Welcome to the solid verbal.
Hell 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 a day?
Ato Steak is that woo woof? And them and tie welcome back to the solid verbal boys and girls, Happy Friday. I am Ty hilde Brand joining me as always over there in Chicago Land the one and only Dan Rubinstein, Sir, how you doing?
I'm pretty good. I am in my brother in law's childhood bedroom as we podcast this. As we've become very mobile before ultimately finding a place. We found a place to be in the medium term, at least for now. For some circumstances, everything's cool. But I'm in one of those. I'm in like your first office chair where it's a foot wide. Maybe it's squeaky, I like standing up when I broadcast this fine program. So I'm all off my game. But Ty, I show up, I clock in, I clock out.
We're here in the college football podcast bubble. I'm ready to.
Roll the college football podcast bubble.
Could we do this? Could we figure out a place somewhere between us and just like hunker down for the fall, whether or not there's a season we're just roommates and we're making content. How about that we would happen? This whole thing is over, mean you, why don't we get an apartment?
Yeah? No, let's do it. I'm sure the wives would love it.
They might.
Actually, Yeah, actually I'll go. I'll go to a little website we know as Google Maps and see what I can find about a nice little midway point.
What's up, San Dusky.
Yeah, we'll figure something out on the on the Google Maps. Hello, welcome back. Don't forget to subscribe to the show if you like the show. We are podcasting all throughout the off season for as long as that lasts. A little bit of news on that front, which I'm excited to discuss here on the program because as you know, oh, I am a newly minted fan of the ACC. Now it's the best conference college football, in my honest opinion.
The true conference of champions the athletics. Wow, Atlantic Coast Conference.
You're right, not sure how all y'all feel, but I'm very excited to be here to talk to you today about all things ACC football. When we get into our new segment in the meantime, If you do subscribe, if you do like the show, five star reviews. They help. Oh, if you want to also wear your solid verbal pride on your chest, you can do so. Now we have a new key shirt, right Dan.
That's correct Soliverbal dot com slash Store. It's fantastic. It's Techmo themed. Yes you heard that correct, Techmo Tecmo themed Solidverbal Apparel Soliverbal dot com slash Store. I'm very very happy with it, and I think you will be too. It's relatable tie somebody who played what Techmo super Bowl. It's just be very familiar. So were your Solidverbal Pride soliverbal dot com.
Available in a tank top, which is a popular request that are you gonna do it? Am I gonna know? I don't do it?
Are you gonna grab a tank Listen?
When you're a podcaster, you don't show off your arms in that fashion. It's just not something you have to. I'm not Joe Rogan, Okay, I edit on edition.
I don't him.
I don't need to show off the pipes. But small time Tye. Check us out on Instagram, on Facebook, on Twitter, go to the subreddit at soliverbo dot reddit dot com and go on out to your website soliverble dot com. That's where you can find all of our old stuff. Yeah, so, you know, on today's show, Dan, there there was a lot of news that's been breaking over the last couple of weeks, but we got a pretty big one, I would say, yesterday. As it does relate to the ACC
and what their model looks like. It was pretty detailed. They trotted that out there. So we're going to talk about that, I think, for a period of time here in addition to some of the other news in and around the world of college football. We're getting to the point now when folks listen to this, you know, it may be the last day of July. For many others it'll be the first day of August. The season in whatever format that takes on, is getting awfully big in
the window. We're coming to the point now where you and I have to hunker down. We have to start thinking about, like, all right, how are we going to preview this now that we have schedules, Now that we're starting to see something of a trend line as it relates to college football and scheduling in formats and just what this whole dang thing looks like if and when they decide to kick it off. So I think that's how we're going to spend our time here this evening. If you're cool with that.
Yeah, And if you're wondering, we wanted to start conference and division previews in early July. We that is on our schedule to do, and we really don't have clarity yet. I mean, the ACC has helped a good amount, but we're waiting on the SEC. Even though things tend to be trending. It's according to what it was SI's Ross Ellinger who I saw the report from that the SEC is leading to either a ten game or a ten plus one like the ACC conference schedule for the fall
of twenty twenty. Obviously, we've heard from the PAC twelve and the Big Ten. It seems like the Big twelve is full speed ahead in some fashion to try to get to twelve. We'll see about that. Bob Bowlsby and that conference. They're sort of waiting to see what they can do. I've seen places like Texas originally said fifty percent now it's down to twenty five percent capacity, So that conference seems to be adjusting on the fly as well.
I don't know. I would love to be doing I'd love to be talking about Utah State, Boise State, I'd love to be talking about cal And Minnesota and FIU, But we don't know what any of these teams schedules are looking like, so it's hard to preview them. So when we have more clarity, please rest assured that the content will become an atcha fast and I'm trying to think of a word that goes with fast and sort of angrily. Maybe furious. Does that work for you? Yeah?
