All right, don't forget you can hear the CFE semi final at the Capitol One Orange Bowl. Let's give the sponsor a shout out tonight following the Craig Smith Coaches Show. Notre Dame Penn State and our next guest, I have to imagine is excited for it Tonight's festivities, Uncle Ted, as he's gone around these parts, the great Ted Robinson on a Thursday. Ted, Happy Thursday, sir, how are you well?
It's great to be back with you. Happy New Year? And yeah, I mean it's it's nice to see and look, Penn State's a terrific school itself, so and I think many of us, I guess you probably are not surprisday we say this, are very happy that the SEC is not of office. Texas is not the SEC, even though they're taking the money from us. It's it's been good. And you know what, the games last week actually ended
up being being pretty good. And I was happy for that because we all know the first week that Friday Saturday was.
Not good, oh for sure. And you know I do want to get to some Macro takeaways. But since you are a proud Notre Dame alum, I wanted to have you on today to talk about what exactly would it mean for this institution, and folks such as yourself did care about it. If Notre Dame was not only able to win tonight, but go in their first national championship since what nineteen eighty.
Eight, Wow, well yeah, it would mean it would mean a ton And I will always proclaim that Notre Dame won the national championship in nineteen ninety three since the beat Florida State head to head in November and the two schools ended up with the same record. But back then there was not a whole lot of love for Lou Holtz and Bobby Bowden was beloved by the media, had never won the national championship, and so they gave it to him. And that's just the way it is.
And that's why, you know, it's one of the many reasons why we eventually got to various forms of playoffs is because that was just ridiculous. I mean, the two teams met head to head in November, not a week zero, and Notre Dame beat him and you end up with the same record. That usually means the tie break, right, But that didn't have an idea anyway. What it would mean in the present day would be a lot. It would be confirmation for Marcus Freeman. I'm very open with
the fact that I met Marcus Freeman once. I met him last year when Notre Dame played at Stanford the final PAC twelve Network football game, very impressive. I'm thrilled for the university because it was way too long to have diversity in our coaching ranks. Being the prim and Catholic university in the world, that should be something that is important to us, and we didn't practice it enough
in my view until recently. And Marcus Freeman even now has gotten heat from alums because of some of the losses Notre Dame's had in this three years, including Northern Illinois this year, and I'm thrilled for the results because it just silenced all of that. Admittedly, Notre Dame didn't have the toughest schedule this year because the ACC wasn't great. USC was not great, so it wasn't it wasn't the gauntlet that some of the SEC teams have to face.
Let's let's be clear on that. But Notre Dame handled their business and they handled it pretty well.
So James Franklin with some comments about his belief that every school should have a you know, should be in a conference, and Notre Dame has always been the one institution, the one brand that's been able to make this model work. And if they win the national championship, I think the check is twenty twenty one million, which goes to Notre Dame.
They don't have to split it to the winner, goes to Spoil.
So help us understand a little bit more as to why the independent dynamic is so important to the lifeblood of not just the football program, but the institution that is Notre Dame.
Okay, yeah, I don't know what I didn't I'm not familiar with James Franklin's comment there. I don't understand it, as you related. I don't know. First of all, none of his business. And secondly, I don't know why is there a constitutional mandate here that every school has to be a part of something that doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. But anyway, having said that's, let me say two things. One, Notre Dame is really
part of the conference. They are in the ACC for every sport except hockey because the ACC doesn't play hockey. Notre Dame actually plays in the Big Ten believe it or not hockey conference. They're in the ACC for every other sport, and they play between four and five ACC games a year. That also means that when the ACC school plays at Notre Dame, that school has taken home a pretty nice TV paycheck as a visiting team on
a national NBC telecast. So the one, or I should say, the two elements that the independence means for Notre Dame, and it's only two, is the TV the home television contract only the home games. And secondly, it's scheduling enabled to Notre Dame to schedule probably half a dozen games a year, including what they termed the Shamrocks Series, which means it's a neutral sight game usually in a big market in the country that has a lot of Notre Dame alms, and Notre Dame schedule is one of those
every year. That's the extent of their independence. So my point to you is it's vastly overrated. I'm also my second point would be, this was back in the late nineties, probably Jim Delaney opened the door for Notre Dame to join the Big Ten as the twelfth member. I was very Adam. Within the Notre Dame world, I thought it was a great idea. I thought we belonged to the
Big Ten for all of our sports. Women's sports were just growing, we were starting to develop Olympic sports, and to be in the Big Ten just made a ton of sense. For all the apparent reasons, the Notre Dame faculty largely wanted that associations of the Big Ten schools, not the new Big Ten, but the original Big Ten schools. Most of them are excellent academic schools. They're large state universities with good library systems, with good research programs, with
medical schools, and Notre Dame's faculty wanted that association. At the end of the day, football independence won out, and that's how powerful it is in the Notre Dame world. That was the only reason Notre Dame turned down the Big Ten membership, and that has never come back, although I suspect it will someday because I think it's known the Big Ten has clauses in their TV deals that would reflect adding Notre Dame that would have a lot more money. So I'm assuming that somewhere down the line
that opening will come up again for Notre Dame. I don't know how long it'll take, but I hope that Notre Dame the Big ten isn't the Big ten anymore, so I have to revise that thought. But I've always thought ten the core Big ten is a great place for another name to be.
