For Pete's Sake

Hour with Ben Maller and Danny g Radio. Not here today, but he'll be here on Saturday and Sunday, because four hours a night are not enough. We do this eight days a week from a podcast studio at a secret location somewhere in the north Woods. And we thank you for subscribing for this thing, for downloading the podcast. And it is Friday, so that means a chance to catch up with someone in the world of media sports that

we can have a conversation with. And the big story this week has been all about college football and coaches getting ridunculous amounts of money. Brian Kelly leaving Notre Dame to go to l s U and Lincoln Riley saying goodbye to Oklahoma to go to USC. These are massive stories which is going to shift the entire financial spectrum of coaches salaries for every other sport to trickle down effect, certainly in football, and there's talk now of NFL salaries rising.

Inflation is coming um to the world of sports. The contracts already outrageous, but the money is getting even more and more into the stratosphere in the world of football. And who better to break it all down then someone who has been the one man band, at least it seems that way. Behind the website College Football News dot Com, Pete feu Tak joins us. Now this week we're gonna have a conversation here with Pete. Now, Pete, I have described College Football News dot Com as the bible of

the college gridiron. It is my go to site. When I need some information on college football, I always turn to your website. How would you sum it up for those that haven't read it a way that I have not had to go get a real job in a long time. So that's basically yet everything brown This is about me having to get this living, this weird, crazy world of college sports and deal with it all. But

it's fun. You know. The whole idea and is that everyone gets too crazy about sport in general, especially when there are real world topics that actually matter. Uh. In the fun part about college football is you've got some of the richest, most powerful people on the planet who get just insane over what a bunch of eighteen to twenty three year old kids do on a football field and or god forbid you, you know, do their their school sign up or down, or make fun of their

fight song or anything. And uh, it's all supposed to be silly. It's all fun, and you have people take it so seriously and beyond that, just predict games and go from there and give the people what they want, especially like the season this year. It's gonna whole lot of fun and even more than ever after doing this for as long as we've been doing this for Yeah, what what what did you do Pete before this? Like I've only known you as this guy, like you've had

that I was doing a website. I had a rumor website for a while, and you guys were doing you know, you were doing your thing at College Football News, and you know, I haven't done at a long time. And you're still pumping out story after story after story, your machine. What what did you do before this? Not to put a log on the fire here and get this whole They'll do as fast as possible. I started on advertising. I worked then for a now defunct publication called Pro

Football Weekly here in Chicago for several years. UH, and then in the late ninety nineties, a couple of guys there and I were like, hey, you guys should take this print publication and make do this whole online thing. And they weren't really into it, and then it was too late for that. And then one day I there was some data out there that said that the most red stuff on the Internet in the nineteen nineties came out of like the Dallas Morning News and the recruiting

rankings and anything to do with college football. And I just so happened to like, say, I love college football, I love making picks in writing about this, and I started up then in and it's gone from there and UH quickside true story. I actually really took off with the Fox World UH on my birthday one year, I

think it was two thousand issues. So UH had had the newspaper and we used to get the newspaper and the uh, the wife looked in and looked at my horoscope and for my birthday that day, and how what are your lucky letters for the the upcoming year? And the lucky letters were f o X. Okay ha ha. I'm gonna just send out a just a blind email to Fox and just say, I know you're changing up your site and stuff if you're looking for college football content.

And so I sent down just that one of the general mailbox at Fox sports dot com and within like fifteen minutes later got something back saying, yeah, we really luck you guys. You guys are great. This is great, not knowing that it was just me doing this, and then I hooked up with Fox and was with them for about fifteen years or so as a content provider, and uh, all that and everything to start of took

off from there. That's not supposed to work, Pete, as you know, that's not Yeah, you're you're not just fishing and and that's that's awesome. And you are a one man band, right, I mean, do you have other people every time? I'm amazed at the amount of content that you turn out every day. It's in it's an insane you've got that down to a science there. How many I don't have as much of an ego about it as you think, considering my name is slapt on everything.