You could, That's how it's going to arrive to you or I don't know, hopefully good headphones when you listen to the show.
Shall we dive into news?
I'm so ready.
Before we get to the breaking ACC Notre Dame news. You love this.
This is the second at least chunky Notre Dame episode in what a week? Week and a half.
Oh yeah, this is Campbell's chunky Notre Dame right here.
Okay, I'm right.
Let's get to some of the other stuff and let's circle back on the ACCA bit since that is the biggest, So we talk about the ACC unveiling its model. The sec per Ross Dellinger is reportedly moving closer to their own version of a conference only model. The model was supposedly agreed to in part by a majority of athletic directors on a Wednesday virtual meeting. It looks like it's an SEC only ten game schedule. Whatever it is has
to eventually be ratified by the league presidents. But Ross was quick to point out that it's a fluid situation. It's changing very quickly. My guess is that we know where it's headed. It is certainly not official at this juncture. It definitely could impact things like non conference schedules, especially when we get to our acc bit and talk about
their model. So a very fluid situation, a lotch changing, but it does sound like the SEC is moving in a direction somewhat soon to rubber stamp what their model looks like. Now that is significant because that would make the Big twelve the loan holdout. As you said, Daniel,
we're hearing some news on the Big twelve front. The latest thing that I heard was that news tidbit that you mentioned about Texas looking at twenty five percent attendance capacity for home football games in the fall, that is per their interim university president. I quote to you an article here from CBS Sports in a campus wide email, Interim university President Jay Hartzel wrote that the university is examining a twenty five percent capacity limit at Daryl K.
Royal Memorial Stadium for football games. Given that the capacity is more than ninety five thousand seats, that would cap capacity at just under what is this twenty four thousand fans. You may recall back in June, the governor of Texas issued a statewide mandate limiting capacity for all stadiums that are hosting pro and collegiate games at fifty percent. So Texas right now dealing with a lot of stuff as it relates to COVID nineteen. They've been hit really hard.
Out of an abundance of caution. They're trying to take extra measures here by cutting that fifty percent down to twenty five percent. Again, a lot of this very fluid. We don't even know what the Big twelve is going to do at this point. Bob Bolsman might just play all the games on his own right like he is. He is the most determined man in the room to get twelve games in. If there are fans and DKR, it looks like it's going to be of the twenty five percent variety.
Yeah, Texas's negotiations with a global health crisis appear to be ongoing. Fifty percent down to twenty five percent. Feel like we're not going to get a news report that Texas is up to seventy percent now in what they're thinking for the DKR capacity. So negotiations are ongoing between the forty acres and a deadly virus.
The other bit of Big twelve news. It sort of took a back seat to all the COVID nineteen stuff going around, but Bruce Felman reports that Lincoln Riley and Oklahoma have a new six year contract that will run through twenty twenty five. Obviously a good move for Oklahoma. For as much as we have talked on this program about new co which is especially ones that take over for legends like Bob Stoops being basically a coin flip,
Lincoln Riley has not been a coin flip. I think I think it's apparent he's gonna work out just fine. Multiple Heisman Trophy winners, multiple Playoff appearances, clearly a move that worked out for the better for Oklahoma. They were wise to lock them up. Who knows how long that's gonna last, right, there's always like NFL scuttle butt around Lincoln Riley's name, but for the time being, they got their man. They locked him down for a new six year deal.
Buddy, you can be an air raid coach that gets fired and still get an NFL job. That's how it works, So you might as well sign an extension because if you're good, great, If you're bad, still pretty good, still pretty good to be Lincoln Riley. And I believe I saw Alex Grinch, his defensive coordinator hired last year, he got extended and he got a new deal. And I know everybody's lasting memory of Oklahoma's defense was what happened
against LSU, especially in that first half. But if you watched Oklahoma last year, there were definite steps in the right direction. They happened to play maybe the greatest offense of all time in a playoff game. I don't think it's fully fair, although we all saw it with our eyes. But it's not fully fair to judge the Alex Grinch experience in Norman after a year, and not fully fair to look at what Lincoln Riley has done in Norman
as a reflection of just that specific game. But that's what we all saw last so I think it's a no brainer decision to extend and give Lincoln Riley a raise, and hopefully they can become a more complete team because that would make Oklahoma more fun on the national level. Looking forward to it for.
