Welcome to the Solid Verbal.
I'll that for me. I'm a man, I'm forty. I've heard so many players say, well, I want to be happy. You want to be happy for dake Ado State? Is that woo woom?
And Dan and Tye welcome back to the Solid Verbal. Boys and girls. My name is ty hilden Brand. Dan Rubinstein, my beloved co host, is still honeymooning in Europe, still exploring the Mediterranean with the wonderful Missus Rubinstein. I believe he'll be back next week, so stay tuned for that. Don't forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or any podcast directory for that matter. Please leave us a review if you like the show, because that helps
us more than you could possibly imagine. And if you aren't already following us on social media, We're on Facebook, we're on Twitter, we're on Instagram, all the usual hotspots. Give us a follow if you want to say in touch. So tonight's actually a rare show for a bunch of different reasons. First and foremost, I am flying solo, which is something I hardly ever do. Most importantly, though, we
get to discuss some real, actual breaking news. That's sorry breaking news on June the seventh, deep in the heart of college football off season, and on top of that, the stars weirdly aligned in a way that gives us both Bruce Feldman from Fox Sports and Andy Staples from Sports Illustrated on the same episode to discuss news of the day and much much more. And there is some rather significant news in the college football world effective immediately.
Bob Stoops is stepping down from his post at Oklahoma. Seems to have come a little bit out of left field. He's been there since nineteen ninety none. Obviously, you know his resume, one of the more elite, most accomplished coaches in the game. Certainly there have been rumors for a long time about him going elsewhere. Lord knows those aren't gonna let up anytime soon now that he is effectively
a free agent. Suffice to say, there are a ton of questions about the timing, the motives, the replacement, etc. Etc. Let's jump in. Let's start dissecting this with our friend Bruce Felman from Fox Sports joining me to discuss the news of the day. Very pleased to welcome back to the show longtime friend of the podcast, mister Bruce Feldman from Fox Sports, sir, how are you.
I'm doing well. It's good to be out with my favorite.
Half of thank you, Thank You on your anniversary. No less, I understand.
I know that's probably not going well, but it's been that kind of day around my head.
So I guess the question is, did you see this news about Bob Stoop's coming at all? Were you tipped off to this that this might occur, because for the rest of us it seems like it came out of left field.
Yeah, there was been some rumblings. I mean last week that I started hearing about whether he was going to step down or would it be a case where maybe he coached for two thousand and seventeen, and then you know, like they had announced they had decided it and stayed on.
And then earlier this week, you know, started hearing more about that this could be a you know, an immediate effective, immediate situation, and I was trying to you know, hammer home, hammer out the Lincoln Riley details, whether he was going to be was he in fact going to take over or was he just going to be kind of an interim on an audition basis, So you know, it was a it was a hot story that that blew up, and I guess around early after Wednesday.
Obviously, Lincoln Riley is a guy that that people are pretty high on. But still was this something that when you heard it, it caught you by surprise, just the immediate nature of it.
You know, the part about this part, I knew this two big things. So Bob stoops and jokes Toally on the idea of that groom in Lincoln Riley for this really for over a year and even going back to the sprint the fall, Oklahoma started working on a contract that was basically unprecedented for an assistant where they were going to give him a three year deal because they knew he had passed up opportunities at Houston and Cincinnati USF and produced. So I think towards that end, you know,
that part made sense. It was just ultimately came down to Bob steps being one hundred percent sure, Yeah, he feels like the timing is right to step down, But you know, is he really one hundred percent on it?
Not edgely?
You know, he felt like he is, And that's where we are now.
The official word that you posted was that quote he's ready and wants to go live life. That's according to one of your sources, I would say, just as a college football fan, you don't typically hear that on June's seventh of the off season. I don't question his motives, but the timing, the timing just seems so odd to be in the throes of the off season. Why now, Why did he feel the need to do this now?
You know, I think that specific part of it, I'm not sure there's you know, as opposed to a month ago or not. I don't know that that part of it what sold him, you know, whether it was because I saw him in Baby in early May. Guys who have worked with him were around him, and they were kind of caught off guard that he decided to do
it at this time of year. But you know, keep in mind, his dad was fifty four when he died, literally had a heart attack in a game he was coaching in high school and died on the way to on the way to the hospital. Somebody really close to the students, really, because the guy who probably knows him best, when I talked to him earlier today said he's always told me he was fifty five. That's what he thought. He would wanted to step down at it and he goes.
I don't think he is. I don't think he's changing his mind. I think he's done.
