College football right out of the gates, though, with our buddy Kyle Vonagura, who covers college football sometimes a little soccer as well for ESPN.
Kyle, Happy Monday. It's been a minute. How you been, Bud?
I'm big good? Are you?
I'm good? I'm good.
So some interesting offseason college football storylines. Let's start with the new CFP expansion proposal, the five plus eleven model, which of course has support in some areas and detractors and others. The Big twelve media or excuse me, the Big twelve kind of summer meetings were held this weekend in Orlando. Heard a lot from Brett Yormark, But what say you about what's on the table?
Five plus eleven, sixteen? You think that's right?
With the AQ bids four for the Big Ten, four for the SEC, two for the ACC, two for the Big twelve.
Do you do you like that model? Do you think that's where we're headed?
Yeah? I think it's where it's headed. Is as far as I like it. I kind of felt like sixteen was the right number from the beginning. The buyers or it felt like the NCA always takes small steps right. They're not willing to you know you're willing to go from two to four, from four, then you jumpy. I guess they did jump out eight to twelve, but it's filled for me, like if you're gonna have, if you're gonna have a real playoff sixteen, it makes it nice
and tidy. Right, There's the problem that you have with twelve there, and there was a lot you know, there's problems with all these different formats. Was that you continue to devalue the bowls, right and so now, and that's always going to be the case whenever you cut it off.
But I think once you got to twelve, like when you get the thirteen through twenty five, those bowl games, like we're essentially meaningless, right, and so you have the trickle down effect on how it impacted Bowls was problematic. So I thought, you know, might as well just add more playoff games, make those other teams play meaningful games at the end of the year. I mean, I really like the FCS model that's even bigger than that of
these twenty four teams. Like for me, that you could do buys with early round byes and include more teams. It doesn't necessarily add too many games in total for the whole country, right, but you get to have meaningful games at the end of the season. So yeah, like sixteen, Like I think it's there's more football, and I like having more football that matters, and I think it's the simplest way to look at it. That's why it's a good thing.
As far as the multiple automatic qualified spots for the Big Ten and the SEC essentially taking half the spots and then the Big twelve in the ACC getting two and then leaving one for the Group of five and then you know the at large stuff. Do you think that's where we're going as well? Or do you think there's enough pushback from people that aren't in the Big ten and the SEC to maybe just make it a straight sixteen sixteen team with eleven plus five.
How do you think that plays out?
I think it should be eleven plus five. It would be kind of a bully You feel like it would be bullying the other conferences if they added more automatic bids for the SEC and the Big Ten, because like the thing is like they don't need the automatic bids. There's not going to be you can game it out however you want to do it. Like it's just I don't see a scenario where that would even really come into play, right, maybe you can get to get creative with it, but yeah, like make it. Give it for me.
The five is what makes sense one one for outside of the power conferences. Give the champions a bid. But at the same time, also, you know, if you're a champion of one of those conferences, like you don't even need the automatic bid at this point, Like it mattered more at twelve. It certainly mattered at four where they valued conference championships to a degree, but at sixteen, like if you were in one of those leagues, like you're
going to get in. So it's almost kind of a point atition to see how they'll use that to determine you know, seating or hometeil advantage those sorts of things. Is I think it is where it gets more interesting. But as far as like getting in the field, like, I don't think that is ultimately going to make that much of a difference. However, they decided to structure it.
Yeah, I agree with that, well said, So the sixteen team expanded model will come our way twenty twenty six. This year, we will have the twelve team format, but it will be straight seeding I don't know why they didn't do this initially, Kyle. This seems to be one of those like very common sense type things that should have been done right away. But you know, we've already got your thoughts on the sixteen team thing, but that's
in a year. So what do you think about the twelve team format moving just a straight seeding this fall?
Yeah? So, I I mean, I think, like you said it, for me, it was like another obvious move. And as you know, I do like the both productions during during the regular season, and this is something that I identified the first week. I did it the first week after games are played. Where the impact like I understand like the idea of it, Like they wanted to reward those like the Big twelve champion and the ACC champion, right, they wanted to give them a reward for winning their conferences.
And like in theory, like I can understand the logic, but how it played out, Like it didn't play out that way because it effectively punishes the top seed, Like any playoff format should be designed to give an advantage
to the number one seed. That's why you're valuing the regular season, right, Like, that's that's very basic with competitive sports, right, But by getting buys to you know, the you in the three and four spot for teams that weren't actually the third and fourth best teams, he created inequitable matchups in the second in the quarterfinal round, and it ended up punishing you know, Oregon, like Oregon ended up playing Ohio State, a team that would have been seated differently.
So it really messed up with how it should have gone and punished the team at the top. So I think, yeah, this is a I wrote. I wrote this almost every week during the season, you know, kept hammering it at the point home because it was just it just it just never made sense when once you went and kind of saw how it was going to play out. So I'm unhappy that they were able to act quick and restore kind of restore order in that respect.