Sure as we shift gears now and steer into the ACC news. One other tidbit that I am very curious to see if it sets any kind of precedent. Virginia Tech cornerback. You may have seen this, Caleb Farley. He is opting out playing the season. He's going to prepare for the NFL Draft. It's significant not just for Virginia Tech, but I think as precedents go for college football. This is a guy who's a projected first round pick. The backstory here is that his mom died a breast cancer
two years ago. The quote from him is, I cannot afford to lose another parent or loved one. Though the competitor in me wants badly to play this season, I cannot ignore what's going on in my heart. I must make the decision that brings me the most piece. So look, it's you can't fault the kid for making that decision. He's got a bright future in front of him. Certainly as it relates to that Virginia Tech secondary, it's going to be a bit of a hit. He's a premier,
elite caliber talent. But you know, not just in face of this pandemic, but certainly with regard to college athletes who don't get paid and have a lot on the line, you got to make the decision that's best for you. And he's clearly doing that here, so you wish him well.
Yeah, And there are certain guys around the country who it feels like they're pretty cemented into their draft stock, especially at the top of the first round, be it you know, Justin Fields or Trevor Lawrence or Pinay Seul, guys like that. Travis etn should be a pretty high pick. But there's you know, everybody else is a borderline guy. Everybody else basically is looking at the draft outside of
you know, your consensus eight twelve and even that. It's however, long months and months ahead of the NFL Draft, a lot can happen in terms of perception, but everybody else
is borderline. Everybody else needs to improve their stock. So it's a tough decision because from as you said, at human angle, these guys are thinking about family members and thinking about possibly immunal compromise family members, and also considering perhaps And I don't know if this is true or not about Virginia Tech, but it's is the school I'm supposed to return to handling everything? Well? Do I have a good relationship with coaches? Do I believe that they're
going to continue handling everything? Well? How do I feel about the locker room and culture there? So there's a ton of factors. He will not be the last one to make this decision. We've seen some NFL players do it. And NFL players are getting paid even not playing, so it is it is a consideration. Obviously, there have been players in years past, and I'm sure it'll move forward the same way that take out pretty hefty insurance policies against their their draft situation and you know, injury and
or sickness whatever things out of their hands. So it'll be fascinating to watch. But I think I am echoing what you're thinking and saying that it's really difficult on a on a human angle to blame any of these guys if that's the consideration they're making about the others in their lives.
Yeah, No, it's trust me it when it happens, it shades your perspective on life. And for sure you know so. I wish them well, I wish them well. It's a blow for Virginia Tech, but I wish Caleb fairly well. Yeah, Okay, all that out of the way.
Long time ACC super fan Ty hilden Brand, let's talk in about the best conference in college foot.
The Atlantic Coast Conference DAN. They are a set now with their eleven game slate. It includes Notre Dame. The board of directors voted on Wednesday to proceed with an eleven game football season. It begins the weekend of September twelfth. It includes FBS independent Notre Dame playing a full league schedule. Of course, this is all contingent on public health guidance allowing it. But here's what we're looking at. All ACC schools and Notre Dame are going to play ten conference
games plus one non conference game of their choosing. Notre Dame will be eligible for the ACC championship game. There will be no divisions.
Do we know who Notre Dame will choose?
Per what I'm seeing here from the ACC's guidance, it has to be an in state school, so I guess they've got some options in that regard, but it would have to be a school in state in Indiana.
Well, it's not going to be Indiana Purdue. So what's up ball State? How's life ball State?
We know from our previous show is looking for company.
Yeah, I guess it could be an FCS school something like that.
Yeah, Notre Dame. And we're not going to harp too much of Notre Dame, but Notre Dame really is the interesting tidbit here. It does make the conference a fifteen team conference for this season. This season only, they would be eligible for the ACC slot in the Orange Bowl if they're not selected as a playoff semi finalist, and all television revenue for the twenty twenty season, including those NBC broadcasts for Notre Dame home games, will be shared
equally by all fifteen institutions. I saw out on the Athletic Pete Sampson did a really good job writing this thing up talking about the predicament that Jack Swarbrick was in. Basically, Swarbricks saw the writing on the wall and he knew that you need to try and latch on here with the ACC if you want to guarantee that you're going to have something of a schedule by the time the
wheel stops spinning. Otherwise, if everyone goes conference only and Notre Dame's left out in the cold, like, that's just not that's not feasible for them. So he knew going into these negotiations that he was going to have to give up that NBC money, and I give him credit for doing so, for pulling the trigger. Now, Notre Dame already had six ACC League games as part of their twenty twenty schedule, including Clemson. That game that we've talked about throughout the course of the preseason.
Still happening still in South Bend, South.
Bend, YEP. They are now adding Florida State, Boston College, Pittsburgh, and North Carolina to their schedule.