But there are minions behind the scenes who do lots of grunt work, who help out with the basics and research and a whole lot of other things. But yes, at the end of the day, I finalize everything and put it all off under CFN. But we do have other guys who worked there, uh, not as made in the Fox days when you know, we had a staff about fifteen guys who helped crank stuff out. And it's uh, there's a there's a fun, interesting, quirky CFN tree of talent out there doing all sorts of other things uh

in the world as we speak. Some in the sports world there fully start out at the UH CFN, Russ Mitchell, who is a famous radio guy across the SEC plane and guys who do, like I said, who've gone on to do much bigger and much better things than this. But it's just been around long enough, and it's been crazy. It's every year is different. The Internet always changes. The sports business world has never quite been the same. UH. Through COVID, through UH you name it, through different algorithms,

through everything. It has not been the same any of the years. I've been doing this for the last twenty something years or so, and I gotta give you credit. Pete. You're a Chicago guy and I read your stuff. I don't sense maybe I'm missing it, maybe I have a blind spot, but I don't sense any kind of like bias towards a a certain Big ten schools. And when you were growing up, what was your team when you

were when you were young. Yeah, I grew up in Minneapolis, and my dad worked in colleges all all My dad worked in colleges all his life, so I've grown up on college campuses all my life. So I grew up in Minneapolis. He worked in the University of Minnesota. I went to Wisconsin because it got me in state tuition. UH in with Minnesota uh and then I live in Chicago. So I do, of course like the Big ten. But i'm my biases towards anything over the last you know,

millions of years. It's just to the Power five schools, because for example, all the Cincinnati arguments, all the other things when it comes to any other smaller school. Not that I'm not rooting for the little guy. But I just know now what goes into these Power five schools and just big machines they are, and just how much talent it takes to keep those things going and how

hard it is to get to those schedules. So I do admit to being a total Power five snob, and at this point, honestly, I just root for great games, great moments. I want to see the big moments, you know, Like again, I went to Wisconsin, but I was kind of mad that Iowa lost. I beat Nebraska and so that it would have been Minnesota versus Wisconsin for a shot to play for the Big Ten championship. I root for, you know, I want to see the big giant game.

And beyond that, you know, my biases pretty much go for whatever my picks are for that week. Yeah, and see this is I'm glad you brought them because I have this argument in college basketball every year when the n c A Tournament comes around and I hear all these people, I want to see the small schools when you know, in the early round of the tournament, and you know, being a radio guy, we do I do an overnight show, and so we talked that's when we

mostly talk college basketball, there's no Jews. People don't I don't care. They don't want to talk about the smallest school.

They everyone wants to see the upsets. But when Duke wins, and you know, for example in basketball or something like that, people call up, they want to talk, you have opinions about it, and and it's kind of be the same thing in college football, right, I mean, as you point out, you you see the data on the traffic and what's getting clicks and all that, right, and that's that's a factor.

It works for oh, it works for Power five conferences to Stanford being good, people's pageview death, you know, so that's just that does not you know, there's certain schools that will help me. I'm always had, but you know, on the flip side, Marshall, places like you know, every once in a while, like Coastal Carolina last year and it was rocket and rolling, uh, certain East Carolina certain you know, you CF certainly has a massive enough fan

base where it certainly helps business wise. But again, I just kind of roots for the big things and you're dead on right when it comes to gets a tournament. You showed me, you know, Central Connecticut Tech State beating Duke in the second round, and I'll show you a n third round matchup somewhere coming in and down the rides road. So I mt churning even more than anythink. E it's give me the top four teams, give me the monsters at the very end. And yeah, but look,

and then there is a flip side all this. And in the college football playoff world, you know, we've had monsters over the last few years. We've had the biggest of the big names get in and you've had the you know, the l s U and Alabama, Clemson and House States, and we've had blowout after blowout in these

college foo all playoff matchups. So I do say all that, and I'm tongue in cheeks say I am a power five snow, but I do get it when the public out there is sick of Alabama, when it's sick of the same old, same old schools, And it's more fun in the year like this when you do have you know, a Cincinnati in an Oklahoma state and you know even in Michigan who are more and even Georgian to a certain extent, are kind of the new teams involved in this.

And I think when they do expand the college football playoff, whatever that does happen, it's just going to expand it even more and get more programs involved in, more fan bases involved, without ruining the integrity of the regular season of college football. Kind of like they've already done that with college basketball, but uh, it is more fun when

you get more fan bases involved in this. Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Maller Show weekdays at two a m. Eastern eleven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app. So what what is the big hit on college footballs? You you do a lot of game previews and all kinds of things. Is it the gossipy stories or is it the hardcore like football breakdowns? Like? What is it that really? Addictions? Predictions, predictions, predictions.

