done and that helped a little.

But then you were seeing all this over time.

Elite and this guy's going to Australia.

And it's just, I, I could not see a path out for college basketball.

I still loved it.

I think we still loved it.

A lot of people still really enjoyed it.

But for whatever we talk about, how much everyone hates this, this rule and that

rule and this NIL and it's a pain in the neck, it has absolutely brought the sport back.

There are better players.

There are guys sticking around.

It's so much, it's so much so profitable and fun to play college basketball.

Guys are leaving the pros to come back or trying to.

I think, I think Patino said earlier this year that college

basketball is as good as it's ever been.

Certainly someone who bridges all of those different errors in different ways.

And there's just so much talent on the court and experience.

It's, and then we have spread it out.

Again, the good old days, the good old days was Nike and Adidas choosing who was going to really,

they were going to stack the deck for.

They bought the players and sent them to certain schools.

We have FBI trials, we have testimony.

We have people gone to jail for this.

Like this is not just like, you know, it's just a little story.

They were stacking reserves on the teams to try to protect their investment.

Or that was one of the big cases on Louisville speaking of Patino.

Like they were trying to get them a, you know, a wing.

We're not even talking about the top player.

So we've gone from the blue bloods and their shoe contracts,

having an undeniable advantage to a lot of teams being able to compete all over.

So you're creating Christian Dawkins for the Renaissance.

Christian Dawkins did a great service for college basketball.

You know, they're here, right?

I think that's true.

We exposed the sport for what it was.

Yeah, yeah.

I remember we, Dan and I worked at Yahoo at the time and we covered that,

getting a quote from someone in the, in the underworld early on who said,

if they have Andy Miller's paperwork files, whatever,

because the long time agent, the FBI rated his office in New Jersey.

And he said, if they have Andy Miller's like paperwork,

they're going to have to change the rules.

That was a quote.

And it seemed like kind of like while this,

well, you know what happened?

Like they changed all the rules.

Now just to just pin it on that is like a little bit hyperbolic.

But like that, if you, if you know,

Ken Burns does the history of college athletics in 50 years,

there was going to be a long chapter on on that trial and the way it looked before

and the way it looked after.

Because I think it was, it was a distinct pivot point.

I certainly hope that he does.

But that will be, that will be a secondary story of Ken Burns

is making documentaries in 50 years.

Okay, yeah, I can't remember his junior.

We'll have a secondary story here with the Renaissance of college basketball.

Yeah, kind of lead, it kind of leads me to this.

We've seen a basketball powerhouse,

traditionally, Indiana become a football powerhouse.

Is it possible that the same thing could happen for Florida?

Could they become a football powerhouse again?

It was a basketball school right now, man.

It's, it's, it's, it's already John Sumrell.

No, it's, it's interesting because,

so we were obviously there for, for, for game day.

I was there Thursday and then I went over to the old 6am workout on Friday morning.

It was really excited when my alarm went off.

I can assure you.

But no, it was, it was, it was a lot of

surprise to see you that you actually showed up.

Yes, impressive.

If it was a last call workout,

like there was, but it'd be a higher percent chance that I would make it,

especially coming off of Indianapolis,

where a lot of work that's done at last call at the combine.

So the situation of Florida right now is a quintessential spring moment of

optimism and opposites, right?

Like, Bill and Apear, very good coach, didn't work there.

John Sumrell is drastically different.

Bill and Apear is a play color.

John Sumrell is not.

Bill and Apear was a, you know, low key guy who didn't say a lot interesting, right?

Like, he was pretty flat and just kind of straight ahead.

John Sumrell's not afraid to go on some podcasts and say what's on his mind.

So there was a spark at Florida that perhaps was not there in the, in the, in the last,

in the last coaching iteration.

They're fairly talented.

They're not, you know, there's, I don't think this is going to be like a drastic rebuild.

The question of Florida, they were pretty talented last year too.

The question of Florida is can they maximize what's there?

There's certainly a lot of optimism and a good spirit and a good coaching staff there.

And some really good players, Jaden Woods, the defensive end who stuck around to that staff

convinced to keep probably, you know, was the player that struck me the most from talking

to people around the program.

So yeah, it's all there for Florida.

And, uh, and that was that visit.

Reese was a good reminder that it, it shouldn't be impossible for it to be done there, right?

Like, it's, uh, it's one of the, the, the notable schools that,

since we went to now 12 years deep in this playoff, we're going to do your 13.

Correct.

Am I right about this?

I was wrong last time.

Let's see 10.

But yes, correct.

Yeah, we're going to do your 13.

I would say the most notable schools that haven't made the playoff are Florida and USC off the top

of my head.

Is there a, is there another, is there a more notable brand than, uh, than those two, uh,

I don't think so.

So those are the top two.

Those are the top two, the ones who have historically, uh, you know, one thing to have championships

in the, in the trophy case that haven't made it into the playoff either, uh, the,

you have 14 or 12 team iterations.

Yeah.

It feels like Florida can get back there and it, it shouldn't, it shouldn't take too long.

There's just, uh, the way, and I'm going to write a story about this.

Any spin dot com at some point, but the way some are all has things structured internally.

The talent, um, you know, there's the energy there.

It, it, that ship is going in the right direction.

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I mean, there's no reason not to.

It's still Florida.