Yeah, let's start with Notre Dame first and foremost. Getting Notre Dame Florida State is fantastic because you're getting what a redo of the pick play game from I don't even know when that was, twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, fifteen, somewhere in there. You're getting a redo of that. A nice rematch, just two traditional I guess in the modern sense. Powers I like the fact that Notre Dame's playing PITT. I like that matchup. I like that that's a matchup
that exists. It just feels like they are college football cousins, right, yeah, sure, it like. I don't think that game needs to be played every year, but I like that kind of matchup. I like that Clemson Notre Dame is staying in South Bend because that was a game I think everybody had circled as one of the big big games coming into the season, no matter what the season looks like. So
that's a relief. How does it make you feel, as somebody used to, I guess this hybrid schedule of you know, keeping Michigan and USC or Stanford, but also playing ACC games and sort of having the Notre Dame hand and two different cookie jars.
I like things that are different, and this is very different for Notre game.
You've been talking about a quirk for a while.
This is not quite the flex scheduling that I think we discussed on one of our previous episodes, but it's close enough. They're changing this on the fly weeks before the season is set to begin, and I think it's feasible provided that health guidance will allow it. I think it makes sense. It definitely keeps teams a little bit more self contained within these conferences, and I like it. I don't know. I am curious to see if this pushes Notre Dame in more of a conference direction after
twenty twenty. I think that's my biggest curiosity. I'm curious to see what kind of doors it opens for them. They may find that being in a conference gets them things that they couldn't get from the outside. They're like the second best team in the conference now behind Clemson, right.
Probably, Yeah, there's no obvious choice. North Carolina's interesting. North Carolina has the second or I guess depending because I'm just such a disgusting Michael Cunningham fan at this point, But on how you feel about Michael Coneyham. To have Sam Howell at UNC, that's an interesting case, especially with how they finished last year. But yeah, I think in terms of a complete team, Notre Dame is closer than
North Carolina at this point. The thing that's interesting to me, and not just about the ACC and not just about Notre Dame. But I guess, especially with Notre Dame, is we're always in search of rivalries. We've been denied rivalries. You know, the backyard brawl disappears, the border war disappears. With all these things that made you know, Texas, Texas A and M that disappears. So the fact is, if we get more conference games in the PAC twelve, the SEC,
the ACC, whatever, the Big Ten. If we get more conference games, that ups the percentage the likelihood of all of a sudden Notre Dame and Pit. That's the example I used earlier. What if that game's super weird. What if that's a fifty two to fifty one shootout and there's bad blood. It's like in Texas A and m LSU from a couple of years ago, that goes you know, it has a weird ending and there's emotions all of a sudden. We want to see more Notre Dame Pit. All of a sudden, we want to see more Notre
Dame North Carolina. If there's you know something, you know, Brian Kelly and Mac Brown fight at midfield, like Jim Harbaugh and Pete Carroll all those years back, it ups the potential, especially with having a big program like Notre Dame involved, that we're creating new memories tie and I'm for that that's always it's interesting to me new tradition Bill Hancock style, Yeah, but on the field and actually
real to me. So I'm totally you know, we had that close nail bier last year with what it was A and M. Georgia to get more of A and M. Georgia with you know, big personalities at head coach and recruiting, you know, both teams recruiting in top five ish ways.
I think those kinds of new annual rivalries, annual matchups, I think is nothing but great, especially in the region for the sport, because absolutely there are you know, if Notre Dame's playing Boston College every year, absolutely there are families with Notre Dame in Boston College, brothers and sisters or Pitt brothers. You know that exists in specific regions. So more of that is a win. And we already see it with the SEC and ACC. Be it with Clemson,
South Carolina, Georgia, Georgia Tech. Where you can still have Notre Dame scheduling say USC or Michigan in the four you know, in a couple of the four non conference parts of their schedule. But do we really need to see more of Notre Dame against American Conference teams or MAC teams or you know, does Notre Dame Stanford have to be something that carries on forever and ever and ever. I don't know. I'm good with the Irish evolving.
That's may though, Well, this is definitely different. The other thing that's different from an ACC standpoint is there's no division. The way that they're gonna determine who wins the conference. It's going to be based on the conference game winning percentage.
The top two the marriage.
Yeah, top two teams are going to play in Charlotte either December the twelfth or nineteenth, depending on again how things go, and that will be your your conference championship game. The thing that comes to mind from me about all this this I don't know momentum we're seeing around conference only games. There's no connective tissue. You don't have these non conference games, these similarities that you can use as a frame of reference.
What do you mean though, what do you mean by that?
Well, if the SEC plays ten conference only games and the Big ten plays ten conference only games, the ACC pretty much plays ten conference only games. Yeah, throw in that one odd ball. I'm assuming the Big twelve is going to have to follow suit. The PAC twelves already announced, Well.
The ACC I don't think is going to go plus one. I think they'll erase that plus one if the SEC saying we're going ten only, I don't. I think a lot of that was to keep some of those ACC SEC rivalries.