That's that everything you know, everyone wants to and as much as I fought it for many years, predictions are always what everyone wants, especially now, and that's where things

have changed more than anything else over the time. The starting is because it used to be that you want the longer content, you want the feature articles, you want the you know, the two thousand word article things that people would read and now everyone's on their phones, and so they just want bam bam band, they want list,

they want quick. They went in out there. You know, they're commuting to work or you know, they have a few minutes wherever they're able to look at it, and they just want to be able to look at something fast, get their content and move on. And so really the idea of pivoting from when I first started, where we used to have a schlew of writers who would write these million word articles and they would just you want to keep people on the side, make up sticky, get

him to the message boards. Back in the day, keep people engaged on the site. Now nobody does that. So the idea of getting people to the homepage doesn't really matter because it's that it's all search engines. It's do are do younger? S c O right. It's really more technical because that was really where where Fox used to help out more than anything else where. I could write an article on CFN and we get traffic. If Fox took it would be great. If Fox put it on

f MSN, it would go ballistic. So it really just depends you have everyone's writing good stuff. It just depends who gets to it and how they can see it. Yeah, and you also, I know on your website, I don't know how many user you but do you pick NFL games too? Like you be handy handicapped the games in

the NFL, not just college football. Yeah. You know. The weirdest part about all this, I think our biggest traffic day, maybe ever at least since we've been with the USA and a platform, has always been the Wednesday slash Thursday, right before March madness, you know, I mean, just it's crazy how we again s c O who gets the right algorithm and stuff to happen, and it just happens

to be. Our site has sort of clicked in with where people go to our site now when it comes to picks predictions on the right day, and those have always been the biggest stuff, so even college basketball stuff, but really the NFL. You know, as much as I love college football NFL, I'm actually pretty more fluid in a lot of ways. Uh. And last year during COVID, when it looked like there wouldn't be a college football season, me and a couple other guys really sort of got

a couple of guys help me out. We pivoted Chafts and said all right, well, we're just gonna be all NFL just to try to get us through the season. As it turned out, just as many people wanted to see NFL picks and they want to see college picks and same sort of thing. As long as you don't have to engage people for that long. If they want to get on okay, like who's gonna win tonight New Orleans or Dallas? Bill, get getting get out and move

on with it. So hey, more intent the better. Yeah, And now do people I do a bit on my radio show, which I've done on the internet too, is benny versus the penny? Now do people give you a hard time? Do they bust your chops to? Don't if you don't get to pick right pete? Are they well you gotta is it? Is it that? Or they'll leave it alone on that. It depends on how wacky I

try to be. I get Usually I will always get tagged if there's something just wrong, like if there's something factually incorrect, which drove me crazy this year because, for example, the n c A official stats site was wrong and on their stats on a couple of certain things throughout the year. They just didn't have it quite plugged in, right, So whenever we go through the tea and the game previews and then do one final check to make sure things are right with the n A Stats site because

they're usually the side of record. Well, the Cincinnati fans let me hear about it. When I wrote like the three words or something about the Cincinnati pass rush just being okay, and I based it mainly off of and say stat site when they were wrong, it was my own fault for not checking out elsewhere, then I will hear it. But if I really diff a call or

a pick alright something. Every once in a while I get something, I'll really hear it when I do something really stupid, like picko House steak to beat Alabama the National Championship last year. But hey, I'm all, I'll put it out there. I will gladly take it when we get it wrong. We get it wrong, and uh that's part of the game, that's part of the front and

all this. But uh, the other thing too, which is awesome and crazy about this compared to the even the Fox days, is people aren't quite as nasty as they used to be when it comes to miss picks. And I do have a theory that people's iron anger have turned more towards more real things, like political things and

real world things. So the idea of oh, you got this pick wrong, the venom isn't quite there like it was back in say, the early commit two thousand's, as it's been over the last you know, four or five years or so. Oh yeah, to do though, if you want to upset people just mentioned Republican or Democrat, boom, everyone will explode in a fitteration. You want to You had a great point, and you've you've done this, You've

