Four teams left standing after one hundred and thirty four teams to start the year looking for a national championship.
It's been a while since.
We've chatted with our next guest, friend of the program has spent some time out here in Salt Lake City. Good to have Ryan McGee on the show on a Monday, Ryan, Happy Monday, man, How are we doing.
We're good? You know, it's this expanded COSS Football Playoffs is great. But normally I'd be at the national championship game like today and we still got like a couple of weeks. So that's weird. But the but other than that, it's awesome.
Yeah, it's you know, I've been talking about this over the past couple of weeks because we're all experiencing what almost feels like a new sport together, right, I mean, all of the dynamics off the field, all of the changes on the field with the expansion of the twelve team CFP. I want to start out with a couple of local things because you're familiar with Kyle Whittingham, you're familiar with Utah football, and we're unfamiliar with this lot in our life as this U Tough football fans out here.
It's been a long time since we've seen this season that we saw behind us. Now, of course they've hit the transfer portal. Combined incoming freshmen and incoming transfers, they're going to be forty one new players for coach with year two in the Big twelve. Knowing what you know about Utah football, what do you what do you think is fair to say about expectations for next year? After a rough entrance into this conference?
You know, it was really I think I was having this conversation over the weekend with some of my my ESPN dot com colleagues when we were talking about most shocking seasons, and everybody kind of wants to go a certain way with it, you know, like shocking as in I didn't see that coming, SMU or whatever. I didn't see it coming. Only anybody did with Utah. And I kept saying and when I said it, like everyone on our call went, oh yeah, because they just kind of
checked out on us so early. But listen, I don't worry you guys know how I feel about Wit. I think he's the man. I don't worry about them long term. Sometimes it just doesn't work, and this year was one of those years where it just everything went the wrong way. The ball literally bounced the wrong way. And so the good news is is that these days, if you need wholesale changes, you can do it. I mean, we're living in a free agency market and so the hope is
is that you go get what you want. But yeah, that's a lot of play. And I know for folks that have grown up with Utah football and you just get used to guys being around three and four and five and six, and in the case of COVID seven eight years, you know, into the deal, it feels weird
to bring in all these different players. But what's been really interesting is talking to coaches who didn't want to do that and then they did it, and they still managed to find the chemistry in the locker room, because I think that's the part that we all kind of
thought would just go away. But when I talked to coaches that when I go to the booth, one I go to Boulivart and you talk to coach Prime and they've had two entirely different rosters with a handful of with the exception of a handful of players over the last couple of years, that was a close knit group this year, and so you can still do it that way, just the way that you get there is very, very expedited.
And I will follow up with that because you know, the topic of the transfer portal can be exhausting, but when you're in a spot like we are here in Salt Lake City, it is going to be more or less a complete rebuilt. I mean, it's going to be a completely different team. It's a new offensive coordinator, and
ultimately that could go one of two ways. So you know, as a guy that's been around college football as long as you've been around it, Ryan, do you feel like we're getting a little bit closer to putting our arms around this new normal? I mean, hell, man, like they have free agency when games are being played. It's so wild to me where we find ourselves, but it's not
going anywhere. Do you feel like we're getting closer to maybe getting an understanding of exactly the right way to go about it, because if you look at twenty different programs, it feels like you have twenty different approaches.
Yeah, and that's because there's no rules, you know, I keep going by I love the movie Tombstone, right, and there's the great line from Jason prieflely in tombstones. There's got to be some sort of law, and right now there isn't any. Now what's gonna happen is when the revenue sharing kicks in, which is gonna happen very soon. When the revenue sharing kicks in, these kids are signing contracts. And when they signed contracts, you know, we already saw
it this year. I mean, listen, I was at the I was at the Citrus Bowl, well my daughter what a week ago, and almost every player who would have
opted out the year before were in the game. And I think in the future, we're gonna see guys essentially they're gonna be signing the contracts and you get your money now, you're not gonna have it if you get in a transfer portal and you're certainly gonna lose your nil deals and all that's gonna be officially on paper, and so you're essentially gonna be as signing a multi year contract and if you want to get out of it, you're gonna have to figure out way to get out
of it. So it's all I think that is going to force the hand of everyone to come up with some sort of actual structure because everyone agrees on one thing, and that's you can't keep doing it the way it's happening right now, because you know, you look at Georgia.