I understand it has not had the historic

consistent success of other places that have as many national titles as it has.

But it's well located, well resourced, well run, it's all there.

And it's a little Y basketball can pop back up.

It's a school that you can win at everything there.

I think Tennessee is the one that labels itself, the everything school.

But Florida certainly fits into that.

And if you get the right coach and you get the right situation, absolutely no problem.

It's also generally in the state of Florida, historically.

And I don't know that this matters as much anymore

because of the way you can construct rosters.

But generally, only two of the schools can be good at the same time.

We've had it in the past where you had all three Miami Florida state and Florida good

for the time being.

But generally, you can have maybe two be good.

Four to states, the one right now that's struggling.

And if that continues and that's a huge opportunity for Florida, well,

meanwhile, Miami is popping up.

So I think some are all as an excellent coach.

I thought it was an excellent hire.

And I've always thought there's no reason for the gators to go this long without being able to

at least make a playoff. That's the other thing.

They don't necessarily have to go 13 and 1 like they did under Urban Meyer or anything like that

to be successful.

There's a little bit more room for error.

So I think it's great.

I think we all love the swamp as a venue.

And it's a lot of fun when the gators are rolling.

And I kind of agree.

They had the players the last few years.

They just couldn't get it.

They just kept making the same mistakes over and over and over.

Dan, you said a few minutes ago that you really didn't see the renaissance of college basketball

coming. Similarly, I think, and I'm not trying to be some negative Nelly here.

With ratings being through the roof, people still going to college football games like crazy.

And you think about the potential downfall.

Maybe there comes up time when that's not the case.

When it falls into a malaise at college basketball fell into for a few years.

What are some things that you guys have seen from your times covering both sports?

But that college football really ought to kind of be aware of and maybe be proactive in.

To avoid falling into that area that college basketball is in for several years where people say,

yeah, I watched the tournament because, you know, I tried to fill out my bracket when the tournament

and the tournament has drama and stories and I enjoy that.

But the rest of the season is too much.

I maybe follow my team and that's kind of it.

Seems a little different now.

What are some things you think some mistakes that college basketball made that college football

still has a chance at this point to avoid falling into as they deal with all of the issues around

eligibility and roster construction and salary cap issues and IEL issues and all of that type of thing.

I think like the searing lesson from this, right?

So every summer, early in my career, I would go out in July and talk to, you know,

sit in the bleachers and do this for decades too.

And you just sit and talk to college basketball coaches and you talk, you know,

and they would always be blown away by the difference in TV ratings to college football,

college basketball. And I remember, you know, I've talked the difference in those sports a lot

with like the constituents involved. I remember Steve Donahue is another coach at St. Joe's,

he used to be at BC. I was just like, why do you, you know, we were just talking about the differences

and there's obviously a lot of them. And he said something interesting to me once he said,

college football owns a day, right? It owns a day every, you know, for a certain period, you know,

for three, three and a half months or whatever. College basketball owns a month, right?

And what happened in that sport very clearly was that that month became

outsized. Like I remember Jim Delaney saying 12, 15 years ago, the college basketball's regular

season had a problem. There was like a relevancy problem. And like the college basketball

loyalist was like, no, no, no. And he was right. I mean, he saw, I mean, he probably saw

through ratings and ticket sales and all these things, but he saw the decline in the relevancy of

college basketball coming. So I think we're about to enter the offseason of the 24 conversation,

right? And there's conversational push towards 24 from different quarters. And that's only going

to heat up as we go to spring meetings and different things. And the question that the,

and I don't really have a position. I don't be clear about that. But the question that the,

the bears are going to pose is, are we going to become overly reliant on the postseason and wash

out the season? And that's the balance. And that's the trick. And at what point do you start

gutting the golden goose to get more eggs? And I think that's the existential question that

the college football is fighting because college basketball 20 years ago didn't have a

regular season problem. People watched Big Monday, but it got oversaturated. There became

too much of it. It almost like, you know, used to be able to watch handful games a night and

everybody did. And then when he could watch 20 games a night, nobody did. That's an exaggeration.

But I feel like that's the, the pattern it went. And the last thing here I've rambled a little bit

is you can't lose familiarity where college basketball dipped off the radar in the regular season

was you didn't know who the stars were. You didn't know who the best players were. When

Luca Garza is the best player in the sport, your sports and trouble, right? No offense. He's a nice

player, but you're not like, you can't say things like that. And then say no offense and expect him

not to take offense. Well, it's just like metaphorically speaking, but a player like that. Yes,

but that's fine. I hope he's doing a fine job in the NBA serviceable reserve. But like,

that's not a guy you're like, I'm going to cut out two hours of my night to watch. You're just not.

So like, you're going to cut out two hours of your night to watch. Coa Pete in Dared Peterson.

And you can just go like right down the, right down the line for a jade to bands. So like all

these superstars you are going to do that for so college basketball lost recognition, familiarity.

I was with joke, you need to know who's on your team and you need to know who's on your rivals team

because you need to know who to like and you need to know who to hate. And college basketball

lost both of those in a short period of time. This is like Pete being like, you know,

when your podcast, the third best host is Dan Wetzel, you know, no offense.

I'm not going to say who it was or what the topic matter was. Do I remember vividly?