Do you still think, you know?
Coach Witt was on a podcast a couple of weeks ago, and he continues to talk about, uh, the super league potential possibility that you and I have discussed for years now and college football writers have written about for years now, And I don't know, man, like it feels like this is the come more fluid, in my opinion than actually
something concrete that I believe is inevitable. At one point I was convinced that we were high speed ahead to something that looks a lot like the NFL with two conferences whatever you call them, big ten SEC grab you know, number of schools that they want, and then suddenly that's AFC NFC and we have like a miniature NFL model in college football.
I don't know how convinced I am that we're headed there now, Kyle? What about you?
So? I think for like, I'm still like pretty confident eventually it will get there. I think for me, the question is just like how long is it going to take. It's not going to happen in five years. It might not happen in ten years, but you know eventually, you know, once and I think two is like you have to kind of get people to cycle out right, the current admitted like the leadership in place across the country, conferences
and schools. You know, you can kind of get a sense of what they want right now, and that's going to hold court for a while, right, But those people will only be in those jobs for so long, and then eventually you'll have, you know, an SEC commissioner who doesn't care about Vanderbilt or an Alabama athletic director or a president who pushes for Hey, like why is Vanderbilt still in our Like why are we still on equal
plane field with them? Like why are why are we peers with them as opposed to uh creating a larger pie and less less people to pull from or less schools to pull from. So I think like eventually it still gets there, but it's just a matter of waiting
to see how how long that will take. I mean, in hindsight, it's kind of remarkable that this didn't all happen faster, Like it's no seeing how it has all played out so quickly, Like there's just so much money at stake that eventually money will always drive this, you know, once these once the kids are employees, like that's going to change things. Like there's eligibility questions that are still kind of up in the air and kind of fluid. So there's there's so many things that are going to change.
I think eventually there'll just be too much money for the schools at the top not to be, you know, tempted to take a bigger slice.
So we've all been waiting for the House of the NC double A settlement, and you know, we continue to wait, and it's been kind of wild to watch what has unfolded surrounding this dynamic, with certain states passing laws kind of behind closed doors where it's like, yeah, our schools do not have to adhere to whatever that settlement says, and then the P four programs are all writing contracts to say, well, actually you do if you want to
hang out with us. And so you have this interesting juxtaposition in dynamic where Tennessee among others, have literally passed legislation saying that their member institutions will residing their state don't even have to adhere to what House VNCUBA has to say about nil distributions and such. The nc DOUBLEA has already been told like you're not allowed to essentially put any sort of restriction. You can enforce any of your rules. Like it all continues to be very fluid.
I think maybe I was a little bit hopeful in Pie in the Sky and maybe naive believing that the House VNCAA settlement would suddenly give us guardrails and guidelines looking for So, how is this going all play out? And what's you're understanding about where we're at in the process of the House n A.
I mean, that's a great question. I wish I had a nice, tidy answer for you, because it's I mean, it's just so messy, and I think, what's difficult. Rights you have you know, fifty states or you know, not that quite not quite that many in the nc double A that are are kind of in play here. But the point is you have all these state governments, you have local governments who have private schools, you have public schools. There's so many different parties that are governed by different entities.
To get them all on the same page, it's just so hard to do, and so ultimately it's still unclear who gets final say right. I mean, you've seen every lawsuit.
It's anytime the NCUBA has been challenging law or last you pick your time period, like they've lost right, whether it's eligibility, whether that's you know, name anything they've they've always sided with with with the players, and they're kind of chase to have get more money and more uh you know, more distribution from from the nc double A. And so it's I just don't see how that's ever gonna like it's gonna change while you're still dealing with
student athletes, and I think, like that's for me, like out in the out in the distance, like it just
seems inevitable that eventually they become employees. And once you're employees and you're not students and you're not kind of governed by Title nine in the same way, then you can say, okay, like then salary caps become a little bit more real, right the n C, Like then you operate like a professional league and the government isn't going to be able to step in and and govern in the way it is, you know, effectively do or not now with that with the kind of looming house settlement.
So yeah, like I don't I don't have a great answer to you, but it could because there's just so many moving pieces that until you get until you knock one dominant dominant down, like it's it's really hard to say what what's gonna happen with the next one?
You know.
One of the walking lines you hear a lot, and I'm guilty of using it too, is and sometimes maybe if you do what you and I do for a living, this is just like a smoke screen when really what you're saying is I don't understand any of this.
So you land on, well.