That's pretty incredible. And I think back a little bit to when urban Meyer announced that he was stepping aside at Florida. The immediate focus among a lot of college football fans was does he have his eye on something else? Is he going to take an Ohio State job? Obviously ended up taking that. Do you think that there is any possibility there's another job out there that could lure him back? Or is this for good?
I don't think there is. I really don't know. I think you know what's different in terms of urban Meyer situation where Bob Stoops they're kind of wired differently. I mean, urban Meyer is one of these guys who was grinding football all the time, and you know the metric of a hused to kind of base that on is when you talk to guys who worked for urban Meyer, they
are grinding. When you talk to people who coach for Bob Stoops, they say he's probably about as easy a guy to work for and as good on families as there is. He also golf a lot more than than urban Meyers, So we'll see. I mean you know, his kids are a little younger than Urbans, you know, twin boys that are the seniors in high school. But you know, you never say never with these coaches.
So now it's turned over to Lincoln Riley, a younger guy, only thirty three. You said, he's been groomed for a while now to perhaps take over this post. What does he bring to the equation that perhaps Bob Stoops didn't.
Well, you know, he's obviously an offensive guy, and he is a Mike Leach protege in that he started with Leach when he was a student assistant at Texas Tech. He's been an offensi quare for actually a long time, for seven years, so he has quite a bit of experience on that in front. But you know, still thirty three is what it is. But he also learned under
Rushall McNeil, and he's learned under Bob. I think he's when I asked Leech earlier today about link so you know, this is a very Leech quote, too long to even get on Twitter, but it was he was like, becoming a head coach is like getting married. You're never really truly ready for it until you're in the middle of it. Because you had all kinds of all kinds of unwieldy
stuff coming at you. But he did say Lincoln is probably as good outside of the box and independent thinker as there is, and he goes and a lot of times, guys, don't you know, that's pretty rare. So where guys are, you know, really real independent thinkers this day, especially younger coaches at that level. So I think, you know, there, now he's gonna have to lean on on Bob Stoops's old staff, you know, which is a lot of experienced guys. You know, his on line coach Bill Beadenbaugh and his
receivers coach Dennis Simmons. There, guys he knows really well. And Dennis was somebody brought along, but the other guys really were. You know, It's a veteran staff, and I think that'll help, especially given the expectations are gonna be high with Baker Mayfield to still there in a really good offensive line.
Yeah, I mean, do you think he can handle such a big job so soon?
I do?
I mean, I unlike a lot of the Leech area guys, Lincoln's way more grounded. I mean, he just he's always been seen more mature than his years, and so I think he can handle it now. I mean he's going to go lead them to the playoffs and have you know, a national title in year or two's. That's that's a
tall order. But I think he's going to be a successful head coach there, just because he's really, really smart, and he's really really focused, and I think he's had his eyes open for a long time for something like this.
Do you think this will affect any kind of recruiting at Oklahoma?
It might, but I'm not sure. If you know, Lincoln was a big reason why they got some of the offensive guys they got, so we'll see. I mean, they had a good year in two thirds, you know the class they sign. Still enough time between now and the early signing period where I think people are gonna want to wait and see. How you know, Oklahoma runs under Lincoln Riley and it's a big job. It's a huge job.
Final question for you, mister Feldman, does it change the balance of power at all in the Big twelve?
I don't think so. I mean, you know, if if Bob was taking Baker with him to be his caddy, maybe differently. But you know, they still have a great quarterback they still have the best offensive line in that
in that league. They yeah, they have skill talent they got to replace, but you know, Tom Herman's that momentum, but they got a long way to go to get back to where, you know, to where OU is right now at Oklahoma State, I think has been very good on offense especially, But I did that game, the Bedroom game last year in rnment. Yeah, I know, you really took it to him. So I think it comes back to the players right now. Oh, he's got better players.
And I wouldn't bet against Baker Mayfield in a Big twelve game right now.
What does Bob Soops's handicap any idea?
I think he's a high single digit Okay, I don't think. I think he's a guy who can break eighty. But I don't know if he's the guy who shoots, you know, in the seventies often. But so two things about Bob Shoops,
I think what's going after about it? One? And I say this was complete sincerity From years of covering the Football Foundation event in New York as well as the Coaches conventioned every year, there is no head coach in college football who has as much respect amongst other head coaches as Bob Stoops does, and the other part and maybe just kind of connected to it, just from being around the sport for a long time, it really stands out how many guys talk, not just guys, but their
families talk about how good he is or was to work war and that credit is that our last part is a rarity, you know where you know, I remember, I have a buddy who I'm known for years who's an assistant coach, and his wife just was talking about all this, you know, how good he was to the coach's wives and how good he is to their families.