Yeah, and that's that's my hunch. But the SEC per reports is leaning towards ten games right conference only. So my point is, if you don't have that non conference connective tissue, those frames of reference, you really have no mathematical way to compare teams against one another. And that really really steers into what I think makes college football our favorite sport. We're gonna have so much argument over
who the best teams are. We're gonna have no real means of comparison other than the eye test, and at least for one season, that makes what we do very interesting. Hopefully that piques interest for the full ten games slate the full way through, there will be so much argument over which teams are the best, which team should go to a playoff, assuming we can even conduct one, that it doesn't even matter who's playing whom. Here in the ACC, these little pods that we are forming now to try
and stage a season. That might be the quirk that I think I've been referencing this whole long off season of uncertainty.
I kind of go the other way. I kind of go the fact that this is trending more towards bangers only that will actually know more about teams. So okay, So if Sam Howell lights up Auburn in this now alternate universe early on in the season for North Carolina doesn't mean Auburn's bad. It doesn't mean Auburn's bad. It doesn't mean whatever Auburn showed itself to be against North Carolina is who Auburn would end up week eight nine
when we're comparing Auburn to everybody else. But we don't have schedules that are inflated by lower opponents, by some teams playing crazy tough road games as part of their non conference, some teams playing neutral site games in an NFL stadium, some teams playing three lower you know, if it's FCS or G five whatever, and not really scheduling a Power five opponent. The fact is, while it definitely sucks for the sport that G five teams are not
receiving payouts to help fund other athletics. I feel like the fact is Florida State's playing ten ACC teams that are likely within a similar space in terms of recruiting and spending money. And you know, obviously teams recruit differently, but how seriously they take football. So what we can know about Georgia Tech after five weeks or NC State
after five weeks? I think it gives us better data than having And I know Georgia Tech act was scheduled to play Clemson early on, but if they're playing William and Mary, if they're playing Bowling Green, I think that skews things a little bit. Whereas now we know, okay, we know what Miami looks like against similar competition, and we can compare that against cal or TCU.
But there's no mathematical way to do it. What does this do to poor Jerry Palm or our friend Bill Connolly, right like, yeah, so much of the way that these metrics work, things that we rely upon to give us some sense of who's good and who isn't, that kind of goes out the window because you won't have that
connective tissue. And by the way, just through the course of this very discussion, not going to play the Sound sources have confirmed to ESPN the SEC is going to start its season on September the twenty sixth, conference only games, ten of them. Okay, they're going to run through December the nineteenth, So again, playing within themselves. It'll make things very interesting in the SEC.
You said conference only confirming okay, six conference only Okay.
There's not going to be that crossover component here to the schedule, and it really is a bunch of little fiefdoms playing within themselves. Poor old Barry Alvarez or someone like Barry Alvarez is going to have to sit in a room with twelve other people and figure it out.
I don't think we're getting a playoff, don't I don't think we're going to get a playoff. I think we're going to have champions themselves champions. Well, I think maybe we'll have conference champions and then we'll have arguments. And that's fine because and we've talked about this before, and this was the point I like to make about the playoff that this year, especially college football is a TV show.
You're looking at it through a lens of how do you compare teams when deciding who gets to go to the Rose Bawl, Who gets a New Year six game? Who gets a college football playoff? Berth, This is a TV show this year. College football is existing merely to exist this fall.
It is so European soccer without the Champions League, right.
Exactly we can come up with we can You know, everybody's going to be simming all sorts of playoffs at the end of the year if we don't have an actual postseason, which is fine because I while I don't love discussion for the sake of discussion, I'd rather see things settled on the field in some fashion. I don't
think that's the point of this season. I don't think if if we're pushing back to September twenty sixth, if we're saying conference only schedule, you know, teams going from eight conference games and some conferences to ten, nine to ten whatever, the competitive reasons for the twenty twenty season exists less the just put and pen to paper existing exists a whole lot more So, I don't I don't shed too many tiers for Bill c and Jerry Palm,
who I both. I love both of them dearly, but I think the point is just simply they're just it's sort of corralled exhibitions at this point, which is fine because I'm going to watch all of them enthusiastically and hope that everybody's happy and healthy.
Who are your winners and losers here? I think I think big winner has to be ACC network. Yeah.
I haven't seen the TV schedule, but in terms of ratings, yeah, they're going to do. Everybody's going to be at home pretty much. You know, we'll have some stadiums with limited capacity. But yeah, TV is a huge winner here. TV is a huge winner because of that quirk in ESPN plus. Yeah, you know, any station that can carry a game I think is a winner. I think, you know, I don't have to tell you.
I don't have to tell the people that listen to this show, most of whom have been cooped up for many months now, that sports on TV is a big deal. It's we're not getting back to normal maybe anytime soon, but it'll at least give us that sense of normalcy to see some of the sports that we love on TV again. Caveat if they can pull it all off and if health allows for it.
Every local mattress company advertising during the games, big winner.
