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The one and only Dan Rubinstein, Sir, how you doing.
I'm pretty good, ty I'm surviving. The sleep is a little bit strange, but can't fully complain. I'm currently in a home office. I think we've broadcast one show from here, and I just before we hit record, I looked at the books available to me, and I see a gigantic book on the band Fish, Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, Alternative Energy for Dummies, and Birds of Illinois. So you can take your pick of any of those. If you're ever here, Tye,
you will be educated thusly. So I'm good, Tie, I'm very encouraged by my options. That's a lifetime of entertainment right there, Dan. We hope that everyone out there is equally as entertained listening to this show again.
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Let's just empty the clip here, Dan, anything else that we need to get out of the way.
In terms of housekeeping, I've got a new shirt ready to go. Ty you tell me, do you I've got a new Solid Verbal shirt that has been approved by the powers that be.
Wait, did I see this one? This one is?
Yes, you did see this shirt and you liked it a lot.
Cool.
You said it's pretty risk and we've never gone here conceptually in terms of what this shirt shows and bears. But you said it's a new time for the Solid Verbal, especially now that we signed with WME, that we really have to put ourselves out there, and this shirt literally does that. That's what I think your words were. So I'm ready to roll.
All right. Well, with that being said, let's just jump right in.
Let's do it. We have bricking news. Oh my god, you really went for it. There is this the the cal thing.
This is this is the many cups of coffee thing first and foremost. But okay, let's start with the cal thing. California has announced your your native homeland, Daniel.
Yeah, are you talking state or Berkeley? Because there's a Berkeley news story too that they're going fully online this fall.
I don't have that one I was talking about.
Yeah, that just broke the California Interscholastic Federation. But do we want to start with Berkeley instead? What's going on up there.
No, they're just they are regretful, but they're going to online learning only this fall, and an announcement that comes on the heels of some other schools. You know, we saw the cal State announcement a few weeks back. USC having that announcement, I guess a couple of weeks ago now, but yeah, more and more, I guess big schools as
Berkeley is. Berkeley is a Power five school going to online learning only, which doesn't mean that there isn't necessarily going to be an on field product this fall for the cal Bears, but it certainly is not a movement in the right direction. We talked about that a little bit. Optics wise with Nicole auerback house school can go from saying we don't feel like students in classrooms is the way to go from a public health perspective, but we're
still cool with football players. That's a tough optic cell. But there still will be an optic cell if there is that continued desire to play a season on the Berkeley campus.
I think that's right.
Okay, So the story that I had previously listed atop our news sheet is that the California Interscholastic Federation cif CIF it's the governing body for the state of high school sports in California. They announced on Monday the earliest their football season and the remainder of their fall sports will start is December twenty twenty. The move, as you might expect, could have a major impact on college football recruiting. It could set a precedent not just in the state
of California, but other states. Amid the coronavirus pandemic. I saw also that they might push it off to twenty twenty one. The earliest they would consider again is December or January. So, in light of this news and light of the Berkeley news, I don't know if there's a drum beat. I don't know if there's momentum. I don't know what you want to call it or classify it as.
But I feel like we are very quickly coming to that point of, Hey, the spring's got so bad, we could find a way to make the spring work.
Potentially, Yeah, I mean a move like this, which is certainly not going isn't the first and won't be the last in terms of major state high school systems postponing
football and fall sports. US just enormous ramifications. When you think about the players who might decide to forego their senior year of high school football if they're committed somewhere or anticipate committing somewhere and enrolling early instead of playing in a December or January season or starting in December or January, we're talking about players getting fewer reps, less experience,
less coaching. In terms of players who would have made a jump recruiting wise because of a strong senior year, either because you know, maybe they had to sit out their junior year because they were in the midst of a transfer and weird academic shuffling occurred, or they were hurt their junior year. It's going to affect the depth of classes on the Power five level. It might actually
improve classes on the G five level. You know, if we're going to specifically look at California, you know, schools like San Jose State, Nevada, Boise State, you know, thinking about San Diego State, whatever, Mountain West schools specifically closer to the West Coast, they're the ones that might not have their best players poached after having huge senior years by Oregon, Oregon State, cal Stamford, whatever, and so those schools might be fortifying their classes a little bit better.