talked about this before. But the college football this is a big weekend in college football because championship weekend and all that and conference championship games, and you pointed out how much better this could be by spreading it out, and and it's everything is pretty much being played within the same few hours. And so as you have correctly point out, you we can't really watch everything, right, Peter, I mean this is a mistake in college football. Will

it ever actually be rectified? Yeah, you're you're talking about is right? When I point it out where I don't get it. I know, networking TV guys, I've talked about this with college football playoff people at the highest levels. I've talked about this with network people, and they all have their actual reasons. Obviously there's a site that these people aren't dull. They have a reason are putting the

games on when they are. But the problem is, for example, who's going to watch the American Athletic Conference Championship when you have the Big twelve Conference championship at the same time. Who's gonna watch the a c C title game where the Big ten championshipside at the same time. You know, so, uh, you have all these games that like in the MAX figured out, they have the hot action stuff. There's a

reason why I can talk about traffic before. Traffic for for Central Michigan Eastern Michigan on a random Tuesday night is massive because all the degenerate gamblers out there, which I say, the perfection, Uh, we're gonna go check out that picks. That's the only think going on on Tuesday night. So for the conference championships, there's no reason why the MAX should not be playing their championship game on a

Wednesday night. People will watch that. You know, I know there's NFL on Thursday, but you could also have like a sun Belt championship. That would get his viewership too. When you have a blood of games on Saturday, people are just gonna want to watch the biggest, big games

and they're not gonna flip around and watch them all. Yeah, and I had those same conversations like in the NFL, because they play everything, you know, the one o'clock eastern window and then the four o'clock Eastern window, and they could spread that out and but the you know, the same thing, the same thing. Oh no, you don't. You will not change my red zone habit, red zone fan at the red zone as someone who's completely converted, who cannot sit and watch a full NFL game without other options.

At this point, I need more options in the four o'clock late game hour because after those first step first, this mash up of games is so awesome, and then when you only have like two games, and if the Lake Monster game turns out to suck, it's like, wait about I want five or six other options at this point, so that I kind of get, but they don't really have that red zone option. They've tried it with college

doesn't quite work out as well. Yeah, it's it's there's too many teams, right, and that's the problem with college football. It's still spread out, and and it's a different animal because obviously fantasy makes a difference. Uh, you'll never have that. There is a fantasy element of some you know, creaty people like myself in college football, but obviously it's not even one of the same as it is, Uh in the NFL side, where you want to you know, flip

around the game, game, game, game game. I need to know. I might live in Chicago, but I sure as shoot care about you know, what's appening with two and done in Miami, and you know, if I'm going against Russell Wilson up in Seattle and all around the rest of the world. And plus obviously on the betting side of things,

NFL is a whole other weird animals opposed to college football. Yeah, and as far as some of the other stuff going on in college fotball, has there ever been a coach who decided to get a different job that was not met with a mob holding pitchforks and torches as they left. We've we've seen that that's been a theme this week in college football, where the fan bases are insane and upset and all that the only way I've determined that the people are happy is if they're firing the coach

because the coach is bad, then they celebrate. But if you if the coach gets a better job or what he thinks is a better job, there must be a mob listen online, mob destroying the coach. Pete right, that's the way it has to work. Now. There is no dumber, weirder aspect to American society than college football coaching things. Because on the one side, if you win two games, you get an extension and get the seven years added on with an extra ten million a year, all because

you had a little mini hot Street. If you lose two games, fired, can't coach anymore. You stink, you don't know what you're doing. We need to move on from this. It is hilariously weird how this all works. But you are right. It depends on the situation though, because the crazy part about the coaching care asselt to what you're speaking of, is every big time fan base you can search any major program's name here thinks, why don't why wouldn't want somebody coach here? Why wouldn't someone want to

have this job? And I stayed this with affection with the Texas job when it came open with Matt Brown and finally decided like, go, I'm speaking to very high end people there, and they were dead serious. They were like, well, we're just gonna get one of the harbors are we can. Why wouldn't Mike Tomlin want this? Or we'll we'll pay for Nick Saban to come here. Every and that's every single opening. They think we could just pay to get

this guy to come here, and sometimes it works. You know, USC was right, we could just pay to get Lincoln Riley to come take this job. Uh And for the most part, a certain statement the fan base and the fan base in Oklahoma that you know, kind of Newton Lincoln Riley was never going to be in Oklahoma for forever. Where I think they got mad was he took the USC job and not say the Dallas Cowboys job, where he seemed like he was going to be on the