Huge winner. Yeah, in terms of winners and losers. I'll stay with Notre Dame for just one second. Okay, I think this is a win for them. I think it was a way for them to lock up at least ten games. I think Jack Swarbrick had to make the move. I think he did the right thing. I don't think there will be much of a much of a negative, much of a drawback for them.
I mean, they're doing it with their other sports already. Notre Dame is an ACC team. It makes a ton of sense. Yeah, it makes it. What's a basketball coach's name, Big Slick, tair Bray, Mike Bray. He's been doing it forever.
He's been doing it forever. So they, like I told you earlier, they got the friends referral code here to get in for one year only to the ACC, now a fifteen team super conference. We'll see where it goes.
So are you good with it? Do you want it to be long term? As a Notre Dame person.
I have always wanted them to join a conference.
Okay, you've been skeptical of them actually making that decision, but you've been pro be it Big ten, ACC, Big twelve one.
I've been pro Big ten for a long time, okay, and I would be pro ACC if it was a move they decided to make.
What's interesting about this, though, tie is whenever it is, we push forward to a new normal, because we're not going back. We're never going back. Life moves forward. There's going to be some sort of new normal once things are hopefully better. What's interesting is there seems to have been conversations about what are conferences really doing for these
major major programs beyond limiting their television earning potential. So if it's USC or Oregon, if it's Texas or Oklahoma, if it's Miami, Florida, state, whatever, in the ACC, a lot of these programs could probably earn more money at this point signing TV deals a la Notre Dame signing a deal with ESPN. Obviously, we have conference networks already, but as the NCAA and these conferences aren't needed as much as they used to be, they're bow tie ins,
they're TV deals. It's interesting that we're having this conversation about Notre Dame going a conference route when we could be seeing more Notre Dames as TV deals expire and places are saying, well, I mean we could, we could do this all a cart and make some more cash, just saying yep, Alabama football just signed a deal with CBS and they're going to make one hundred million dollars
a year. It's wild. It's wild to think about the next five to seven years, however long it's going to take for for everything to return or to progress to that new normal.
I think Notre Dame. I think conference networks. I think any TV network that can carry football is a big winner because there will be quirks here. There will be some asymmetry to when seasons start and when they finish, and who's playing who's not playing. I think, I think from a fans perspective, it will stay interesting much much deeper into the season than we are accustomed to.
Not a sponsor, but I'm I've been very happy with my Roku. So if you are suddenly meeting some sort of OTT device to watch more of your team's games because everything is conference only all of the sudden, I've been happy with the Roku. Do you use anything to stream PlayStation.
Or I use the Roku? Yeah? The KU's great.
Yeah, Okay, send us some stuff Roku. How about that?
The big loser here? It may only be one. It's got to be Syracuse in their way schedule, right.
Yeah, Oh, Bunny.
Have you seen this thing? Yeah, I don't know. I haven't seen dates on this yet. I don't think they've they've given us that yet. But in this new format, Syracuse has away games against Clemson, Louisville, North Carolina, Notre Dame in Pitt.
It's tough sliding.
That's pretty tough right there.
And home games are fine. It's such a crazy home road split. And I don't know if it's because they just value because the part of the thinking with the scheduling is we want to make this more regional. We want to cut down on travel time and expenses whatever, and do everything to sort of minimize whatever it is that travel is going to look like this fall. And the fact is, not only does Syracuse get all of
their tough games basically on the road. They're going to Louisville, they're going to North Carolina, they're going down to Clemson. Is there not? I mean Syracuse was never close to a lot of plays outside of Pitt Boston College, I guess, relatively speaking. But they're not only traveling far and wide, they're playing outside of I guess Florida State and Miami heavy hitters within the conference, big loss.
I feel pretty much the same about Virginia's road schedule.
Yes, so do I.
Clemson, Florida State, Miami, Virginia Tech and then Wake. Those are four pretty tough places to play, right there. Sure.
I mean when we say tough places, we mean in a normal year, like Lane Stadium is not going to be tough this year. True, Virginia Tech could be, but Lane Stadium's knocking, it's going to be very echo we enter sam Man if that is still a thing in Lane Stadium. So you're right. And I actually think Syracuse's home field advantage in some ways could be more pronounced in the Carrier Dome like a big, hollow, haunted arena. But they don't. They don't have any of those real tough games at home.
Who else jumps out at you here?
Yeah? You mentioned Virginia North Carolina In terms of ideal situations, Louisville and Duke are also in a good place. So let's start. I guess North Carolina does go on the road and they take on Florida State, Miami and Division champ in Virginia from last year a very new look Virginia,
I would say so. And it's not like going to Charlottesville is the craziest, toughest thing to do in normal years, right, But North Carolina with a nice home road split, Louisville getting Boston College, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame's will be very tough on the road. But then Pitton Virginia. I think Pitt's going to be interesting on defense, but it's manageable.