But in the end, I think it's it's a big negative in terms of how it affects college football and high school football. I mean, it's a California high school football is It's not I suppose Texas or Florida or Georgia or Ohio in terms of cultural importance, But in terms of the numbers that it states into major college football, it's hut big state.
Yeah, yeah, all right, what else?
So, the Southwestern Athletic Conference the SWACK yeah, has postponed fall sports and championships because of the pandemic. They have begun plans to push the fall schedule to the spring semester. According to a statement that was provided to ESPN on Monday, the plans for football include a seven game conference schedule that begins with an eight week training period in January. Commissioner Charles McClellan said games would begin near the end
of February or beginning of March. Each school will play six conference games for Divisional, two non Divisional, with the option to play one non con game. So again, perhaps a bit of a trickle up effect, maybe starting at the high school level, working all the way up to major college football. But Southwestern Athletic Conference jumping on in to my knowledge of the first athletic conference to sort of just go all out and say we're going to try and do this in the spring. I don't think
maybe this I have tried to do that yet. Meanwhile, in the great state of Texas, clinging to hope, I think that we might have something this fall. There's a headline here on ESPN that Texas is aiming for fifty percent capacity at football games. The University of Texas says it anticipates hosting football games fifty percent capacity in the Sands. Chris del Conti, their ad emailed season ticket holders on Monday, told in that school's working closely with the governor's office
following state guidelines on social distancing amid the pandemic. This strikes me as extremely wishful thinking, but the kind of communications that at this juncture you need to send out because we've got the SEC, we've got the ACC, we've got the Big Twelve. None of them have formally committed to the whole conference only games thing. Certainly there hasn't There hasn't been much public in the way of moving
the season altogether to a different semester. I understand why they send this out, but again, given recent circumstances and the news of the world, it does feel a little bit like wishful thinking.
Yeah, not exactly a plan. Not exactly a plan. It's more of optimism. I'm aiming to have an eight pack and toss down windmill dunks by the end of the year. But that's just something I'm aiming for. That doesn't necessarily mean it's based in reality. In Texas right now is not one of the better states in terms of public health and the ability to not just flatten, but really
put a dent in COVID nineteen. If you look at you know, the hospitalization rate and the infection rates as it relates to testing, Texas is not in a fantastic place. And I know, you know, Austin's obviously a bigger city within Texas, and it's just it's rough. Houston's in a bad place. It's hard to imagine with how Texas specifically and a lot of major college football states have done a pretty poor job and are seeing pretty big spikes.
You look at the per capita numbers throughout the South California, Arizona, now Nevada. It's I think your term of wishful thinking is probably the accurate one. This is not a state that has made sound decisions along the way. And it's very hard to make sound decisions, I know, because this is such a new thing. But of all the states that are being optimistic about getting live action in front of people, even a fifty capacity situation, this feels a bit out of reality to.
Our earlier point from a show or two a go. If a school like Texas decides, ah, we can't do this, then you'll see some real dominoes. But for now, fifty percent capacity, we'll we'll stick to that company line, and hey, we'll hope for the best. I want to see football
sooner than later, but well, time will tell elsewhere. Amid this seemingly weird time for scheduling in college football, we had the Alabama athletic director shooting down Notre Dame as a twenty twenty opponent BYU is reportedly targeted as a Week one replacement. So you might recall Alabama had USC on the schedule Week one. That game is not going to happen because of the Pac twelves announcement, and so Alabama's basically out there trying to figure out, right, well.
Who else will we play?
BYU, as it stands is look for games as well, and so the reports are that that could be your opener because BYU I think had Utah for the Holy War week one, and now that they're both looking for some action, BYU could obviously fill fill that gap.