Cliff Kings very path to the NFL. So there's something there. Oddly enough, there aren't a whole lot of fans out there who seemed that upset over Brian Kelly leaving Notre Dame. It's they're like, we appreciate what you did. You did you won a lot of games here, but all right, don't go to l s U. And that was one of the weirder big hires of this whole care AUSEL. Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Meller Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific. He's

Mike Carmen. I'm Dan Buyer, and we have a brand new fantasy football podcast called I Want Your Flex. Twice a week, every Tuesday and Friday, we come up with new episodes to not only look back at what happened, what you need to do at that minute, and also look ahead of what's coming up in the fantasy football world.

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Apple Podcast and wherever you be your podcasts speaking. And I'm glad you brought up the Notre Dame thing because I want to ask you I've I've been hearing through the grapevine here that as you referenced, they weren't that upset that Brian Kelly left it. The people behind the scenes at Notre Dame, the people who have influenced there.

Even though Notre Dame had a great season, they say they only lost the Cincinnati and uh at a solid year yet again, and they've been very good in the in the regular season with Brian Kelly, and they haven't done very well in big games and the ball games and whatnot. But that the program, the term that I kept hearing was it was it was stale, and that there wasn't a lot of despite the winds, that it could be bigger and better, and that things have kind of grown, uh doll if you will, which is odd

because they're winning a lot. Have you heard any of that you're in the ear in the Midwest? Is that? Is that yeah? Nonsense? Or is there's something to it? There's there's a there's he's if you're Notre Dame. He got them to a certain love where I have a whole slew problems with Brian Kelly and pass things that happened under his watch at that program off the field, but on the field, what the guy got into to

College Football Playoff appearances, one BCS Championship appearance. Uh, he has gotten that program to a level where it is just close enough and that no, it's not Alabama or Clemson, but like that's an unrealistic even for Notre Dame expectation because it requires some dumb luck to be at that oh my dear god level that Alabama has been at, or you know, the Clemson with that before this year under devil screening will probably be out again very soon.

But there is the theory. I think it's Mike Sachowski's thought that you could stay at a place for too long, and he did end up staying there for too long. But yeah, it's it seemed like it was just one of those moments where they just needed a little bit of a shift, a new energy, maybe something different, a little more innovation, a little something differ. But like you said, look they're in the College Football Playoff. Throughout this chase,

throughout this whole run. It's been a great season under Brian Kelly. However, it just everyone wants to kind of move on and do different things and make different changes, and it just seemed like that with Notre Dame as well. Well, now the reports Marcus Freeman, the defensive coordinator, apparently he's he's in line and to be the head coach and

be the full time guy. Is do you think that actually filed they follow through with that and would that be a money with Notre Dame be doing that to save money or is there something else going on here.

It's not a crazy thought because of the of the history of low ball offers and uh two guys like Urban Meyer and the past and not overpaying for coaches, except for the fact that you can't find anybody who's ever had anything to do with the Notre Dame football program who can say anything thing but glowing recommendations and is not in total love with Marcus Freeman, uh in terms of energy, in terms of being able to sell the program, in terms of being just the youthful energy

that who just is always go go go, always positive forward. And it's just kind of embodies what you want in a college football head coach in the modern era, where you want a guy who's got that that fire, who's got the energy to be able to always be recruiting.

And I know a lot of Nor Dame friends of mine and guys who do this always are thinking about, well, look, you know, Nordame is one of those jobs that they can really actually go after anybody, and someone like John Harbaugh would think about, or un Mike Tomlin would think about, or any pro coach would have to for a split second thing he the kind coach and Notre Dame. That's just the thing. The problem with that is pro coaches going to college, you know, going from movies to TV.