Billis and I worked together and Billis was doing a radio show with someone and they were,

they were bringing up a topic and he had answered sort of semi politely the first time he didn't

care for the topic. He thought it was good. And so finally he said, he said, look, no offense.

He goes, this is stupid. You want to talk about something else? We'll talk about something else.

He goes, this is stupid. And so the host said to him, it's a prominent guy said, you can't just say

no offense and then say whatever you want to which, which Billis had one of the great retorts of

all time. He said, fine, take offense. This is stupid. We're talking about something else.

Good guards. I don't want to watch here. Yeah. No, and that what Pete said certainly was not stupid.

I just said no offense thing has. I know. It's a great. Yeah.

Okay. So the thing that happens, but I think to happen to college basketball was the best

players weren't there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you just, you didn't have them. And, and again,

it's not just the, it was funny because people got really arrogant about it. I remember, and it'd

be like, I remember the great Kentucky team, like Anthony Davis and stuff. And there was, I can't,

you know, I'll spare the embarrassment, but there was an administrator like, well,

that, you know, we should get rid of the one and done, get these guys out of here. I'm like,

why wouldn't you want Anthony Davis in your product? My favorite all time was like the gymnast

that if you competed in the Olympics or you made a little money, you were not allowed to be a

gymnast. I'm like, you guys are the only business on earth that doesn't want to be involved with

some bone Biles or Michael Phelps. Like, I don't, we don't want this Phelps guy on our can't, like,

forget it. Some bone Biles. No. Yeah. Sure. We'd sell out the crypto.com stadium every night at

UCLA, but forget it. She's in a subway commercial. So dumb. Anyway, they were all, the players weren't

there, but they, it, it fell down. And then it got so stacked that you cannot underestimate what

the shoe companies did to the sport and what they're trying to do to bring it back is like,

to forget that and say the good old days, we can't have NIL. They put four great players for

the top eight recruits and go the same team. And then you weren't seeing each guy's individual.

You know why AJ is so exciting to watch because he's the guy. You got everybody's got a guy.

And they're all over the place. You know, this guy and this guy and this guy, right.

And it's more exciting. So the problem they had was players weren't going. And then everyone

was just stacked on a couple teams. And that was it. What's happened is the players are staying

and they're coming. And so it's, that's what happened. As for, but there's stuff they're trying

to do. They want to expand the basketball tournament too. They want to take away the magic of

the first Thursday and Friday of March madness, which is an unbelievable, valuable thing.

If you ask any sports fan in this country, whether they like college basketball or not,

name the five best days of the year, that's one of them. And what do they want to do? Let's make

Tuesday and Wednesday bigger. And, and, and, and, and confuse when this event starts. It will go

down as one of the dumbest branding decisions of all time. Also, we can get like 15 and 14

Auburn into the tournament. Come on. I mean, this is what they're thinking of doing with this

tournament is world class dumb world class dumb. It's like, we don't want Sunday at the masters anymore.

Let's have a Monday where we take the top four and make a play again.

I agree with you. They don't need to expand it. But I do think now Auburn probably crushed

itself with the lost. But there are parallels in the arguments that we are about to have.

We know offense to Auburn. No offense to Auburn. Okay. I just picked you off. I know you have you lost

to Ole Miss. They've snapped the end game loses. Let me say this because I know where you're going,

Reese. Let me just say this. Football's problem is don't expand this playoff. And we're in the

Rego season. Stop expanding your conferences and watering down the Rego season and schedule. Now,

they're starting to do more like nine SEC games and stuff like that. That's good. You've got to

have great games. Football's always going to be popular though because of the scarcity. I think

they're different problems. But that 2014 playoff is let's follow college basketball as college

basketball tries to finally come. Cosmess was climbing back up the mountain and then they want to

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It's the same argument that we are about to have and I don't know if it will be Auburn. Auburn

was the most glaring comparison to Miami, Ohio. Should Miami, Ohio fall into the archival. It's

the same argument we had in football. How do you look at a team that played a more difficult

schedule, maybe had better wins and maybe multiple better wins against a team that put together

a really good record, but it beat nobody. It is glaring for Miami, Ohio. I want Miami, Ohio to

continue to put out all the fires that come their way. I know they're called the Red House. They

should be the fireman. There's like, you know, they're combustible blazes come out. Somebody

comes in with a fire extinguisher, puts them out and everybody's happy and getting along again

and they're still unbeaten. So because we want Travis steel in that speedo, we want the right to

look away and not look at it but still have him do it on selection Sunday because they're undefeated.

Can you tell that story? If they were, I will. Listeners who might not have seen it on basketball

game day. Sorry to cut you off. I just feel like I'm just going to say now and I'll tell the story

and then let's get and I'll take you back to where I'm going with this. So Travis steel, the head

coach at Miami, Ohio was a guest in college game day basketball a couple of weeks ago and we're

talking to my did not plan to do this. We're kind of talking try to get a little something fun out

of them at some point. And so we popped up the image of the swim team, which has been going to

the Red Hawks basketball games complete with, you know, swim cap speedo and they'll lift each

other up and mimic swimming and all of that. So I asked Travis if you finished undefeated.