Correct, Yeah, I mean BYU, as an independent school, has to be pretty terrified of what their schedule could look like the more and more, especially with the PAC twelve going conference only slate this fall. It's they're in a tough spot and it makes sense for Alabama, and Alabama I believe has a home and home on the books with Notre Dame already. Correct.
Yeah, in twenty twenty eight and twenty twenty nine, so a bit off, a bit off in the future. I know. We talked to Pete Sampson last week. He I think mentioned that to Brian Kelly and he said, Brian Kelly's eyes got real big.
Yeah.
And good for Alabama for not just you know, if the USC game is officially off the books. Good for Alabama for finding a team that just beat USC and scheduling up.
I like it, Yeah, and the final news bullet here again something just to keep your eyes on. Iowa's coach, Kirk ference was apparently aware of racial bias within the program after a twenty eighteen internal investigation. That is, per a document acquired by Hawkeye Nation. They filed a Foyer request to see that internal report. Iowa had created a
diversity task force. They found that black players were targeted for more drug testing, they weren't informed of resources available to student athletes, more harshly punished, expected to conform to culture, that the white players set a lot of bad stuff in their verbal harassment by coaches. The report was supposedly read by Kirk Farence in twenty nineteen, according to Hawkeye Nation, but he only made some minor changes to the culture of the program prior to last season.
Not fully shocking given the comments that we've seen recently. And it was all sort of set off by James Daniels and a Moni hooker and talking about the culture of Iowa football and how you know, one of the things in the report that comes up a term a lot, and they interviewed a number of players. It was double standard and the desire from those in charge at Iowa to as you mentioned, conform black players to white culture
and to Iowa culture. And there is there is a certain degree of Yes, you enroll at a school, you become part of a college football program. You tried to become a part of that program's culture. But when it's drawn along racial lines, it's tough tie. It was a tough read, and I'm sure Kirk Farens sort of adjusted the way Iowa's football program did things when he knew only he and a select fewer reading this report, And now that many people have seen this report, it seems
like he's taking on a different tone. I just don't know how many chances Kirk Farence gets. I understand that when you win football games and you have prolonged success like Ioways had in a very tough Big ten, that
you're afforded more opportunity and more leeway. But geez, I know he's he's had a chance over what twenty years to sort of become more inclusive and get to know the players and is within his program and to sort of build the culture around the people he brings into it instead of just how he believes, you know, nineteen year old should behave. I don't know, ty this just it feels increasingly tone deaf from Kirk Farence and so I don't know what's going to happen because he has
certainly accumulated a good amount of power there. But the Iowa football program is under a magnifying glass like they've never been. And this is it's not a pretty read at all.
That's what I say.
Keep your eyes peeled here. This feels like feels like there's more to come. Okay, So look, if you've got news that you want to discuss again, it's soliverble at Gmail. We read all the messages. We want to do our part to keep the conversation going here in the long cold, the longest night of college football as we wait for the next season to arrive. On our show a week ago, we talked about some stuff, didn't we do?
We did?
I mean, we always talk about some stuff, but you put a pin in a certain topic and said, okay, this is something that we can discuss for at least twenty seven to thirty eight minutes next week. And I agreed with you, and so here we are.
What we did a week ago was we did our college Football Bangers episode, And essentially what that was was us looking at schedules, as they say in right Now, conference schedules and putting together like the most baller five games slate for a number of teams. And at the very end of that conversation you started kicking around ideas for the postseason.
What happened in the postseason?
If you've got an abbreviated season, how do you determine a champion? How do you even think about determining that champion? And we decided then and there live on the air.
Yeah, it's always going to be pit. It's just going to be pit no matter what. That's what we settled on.
The question de jore is what do we do with bowls and the whole process of finding a champion in a bunch of different scenarios. So why let's start here? Okay, let's start with a scenario in which we've got a full twelve game season for some and so I guess what the SEC, the ACC and the Big Twelve.
They filled some gaps.
We talked about Alabama BYU and they're turning two other conferences and to each other to fill in gaps left by potentially the PAC twelve and Big ten.