Saturdays in the fall will always still feel like Saturdays in the fall. Well, it doesn't feel that way for Washington State anymore, or Oregon State, and honestly, Kyle, Saturdays in the fall around here still feel a little bit different based off of the conference affiliation change, where for years it was Oregon and SC and the PAC twelve West Coast brands and Washington and do respect to the Big twelve because it's at least a home for the
University of Utah. The brands and teams that rolled through last year, it felt different.
It just did.
So my question is, well, Saturdays in the fall still always feel like Saturday's in the fall or is it just for a select few now?
Yeah, I hope. So that's probably the best I can do. I mean, I do think that there is a novelty about the conference realignment that was interesting here. You have to see new schools and new teams, and and that part had had some lure. But I do think that aware off, you know, pretty quickly, at least for me, and eventually when you're playing these games that you don't have strong regional or historic ties to it, won't it
won't be as fun. I mean you talk benefits because it's you know, in the same conference with by US. I think for a lot of people that like localized it in a way that was like, you know, you gain the rivalry back and it's like in a meaningful way. So there's there's there's given cake to some degree. But but but I do still feel like as long as they're playing these games on campus, as long as the you know, there's a those ties exist, like attending the
game is still going to feel pretty similar. I mean, it's the uniforms are going to be the same, cheering for football at the end of the day, like at its core, like that's that experience. A lot would have to change for it to be, you know, so different that it wouldn't be worth like participating or paying attention to anymore. But the evolution is definitely going to keep happening. And in two degree, right, it's that's been college football
for a long time. But if you look over the one hundred years, like there's been so many different iterations of what the sport has looked like that you know even you know ten years ago, twenty years ago, you know that looked very little like it did, you know, thirty years before that, And so I in a way like changes is part of the sport, and I guess that's what it can continue.
To expect one more thing in this space, and I apologize if you feel like you've gone on Bloomberg News on a Monday afternoon, but I do want to ask you about another storyline. Brett Yormark, among many things he's had to say over the past seventy two hours, is the Big twelve has elected to not accept private equity
money for an ownership stake in the conference. And you know, about a year ago, I think it was Mark Lasry, if I remember correctly, the owner of the Bucks, who in a public form said he planned on making an offer at Ohio State Football to try to buy like forty nine percent of the Buckeyes.
And there are rumors around here that some of the.
Powerful folk that have deep pockets wanted to get involved in Utah BYU football and potentially have an ownership stake. And now the momentum is going the other direction. Folks are now saying no to private equity money. I am no finance major, but my gut tells me this must mean that conferences and programs have done their own valuations on what they can make and understand that they don't need that money.
Now, if they needed the money, they would take it.
But it must mean that they don't want to sell any ownership in either conferences or teams because of how dumb the money continues to be with live TV rights. I mean, that's where my antenna goes when I keep hearing these stories that now go the other way. As far as people not accepting private equity money, what are your thoughts on that?
So?
I think it's like everything is a negotiation, right. I think what happened was the Big twelve, you know, realized that they were going to get enough money that they were there was like the the idea the offer wasn't big enough, right, Because if you had whatever the number is, are you say say, like, we'll just throw a number that makes no sense, but you would have to accept, right if the number was fifty billion dollars, right, of course they would have accepted private actview money at that
at that number, right, But at a certain point, at a certain point, it's worth it and they would have to say yes. But they just didn't get to that point, and so eventually could that change, Like, I think absolutely it could change, But right now they've made the determination that that that sort of investment isn't in their best interest. And you know, if and when that changes, like I think they'll be open to revisiting it. But for now, yeah,
I mean, it hasn't It hasn't happened yet. But just the idea of that so many people are looked into it, are considering it makes me think that eventually it'll probably happen. It just and it'll just be a question of what the circumstance lookd like for that for that to be the case's.
Move over here, you know, Brian Santiago hired as by u's athletic director, taking over for Tom Holmo. So before I expand to the second part of the question, let me get your thoughts on that, and and and mostly I'm quite sure you don't You don't know Brian, but covering too as BYU's athletic director.
I think he did a remarkable job.
Traversing through independence for a decade was a tough ask, but they were able to find a landing spot. Their basketball team is insanely good, and their football team is coming off a really nice year in the Big twelve, So Brian inheriting an athletic department in really good shape as a result of the work that Tom did. So your thoughts on Tom Homo as he goes to spend the rest of his days on a beach somewhere probably, Yeah, No, I mean, as you know.