When the mat go to the tournament where you commit on selection Sunday to coming out in the

speedo and and he said he would. We'll see if he follows through. So far Miami is continuing to

follow through on staying unbeaten. But you know if they so that wasn't the first you didn't say to

Travis. Travis. I'm going to ask you. Okay, because I didn't even know I was going to I didn't even

know I was going to ask it. It just when we show when when the guys showed up on the screen and we

were kind of trying to make it light for the end of the interview. I thought that why not? And so

I asked him and he good for him said that he would might regret might regret that. But probably

there'll be a small price to pay in his eyes if if they can finish undefeated. When the mat

and go into the NCAA tournament. Have you ever worn a speedo?

No, I've certainly never gone swimming publicly with one. We're rolling. We're rolling in this

sometimes. Yeah, I will just say briefly I have because I used to do a charity run for Playball

in Boston. They are not comfortable. I will just say that Travis steel. There will be a moment

when he dons that speedo if they if they keep running here and they win. There will be a moment

when he pulls that thing up and curses your name like that. And I'll say Travis, you're going to

the tournament. But yeah, if they fall into the at large pool, I mean, they've got very little

case in a traditional sense. But because I know how much you guys love the metrics, I was looking

at the Wob last night, the wins above bubble. And basically without trying to go too far down a

rabbit hole, what they try to measure is how well have you done relative to your schedule? Like

for instance, if you beat a bad team at home, you really get nothing for it. If you beat and

Miami hasn't really played any really good teams, but in theory, if a team went and beat a top 10

team on the road, then it ranges in like I think from zero to once you get a full point for that in

your and your deal. Well, Miami's wins above bubble because they are undefeated because that's

difficult to do. It's pretty good. It's a little bit better than than Auburn's. Just to use Auburn

as an example. But Auburn, you know, Miami's got the number 350 schedule or some such staying

that's roughly, you know, one of the worst schedules anywhere. And Auburn's is one, not one of the

top. It's number one. And they've got like five of the quad one wins. So that's what's going to be

evaluated. But I think if Miami Ohio falls into the at large pool, and it probably won't be Auburn,

that'll miss loss the other night was crushing for them, though they have other opportunities coming.

But I suspect Dan that it won't be the Thursday that you love. I sort of suspect Miami,

Miami might sneak in there is like one of the last at large isn't getting that that first four.

You know, if they can do the maybe the last at large team if they say lose in the conference

championship game, lose in the semi final, something like that. This would upset you, Dan.

No, I just hate the first four. First four was a bad idea. I agree with that. I agree with that.

Well, never they will make dumb decisions, never hard decisions. They'll never admit they made a

mistake. And instead they want to expand the first four to the first 12. It's like those things

stinks. Nobody watches it. Like the ratings aren't good. Nobody wants this. Let's do more of it.

Okay. I don't like I don't like the I agree with you. I don't like the first four at all. I mean,

you know what else you do? You make the bubble more interesting. If you if you just go back to 64

and those teams that you're sort of saying, okay, we're not sure about you. And also you're also

diminishing in my judgment, though I'm sure the people have date and put on an unbelievable show.

You're also diminishing the experience of the automatic qualifiers who end up having to play in

that thing too. Let them play on in the big venues. That's what made the bubble more interesting

whole thing. You take away the experience. And you want to be like, listen, I get to go play,

you know, in whatever, I mean, Chicago, I mean, an NBA stadium in a big city. You know,

the practice day before, hey, man, that's bill selfless for their practicing. I go, what,

like you get the whole experience. And instead, you know, we just do we do this thing again,

there's no there's no market for this. Nobody's watching it. Why do we think more teams would do

it? Let's do it all day. The idea that you would hurt the hard launch of the NCAA basketball tournament

at noon on Thursday and risk that is unbelievably dumb. It's just I will, I'll is absolutely a

terrible idea. That's in the context of an Auburn type team that you really like. This was that

great of a team. Look, here's a thing with Miami Miami should should get in this the metrics

unless you're going to go straight metrics and go that kind of science, which is fine.

If you want to do that, but if not, you have to have some kind of a of a human element here.

The Mac since 2010 is seven and 15 in the NCAA basketball tournament. They're not that bad,

okay. Like that's a good step down. No way had your head down for a while and we're paying attention.

Yeah, that was good. Good like on the cuff. Math. I got one for you though, Dan. I've been getting

propaganda from Belmont who has a few losses. But by all of those metrics, they rank they rank

higher than Miami. They do have a few losses. But in their conference is actually ranked higher than

the American, the what they're in the Missouri Valley now, right? Yeah. So that ranks higher than

the American right now in the max, like 17. Yeah, they're not going to they're not going to get a

sniff if they don't if they don't win their tournament. And like how do you pick these teams and

there's a lot of teams. I this isn't even the football thing. We only have 12 and like what do

we what what what are we doing here? Are we sure about that? Just going undefeated is not

doesn't mean as much to me and football. But you know what? All those teams and the Mac isn't that

bad. None of them went undefeated in the league. None of them. So it's incredibly hard to do.

Are they a great team? Are they just winning all their close games? And they're probably really

like a four loss team if we had to replay them all. Sure, but they didn't they're winning them all.

So I would absolutely put them in as as a as a bit. If they if they go undefeated in the regular

season and then that that to me, just a no brainer. It's not the small field. Do you feel the same

way about a football team? And I'm not it would be unfair to say a Mac team because they're such a

drastic difference there. But did you feel the same way about SMU and Indiana a couple of years

going football with a smaller field? Well, none of them were undefeated. Well, not undefeated.