And you know, you would think this stuff sounds like common sense, given how invested these these families are, but it's not the case usually and Stups was really really good about that, and that's why I think there's a lot of people who had such a respect for him, at least within the business.
Well, it's big news, especially in the doldrums of the college football off season. June the seventh, again, Bob Stoop's stepping down effective, immediately handing the keys over to Lincoln Riley. Mister Feldman, happy anniversary to you, Thank you for giving us so much of your time, here on short notice, and uh we'll bring you back. We'll bring you back on on a different occasion.
Thank you very much.
All right, big thanks to Bruce Feldman from Foxsports dot com. I'm going to talk to Andy Staples here from Sports Illustrated momentarily about Bob Stoopson a few other odds and ends in the college football world. But before I do, a quick reminder that the soliverable of this evening brought to you by our good friends over at Indo Chino. That's I N d C HI n O Indo Chino dot com, where they will make you a custom fitting suit.
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Get ready to look like a million bucks and joining me now our good friend from Sports Illustrated in SI dot com as well as serious ex m Mister Andy Staples, Sir, how are you?
I'm good. Surprised, Yeah, how about that.
Yeah, it's funny because we've always talked, you know, amongst our our sportswriterselves, about you know, if anybody would would leave kind of early, Stoops would be that guy, because he started his head coach so young, and you know, it feels like he's been doing this forever and he really has. But he's not an old guy. He's fifty six. So I did look at that. Nick Saban turned fifty six during his first season at Alabama.
Four national titles ago.
Wow.
Wow.
Bobby Bowden was in his sixties when he won his first national title. Tom Osborne when he won his first national title. So I mean, if you think about it from that perspective, this is pretty pretty shocking. But if you think about it from this guy's been a major college head coach for eighteen years, well, retirement doesn't sound like such a bad deal.
Yes.
So I talked to Bruce before we brought you on, and Bruce said that there there was some indication that at some point in Stoops's career he might go this direction that you know, fifty five ish might have been that age for him where he thought about doing something else with his life. But still it definitely snuck up on a lot of people. I asked him, I'll ask you, do you have any concerns now about where the program goes with such a young guy like Lincoln Riley who's never had a head job before.
No, because Lincoln Riley may be thirty three years old, but he didn't act like a thirty three year old. I mean, he's had his stuff together since he was
a little baby. I think they I talked to Michaelee earlier today and he was telling me about when Lincoln Riley was on his team and Lincoln Riley was walking quarterback in Texas Tech and at the time, Leach had eight quarterbacks in the room, scholarship guys plus walk ons, and Riley had learned the offense quicker than anybody, but he just didn't have an arm And so Leach brings him in and cuts him and then tries to hire him.
And he said that Riley had to go think on it for a day because he was mad about getting cut. But I mean his rise was pretty New York. I think he was twenty three when he got his first full time assistant coaching job at Texas Tech. He was twenty six the first time he called plays. He's it's oddly similar to Bob Stoops. I mean, Bob Stoops was the co defensive coordinator at Kansas State in his early thirties.
You know, he got to Florida when he was thirty or he turned thirty six that first season in Florida. So you know, this is this is not a this is not that big of a difference. He was thirty nine as the as the head coach at Oklahoma. I'm about to turn thirty nine right now. I can tell you right now, I wouldn't hire myself to run a berger. I think I think most there are just some people who can do this and who are good managers and good organizers and have their stuff together.
I think Lincoln Riley is one of those guys.
Yeah, I'm not so much spooked by the fact that he's younger than both you and I, and certainly he is eminently qualified given past experience, to maybe take on this role. But we've seen it time and time again, very good coaches step into that spotlight and for one reason or another that they're not able to handle it.
Yeah, it's an interesting guy after the guy situation. This is this is the coach in waiting. Who would have I mean, he would have been the coach in waiting had they decided to go that route. They never called it that, but it was obvious he was turning down head coaching jobs on the off chance that Bob Steus would retire and he'd be the head coach at Oklahoma.
Interesting stuff. We will see what happens, and surely more to come on Bob Stoop's Lincoln Riley here over the next couple weeks and months, but usually not the kind of thing that you expect to hear on June seventh. I don't, as I said to Bruce, I don't question the motives, but the timing to me was a bit odd.