I live here in the Bay Area. So my first kind of experience with Tom Homo as he's the coach of Cal He's a coach or assistant coach of the forty nine ers before it, So I was kind of like always generally aware of him in this space, and then you know, I had a chance to get to know him a little bit this past year with a few stories I was working on about BYU And like, I think those interactions like with Tom that I had, I really enjoyed all of them. For me. He was
really good to work with. He was he was candid, he was open, he was a good storyteller. And then you can't argue with with results of where the program is right now. I mean, I mean, I mean you said it, Basketball football both are in a really good spot position to be good for a long time, you know, getting into the Big twelve was a big win after the kind of the obviously of independence for so long, and so he leaves BUYU in a spot where you know,
for Brian you can hope to build off that. Obviously, the I think BUYU, you know, more than a lot of schools has really benefited from the ANL shift. They have a lot of people who are willing to help out with those programs to help them stay competitive. And so yeah, I have only nice things to say about Tom and kind of the way he handled himself in personal actions with me, and just kind of the big picture accomplishments that he had in his time done in provo.
I think the Santiago News became official on May nineteenth, and then on May twenty first, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that Jake retz Laugh is being sued by a woman here in Salt Lake. It is a civil lawsuit and we've talked about it on the show. These are not criminal charges. So the Tribune reports on it, and then you wrote on it for ESPN. You were actually able to uncover some new details. I don't know that I have a question, and I don't want to make
this a football story because it isn't. He is the starting quarterback for BYU and coming off a really good year. But I wondered throughout the process that you went through to kind of have the discovery for what you wrote on the dot com for ESPN, what you would like to share about this story, and if you have any insight on what the next steps are.
Yeah, these are always tough to report, and you get into this industry hoping to write about sports and you end up reading a civil case about a really gruesome allegation of rape. Right, I've read a lot of these sorts of civil filings over the years, and this is one of the worst ones that I've read, just in how graphic it was. That's all part of the public domain at this point. Yeah, you don't know if these
are Again, I can't stress the stuff. It is an allegation, but when I read it, you know, if if the allegation is true, it's it's it's it's as serious a case of of rape and sexual assault that I've that I've read covering sports, So you know, beyond that, you know, it's it's. It's tough to say much other than kind of like the news, right, He's he was never arrested. The Progo Police Department, uh did deny the women's the women's claim that that she was told that sexual assault
victims never seek justice. They had a pretty lengthy statement about that. They'll, you know, they'll there'll be some time before Retslaus lawyer will reply to the lawsuit. It sounds we are pretty adamant in their comments that it that it didn't happen, and so they'll reply. We'll see what they're kind of rebuttal is. I'm sure they'll try to get the case dismissed. But other than that, there's there's
not a lot to say. It's especially without a police report that documents anything from the time that it allegedly took place.
All Right, Kyle, before I say, you loose, and I always kind of chuckle when I do this to you, because it's early June and we have no idea what these teams are going to look.
Like come fall.
But I will ask you about the University of Utah because we're a mile away from Riceycle Stadium and we're the home of the youth. So Vegas has set the over under at seven point five. That's mid table for Big twelve. I think most of the preseason prediction stuff i've seen has Utah anywhere between like four and seven. So I think it's probably better for them not to have these lofty expectations like they did a year ago.
And of course the health stuff with.
Cam Rising and all the stuff that went down has been something we've covered at nauseum. So it's a new quarterback, it's a new offensive coordinator. PFF has them ranked as the number two offensive line of the country behind Bama. So they're going to be stacked where they need to
be in the trenches like they always are. So I won't ask you about specifics because I'm quite sure you're not grinding on Utah's too deep in June, but just you your thoughts on what a potential bounce back season could look like for the ut year two in the Big twelve.
Yeah, it's it's I certainly expecting to be much much better than a year ago. It's hard to you know, two and seven, it's hard to be worse, as they say, right, And I think like the schedule is, you know, it's manageable. I think non conference UCLA, Cal Poly Wyomings, they are all winnable games, so you expect to be three to o headed in the conference, and then if you go then if you go four and five even the conference, that puts it at seven wins, which would be a
two win improvement. And you know, like you said, it's it's tough to break it down right now and feel any sort of level of confidence. But I think having you know, damp here come along, you come over with Jason Beck. You know, he knows the offense, he knows the system. That's a model that's worked at a number of places over the years, moving a quarterback with the coach as opposed to just kind of grabbing someone or
even just matriculating someone on the roster. So I think there's like a reason to be optimistic that they can be successful. It's it's going to be a different look. You know, Dampier ran a lot more than Utah has expected its quarterbacks to do in recent years, and so I think there will be a lot more of you know, that quarterback run game will give them a new look, a new fresh look that they probably needed after things
got stale. So yeah, I think Utah will be better in terms of how much better, you know, let's wait and see it, all.
Right, my friend, Well, I appreciate your time today. Hope all is well with you, have a great week and we'll chat toon. Thanks Kyle, all right, Thanks. Bonna Girra covers college football and a little soccer from time to time for our friends at ESPN. I'm noticing that he never tweets anymore, but his work is up on his Twitter page at Bonna Gera. ESPN is where you find him. So appreciate Kyle's temp. The time brought to you today by our friends at IFA Country Stores. When the seasons change,
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