But if they were in theory, would you would you feel that way if the schedule was markedly different?

And yet they're you know, they were coming down to I don't think that a a 12-0 Mac team. I don't

know. That's I that the really an a lot like I'd have to look at that. I was I like that there's

one automatic bid in college football for for the group of five because I the goal should be

to grow the sport everywhere and make the sport everywhere matter, right? There has to be

something for these teams to play for. And that is the one thing basketball did right where I live

like Oakland University hosted Detroit Mercy on Saturday. It was a sellout. It was like, you know,

close to 4,000 people in the gym. It was a wild scene. They were all the all the and that's good.

Okay. Are either of these teams even going to make it? I don't know. Are they going to win a game?

Probably not. But who knows? Right? Oakland won one one a couple years ago. Detroit Merchys won games.

You want college basketball to be good on all the college campuses. Like if you're such a

you know, you'll hear these this will never happen. But they hear this. Well, let's just get rid of

these automatic bids, which just have the top 68. It's like, like, are you the people that show up at

like the casino and root for the dealer? Like, do you have it? What? Where's the imagination? Like,

I think it's great that two schools can have 4,000 people in their gym having a great time on

a Saturday because it's college basketball and they go to college. It does not offend me that we

can only play. You can only be good here. This is it. Like, come on, man. They're not hurting anybody.

It's not a big thing. So I'm fine with one group of five. But like, did I that I liked the two of them?

No. I was the one arguing. I thought Duke would have been a better representative. You know, even

with their five losses. This is a bad argument and a bad hill to die on. Believe me. It wasn't

it wasn't a real compelling one. But that's as an ACC champion. But so I'm more strength

to schedule. But there were certain times when it's just like how miserable of a human being

you have to be to sit there and watch Miami University when every single game and go, well, you know,

they're here to quad ones. Oh my god. Go away. Since we're not offending anyone on this podcast,

I know too late for that. I know someone who really feels convicted about it. And that's Bruce

Pearl who who went viral for a lack of self-awareness over the weekend because on TNT, he was

stepping against Miami Ohio, which is pretty much like rooting for, hey, great job dealer.

Another flat jack. Hey, you got 21 off that 16 man. I don't, I don't, I'm not anxious or eager

to ascribe motivation to people when they do something because we get that all the time.

Well, you just want this. You just want that lack of self-awareness is a good way to put it

because the other team in the crosshairs. Oh, yes. Yeah. Saturday night was Steven's. No, he missed

that. Steven said coach it off. I think it was last. Bruce has his opinion. That's fine. I just

disagree with him. I've been agreeing and disagreeing with him for 30 years. That's what I love

about him. But you know, the thing is he's not, I agree with you, Dan and Prince. He's a little

bit of a departure for me. He's generally right. They don't have and at large case, you know,

in terms of wins and all of those things that you would look at. But the human element,

the dramatic element, the winning all the games, you know, I mean, how many times have we

gotten from bubble coaches like I remember my, my good friend Seth Greenberg, we still laugh about

all the text that he used the angry text that he would send, Billus and me when he was sitting on

the bubble, you know, a Virginia tech. And one of the things, not just Seth, but other coaches will

come back to how many times have you heard this right? Do you know how hard it is to win?

Okay, so this, that's fine. I agree with it. Very hard to win any sport, any situation.

But it's hard to win against a difficult schedule also. So which do you value? Which do you value

more? Because what happens is when you, when you take a stand or what your team involved, you end

up excluding the other side of the argument, both things are hard. It's really hard to still have

a zero in the lost column, as Miami Ohio does, as we see it here on March 2nd. It is also really hard

to play the number one schedule in the country and to, you know, go out there every night and finish

many games about 500 Auburn actually. And I'm not stumping for them, not after Saturday night.

You have to, they need, they've got to get busy and get some wins. But just to use them as an example,

I mean, their wins above the bubble was positive. It's not huge. It's not a huge win against a

better record than a bubble average bubble team would have, which generally would be a team ranked

in the 40s and those, those net rankings, if the tournament selection committee uses.

But yeah, it's hard to win against hard schedule, but it's hard just to win period. It's hard not to,

you know, get caught sleepwalking. And that same goes in football too. I mean, we see it every week.

You come off in football. You come off a big win. You play less than your best. You know, you,

you have to, you know, stumble by somehow and, and get past a solid, but not great Iowa team.

We saw two teams that were really good. Two playoff teams do that last year. Indiana and Oregon,

both, you know, had to fight their tails off. They kind of stumbled into Iowa City and it,

it got rough. It's difficult to win. You deserve some credit for it. You deserve the ultimate credit.