Well and yeah, I mean, and you know, it's weird because sometimes when you see it, like I almost expected Bill Snyder to do something like this so he could dictate the terms of his replacement, give his son a chance to get the head coaching job, sort of like Bo Ryan did when he retired from Wisconsin as the
basketball coach. You know, he wanted Greg Gard to have a chance to get the job, and he felt like, if you retire right then, then guard has to coach out the rest of the season and that'll be his audition, which as we know now turned out really well. But in this case, he could have announced this after the season, they would have made the same soon. They wouldn't have gone a coaching search, they would have just hired Lincoln Riley.
So I don't think there's anybody in Norman who would disagree with this choice.
So you know that timing of it is a bit odd.
Well, the other big news that I wanted to bring you on to discuss a little bit. I know you're a Florida guy. You covered the sec very intently as well. Malik'saier announced that he is grad transferring away from Notre Dame. To no one's surprised at this point, but there were rumors about where he might end up. He lands at Florida, a school that's had some difficulty trying to find a quarterback that just scoch you could say, right, that could
move the offense forward. How does he now fit into this equation for Jim Mackaway at Florida.
It comes along in an advantageous time for whoever winds up being starting quarterback at Florida this year.
And I am not notice.
I am not assuming he's going to be the starting quarterback because I think this dragged out this long because he couldn't get any sort of assurance because he was going to start anywhere. And you know, I think he's probably gonna have to duke it out with Felipe Franks to see who wins the job. But I would imagine that Florida was of the schools he was looking at.
Florida's his best chance to win a starting job. But this is the best receiving group Florida's had, probably since two thousand and nine, the best line they've had since mclwayane's been there. They got good running backs, so the quarterbacks in a lot better positioned this year than the quarterbacks the last two years. Those guys were kind of running for their lives, didn't really have anybody dynamic other than Antonio Callaway to throw to. That's not the case
this year. They're going to have people to throw to. They're going to have a more serviceable line. I don't know if it's going to be a great line, but it's going to be a serviceable one, which is a massive improvement over what they had a couple of years.
Ago.
So whoever wins that job, I think he's gonna look a little better just because there's.
Some talent around. But that doesn't mean.
Suddenly Florida's offense is going to go from the hundreds to the single digits. And in the rankings, they've got a lot of work.
At least they've got some depth though. And that's the yeah thing because as you know previous seasons, quarterback A goes down, you're down at year back d. So at least you've got a decent option in Zaire even if he ends up being the backup, or if Frank's ends up being the backup exactly.
And that's the thing.
I mean, Frank's is one of those guys that the recruit Nick said, you don't need to start him until at least year three.
He just needs time.
He's very raw, he's very athletic, needs time to developed. Well, he's in year two right now. So that's that's what you get.
Zai.
Here's an interesting case to me, because you know, Ty, you you're a notre dame guy.
Tell me about the two games Maliks that you're playing. Yeah, well, I mean really really, that's what we're talking about.
He played in the now he played during the twenty fourteen season, but that LSU game was kind of his coming out party. Sure, he looked like a world beater in the season opener in twenty fifteen against Texas, but I think that was the case of, you know, we looked at it in like, Wow, he destroyed Texas, and then if you thought about it later in the season, you're like, whoah, that Texas defense is really bad. Sure,
so then he gets hurt against Virginia and Kaiser comes in. Now, I was at the Texas game last year, and I remember the series, the couple series that Zaire played, thinking, how on earth did they look at Kaiser and look at him and say they were dead?
Even what were they watching? Now, I've been told from people.
Who are practiced that it was a lot closer than what it looked like in that particular game, but it sure looked like a big difference to me.
Yeah, I think Kelly was in a bad spot, to be honest, and I'm not sure despite the fact that he tried to project confidence at the start of last season, I'm not sure he was ever in a position where he fully felt comfortable with what he was doing. I think he liked personally both quarterbacks a lot, and both quarterbacks had that leadership mentality, that that X factor that
you need to play quarterback at a high level. And so for that reason, I'm not going to say the locker room was split, but you had guys that could fall really on either side of the fence.
Well, that's the thing I think there was. There were definitely some some zayre guys, and so.
He had to get a chance. And also, if you're a coach, you don't want to you don't want.
To Wally pip one of your players, right, you know, it's not Zaya your's fault.
He got hurt.
So I don't disagree with Kelly making sure he had a chance to show what he could do in a game. But it's one of those things where you know, you look back on it now and you're like, well, if they'd erepped Heiser with the ones the entire offseason, Yeah, how different might that have turned out?
Doesn't change how bad the defense.