Georgia this year was not as good as it's been because they won back to back national championships and had starters transfer out and Alabama won a national championship at twenty twenty had starters transferred to Georgia, and so you just can't keep doing it the way that you're doing it.
So I think that the happy medium or unhappy medium what you want to call it, is coming because I think everyone can agree and the coaches are the ones that created this monster, and now they can all agree, right, we can't keep we cannot sustain this, and so yeah, there's some level coming. And in the meantime, the good news is you don't have to wait three years to rebuild.
If you have to do an overhaul, like did you'd feel like they have to do then the way it's structured right now, you can do it pretty quick.
On the other side of things, before we get to the national stuff, for remaining games and your thoughts on what we've seen so far. Year two in the Big Twelve was much better for Brigham Young after a tough year one, and they go to the Alamo Bowl and they just put it on Colorado and we saw the ratings come out. Eight million people watch that game. It's a massive, massive number. And yes, Colorado's the main draw,
but BYU is a good brand. So Colladi and his team to go eleven and two overall, seven and two in conference. They beat their eighth conference opponent in that Alamo Bowl against Colorado.
I don't know.
Trying to predict what the Big twelve will look like next year is a complete exercise and futility.
But year two, Big twelve BYU not too bad?
Hi? Right, Yeah, not at all. And it's if the college Football tooth fairy had landed in Provo in August and said you're going to win eleven games and you're going to defeat Colorado and Prime and the Alamo Ball, you would have taken that immediately. You would have said, okay, thank you very much, we're gonna go straight to that game. Now, the context is they're disappointed because they didn't win the conference, and they're disappointed because they didn't, you know, obviously make
the playoff and all those things. But I think that yeah, and listen. It's a huge transition when you join a new conference. It just is, you know, speaking of the Big Twelve. Go down to TCU and ask those guys who changed conferences that felt like eight times and ten years or something, and it's really really difficult to do.
So Yeah, once you get settled in and you figure it out, I expect to see some of those same things from an Oklahoma in the SEC, or from USC and some of the West Coast teams you know obviously that are in the you know, traveling all across the country, play Rutgers in Maryland and all that. I think that once they settle into year two and three, I think, first of all, we'll all get used to it, and
second of all they'll get used to it. But yeah, if they if you had come to me and said, come to anybody wearing BYU gear and said I'll give you this right now, will you take this? They would have said one percent, thank you very.
Much, one hundred percent.
And give me a quick thought on the Big Twelve because I continue to chuck about up, chuckle about this, uh in an ironic way. Ryan, the most popular preseason Big Twelve Championship pick in Vegas was Oklahoma State and Utah and obviously that didn't go well for coach within or Mike Gundy, and so I have zero clue how this conference is going to play out. And of course there are a number of months until we're playing Big
twelve football again. But just generally speaking, your thoughts on what you know we're learning now Being a former Pac twelve City now at Big twelve City is certainly a conference of chaos, and get used to.
It, because this is just how it is. You know. I was talking to Steve Sarkisian, who obviously be coaching in the playoff, you know, on Friday night for what Texas and Sarka was like, we were in a Big twelve thirty however many years and he goes, we want to think like three times it's just nuts and yeah, but what it'll tell you is, and this is encouraging for Utah, man, is that you know, it's a spaghetti
pile and it's a yo yo. And so the good news is is that even if you finish toward the bottom of the conference one year, you're really not that far from the top of the conference. So you can you can get there quickly and if you go and study what that conference has been certainly over the last decade, it's not just crazy games. All those crazy games add
up to crazy conference races. And so yeah, I mean Oklahoma State, they were very confidence they were gonna be in the College Fotball playoffs and they finished last in the conference. So it's yeah, there's you can make up room very quickly these days. And yeah, you guys know, I cover NASCAR and I go to Daytona and Talladega, where you can be running twenty second with two laps to go and win the race, and you can be
running first and finished twenty second. And that's exactly the way the Big twelve has always been.