That's why you have the committee. That's why you have the selection committee for basketball

and for football to make those determinations. And then we get to opine on it. I mean,

if Auburn and Miami were playing, then I had to pick. I'd pick Auburn. But, you know,

Hickory High ain't played nobody, Paul. You know, like, that's relaxed. You know,

I, you wait, Pete, you just raised an eyebrow and said on neutral floor, you're, you're taking the

Red Hawks. Again, I mean, they've won all their games. They play well together as a team. Auburn

is a good team with a lot of talent. I mean, yeah, do I know who'd match up with

a hot pedifer and shut up? Yeah, there are some things there. But like, at a certain point,

the sum is greater than the parts, man, you know, and like, you just have to, like, you just have

to tip your cap. Like, there's some, there's some magic to winning. It's just why, like, why didn't

Florida football win last year? It probably wasn't because the players weren't fined up. Like,

there was something missing. Auburn basketball has something missing this year and they didn't go

down this trail to pick on Auburn. But like, I just can't say, oh, a team that is one sporadically

is going to win a team that's one, like, relentlessly and violently. I just, you know, let's put it

this way. If they were playing in Dayton, right, in a whatever, whatever those games are, the play

in game, I don't know the seeds. It's like 1110 or something. Yeah, it was like in 11,

occasionally 1112, but usually in 11, yeah. So if those two teams are playing a double 11 game,

which by the way, isn't like a crazy scenario, right? If Auburn is still lost, if I don't like

the first four and that would be fun. That would be good. Yes. No, I'm just saying, like,

are you really going to like stand on the table for Auburn? Sure. I don't think it's just like

a no-brainer. That's all. Like, at a certain point, the collective will of a team and the collective

accomplishment of the team wins out. So I am, like, I would be, again, I'm not some like

faux outrage, Gavin, I would be super disappointed. The tournament as a product would suffer

if Miami doesn't go in if they lose in the semi-finals. I just think that the tournament is less

of the game. They have collectively earned their spot there. I'm going to say this. If they dump

one of their last two regular season games and also lose in the tournament, I'm going to feel

very differently about different conversation. Yeah. Different conversation. There's still a lot of

high-wire. And that's what's made it magical because they have many games if they pulled out of

nowhere, right? Like, you know, like, yeah, like, it's just like at a certain point, like,

they're good at winning basketball games. And that has to matter. Yeah. They actually had

a little stretch that they seem to be getting better and better too. Like, they're just, they're just

more, it's like they're believing in themselves too on this as it's gone along. They didn't have to

squeak by Western Michigan, but like, you know, Terry, Terry Perry hit this shot right at the end,

this layup. But if you to Pete's point, like, if you watch at the end of that game, like everyone

knew where they were going. Yeah. Like, this was not like one of these, sometimes you get these

teams that went all their games and then, you know, they're getting a close one and they're all

staying around going, what do we do? These guys know exactly what they're doing. And it was,

there was no hesitation on the play. So they had a stretcher. They were winning a ton close and

they had a nice month where they're kind of blowing everyone out until Saturday. And obviously,

you got this game, uh, they get Toledo and then they're at Ohio next Saturday. He has been too. Hey,

what he's been. Let's go on networks here. Let's go. They didn't have any home Saturdays left or

I would have been quietly advocating. And by the way, I have no juice. It'd be like me quietly

advocating for something to pass Congress, uh, quietly advocating for us to go there for game day.

Because it's just been such a good story. Like literally didn't have any home Saturday games.

I wonder if they'll sell out Ohio has got that huge stadium. That's going to be a wild

game. Like that's going to be that's there. I think that's there are drivel. I don't know who

Mac rivalries man. You know how far with those campuses are pretty close, right? I think it's

now there are a few hours and I don't think there's a road. Okay. All right. You have to find a way

to get there. Uh, my, my Ohio, my mid Ohio, uh, driving geography. Yeah. Like one's on the east.

It once, you know, uh, uh, Athens is like south of, uh, of Columbus, south west. I don't know.

It's 23 minutes, 167 miles. Uh, uh, but yeah, some of those speedo content will make the trip.

What do you guys as, what do you guys as bothered as I was the big college sports slash college football

summit that's coming up, seemingly everybody in the world is going to be in the room in the three of

us. The power brokers that we are somehow were, um, excluded from the summit meeting that President

Trump is putting together that's going to have many, many of the power brokers in the sport together

and aimed at curing some of the ills or at least coming up with ideas to cure the ills of college

sports right now. I thought Dan would definitely get an invitation. I'm so big on meetings. Yes. Yeah.

Let me say this. I, there's a lot of like people like why is the president involved in this and stuff.

Like college sports a big industry. Uh, I was talking to an 80 this weekend and we were guessing

there might be a million people who work in college athletics. If you send this thing out to all

the schools, it's huge, uh, local economies. There's billions of dollars in line. Like you would have,

no one would blink if, and not only would they, they do every president. We have all the leaders

of the auto industry and have a discussion on all the agriculture. So I think it's totally in the

purview of, uh, of, of, of Trump to, to say, hey, look, if there's an issue here, what's going on?

Can I help or whatever? The problem is what do we have? It was at least 35 and growing. 40-ish,

yeah. 40-ish people in a meeting. Like how many people are at the constant, uh, the, uh,

constitutional convention? Like, I mean, you know what? This is like, this is because if you

ask 10 people in college athletics, 10 dialed in people and they don't even have like current players

or agents like they're missing a whole segment of the people. You ask 10 people, what's the number one

problem in college athletics? You get 10 different answers and 20 different solutions. This is like

trying to get the, the, the, the boys trip together, the guys weekend, right? And, and you got,

you got the group text. And what you got to do is have like, someone's got to do the prep work and

say, look, here's what we're doing. We're playing golf. It's going to be May 17th or it's going to be

May 24th. We're going to Pinehurst and we're going to Myrtle. That's it. What you can't do is say,

hey, guys, anytime this summer you want to get together, maybe we could go golfing or go to Myrtle

or Pinehurst and someone says, what about going to Oregon? Let's go to Northern Michigan. What about

we just go to Vegas for the weekend? Let's go to Nashville. Let's go to Scottsdale. Go to

a spring training weekend or let's go fishing off of Florida. And then you make the group text 40 people.