It doesn't change how bad the defense was. But I think you're right to the extent that if Kaiser had gotten all the first team reps, it might have been a little bit of a different story just by virtue of the fact that he tried to use both of them to integrate them into the same system. Combined with the fact that there was some turnover at wide receiver, it was just too much for them to bear on offense.
So anyway, we'll see the zi era, as we've called it here on the podcast, is now coming to Gainesville.
I do like to needle the Florida fans in my general vicinity by telling them that my prediction is Luke del Rio will start.
The first game.
He is coming back from shoulder surgery, so right, that is a possibility, But now I think I it's going to be Zayra Franks.
Well, I did notice that one of your colleagues at SI, Brian Hamilton, put out a way too early top twenty five, and I you know, you have a tendency to look at these things in the very very very again deep duldrums of the offseason.
Or entertainment purposes.
Only right, for entertainment purposes, only you can look at them and say that team's too high, that team's too low. So I want to go through this and see if you had any any snap judgments based on what we're seeing. His top five is Alabama, Florida State, USC, Ohio State, and Penn State. Now, I have been as a Penn State alum, and perhaps to my detriment, very very leary about fully buying into the Trace mcsorly thing.
I'm fine with Trace mcsorly.
I just be cautious because they caught some breaks down the stretch last year. Sometimes you don't catch those breaks even if you have a better team, and that they may actually be better this year than they were last year, but it may not fall the same way.
People have asked me, Andy, why are you so leary on mcsorly. I can't describe it. It's a gut thing. I have no real rational reason.
To die think he's doing so much fun.
That's but yes, he part of the reason why he's so much fun is you do feel like he's kind of teetering on the edge a lot of the time, that he is very confident in his ability to get the ball in there, and you know they're going to be there's gonna be one one day, one Saturday.
It just doesn't quite do that.
It feels like he's got a seven interception game in him all the time.
That's yeah, exactly.
But that's what makes it so much fun, because when it goes through the defender's hands and into a receiver's hands, you're.
Like, oh, how did he do that?
Yeah, he's a blast to watch, so I am. And also I like Joe Moorehead's offense, but you know, it's weird. I did a story in twenty fifteen about a player that Moreheaded coached at Fordham who wound up starting a.
Right tackle at Florida just because they needed somebody.
And so I got to watch a lot of that that Fordham offense and I talked to Morehead about it when he was the head coach at Fordham, and Wow, this thing is super efficient and really keeps defenses guessing. And and then you saw it in action in the Big Ten last year and guess what it translates?
Very well.
Yeah, I'm excited to see what they can do. I'm a little bit leary about Mick Sorely. We'll see what happens now that Godwin has moved on to Tampa Bay, but certainly they'll be one of the more interesting and fun teams to one end.
State always has some sort of freaky body control receiver though, Yeah, there's always some guy who's like six to one who wins every fifty to fifty ball that for whatever reason can just hang in the air and catch everything.
I don't know where.
You know, there's a pipeline where it's sort of like the same assembly line where Alabama makes the coke machine sized running backs.
Penn State's got that.
One going well. As you know. Penn State played USC and the Rose Bowl, and USC is the team I think in this top five that I'm most interested to get your read on Alabama and FSU. We know they'll be loaded. Ohio State seems to just reload year in a year.
In pennsall line is going to be really good this year.
Yeah, But USC to me is always the interesting one because there's always this preseason hype. We saw it last year. It obviously didn't pan out in the first half of the season, but then they made the transition over to Sam Donald and things really took flight. Now we're in this position where people are talking up Donald as the Heisman front runner, potentially the first overall pick, and Brian Hamilton there has them at number three. Is that too high for a USC team?
It's fine, I mean, that's the thing I don't know. I don't know what they're going to do.
They could they could just ride the way that they were riding last season. They're the most physically talented team in the Pac twelve, so they should be able to beat everybody in the Pac twelve the way I mean the way they beat Washington, and Washington was a really good team. That that is the sign of a talented roster. You know, USC still has better players than most of the teams they play, and before it was a case where they just weren't getting enough out of those players.
But it seems like Helton once he switched to Darnald, I mean that that was kind of the original sin that cost them a lot last season. But now that that's corrected, he seems to be able to get quite a bit out of the talent he has. They don't seem to underachieve physically with him, so I'm fine with him being ranked that high.
My question is, if you don't have them in the top five, where do you have them, Because as I look at the rest of this again way too early for entertainment purposes, only top twenty five, I don't know how much further down you could put USC no, I mean ridiculous.
I'm going to rank them higher than anybody else in Pact twelve, mostly because of the honestly, mostly because of the way.
They beat Washington last year. I think.
