All right, some breaking news that just dropped about five.
Ten minutes ago. Tayshawn Lyons has re entered the transfer portal.
Utah wide receiver Tashawn Lyons has re entered the transfer portal. If you recall, Tayshawn Lyons entered the transfer portal earlier this week and then withdrew his name after about a couple of hours in the portal. But according to twenty four to seven Sports, Tayshawn Lyons is now back in the transfer portal. Utah added a wide receiver yesterday from Utah State and Otto Tiya, So maybe that's one of the reasons Tayshawn bounced College football season, Bowl Season, CFP, Transfer.
Portal and the like. With our buddy Kyle Bonagura on a Friday afternoon. Kyle, Happy Friday.
How you doing, Bud, I'm gonna good sense are you?
I'm well? I'm well? So how what?
What did what did Christmas Day look like? In the bonne Guera Household out everything go? Did santacom everybody stay safe and have a good time?
Yes, Santa made it safely down the chimney. One year old and a four year old uh all their dreams came true, So it was good Christmas.
One and four.
So you're you're in the thick of it, aren't you. I didn't realize that you are.
You are in. That's a battleground zone every day, isn't it.
Yeah.
I just broke away from the battle right now because those you know, in between the holidays, everyone's off you preschool all that, so everyone's kind of running wild right now. So I got to escape to the back of the office to chat with.
You right on. Well, I appreciate the time.
Today, Let's just start with the silly dynamic that college football has.
Free agency while the season is still going on.
Like this is so dumb, uh, And there's so many dumb things right now about this great sport and this great product that we all love. But what what what are your what are your thoughts on the current situation that again essentially as free agency while the season is going on, and you know this can't last, This is untenable. This has to change, Kyle, doesn't it.
Yeah? I mean it definitely has to change. But you know, how did that? How did that happen? I don't know. I don't think I have like a fully fleshed out fix here, because I mean, this is really the problem that you have with teather professional sport education.
Right.
You have semesters, you have quarters like guys portals, so they can roll in time. If it's a semester, it's different, it's a quarter. You've got the coaching changes happening during the seasons, so many moving pieces that like you can't just say, okay, do this one thing and that solves anything. Because with one fix, which is what the transfer portal was, right, it was a fix to allow these kids to have flexibility and all that that they that they should they
have had. But with that fix became this madness that we're watching play out right now at the middle of the season. It's in between bowl games. It's you know, in the thick of you all, I should be on the ploffs right now, right Like in theory, it should be like the NFL where the portal opens at the end of at the end of the season, right, But for some of these teams, that means that your season's over and the last week in November, so that means you got to wait two months and then classes start.
So yeah, I mean it's a it's a mess, and this is the result of kind of kicking the can down the road every time you were forced to do so by you know, the powers that be, you know the courts, right with all the lawsuits that have pushed for more rights. And you know, if if the NCAA would have like fully embraced where this has had a long time ago, you could have kind of be set and tried to design a system that could have taken
this all intoccount. You know, nothing about the way that the organizition is ever acted makes me think that the level just blow it up. I'll just have one. It's going to be plugging holes in the sinking ship until we eventually are looking at something that's nothing like we see today.
I wonder what your thoughts are on, you know, the past few weeks we're hearing, you know, the venture capitalist firms and private equity money are starting to kick the tires on purchasing portions of college football programs, and look, I don't know how that would work. I don't know the mechanisms on how to make that happen. If I did, I'd probably be a venture capitalist myself and not talking about sports for four hours every day on AM radio.
There's got to be you know, involvement of course from local legislators in the state because several institutions are publicly owned,
and then there are private institutions like BYU. You know, the model that we're hearing is there'll be private equity firms that are looking to purchase We'll just say Ohio State forty eight percent of Ohio State football and give them six seven hundred million dollars up front that Ohio State can then go use on nil endeavors to improve their facilities whatever they want.
And then, of course the big.
Payout for the vcs will come once the pro model is in place and that TV deal will shoot through the roof with the I don't know, the forty biggest brands in college football. The dynamic that we've all discussed over the past couple of years, if that comes.
To be a reality, Kyle and I feel like it's going to.
Is that a situation where, you know, the people that get together and spend hundreds of millions of dollars on purchasing percentages of these teams will then be able to put central leadership in place and we could have a Roger Goodell of college football and a central leadership office that can actually be forward thinking and see around corners and come up with solutions instead of reacting to problems.
Yeah, I mean, I don't think you should have to go that far before you have someone who's kind of been a commissioner's share, and I think there's a clear
need for that to be there already. But like, just like the structure of the sport makes all of it's all of it is so difficult to game out because of all the different variables in place, right, Because when you have these conference commissioners, like if you're the commissioner of the Big Ten or the SEC and you're in this powerful role, like you're probably out, you know, you're not trying to get that up right, So you're pushing back at every step to prevent something like that from happening.