Yeah, you ain't getting the boys weekend. It ain't happening. There's everyone's going to have an

opinion. I don't want to go, I don't like fishing. I get seasick. Jimmy can't go hike. Let's go to a

football weekend, college or pro, Tennessee or LSU. What do we want to go to? You're the boys

weekends never happening. If you got 40 people given their, what did each guy speaks for three

minutes? You're like three hours into this thing. I mean, I am glad. No problem with the

summit or whatever they're calling this thing. But man, I'm glad I ain't there. It's really,

you look at the list and one of the things I said to you guys earlier is that it's going to be

real easy to be snarky about this. The jokes right themselves, right? It's really easy.

He didn't actually wrote that. He didn't just come up with that at the top of the session.

I mean, you know, that one, that was Chatchy PT, too. Tell me a joke. No, I don't like it.

I mean, you look at the list and you say, which, which of these two people would I be

most fascinated to see them interact? I mean, you know, Condoleez rises in the room,

you know, all the commissioners in their business people that I do not know who they are.

Tim Timo and Charlie Warder in there, they're, you know, they're chancellors. Adam Silver is,

you know, it's going to be in the, in the mix of this two Tiger and Bryson, D. Shembo would both

be there. But my thing, it's going to be easy to make the jokes and understandably silver,

because we should joke about things. That's, that's good. There's no harm in that.

There are going to be really good ideas presented in this meeting. I have no doubt about this.

There are people with varied experiences who have perspectives and some really smart people

on this list. They're going to have some really good ideas. And there's going to be no way.

There's still no mechanism to be actionable with the ideas. None. Because that is the foundation

of the problem to begin with is that there's no way to be actionable on the ideas. It's like this

notion that they're going to crack down on the coaches who somehow violate the rules within

the transfer portal. If the, you know, they get a guy without him openly being in the portal.

They're going to sit in for half the season and all of this stuff. How? How? You're, you're not

going to be able to do this. This sounds like tough talk. It's not going to happen. And to me,

we still, we can't really, and look, I don't, I don't have a great idea about how to get

it to root of the problem. But the root of the problem is that all of these ideas are fine.

Some of them are more than fine. Some of them are excellent collective bargaining, for instance,

with whom? For whom? Who are the two sides? I mean, I don't think Charlie Baker is even going to be

in this room. Is that right? The NCAA president. When the last article I saw, he wasn't on the list.

And now that may have changed. I don't know. But the list I saw it said he was not on the list at

the time. Hopefully that's, or maybe that's changed. I don't know. But there's no pathway to enact

any of the good ideas right now. And to me, that's the fundamental issue with dealing with some of

this and trying to, you know, trying to put it together. I was talking to a guy a few weeks ago

about a certain school. I don't want to cast aspersions at them. They're spending a lot of money

this year. And I said, how long will they be able to keep that up? And the response was not

long. You know, so you've got people that kind of going all in, you know, for a year or two,

and then it's going to cycle back. And it, well, I don't know who's going to enact any of the ideas

or figure out who might bargain with whom to try to put together a framework for it to,

for it to continue functioning well. I'll push back on the cycle back. Like who's spending less?

You know, I mean, the part of the problem we're in now. I'm saying it was, I'm going to tell you

who the ones that don't have the money anymore. Well, some are overextended from people who

cannot necessarily be counted on to be their long term. How about that? Sure. No, but I just think

the industry itself, we had the $10 million roster. Then it was the $20 million Ohio State roster.

Now we're at the $40 million roster. Like, do I hear 50? Do I hear 56? And again, like this is just

what the lack of structure guardrails has given us is that like you are rewarded if you can just

keep, you know, spending like it's the last night on port. And, you know, I think that's, you know,

ultimately, I think things will get curved once somebody establishes themselves as the Yankees

and the Dodgers and then wins like the Dodgers, right? Like once we get, once people just go all

the way out and leave everybody behind, it will get curved back in. Right now we're in this

sweet parody spot, which has been really fun, you know, to look at maybe the high end teams aren't

as good as the high end teams like LSU and 19 or some of Nick's teams, right? Like we don't have

the super, super teams that we've had, but what we do have are more better teams, you know,

the Vanderbilt's rise. Indiana's obviously skyrocketed in, in we go. So, I don't know, I,

like look, a lot of really smart people have spent a lot of long time trying to think of solutions.

I'm just confident, no offense that Bryson D. Chambo is going to deliver the answers.

You know, I don't care how much money is spent. I mean, I'm all four people making money. If people

have made billions of dollars and they want to give it away. And because, you know, they're playing

fantasy football. Fine, go ahead. I don't care. I think the more pressing issues to me are eligibility

who gets to play. And then where do you get to play and how do you move from one place to the other?