The idea of like clip Kings very going from Arizona where they're in the Super Bowl hud to Oklahoma. Once you've lived and tasted that pro life, going back to having to suck up to seventeen year old on a daily basis, it's kind of a hard thing to do. That's why kind of a guy like Marcus Freeman, who is young and who is in the college at game right now, who is in that world, is a perfect

fit and a perfect guy for the time. Now. Well know, as people are listening, there's something might have changed really drastically. But the big argument was that Brian Kelly left six days before knowing whether or not his team was actually out of the College football Playoff. Chase Luke Fickle is still in the college football playoff chase, at least as we speak right now, and so they're gonna probably wait

and see on that. If there is an announcement, they're not going to do anything until after we know what since the day's future is kind of like Lincoln Riley didn't make the move. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. His agan was obviously talking to USC before the end of the regular season, but it wasn't all announced after the Oklahoma State game. So I do think if your Notre Dame,

you do have to wait a little while. But certainly Marcus Freeman, if he's not at the top thest he's close, and you might have a swap where if it is Luke Fickle, then Cincinnati would be like, Marcus Freeman, our old defensive corner, please come here, take over this job and take us into the new era and the big twel coming up in a few years for that program, the old Switcher ru And as far as Brian Kelly, I we talked about some my Overnight show, did Kelly

going to baton Rouge and they you talk about a switch. They had the most Louisiana occasion coach they could have with coach Oe and Brian Kelly is like the polar opposite of you. When you think of Louisiana Baton Rouge, the SEC, you don't think of Brian Kelly. How long is a honeymoon period gonna last for coach Kelly there at l s U. It's it's over. It was over ten when ten minutes ago. Look, I was on a good nature joking fund with the one of the radio

stations done a Baton Rouge where they weren't asked. You know, we've got into the argument what's the better job USC or L s U? And I kept yawning at him. You guys are crazy. Why would anybody want this L s U job? Because you can't go tenant, you can't lose three games in a row. You can't lose ever because that fan base has experienced the top of them out.

Not only did they experience three national championships in you know, recent times under three different head coaches like Nick Nick Saban wasn't exactly Mr New Orleans when he took over that gig when he came down from Michigan State. Obviously one of one there was great. Les Miles obviously was great there until he wasn't. And at our dron put together arguing the greatest season in college football history, and two years later complete failure. Can't coach? God, who wants

to deal with that? I mean, I obviously Brian Kelly does. But you're getting gobs and gobs of money for this, but the pressure for that job when Alabama is still a thing, when Auburn is still good, when Old Miss is still good, when you still have a Georgia from

the East. It's just it's impossible for every team in the SEC to be awesome, especially in a year where just about every team was above averager better, when thirteen of the fourteen teams are going bowling, you know, so like it's I it's just an impossible expectation to ask Brian Kelly or anybody to step in right away and

win a national championship now. But if he doesn't do it in the next two or three years, everyone's gonna be screaming at him, just like they're screaming at like Gimbo Fischer now that he sucks and can't coach because they haven't won a national championship in Texas A and even though they were this close to getting into the College Football Playoffs last year, they fired Dan Mullen. Sucks can't coach, even though last year at this exact time

they were still in the College Football playoff. Life. It's an insane world in the SEC. But boo, who all these guys are getting paid generational wealth to be allowed to live that life. Yeah, and it's it's really you think of the SEC and the big name coaches, it's it's tilted heavily towards the SEC West obviously with that that half, with all the big names there, and who's who's the next coach out in the SEC, A big

name coach? Who do you think is on the hottest of the problem is right now, as we've kind of we've gone through this process at this point, there really isn't one particular guy I would say in terms of just flat out pressure Dud's got to start winning bigger now. It's Jimbo Fisher because the crazy part about Jimbo is on the one side, he was rumored to be on the shortlist for l s U And on the other side, you've got the fan base is like her, all right,

so let's win a national championship already. We want to be that team that gets into the College football playoff hunt. Uh So, it's there's a whole lot of you know, every school's got that guy, because now if you look at the coaches across the board, it's pretty massively awesome. I mean, Lane Kiffin should I thought Lane Kiffin would have been great back at USC and in a dream world, he'd be great for Ordre Dame. But he's one of

the best coaches going and he's at all miss Mike Leach. Look, the guy's never won anything, and I have major problems with him as a human being, but he's great. He that offense is phenomenal at Mississippi State. Kirby Smart Okay, fine, as we speak right now, he has won a national championship. Yep. But obviously he's got that program rocking and rolling. We'll see what Billy Napier does at Florida. Josh Hype could not be a hotter candidate for Oklahoma with what he's