And where if our concerned with Louisville, and we'll talk more about this on our eventual ACC preview, if the concern about Louisville is how much better can that defense get? We're talking a new look Florida State offense, a Miami offense that should be better with Derek King but still had a ton of trouble protecting the quarterback last year. Syracuse would struggle on offense. Virginia Tech, which has been inconsistent, but I guess was more promising with Hendon Hooker and
a Wake team that lost their quarterback. So in terms of Louisville's growth, that's pretty great. That seems pretty fricking amazing for the Cardinals, and Clemson's in a good spot.
Clemson's in a really good spot. Definitely tougher on the road. Florida State, Virginia Tech included on that away slate, But you know, clearly the conference leader going into the season. I don't think there's there's any doubt about that. There's probably a pretty big gap between them and I guess Notre Dame by the time you get down to number two, and then I don't know who we would consider three. Maybe we can talk about that when we get the previews.
Yeah, have the Miami defense, Litleville offense, North Carolina offense. Yeah, there's contenders there.
You know. I think a lot of this for Clemson depends on how they decide to slot these games. Are they going to be doing alternating home away? Are they going to be doing? Like what is that schedule from a date perspective going to look like? But I think they're in a pretty good spot here, provided these games on the road aren't all back to back to back, you know, they stand obviously be the front runner.
Yeah, of course, And I kind of think it's going to be such a different season in terms of how we evaluate back to back road games because there's just there's so much more calculus involved with how players are leading their lives, who is and isn't playing, what's going on with coaches, what's going on with travel, you know, lessened precautions in some states, you know, increased precautions and quarantines in some states if you're coming from other states.
That the idea of and we've talked about this with you know, the back to back road and you having our three road games and row two road games in a row or sandwich games, all of that becomes more pronounced because it's all under an umbrella of uncertainty. By the way, you should watch Umbrella of Uncertainty on Netflix, premiering this Friday. But it's true, it's there. There's so much more like the trickiness to this season because of everything happening outside of it just come and this is
not a take at all, but it exacerbates everything. So it'll be fascinating to see all of these schedules and bye weeks laid out because everything, I mean, this is the wrong conference to make this statement with. It just matters more.
The big loser I think in all this, as we I guess bring this episode to its conclusion. Yeah, group of five teams, man, they.
Are it's terrible.
It's shitty as you look around college football, as you look at how some of these programs rely on the money that they would get from a school like in Ohio State or a Clemson to play these big non conference matchups. If that dries up, that's a huge deal, a huge deal for a lot of these programs. I hope we're not talking six twelve months from now about programs that had to fold for a year or permanently
because of financial fallout for the twenty twenty season. I do think it's on the table though.
The other thing thing about the G five conferences, a lot of them have consolidated. Obviously, the American was a patchwork of a couple different conferences. Conference USA has grown in size, the Mountain West has grown in size, and with that growth, they're trying to add interesting teams, add higher level teams, and that means a more pronounced geographic footprint. And if we're saying yeah, we should stay region regional and minimize travel time and travel cost these conferences, I mean,
look at the American alone. Okay, so this is the I mean it's fair to say they're that's sixth best conference in football. If not higher, I suppose, But the fact is they have a team in the Dallas area, and SMU, a team in Philly, a team in Cincinnati, East Carolina a team, they have South Florida and Tampa.
They're all over the place tie And so I don't know if these conferences in the way that the ACC are the way that we talked about a driveable conference where they just sort of turn into a pop up micro conference for the year, and we just have a sort of Northeast Dish division with like Temple and Cincinnati and Yukon, I maybe Memphis something like that, where we're just like, what do we what are we doing? Are we getting a five game G five situation? You have
the Mountain West, you have Hawaii. Are team's gonna you know?
Could they move it to spring?
I think that becomes more possible. I think that because the resources are so much more limited at some of these places. That was the concern over spring, right, that like all hands are on deck. That this is what Richard Johnson was talking about on earlier in the week on our Wednesday show, where it's just like all hands are on deck for football, and if things are better for the spring to the point where like, let's roll out more sports, Let's run cross country and swim and whatever. Fence.
I think certain teams have fencing teams that it's going to be too difficult in terms of logistics and employees with an athletic within an athletic department to run so many sports at once. So I don't know, I don't know. Maybe you hope for just like a manic October in the G five part of the FBS, it's there, they're in such a bad financial and logistical bind at this point. Or do they just reorganize like the ACC where there's no more conferences, where it's just like all right, it's fiefdoms.
It's once again we have fiefdoms where it's just like this crazy Sun Belt Conference USA, AAC MAC Mountain West, like they just all of a sudden, just like, all right, play somebody within four hours. Let's try to get in as many as we possibly can before it gets dark.