And is it okay? Like back in the day, I was always for wide open transfer because if you were

going to use that fake term to avoid workman's compensation, student athlete, because, you know,

I'm what's the old joke because I'm a husband host. I am a father commentator. You know, we don't

do that in any other aspect of life. You know, this whole student athlete thing is a farce. They can

be students when, when the situation calls for it. And their athletes, when the athletes call for it,

one doesn't have to compromise the other. But, you know, this whole thing, they can make as much

money as they want. But back in the day, when they weren't, I was like, well, we don't tell the

students when they can transfer. So you shouldn't tell the athletes, well, now it's different. But now

you're paying them seven figures. So now you probably, they're probably, we need to be some type

of construct there to determine who's eligible, who gets to play, how long do they get to play

under what circumstances do they get to play. And then when can they move from Michigan to Ohio

state if they choose? You know, that, I mean, I think that's a reasonable business enterprise.

But I don't know how that gets enacted based on any ideas from this meeting or any other.

Right. A couple of things here. A, if all the people in there, I'm actually most intrigued with

Bryson D. Shambo does think if you know Bryson at all, and I know you guys don't cover a lot of

pro golf, but an extremely analytical guy is could be totally crazy. But he what he comes spits out.

But save us. I have no idea why Bryson is on this list. I'm not expecting a lot, but

anything when Bryson talks and says, I think you go, okay, this could be interesting because he's

got some, he's got some unique ideas on everything. He's very, very analytical. SMU golfer, you know,

he played. Yeah, yeah, golfer Stanford golfer. Yeah, I don't know why I don't know what are we

doing, but whatever. They're here. Tiger is going to wear red and save it all. It's going to be

like a subitimate point. They keep telling us it's non-sustainable and people won't be able to

spend more. And if we don't, we're going to end up with the Yankees and the Dodgers, right?

We just came from the Yankees and the Dodgers. We had the Yankees and the Dodgers, like,

but they love the boogeyman. Sky's falling. Look out. If we don't do something, there's only going

to be like two teams that go in the title every year. Gee, I wonder what that was like.

Yeah, that argument's been blown. They're the reins by Kurt Signetian, Indiana. Yeah,

there's too many players. There's too many good players. Guys can spread again. Why is college

basketball so good? These guys are all starring on their own team. We get to watch their individual

brilliance. They're not the fourth option on some great team. That's too good. So,

then finally, to Reese's point is absolutely true. What you got to go in and if you really

were serious and say, look, we got Trump's interest. We have the president of the United States

interested and he's got Congress and we could go to Congress. You can't do the group chat with

40 ideas and where we should go, what weekend? You have to come in and say, we're going to

Myrtle Beach and we're got an Airbnb and I need someone to get everybody's significant other to

say, you're allowed to go. That's really it. And then we will accomplish this. You've got to walk

in there with eligibility. You absolutely have to walk in and say, we need to, you know, Mr. President,

what can you do to help us? This is the most pressing issue. But you see, other ones all have

different arguments. You could say, well, we don't like to transfer port. I'll say, well,

basketball and football is more better. You say, guys should be loyal to teams. I said, what's

wrong with the turn of dad? Chambles live in the American dream. You can say, this, we got to

protect women's sports and Olympic sports to say, why? You know, maybe we shouldn't have that much.

We don't need Rutgers playing Washington and soccer or something like that. I can argue all those.

Eligibility is the one thing they all agree on. And if you went in and said, we need to be able

to say we need antitrust narrow bill allow us to say you have five years to play five seasons

under 23. If you go pro after your 18th birthday, you have to stay pro. That's our rule. Can you do

that for us? If we can do that and we're not picking off fighting legal battles in every county

in America and we get that simple antitrust exemption there, then let's talk about everything else.

You could get that done. But what I know about this thing, when you have 40 opinions, even if every

one of them is extremely up on it and extremely well-meaning, you're going to get 40 different

things and you're going to throw it. And Trump is going to, you imagine having to be the guy

everyone's talking to with 40 different ideas. You'd be like, oh my goodness. I had no idea,

where is this going? You guys got to sort your own thing out. Come back with one or two actionable

things. And if they just did eligibility, then maybe you got a chance because I think both sides

of Congress would be in favor of that because it's common sense and you'd have the president behind

you and you could solve a really big issue here. And then worry about the boogeyman stuff and we

can't do this. We don't have enough money and we might have to cut our wrestling team or whatever.

All that other stuff is just so complicated and so many different issues. Eligibility is not.

You should have five years. There's no medical red shirts. There's no, you know, my mother got sick

or my coach left or I only played two games. None of it. This is it. 23 and under. That's what this

league is about. If you can't follow the rules, you're out. It's like high school. You've got four

years. We don't care what happened to you. We're sorry, but you've got four years to play.

And see, that's I'm running for president. That's why three person, a three person committee

right here. We solved it. That's the answer. That's the answer. Good work, Dan. Good work. Good

work, gentlemen. Check marches here. Spring practice starting. I know that we delved into basketball

a little more heavily than we normally do, but I see all these football coaches at basketball games.

I'll Brent Brennan sitting close to the Arizona game. Some are all having the best seat in the

house at Florida watching there. So they're into it. So hopefully the those of you who listen and

we have a few coaches on our resume or on our roster, I should say for listening, hopefully they

enjoyed that as well. Thanks for listening to the college game day podcast download wherever you

prefer to get your podcast or subscribe and never miss a single episode.

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