doing at Tennessee. So the coaches in this conference all bring it. And going back to what we talked about the very very beginning, why I'm a Power of five snob. You want to talk about the difference between Okay, Cincinnati beating Notre Dame. That's all awesome, great win, Then do it again, don't you know? Not only get what you know? Tolane, Tulsa, East Carolina. Whereas if you were Texas A and M. Great, you beat Alabama, super beat Arkansas, beat Oldness, beat Mississippi State,

beat Georgia whatever else. It's it's not the same when it comes to the big gigant or conferences like that and the other nonpower file conferences. And that's just life in the SEC. Yeah. And as far as Lincoln Riley, I have been bombarded. I have friends at USC people that have been pumping their chest out, walking around like pead uh, why why did Lincoln Riley take? That's not I know it's l A and all that, but the sc the USC football program has been going the wrong

direction for a long time. And he he created you know, he didn't really create Oklahoma. Bob Stoops created Oklahoma. But was that a money play? Why? Or did you want to live in l A? What are you? What are you hearing on? Why Lincoln Riley chose he could have had any job he wanted, he chose the US season? Why USC? Yeah? I think it's Kirk Curvester you phrase that Yeah, he got the keys to the maserati at Oklahoma, and now he doesn't quite have that that USC. But look,

USC can flip around fast. They were so they had the talent this year. Then in the pactulth Championship hunt, it just didn't happen right away. That can be flipped instantly. And again I mentioned before, he's getting the recruits to come in uh to USC right away. Certainly Caleb Williams could follow him from Oklahoma to get there. Right now, USC is going to be at the top of every

recruits list because it's l a, because it's USC. Because especially in that era and now work with name, image and likeness for all the stuff that USC got hammered for under Pete Carroll with the rush Reggie Bush sanctions are now part of the norm, like like, oh what did what did they get the coma penalty for? They got it because Reggie Bush worked with a marketing company and he worked with an agent and he did oh he had the subway deals lined up for him. You know,

Oh my gosh, he's history's greatest monster. And they, you know, pretty much killed the USC program for a couple of years.

Now that's part of the deal. So if you're a recruit and you're saying, Okay, I could go to this school or I could go to the school in l A. The prospects of making the money there are so much bigger and better and under Lincoln Riley and being in that offense and that team that is going to be the hot team, hot program, and just straight professionally, Look, Lincoln Riley is going to be the highest paid football

coach in Los Angeles. It's the money that they're giving college coaches now compared to the NFL is just insanity. So why wouldn't you want to live in l A? You know, live the life there, the weather, the city, the media market, the recruiting opportunities, and on top of it, look, he's gotta beat what Colorado and Utah and u C l A and eras Oonah. That's a little different than Oklahoma going into life of the SEC and having to beat Nick Saban in Alabama and l s U and

everything we just talked about with the SEC world. Well and also Pete, I mean the details on Oklahoma and his house is the USC bought two houses from Lincoln Riley and they they're paying for his house in l a that maybe we all find someone in life to want to hire us to pay for houses. And my god, what an amazing thing. I didn't even know as my as my as my running gag goes melt Tucker Uh and I were at Wisconsin at the exact same time

we had classes. I was in a bunch of classes with him UH, And little did I know that at the time that the two of us combined would be worth one million dollars over the next ten years. So great, great gig if you can get it as one of these college football head coaches who uh is on the on the rise and it's really good at what you're doing well. And also it's driving up the prices in the NFL now that the NFL is going to have

to compete financially with who thought? Who? Who would ever thought they're gonna have to compete with Michigan State and Penn State and USC and and these these things. It's crazy. Hey, I'll let you go, Pete. I don't I've kept you

a long time. How can people follow you on college football news is where you hang out all the time, But on social media if they want to catch up with you, I'll put it all on the yeah college football college football news dot com obviously uh my personal one, Pete few tech f I U T a k. And unfortunately, since College Football News does not have enough characters for Twitter, it is cool. College football News horrible handle, but it's all up there as well on the Twitter machine. Awesome.

Thank you, Pete, appreciate it. Hey time you have a great one.