So we got a full twelve game season for three Power five conferences, and then we have an adjusted season for some of the other ones. So I'm assuming our first scenario here is like an asymmetrical season. Some teams play twelve, some teams play ten. Maybe some teams don't even get to ten. Yes, how do we determine a champion?
Dan? Have you thought about this? Do we do bowls? What does that look like?
What if I told you that some conferences play eight conference games and some play nine in an ordinary season. Sometimes teams play FCS school sometimes teams don't. What if I told you college football is an already asymmetrically scheduled sport.
What if I told you that.
I would tell you that you're pretty close here, Dan, this is this is probably the best of the best case scenarios.
Yes, the best of the best.
I have not heard much of anyone talking about a full twelve games slate if they're able to pull off a season this fall. It seems like ten is the number. When I talked to Pete last week, he said ten.
Been reading a lot.
Of articles out there talking about how ten games might be an appropriate target. I don't know if it's a realistic target. I just it seems like twelve is probably too many at this point. But for the purposes of conversation and this thought exercise, if that were the case, I don't think it would look.
All that different than it does right now. Right Like, you could still do most of the same stuff.
Schedules might be a little bit different, and I'm sure logistically that would be a headache for athletic directors and the powers that be, But ultimately, a little bit of an asymmetrical season isn't the end of the world. That would be pretty good.
So, as we've now learned, the point of college football happening at all is largely going to be the money. It's more of the season being more important financially than the postseason, or the idea of not necessarily the postseason, because obviously there's a lot of money in the postseason. There's bowl money and College Football Playoff money and all sorts of TV money tied up in that. But the point of college football in twenty twenty specifically is not
to name a champion. Can we agree? It's more of the season just unfolding at all. That's the big goal. As we stand in late July. Does that make sense?
That makes sense to me.
Yeah, okay, so a champion would be amazing. It would be incredible to figure out a way to have a champion, But the first step is just figuring out if there's gonna be a season. If a season can happen at all, that's the actual big win. The national champion, I think is sort of despite the fact at this point, because we don't know if it's going to be moved to spring, canceled altogether. So if we can have a full on season,
that's already the win. So I'm not as concerned about naming a national champion, but I guess I've never been as concerned about naming a national champion what I would probably do in terms off I'm thinking about public health. If I'm thinking about bowl games and saying, okay, well, this is a big financial hit if we don't have bowl games, let's figure out a way to have them
in a safe and responsible way. I suppose it's just taking a week after the regular season, taking that week off an additional bye week after, and I don't think we need conference championship games either. Tie to me, that just seems especially when you look at recent results. Sure, you're gonna have some years where you have Alabama Georgia and it's a huge deal and they haven't played each other during the regular season.
But even when you.
Look at last year, it was not a particularly exciting slate of conference championship games. It didn't really prove all that much. I know Oregon Utah was the big one in terms of Okay, these are two teams that are highly ranked, and we don't have a clear sense of who's better going in. Whereas Ohio State had already beaten Wisconsin, Clemson Virginia was sort of a clear foregone conclusion. LSU Georgia, I suppose on a certain level. But Georgia had lost
to South Carolina. Oklahoma Baylor had already played each other. So I just get rid of that and we just rely on rankings. In terms of bowl games, take a week off, and then my inclination, because fans won't be traveling to the Bahamas or Tampa or Texas or Tempe or anything like that, I guess Glendale is you just have home site bowl games in whichever state is better off from a public health perspective about that site.
The Duke's Male Bowl in Eugene, Oregon would be that would be something.
I don't know that the Pac twelve is a tie into the Duke's Game, but yeah, that'd be fine by me. You keep uh, you keep fifty percent of travel completely off the table. And in terms of safety, there's going to be hotels available for these teams to come in and you're gonna get some a lot of northern sites hosting Bowl games, which is not ideal. But again, we're not doing this for commerce and travel and tourism. So if we're doing this purely for TV, we know that
the stadiums, the home stadiums are outfitted for TV. That would be my Bowl proposal. And sorry, you know Orlando. Sorry, I mean in the case of UCF, they'll be the hosting a game before with Florida is fine, but sorry, all of these bull sites, it's not your year. You'll there'll be TV cash, but no, you're not hosting it in any of these places where two teams have to travel.