Well, excuse me.
We could talk about what the Big ten is right now, but we would probably have to recalibrate not too long after because everything continues to change and ebb and flow, which allows me to transition into more of a macro question because I keep using this line over the past few weeks ted where I've just leaned into from a sports radio approach, diagnosing and not prognosticating, because we're all
learning this as we go. It's a new format, it's a new sports as far as your ability to have talent off the field with a transfer portal and the and the nil situation, and of course it's a twelve team expanded CFP, and all the conferences look much different than they did a year ago.
Most of them do, as far as.
You know, conferences adding teams, several of the teams that you and I are familiar with as the PAC twelve crumbled. But since I haven't had a chance to catch up with you for a while. How do you feel about the current state of college football, the sport that we all love to consume.
Well, that's a wide open palette there, Spence, So you know, I'll let me personalize this to my experience this football season. So the Pac twelve still existed in the form of two schools. As everyone knows, those two schools did a television deal with the CW network, which is an over the air network has an outlet and I think just about every significant market in America. So the Washington State and Oregon State home games were aired all on the
CW this year. I was part of that package. The season began with a lot of hope for Oregon State, it quickly pivoted to Washington State, and I ended up doing five Washington State games. So being around the Cougar program a lot this year was the collision of where I think college sports are right now. It was an incredibly uplifting season for them. I am a huge fan of their head coach. I think Jake Dickard is terrific and these meant to be a coach and he's only
forty one years old. The quarterback story having cam Ward had this huge build up in the twenty three season and then basically fall flat and the Cougars collapsed at the end of the year. Cam Ward collapsed and then he ended up getting a million plus to go to Miami, which you saw what happened this year. So what's Washington's ta going to do a quarterback? Well, they had a kid from Texas who was under recruited. He had been there for a couple of years, and it's his turn.
And John Mattier made himself into a player that I actually put on my Heisman ballad this year, that's how good he was. The team. Sadly, their defense was not good and they collapsed in the last three games and took themselves out of you know, they were on the fringe of the playoff conversation and would say no more than that, but just being there was a miracle, and sadly they fell out the last three games. What happens,
John Mattier goes to Oklahoma. Rumors are three million offensive coordinator goes to Oklahoma, and then Jake Dicker turns around and I would have even stunned me takes the job of Wake Forest. So this incredibly wonderful, uplifting story for the school that got left behind. The school that's out in the prairies, you know, doesn't have wealthy the roles of alums. You know a lot of individuals who succeeded
in farming an bag and business. But they chip in to a collective and they have this wonderful season and the program survives the first year of this anarchy, and
then suddenly it collapses within a couple of days. So I'm uplifted, and then I'm really dismayed because that's the point, and it's very obvious for everyone to see, is that the Washington States right now and the Oregon States and other programs around the country are just farm teams and until there's some order in all of this, and no one knows how that's going to happen, but until there is,
this is this is the case. So to your question that I hope that explains this internal collie I've experienced, I'm so happy to be part of that Washington State football season. And at the end, you go, man, that's really stinks.
Yeah from that vantage point for sure, And there's nothing really to debate there because you're not wrong, and you know from a local standpoint, Ted, It's interesting to see where Utah football finds themselves because, as you know covering the program as part of the Pac Tweld Network, Coach Witt has built Utah football on the ethos of recruit and develop. That's how they do it. And they don't necessarily rely on number of four and five star guys.
They go find Utah guys and then they bring them on campus and over the course of a number of years, they basically indoctrinate them into the Kyle Whittingham way. He's saying is we will not become you, you will become us.
In the most successful seasons in Utah football history have been with third, fourth, fifth year players that sign on the dotted line, often overlooked from other schools, came in and learned the Kyle way, put in the work, and you know, at times it paid off with conference championships and Rose Bowl appearances. Can you build a football program in the modern day and age of college football with the ethos of recruit and develop over time?
Anymore?
Yeah? Hard? I mean my initial answer is that Spence is really hard. I hope somebody does it. Uh, you know, it's I would I'm trying to think of an example
right now. I mean, it's it's it's I mean, we're sitting here waiting tomorrow night to watch Texas play, and here's Texas having its best football season in a long time, and everyone's talking about should the quarterback come back to Texas next year or should he get a huge NIL deal to go to another school which would likely pay more than he would make in his first NFL season. I mean, that's what that's. I'm sorry that just lunacy
what you think of what that means. But it is where the world is, and so I would think I would take this. Maybe if I can spend a background on that question, Spence, here's my concern, having raised kids and now raising grandkids, it's extremely wise to respect the fact that players athletes now in the top college sports can earn. I have no objection to that. I don't know that any smart minded person has an objection to that. The way it's done, maybe that's where we would start
to have some difference of opinion. And what I feel very strongly about is I fear that this generation represented by these eighteen to twenty five year olds and damn near thirty year olds now in some cases playing college athletics are being are being raised and are living through an experience completely devoid of character, character commitment. When a
quits in the middle of the season. How many times did we see that top level college football this year where quarterback just quit the quarterback of a football team. Is there any more leadership demanded position in sport and quarterback and football? And you had several guys just quit in the middle of the season on their team, And you reference the Kyle phrase with the word US, and I'm very fearful from what I see in football and men's basketball, there's no US. It's me me II, me me.