I think Washington is also going to be really good. I know they lost a lot of their secondary and they lost John Ross, but they're still going to be very good.
And USC Clopbard that very good team on the road.
The next group of five teams that he's got here, not group of five, but the next tier of freight teams six through ten is Clemson, Oklahoma. Obviously we've talked a lot about Oklahoma this show, Washington, Oklahoma State, and Auburn. The two that are of most interest to me are Clemson and Auburn.
Yeah.
Both presumably have new starting quarterbacks, right.
Yep, Well yeah they will.
And I'm more confident in Clemson than I am in Auburn. I think Dabo's got it now where they're a machine, just like Florida State's machine, like Ohio States and machine like Alabama's a machine.
They're just going to keep that going.
Auburn, I don't know yet, I you know, I don't know about the Jared Sidham hype.
I know he's got a great arm.
I know he was fantastic in the time he did play as a freshman at Baylor, but he got hurt for quickly. He's going to get hit a lot in the SEC, even if they have a pretty good offensive line.
So, and this is you know with Gus.
Remember he hasn't had a successful SEC offense that didn't involve a quarterback who could run. Now, he's had good offenses in the past when he was at Tulsa and then you go back to his Springdale High days where it was more of a drop back passer guy, and he did some really creative stuff with him and just mess with defensive heads. But look at who they've been successful with in the time he's either been offense coordinator, head coach at Auburn, Cam Newton and Nick Marshall.
Right, Jared didn't have done run like either one of those guys.
No, he doesn't.
So now I do think their running game is going to be good. I think they're lying and their stable of backs is good enough that you don't necessarinsarily need that big of a threat of a quarterback run to be able to move the ball. I'm more concerned actually with them on defense, just because they lost some really good players. You know, Montrevius Adams was outstanding for al Austin was really good. They had kind of it built
up to last year on defense. They needed needed some time to get where they were going, and that that.
Defense kept them in a lot of games last year.
So if it takes a step back, then that's just even more the offense has to make up.
I'm supremely curious about what happens with the Auburn at quarterback. Somewhere in the pit of my stomach, Andy, I feel like there's an over under three and a half games that Sean White is still going to play quarterback.
Oh I, I think that's a pretty good bet because Stidham's gonna get hit, you know, and we don't know what the if the injury at Baylor's freshman year, if that was a fluky.
Thing or if that was just he got injured.
A bunch of players is at Baylor because they were running him a lot even though they knew there wasn't much behind him.
So I don't think Gus is going to run him that much.
All right, So I'm looking at the final three tiers here that Brian put together. Here are the three teams that I think I'm most interested in getting your take on LSU, Michigan and Tennessee, all for different reasons. LSU obviously is trying to transition to a different offensive system.
Offense has been an issue for them for a while, Michigan because they're rebooting at a bunch of key positions and they lose a ton and Tennessee because it's growing increasingly more obvious that Butch Jones is on somewhat of a hot seat.
So LSU was interesting because you look at what Matt Canada did walking into Pittsburgh last year with no assistance coming with him by the way, by himself, and that offense was unstoppable at times with Nathan Peterman at quarterback, who you know he'd done all right, and Jim Cheney system the year before, but the people who remember him from Tennessee will remember that he didn't play very well there.
So I think Matt Canada, if he can get.
LSU distributing the ball to its playmakers, can make that offense. And the thing about is LSU has as many good athletes on offense as they have on defense. You just wouldn't know it because Les Miles would pick whoever the best tailback was and just ride him relentlessly and not worry about anybody else. That's why he got fired. So ed oars Ron didn't change anything. On defense, Dave Ryan
is still running the show. Hired a guy who will distribute the ball, and my guess is if Danny Etling distributes it accurately, they're going to be very hard to stop.
Between Michigan and Tennessee, Andy, which of those those two teams are you most interested in? Which do you think has I don't know, I guess the most intrigue As we head into the season, I.
Feel like Tennessee has a lot bigger space between the floor and the ceiling.
Yeah, the floor.
Is Busch Jones gets fired the ceiling as they win the East. So and I think they should be better on defense because I can't imagine a team having worse injury luck on one side of the all than than Tennessee's defense did last year. And then offensively, we'll see, But dorn Tino and Dormandy, I think there's some other SEC schools that would like to have either one of those guys. So it's a pretty good choice that the Bush has to make a quarterback.
I love Kellie at running back.
That dude runs so violently, and so I think, and this this should be the best offensive line they've had in the Butch Jones era.
So I don't.
I am not automatically writing them off and firing Butch Jones.
A lot of people are.