All right, moving over now to what we've seen so far, I'll start here back at the beginning, because honestly don't know Ryan what your opinion is on the new twelve
team expanded CFP. So I want to start with whether or not you're a fan of the format, simply put, and then what we've seen so far, beefs about auto bid seating, all the things, you know, the deal you're you know now now that we have seen a good portion of an unfold, are you a fan of what they've done, and what are your thoughts on what's unfolded so far.
Well, I I have been on the record since the jump that they should have started at sixteen out of hate buys. I hate first round buys. That is so NFL, you know, if you want to be the NFL. I got good news. They're playing every Sunday, you know, I just don't. I don't like buys in the playoffs, and and clearly that did no one any good because you know, if you had a first round buy, you're gone. And so I love the on campus games. I was at
Ohio State, the Tennessee Ohio State game. I think you know, I'm from North Carolina, right, I'm not used to the Highland being eighteen. That wasn't any fun. But I love the fact that the playoffs started in Austin, in South Bend, you know, in Happy Valley, you know, in the Horseshoe. That was amazing. And so those are the things they've gotten, right people, As you said when we started talking, we've all kind of learned about this, you know, as we've
gone along. You know, the seeding obviously is a problem. I mean that was a mess. You know, I think that and I appreciate the fact that they want to reward conference championships, and that goes back to day one of the college football playoffs. If you've ever done one of these mock selection committee exercises, which I have three or four times, there's not much criteria, but of the four things that are listed, they want you to reward
a conference champion. This goes all the way back to, you know, eleven years ago when this thing first started. So I think the receding has to be considered. I think they need to go to sixteen as soon as they can. I want everyone to play the same number of games. Clearly there's no advantage, certainly based on this year. But I've enjoy I mean, you know, but I think what we're what we've learned though, is is that you know, it's still going to come down to it's pretty obvious
who the best handful of teams are. And the good news if you got in twelfth or eleventh or tenth or whatever, you know, congratulations you're in the playoff. But you know, as we learn with four teams, you know, the semi final games for the most part, for the last decade haven't been great because the two best teams are way better than the third and fourth best teams, so I'm curious to see how it plays out this weekend.
I love the fact I'm writing a column for ESPN dot com for tomorrow about the fact that we have these four programs that I mean, Ohio State won it ten years ago. You know you're talking about Notre Dame in Penn State nineteen eighty eight, nineteen eighty six, since either one of them won a national championship. So we got plenty of storylines. But I want to I want to get the sixteen teams as quick as we can.
And there's you know, probably no perfect solution.
And I've always believed that the powers of be in college football enjoyed the discourse around the tournament no matter what, even if it's knocking on the whole thing, It's like, hey, they're talking about us.
I do want to kick the tires with you on the beef that I think is real.
If you're Oregon, you're a fan of Oregon, you know, you handle your business all year long, you enter that tournament undefeated, and your gift for that is facing what most people believe is the most talented team in college football round two in Ohio State and the current favorite to go win the thing. Like I said, there's no perfect solutions, but if you're an Oregon fan, you feel hard done.
I kind of understand where you're at.
Yeah, if you're an Oregon fan and you've been number one, they were number one, what soul second half of the season and being And I love James Franklin. I think the Penn State story is a great story. But it doesn't surprise me that they're playing on Thursday night because of the schedule that they were handed in the playoffs. And so again, the seeing is a problem. There's no there's no excuse for the fact that Oregon had to play the game they played and Penn State. It's not easy.
There's no bad teams left in this thing. But when you looked at it, it certainly felt like it was like we were looking at a basketball tournament and in a blind taste test, you would have thought that Penn State was a number one seed based on what the
bracket was. So yeah, again there needs to be a reset on the seating and yeah, if we're going to rule, if you really want to reward the teams for winning a conference championship, and for being you know, number one the whole second half of the year, and for winning games against Ohio State and doing those things they did. Then if you really want to reward and reward them and U and it was they did not do that. No, they didn't.
And I will ask you about Arizona State because of course Big twelve market and you know, Kenny Dillingham my goodness, like herme doe respect left that thing for dead.