And so the concept of an athlete being able to be compensated when everybody else around them is fine, we get that. To do it without character is really I mean, that's long term ramifications for us, way beyond sport.
Well said, we'll end with because I know you got to go.
We'll end with your thoughts on because the fact of the matter is, you know, we can bellier about the state of the sport and then you just look at the ratings and the numbers, and people are consuming it at a historic level, and it happens to be a multi billion dollar business with a failed business model, which makes it probably very appealing to folks in.
The private equity world.
And it does feel like we are in this like neoliberal capitalism type takeover of college athletes. On the horizon out it feels like very powerful, rich people are going to start to buy potentially college football programs. A lot of rumors already circulating that that thing is going to happen,
and it is inevitable. Is there part of you that is hopeful that at some point the business model of college football can be fixed to the level where most of the problems that are plaguing the sport can go away and we can all kind of sit and enjoy whatever the final paradigm shift is with this sport.
Whenever that happens, yes, I think I think the business models in place, I don't think it will change. I mean, unless somebody else gets a case of the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court has another, you know, Judge Kavanaugh life decision that reverses things. I think We're way gone. It's professional nothing. There's nothing college about the top anymore. It's professional. So now to me, the question is how
in the name of goodness, do we get structured. And I listen to smart people who believe now with the results of the election, that there's a much better chance that Congress will get involved and help orchestrate some guardrails, build some guard rails because the universities clearly are I mean, there is no NCAA anymore, and the universities don't because they're all involved in self interest. There's no collective concern
to build those guard rails. So I believe that that's the ultimate answer here, is that the business models in place, but let's make it so it's just like the pros where everybody can make money in the proch but there's a way you do it. There's a structure because and you say, why do I have to have structure, Because you sell tickets. You're a competitive enterprise. And if we don't have competition, then we have wrestling, which is performance.
And that's fine. If you want to call performance art, that's great. That's what wrestling is. And wrestling no longer tries to hide it. I think sport doesn't want that. And if you want to make sure that we have a competitive enterprise, then there has to be structure, which the NFL of course, is the gold standard to make sure they're all thirty two of their members every year have a chance. So I strongly feel that's where this thing has to happen. And again I'm not smart enough
to go. But here's let me throw one other thing that you spend because we haven't talked for a while, and I'll just finish with this. And I thought a lot about this during the year, my belief that we're going to have a Super League and it could be anywhere forty to fifty teams anymore. And I've started to realize I think we already had it. And if you look at the SEC Georgia, Alabama, LSU, Florida, now that's maybe very equivalent to the forty nine Ers, Bears, Giants, Cowboys,
Eagles of the NFC. The SEC is owned by a network, ESPN owns them. The n s C is owned by a network Fox. Then you look at the big ten and wait a second, we have Michigan, Ohio, State, Penn State, USD. Now Oregon is pushing its way into trying to be that national brand. And you can say that's kind of like having the Steelers and the Patriots and the Raiders and the Broncos and the Chiefs, and the ASC is owned by a network, CBS, and Fox owns the Big Ten.
They own it. Okay, what's to stop the ESPN and Fox and their respective conferences that they owned from just saying, listen, each of our leagues, we're just going to play off and have a champ. We'll have our Big Ten champ and our SEC champ and then we're just going to play a super Bowl. The heck with his twelve teams? Why are we sharing with Boise State and Notre Dame and pay our pen division as they tend, but Arizona State,
why are we sharing with them? We'll just do our own super Bowl, college Bowl, whatever you want to call it. I think that's maybe a more realistic end game, and that would achieve the breakaway of the schools that are already professional, and it would leave the Florida States and Clemson's and the Notre Dames and you know, probably a couple of other schools that want to think they're in that category to get Wait a second, what about us, can't leave us behind?
Yeah?
You know, Ted, when we have more time, you and I are just going to fix college football in the world. My friends, but I know you have to run. It's always a pleasure. I hope you're well, and anytime you have time, you know we have time for you here.
Okay, No, and it goes the same way, s Benson. I'll enjoy talking to you and say hi everybody. I missed coming to see live. I saw Colin in the spring Mill miss I missed football as you're and I miss seeing Craig and basketball. So hopefully I'll get back soon.
For sure, we'll be pulling for the Irish tonight. Okay, all right?
Great Ted Robinson Notre Dame alum. He is a broadcasting legend. He has done everything Olympics, golf, tennis, basketball, football. Was the first voice hired by the PAC twelve and obviously you know PAC twelve didn't last, sadly,