I want to see him play. They got a pretty tough September. We'll know what they are after September. Michigan's interesting because we don't know what they're going to be yet. And I keep telling everybody that Michigan Florida game, Maybe a lot of people who make definitive proclamations after that game, that game's not gonna tell us anything because we don't know what either of those teams will be. So that's one of those that we could be watching two good teams,
we could be watching two mediocre teams. But I mean, here's the thing. Other than that first year at Stanford and even then they beat USC, Jim Harbaugh's never coached a bad team, and I'm including his time in the NFL very true, So they're not going to take that big of a step back. Plus now you're getting players that they recruited getting developed. And I know Brady Hope
recruited some good players that Harbor then subsequently developed. But if you look go back to Harbat Stanford, he's seriously upgraded at roster.
He's a good recruiter.
So my guess is by the middle of the season, that's a pretty pretty solid team.
I'll throw one other team in here, and then I want to move on to a different topic altogether. But Texas obviously the news new head football coach Tom Herman. Not all rebuilds, as you know, are created equally. How big of a rebuild is it at Texas is not.
Nearly as big as when Charlie Strong took over. To put it in perspective, Charlie Strong inherited a better roster this year at USF Romilly Taggert than he inherited from.
Mac Brown when he got to Texas.
So I mean that tells you and Tom Herman inherited a big twelve roster. Now there are some holes, there are some problem areas, but he's got big twelve talent. He's got what he needs to be successful, and then he can obviously recruit on top of that. But my question is, how do you change the attitude? You know, when they got to Houston, that was a team that was coming off an eight win season.
Yeah.
So now Tom has told me that he actually felt like it was more resistance at Houston because guys were in the mindset of, hey, we weren't awful, why are you coming in trying to change everything. At Texas, it was more like, we know we were bad. We lost seven games three years in a row. By all means change whatever you want. We'll do whatever you want. So
we'll see how that goes. I mean, I don't think they're mentally where he wants them to be, and probably won't be this season, but he squeezed an awful lot out of those Houston guys that first year, and I would bet that there's going to be some pretty dramatic improvement in terms of record at Texas.
I will post the link to Brian's again way too early for entertainment purposes, only top twenty five in the description for this podcast, so feel free to go on to the site celiverble dot com let us know what you think of Who's too high, Who's too low? Again, very very early. Don't take it with more than a grain of salt, but just food for thought here as we try to get some college football in the diet despite the fact that there's not really a whole lot
of other stuff going on. The one thing that I did want to bring up with you as we sort of wind it down here, and I know this is something that we discussed before, but I made what I consider a pretty big life decision and I cut the court.
Ooh, enjoy the buffering. Yeah, well, it's been good to be seconds behind. It's been good so far. YouTube live YouTube TV live has has been my choice, and it doesn't seem like there's been too much of a delay. But this is something that's accelerating.
And I know we've talked about it on our show at some point here with you about how that all found actors into the economics of college football, howe how that affects the viewing experience, how that affects just the general perception of what college football is. It's obviously not
something that is slowing down. And I'm curious just to kind of get your big picture perspective about where you see all of this driving college football, because it does drive college football at some point in the next five to ten years.
Well, I think the commissioners and the ads are all praying that Amazon or.
Google or Apple or.
Netflix or somebody jumps in so they'll pay they can get paid what they're being paid now. I don't think anybody's even looking for increases on their next.
Deal just to bility. I think they they'd be happy to get paid what they get paid now. And the assumption.
It's interesting because the assumption is that because because Google is the biggest company on well I don't know if Apple or Google's the bigest company on Earth.
But whatever, whatever they.
Pay, whatever ESPN pays these conferences would be a rounding error for these other companies we're talking about. Sure, but that doesn't mean they're going to overspend. It's it's sort of like the episode of The Simpsons where Homer starts the Internet company and Bill Gates comes to buy him out with a bunch of baseball bats, right, and I didn't get rich right in checks. So they're going to
pay market value, whatever that is. And with ESPN's revenue going down because of cord cutters like yourself, and their overhead going up because the NFL wants what it wants the NBA is gonna get three billion dollars a year, because that's what the deal is. I don't I mean, somebody might pay what they're paying now, but I'm not
sure anything goes up dramatically. But as far as the Internet part of it goes I think by twenty twenty four twenty twenty five, when these rights deals come up, I think most people will have access to.
Some pretty fast Internet.
I don't know that the picture coming in will look dramatically different. I think the buffering will probably be gone. I mean, I think about what my internet service looked like six or seven years ago and what it looks like now. I just just moved into a new house on Saturday, and this is the first time I've had the gigabit Internet available to me.