And that's kind of how we got here, right, is people trying and think on the power for you know, it's kind of human nature, I guess to a degree. But like I think like that prevents a lot of what you're talking about from happening. I think that the more you see control the outside parties, like the individuals that have to allow that to happen, Like it's not
in their best interests. So I think you're gonna get all the push back there, and then you know, eventually there needs to be more tiers to this sport, right, Like FES as one hundred and thirty teams, Like it's a joke, right, there's not than thirty teams playing at the same level. So I think whether it's forty, whether it's whatever the number is, I think there probably should be three divisions within you know, within FBS. Right, there's
so many different ways this could go. That's why, like I try not to like get too in the weeds with all this because it's it's just so hard to predict, right. I think it's like the idea of private acity, Like you understand that those talks are happening. There's a good chance that it does happen to some degree, but you know we're not there yet, right, and so to know exactly what it's going to look like, it's just so hard to understand. Like if this happens, then this will happen.
If you push this button, then this lever drops, Right. There's just too much of that going on to have a great sense of what the sport's going to look like. When the new TV fields kind of are upper auction, so to speak.
All right, let's talk about some actual football that has been played and will be played coming up. I wonder what your thoughts are, because I haven't spoke to you since we saw the first round of the CFP games played and duds ultimately in my opinion, and it led to wailing and nashing of teeth and angry people who cover the sport talking about, you know, no more auto bids,
and look, I don't know how you could. You cannot, in my opinion at least, and obviously it's my opinion because I'm about to speak into the microphone, so I didn't really need to say that, But you cannot devalue the regular season in college football.
You just can't do it, because it's what makes this sport great.
That every week feels kind of like do or die for college football teams. And I do think you need to continue to find a way to value winning.
Your conference as well. But I don't think like we're in the big twelve foot print.
I don't think Arizona State should have had a first round by you know, and I can understand why people are upset that boyse got their first round by even though Boise had a great year and barely lost to Orgon the best team in the country.
But I also can call it how it.
Is, and you know, maybe these aren't one of the four best teams in college football. And ultimately, you know, should SMU have really been able to get in even though they.
Played their conference championship game close? I don't know. I mean, like everything else, there are no easy fixes.
But it seems like a lot of people that wanted the expanded twelve team format are now upset at this format too.
So did the I guess the way, I'll ask the question long way to land the play?
Did the first round CFP games change your opinion on what this sport should do to crown its national champ.
I don't.
I actually think it's fine. Right, there's blots. There's gonna be blots. That's the sport. There was blots with four, there's bloods in the NFL, there's bloods in the final four, Like the national champion a few years ago was sixty five to seven, Right, So I think we just have to understand that whatever the format is going to look like, there's just going to be blotted. And yeah, there was there was, there was all of them that there were no competitive games this time, and that to this type
of discussion, right, it's fair. It's kind of the natural way to go with it, like how do we make things better? But I think at the same time, like what we saw during the regular season this year, I thought was so much better because it kept everyone in the country relevant through the whole year. I mean, we
have the whole country is still relevant. Right if you look at it, if you look at a map and you see where the teams are, like, those teams are a part of the conversation in college football, and that just was never the case during the four team right it was the Pac twelve was eliminated with three weeks to go, you know a few times, right, and that was just unhealthy for the sport before that, like the BCS with two like that was a joke to have just two teams played for it. Yeah, like it's those
are probably the two best teams. But also you know then you know, I still want to see I still wanted to see these good matchups atin of the year, like this this round, right, if you look at it, right, Texas centers and say, all right, Arizona State one. It's conference. Let's let's do we can do against the two? You can do texts if you if you get blown out, at least we know you got blown out. And we just didn't decide it was going to be a blow
up before the game took place. Right, We had a round of games on what was it like December twenty first was or is when when the games were right like most years, there's no college football that day, right, So are we saying that we'd rather just like not have these, like on paper, really good matchups. Yeah they were. They were blowouts, but like I'd rather be sitting in front of my TV on that day watching those games as opposed to like the gallery furniture, dot com bole
or something else that doesn't really matter. Right, there's this This for me is has been a good format, And I don't think it's like the results of the first round in year one make me feel otherwise. And yeah, I think there's tweaking to do with seeding and buys and all that, but I think like where we're at is so much better than where we wore prefer that I'm kind of you know, I'm I'm okay looking over like these those uncompetitives men not competitve games in the first round.
Yeah, and I do agree with that.
I'm I'm going to ask a long question, Kyle, and while I'm asking the question, I'll just ask and see if you can move around the house to get some better reception. And then I'm aware that you have to deal with two young girls as well, So let's kind of reset a little bit, see if you can get a better connection with Kyle. The next round will start
on New Year's Eve. It's Penn State, Boise State, and then on Wednesday, the other three games will be played Texas, Arizona State, Ohio State, Oregon, and then Notre Dame Georgia the final game.
So we'll get to those games in a moment.
Kyle Bonnagura is our guest, don't forget coming up in about twenty minutes from right now. Richard Smith and Frank Layden live on site. So if you've never met the legendary Frank Layden and Smitty, they are the best people and they'd be happy to take pictures with you, shake your hands out here at Tim Dolly Southtown. Tim Dolly Nissan Southtown. So put that phone or excuse me, put that address in your phone and your GPS and follow it out here if you want to meet Frank. So
we'll bring Kyle back on now. So Kyle from a local standpoint. Unfortunately, Utah of course not pull eligible, So we don't have a game to talk about with the Utes.