You know, three wins the year before.
Kenny takes over and does a great job of adding talent that most people overlook.
There's not a five star kid on that roster, and he turns it around really quickly.
And if not for what I perceived to be a horrible, horrible missed call with the targeting situation down the stretch, Now I ask you had kicking issues all year. There's no guarantee that they go win the thing, But that call that was missed I think really really really hurt.
Man.
It was a heavy pill, you know, big pill for ASHU fans to swallow. But the way they played against Texas, if you think that answered any questions about the Big twelve.
As a whole, or is that just kind of being over dramatic about the whole thing.
Yeah, listen, I went out to I went out to Tempe and spent the day with Dillingham during the week leading into the first round of playoffs. And I'll be the first one to say I had watched them plenty on television, but when I watch them, I'm sitting there thinking, I don't know if they're big enough and strong enough and certainly not deep enough to keep up with the
big money fosters at Texas, Ohio State whoever. But once I went out there and I watched those guys practice, and I spent the day with with you know, with that staff and with Kenny Dillingham, who's like twenty years younger than I am, and I was like, it was I became a believer. And so it doesn't surprise me that they did what they did. And I don't care what level of football it is. You give me the old scataboo. I got a chance that dude. That dude can play, and so it was really fun spending time
with them. And it's fun watch spending time with Kenny Dillingham because I think that he set up to me in his interview for College Game Day He's the first one to admit he's made big mistakes. Is you're talking
about the kicking game. He embarrassed himself when he called out the kicker publicly, and you know, after they've missed a big kick, you know, early in the year, and he announced it gonna have open trials for kickers, and then he realized he just bashed a teenager on television, you know, And then then he said, I have learned so much this year. I mean the fifth that he pitched at the end of the BYU game. He has admitted that was an immature mistake, and so it's been
interesting watching him and plusant, I love those stories. That guy grew up fifteen minutes from campus, going to games as a kid, sitting in those stands at Sun Devil Stadium, went to college there, met his wife there. He still lives in the same neighborhood where he grew up. He shares a backyard with his sister. His parents lived two doors down the street. I want those guys to succeed. It's why I was sad that it didn't work out
at Nebraska for Frost. It was why I wanted Matt Luke to work out at Ole miss It's why I love watching Kirby Smart win at Georgia. The dream is to go back to your alma mater and the school that you grew up rooting for and when and Arizona State has always been at the top of the list of how are they not better at football? And so yes, I thought it was a big, big vot of conference with the Big Twelve. And listen, Colorado was for real.
BYU is for real. There's a lot of teams on that Big twelve lineup that people don't want to play, And so I thought it was an encouraging year for the Big twelve, even though they exited quicker than they wanted to in the postseason.
Let me circle back real quick, because your reference BYU lot of BYU fans and look, it's always and I enjoy doing radio from a perspective of diagnosing and not prognosticating because this stuff is impossible to predict. But after the fact, I think there's a case to be made that maybe BYU should have received a little more attention and potential opportunity to qualify for that twelve team CFP.
They had to win over SMU, a loss over another playoff team the Kansas lost really really hurt them, strength of schedule, strength of the record, quality wins. I mean BYU did have more of a case than I think
they were given credit for. And interestingly enough, Ryan, over the final couple of iterations of the CFP rankings, you didn't even hear much about them, didn't hear that they were even in the conversation because they did lose two of their final three, and probably the timing of their losses is ultimately what killed them.
But do you think BYU has a bit of a bee.
For not getting at least more recognition to potentially get in that twelve team field.
Yeah, I was surprised they weren't in the conversation. But timing is everything, And the reality is, you know that committee starts meeting in what early to mid November, and the only time they watch football together, like you all sit in the room and watch football together, is championship game weekend, and so the biggest conversations that they have are during those last couple of weeks that you're talking about,
and so timing is everything, you know. To me, it's why everybody kind of forgot that Notre Dame lost in Northern Illinois week two. You know, get that stuff out of the way early. And it's always been that way. I mean even back in the poll the poll era. You know, if you're gonna trip over yourself, do it in September and then make them forget about it when you get to October or November. So yeah, the time of that for BYU is bad. But you know, again, you know, get one or two plays back and you
know they can't ignore you. And so you know, Kansas suddenly turned to tell me the teams that were favored to win the Big twelve Kansas on a lot of people's list, certainly in the top two or three. And when Kansas suddenly decided to play like Kansas again, that was bad timing for the Cougars. But yeah, I think that the bad news is they didn't get the the
recognition they should have. The good news is I think they've got a lot of momentum, and I also think they got a chip on their shoulder headed into twenty twenty five.