Yeah, I mean it does call into question a little bit about what Richard mentioned on the Wednesday show, this notion that maybe this could accelerate be some sort of catalyst for the Power five breaking away and starting its own deal. Now, I don't think that will happen, but I think maybe just for the course of one season, it kind of could, and we might bear witness to what that looks like.
Catastrophic, Absolutely catastrophic, I can tell you right now.
We shall see. Okay, well, interesting show here. My guess is that now with the SEC announcement, it sounds like rather imminent, we will have a lot to discuss on our show on Wednesday. But keep your eyes trained in on this movement around college football. It is a fluid situation. Again, A lot depends on where we're at as a country in terms of fighting this stupid virus two three, four
weeks from now. Whether or not we could even attempt to do this season does sound like everyone's just about everyone outside Oklahoma in the Big twelve, I guess are looking to start a little bit later than initially planned, but certainly a lot more to come here as we plot ahead into what looks like a conference only fall season.
Maybe everybody should start calling Lincoln Riley in the Oklahoma program and say, hey, so just saw you at one hundred tests with zero positives, Shoot me some tips and tricks?
Yeah?
Got some? Yeah? Got any cheat codes? You got any COVID game genies on hand that we can we can wrestle. Yeah, that'd be really nice. So good for Oklahoma for that. By the way, we keep seeing these pretty awful stories about positive tests and spreads and I something. You know, the Rutgers players. It's a it's a success and hopefully that's able to sustain A Norman.
All right, well, Daniel, this has been fun. Please do write in soliverbo at gmail dot com let us know what's on your mind, how you feel about this. I know I had a couple verballers right in already voice some concern but mostly some support about this model.
By the way, do you see the doctor who wrote in with concern about my hips?
I do our watch. I was gonna mention that, yeah, oh my god.
And I want to be clear. The doctor seemed very nice. Doctor in Seattle said, Okay, so when you wake up with sore hips, that means you probably weren't doing as much physical activity as you should, because as you get older, physical activity is really good for your joints and keeping things loose and healthy. And while he's absolutely right, and I definitely didn't do physical activity the day be four man, was it a bummer to be included in the category
of consider physical activity to keep your hips loose. Category that was that was very real tie.
Other than the concern for player safety and Dan safety.
Frankly, yes, thank you.
Most folks chimeing in in support of what will be a quirky fall. Let's hope we can have football. Let's hope everyone can stay safe while playing those games, and certainly a lot more to come. That's why we would encourage you. If you haven't already subscribed to the podcast. Anywhere you get your podcasts, you can find the solid Verbal. Soliverbal dot COM's where you can find all of our old stuff. And if you like the show, those five
star reviews they help others find us as well. As Dan said at the topsoliverbal dot com slash store is where you can buy the new T shirt Tech Mobile themed. I'm very excited about this. I'm going to buy one as soon as we get done. Yes, Instagram, follow the Instagram posts every day on there, We're facebook all sorts of fun steps going down.
You ever get weird stuff on your Instagram, explore or discover whatever it's like. Hey, here's some pictures we think you're interested. In Now what I'm about to tell you, Ty, I understand it's my fault. I understand the algorithm is designed around things I'm already clicking on and saying, oh, Danny wants more of that, and so yes, sometimes there will be an attractive human smut turn here on the podcast. No, no,
I'm not making a smut turn. But what I'm saying is, sometimes there will be an attractive person hitting a golf ball, or an attractive person dunking a basketball something like that, and I will say to myself, Yeah, that seems like that's something I'd like to spend eleven seconds watching, and then all of a sudden, all over my whatever. It's
called explore discover. It's just like you like busty chicks fishing. Yeah, come on, Instagram be cool and Instagram has zero chill, So follow our Instagram feed, which is now dedicated to busty chicks fishing. Higher Instagram feed is golf trick shots and Samoya puppies. That's where, Yeah, I know it really is. Maybe it's scary how well the Instagram algorithm knows you, because obviously, aside from busty chicks fishing, it's tacos it's
weird office memes like the TV show The Office. There's a ton of tennis trick shots and weird tennis moments. Sure they know me, I guess they got cool. I'm a very one dimensional character that got me figured out. Yeah all right, So well that's your update on my instagram and the solverbal Instagram.
Look, everybody, enjoy your Friday, have a good weekend, stay safe out there. Come on back next Wednesday. We will catch you all up on where things are at with regard to college football in the twenty twenty season. We're hoping against hope there is a season. At least we've got some forward movement on what those models and plans are going to look like. But you just got to stay tuned as we all ride this roller coaster together.
Couldn't have sent it better for that guy over there, my good friend Dan Rubinstein, for myself, Tie Hildebrand, thanks so much for downloading, for listening, enjoy your weekend, and stay safe while staying solid.
Peace.