Okay, welcome, and it is the twenty first century Andy.
It is ridiculously fast.
I have no worries about streaming anything. So that and the other part of it is every you know, there are people who are usually tied financially in somebody to the cable industry will tell you, oh, yeah, enjoy being forty five seconds behind, which is joke I made a few minutes ago. But if everybody's streaming it, nobody's really behind because you don't know what just happened in the stadium unless I guess, unless you're reading tweets from the stadium.
But that happens on TV too, because I've I've been covering games live and tweeted something and people like stop that it's like ten seconds.
Ahead of my TV.
So if everybody's in the same boat, I don't think it's going to be that bad of a user experience.
I don't think it will either. They've already made strides to reduce that lag time, and that, to me is the least of my concerns. That said, I haven't watched a college football season.
Well, I was watching people tweet.
I was watching Chord Cutter New Chord Cutters, like our friend Stuart Mandel tweeting the NBA Finals the other night, and they were consistently about forty five seconds behind, and they were complaining about it.
But I still think.
If everybody's watching it on Amazon Prime, I don't think you get that well.
And also, the crowd on Twitter does not represent the bulk of the people, right, that's any sporting event, it's audience, right that that is following along on tweet deck or what.
No.
I think.
I think we're not that far off from a time where the cable and satellite companies are not the behemoth they are now.
It's just really interesting to me because it's more accessible now than ever. It's obviously had an effect on some of the major networks, and like you said twenty twenty four, when it comes time again to take some of these rights out and get bids, I think places like the Pack twelve or Big twelve whoever, will be a lot less anxious about giving Google a spin, giving Amazon spin.
No, if Google or Amazon, if Google or Amazon wants to do business with them, they will crawl on hands and knees to Google and Amazon. Watch this Amazon NFL experiment. It's going to be interesting. So they're not paying a ton for it because it's it's basically they're streaming games that are already on television. But what they're trying to find out is how sports fans watching a streaming event
on their surface behave. Because the one thing Amazon can do that your TV can't do is if you see a commercial on an Amazon Prime broadcast of a football game and you like the product, you can click and buy the product and it'll be in your door the next day so or, depending on how big a city you're in, might be at your house in two hours.
So if they find that it drives sales.
And here's the thing I found interesting is the Amazon research a few years ago showed that Prime members tend to spend fifteen hundred.
Dollars more per year on Amazon than non Prime members.
Well, if being a Prime member is the only way to see Big ten football, guess how many more Amazon Prime members they're going to be.
Yeah. My big predict for streaming TV as it relates to Amazon and Google is that they're the only two companies that can somewhat harvest what you're doing when you go out on the web and just do whatever, and ultimately they can subsidize more programming with higher ad rates.
Yeah, Apple won't do it unless it drives device sales. Netflix will create its own X games type shorting events. They already did it with this weird one weird obstacle course game that my kids got it into and we binge watched it. But it's not that I don't see Netflix ever getting in a live sports so I don't see what's in it for them.
Well, it's an interesting discussion and I'm curious to see how it goes. But I will certainly report back throughout the course of the season. Hopefully I'm not on a forty five second delay.
Well, here's the thing is, stay off Twitter. You don't even know you.
Are, and staying off Twitter is a good life decision, by the way.
Just f one pretty much.
All right, What is on tap for you over the next couple of months now as we sort of slowly build towards the twenty seventeen season.
Well, hopefully for the next two and a half weeks nothing. Hopefully this will be the one time I come off vacation. Now I'm still doing radio shows, so I'm not good at taking time off, but I am off all of next week for real. So hopefully it will just be me and a beach and something with alcoholing it.
Okay, that's all I hope for.
And then once Meetia days and all that get cranked up, it's just right back into it. You know, we're gonna We're gonna have some fun, a lot more food stuff, I think this year, So it'll be an interesting season to be sure.
All Right, Well, we will talk to you again sometime soon and in the meantime, best of luck with all that stuff. Hopefully you get that drink on the beach, just the one all right again. It's Andy Staples from SI dot com Sports Illustrated and Serious XM. Check him out, drop him a line. He is on Twitter at Andy Underscore Staples. My name is ty Hildebrand. Dan Rubenstein will
be back with us next week. In the meantime. For that guy over there, where are you, Andy, Florida, Gainesville, Florida, For that guy over there in Gainesville, for myself, Tie hearing gooddle Downtown, PA. Thanks again for listening, Thanks again for subscribing. Throw us a review with Catchina Leak's stay Sound