The last time we had you on, I asked you about.
Jason Beck and Devin damp here, So we won't go down that route. But the game that we do have, ironically enough, we're the home of the Utes, but we have the BYU Colorado.
Game on our radio station.
So it's tomorrow, it's five point thirty. Colorado's a three point five point favorite. These two teams landed in San Antonio on Tuesday, and you've done a number of pieces on Dion and Colorado, and obviously this will bring a massive amount of attention. I would imagine the rating is going to be super high. BYU is a massive brand on their own right, and then everybody watches coach Prime and Colorado is among the most watched teams in all
of college football. Give me your thoughts on the Alamo Bowl tomorrow in San Antonio.
Yeah, so I think if you look at the like the slate of bowl games, non playoff games, it's probably the most interesting one. The fact that you have the heis and Trophy winner who's not sitting out. You have the potential number and overall pick in sure, George Sanders not sitting out. That's a pretty good starting point for you know, game that is involved in the playoff, right, And so that's that's pretty intriguing for what I understand.
Buya hasn't hasn't really had many defections, although I haven't been keeping close tabs on that. But yeah, and the fact that they were, you know, in the same conference, tied for the tide for first place. It's kind of this consolation Big Twelve title game in a way, right They both team was finished seven and two in the conference, and you know, probably felt like they deserved a chance to play to get into the the playoffs. I'm excited
to see this one. A few weeks ago, I went down to Provo, had a chance to sit down with with j Hill and just kind of talk about the season that he's been through, I mean, heart attack two days before the season opener and then kind of dealing with that. You kind of in recovery on a parallel path with the season. So I wrote about that. I've
got a story publishing tomorrow. The BYO Pans will probably get a enjoy reading because that that story about what he's been through this year is pretty remarkable.
Yeah. In fact, since we're in that space, let me follow up and without spoiling.
It, because we want people to go read it.
Jay is a friend of the show once upon a time up here and saw Lake obviously at Weber and I think a lot of people around here figured he would get a head coaching opportunity quickly, and that hasn't come to fruition yet. He's still very young. My guess is he's going to have a program to run on his own. Tremendous recruiter. It took a little bit for the new players to get used to his system, but year two under j Hill, that defense has.
Been really good.
So I would imagine that was the first opportunity you had to meet Jay and sit down with him.
What were some of the main takeaways.
What do you think makes makes him such an effective recruiter and defensive coordinator.
Yeah, when you sit down with him, it's really just like the energy that he exudes is right off the bat, right, there is a kind of a comfort level that exists. I'm sure this is the case with almost anyone who sits down and starts talking. He's just like enjoyable to be around. He's got this kind of positive energy that you know, it really seeps into the team. I know,
his his players. I talked to a few of them about, you know, just kind of the impact he's had in the program, and they rave about him in a way that you don't usually hear players talk about coaches like right, it's it's it was all also like very genuine, I guess, is what I'm saying. That they really believe in him as a coach, believe him as a person. And yeah, I mean, look, b Yu was one of the worst
defenses in college football teeriears ago. This year, they were right there at the top in the Big Twelve and in every meaningful statistical category. So yeah, and that handsful, handsful Saturday with with Shador and Travis Hunter. So it's yeah, like I said before, it's it's about as good as you can hope for in a bowl game, given all the different factors that are taken away from those games. These days.
All right, Kyle, before I start, you loose on a Friday, get you, get you back to the fam. I was thinking about this this morning. I feel like, from my advantage point, I feel like there have been moments watching Ohio State this year where I felt like that's the best team in the country.
I feel like there are.
Moments I've watched Oregon this year and feel like that's the best team in the country. I would say the same thing about Georgia. I'm not as high on Texas as most, but they're obviously really good. Of the remaining teams left, there eight teams left in the CFP, how many would you say qualify from your prism as potentially the best team left standing.
Yeah, so just going right down the list, you know, obviously Oregon and Ohio State both can can get there. I would remove Georgia actually, just you know, I have you're starting quarterback, you're gonna do it with the backup? Like, maybe it's possible, and I'll I'll be wrong in a couple weeks, but I just don't think that you can
be confident in a team with this backup quarterback. Texas is right there, of course, and I thought notre Dame looked really good that in that playoff game too, So I think that's the that's the group I would sit with. I like, look, they're all all these are good teams, and you can like you can sing their praises, but look, Boyer State's not it's not gonna happen, Penn State, it's it's it's not gonna happen, at least I don't think so. In areas on a state again, great season, Kenny Dillingham,
among the best coaching jobs in college football year. But they're just there's a there's tiers here, right, and that's not a team for me that has a chance to win. So those are the four that I think are in are have a shot, and I think that's like, that's what exciting about this field, right, Like you have four teams where you know you can be like I could probably be convinced of any of those four of of why they deserve to kind of be sitting in that
in that chair at the end. So again, this is the for me, the playoff format is a good thing that we have all those teams still in the mix.
Kyle, thank you, my friend.
We'll let you get back to the fan happy holiday season, have a great new year, and we'll get you back on soon, all right, thanks