You referenced something earlier I wanted to follow up on because I believe college football should be played on college of campuses like period, right in my opinion, and Joel Klattz floated out of this idea that the Rose Bowl becomes the super Bowl.
Of college football.
Is there a way we can format this thing where every game is played on a campus, maybe outside of the actual final national championship game.
No, I mean, it would be great, but the problem is the balls are still the balls, and there's still too much money. And listen, I'm a bold guy. I'm the first one to admit that I've written so many columns defending bowls. I just my daughter's a sophomore South Carolina. I took her to Sift Bowl even though they lost. My dad was, as you guys know, it was a college football official. I spent all of my holidays at bowl games that seen BYU a couple of times back.
The first six S ball I went to was BYU Ohio State back in the eighties, and it's I still think there's a place for the bowl games, and I like the fact that they're trying to find somewhere for
the bowl games. But I'm telling you right now, I have not experienced anything quite like I did being in Columbus, Ohio for that first game, and Tennessee was overmatched and quite frankly, just weren't ready for the game, but there were thirty thousand Tennessee fans in that stadium because they rated stub Hub right, they got all the tickets, and a lot of the High of State fans were mad because they lost the Michigan and put their tickets online.
And the atmosphere in that building was unbelievable. And from whatever was told me, it was the same way in South Bend. It was the same way at the other three venue. So it's I love it and and I and I would love to see some format to make that happen. But again, to me, if you go to sixteen and you get rid of the buys, now you're on the great legendary college campuses and we get that for an entire weekend and then we can head off into whatever the next rounds are going to be. But yeah,
in a perfect world we have both. But I'm just happy to have that first round right now, and I hope they keep it that way because that was crazy.
All right, Before I say you lose a couple of games coming up this week. Thursday is going to be the the Notre Dame Penn State game. That's the Orange Bowl. Then Friday is Ohio State, Texas. That is the Cotton Bowl. Four of the seven winningness programs of all time, all four have won national championships. Well, we will have a first time national champ coach, which is cool. I'll just ask you both games. Who do you like and why who do you think March is on?
Well, you know we said it earlier. It just it feels like a basketball tournament where you know, even if you're not, even if you're a number two seed, and even if you know didn't championship will region or a conference or whatever, there's always that team no one wants to play, and right now, no one wants any part of Ohio State. And I get that. You know, in Texas, I think can hang because Texas is a great defense, and when quinn Ewers is really good, he's really really good.
The problem is when he's bad, he's bad. And so I think Ohio State wins that game, and I think Notre Dame probably takes care of business against Penn State. Penn State's got a couple of key injuries that we're all tracking and we'll see if they've got their guys out there. But Notre Dame, to me, what do you look like coming off the bus, and right now Notre Dame in Ohio State, they look pretty good coming off
that bus. But but it isn't amazing though. And that's again I'm writing a column by it for tomorrow for ESPN dot com. You know, it was twenty fourteen for Ohio State. It was of course the legendary two thousand and six Rose Bowl for Texas, and then it's nineteen eighty eight for Notre Dame, in nineteen eighty six for Penn State. I think I looked this up earlier today, but your head coach at Notre Dame had just celebrated his first birthday when Penn State won last one in
national championship. So it's been a minute, and there's a lot of redemption going on, whether it's Ryan Day or whether it's James Franklin, Notre Dame trying to prove that, you know, I don't have to tell BYU fans about living life as an independent, Notre Dame trying to prove they should be in this conversation with everyone else, and it's and then Ohio State. It's just the storylines abound.
But I think we'll probably see the Buckeyes and the Golden Helmets in the National Championship Game in Atlanta.