And then in terms of a college football playoff tie, I'm thinking Rose bul Bubble, Rose Bowl Bubble, yep, yep, I'm thinking we have enough hotels to house four potential teams. I mean, we could talk about Vegas. Obviously, Vegas has the hotel availability. I'd rather have it be outside if given the choice, in mid December, in a warm place outside,
so hotels and outdoors, I think. I think the Rose bowls obvious, even though it's going to be very strange to watch a Rose Bowl with limited to no fans. That would be my pitch for the playoff. If there's going to be a four team playoffs, That's why I think where I'm at, or we could go four team playoff with the semis, as I mentioned, with bowl games at home sites, which I'm always in favor of, but that's a pretty distinct advantage for if the national champion. Yes,
for a team, that's a pretty distinct advantage. If all of the sudden, Clemson has to travel to Norman or Alabama has to travel to Eugene or something like.
That, it's first of hold on, hold on, hold on, first off. Yeah, yeah, I'm ready.
This is sort of like a fever dream for you. Okay phrasing, but yes, just from this standpoint, we could in effect throw out the current ranking system, the current committee ranking system for a year. Sure, and I think That's one of the things that I wanted to discuss here as we get into that, I have.
That down as a bullet point.
You know, I think I at college football did this for a long time. There are still many folks, such as yourself who actually prefer that methodology.
Mm hmm.
It is interesting to me that we might revert back to it for a year in a season where we've got teams playing different numbers of games, a postseason that feels maybe you know, sketchy at best, where we don't really have it flesh. We're maybe playing those extra three playoff games in total. It is not feasible. We don't have a bubble site that we can do it in,
we can't logistically do the bubble that. There's a lot of stuff that we don't know at this point, but I do think that is potentially the most feasible option to revert back to where we used to be, maybe not even play a bowl game at all, and then just have folks vote on it. Maybe you can expand the pool of eligible voters, maybe we get a vote on the show. I don't know, but if you really want to engage the fan base, open up the number of folks who can vote, and let's just take a
good old fashioned vote on this thing. Let's make it a one time, one time only, and then twenty twenty one, hopefully we revert back to back to normal circumstances.
But I think that's got to be on the table.
Can I give you my mini bubble idea mini bubble A you're going back to VA mini bubble? Nope, We're still a bubble in either La Vegas. I think Vegas is a dome. It's not a retractable roof. I might be mistaken, though, and I definitely am not playing in the NFL stadium in LA that looks like molten American cheese. Wednesday Night because we don't want to keep players. You know, two weeks is a long time to try and quarantine players. You know, you start getting into a tricky territory with
how professionalized it all seems. Wednesday Night, four teams, double header. Each of the games listen to this. Each of the games is only a half they only play. Each game is only two quarters long, and then Sunday or Monday shortened week, so it's like a five or six day situation. We have a national Championship game that's I mean, that's so we're not playing eight quarters and four days. We're playing six quarters and four days.
So you're talking like a minor league baseball scenario where they play two seven inning games as part of a double head instead of tonight.
Okay, yeah, I mean think about the importance of every snap instead of four quarters.
That changes the game a little too much for my for my.
Oh tie, come on, it's a different world.
All right.
So the first scenario was a full twelve game season for some adjusted non conference opponents, obviously, and then a different number of games for others.
In terms of your idea for just naming a champion, how about this, I'm saying, just staying with nine or ten games for some full twelve for others. What about we do a BCS pop up here.
Who's running the computer? Jerry Palm?
Yeah, we got we got Massy, we got Peabody, we got all sorts of people that are spitting into the computer formula. What we bring it back for one last go round, Tye. Just like where we're finding we're finding born Jason Bourne in very rural Indonesia. They find them, they pull them back for one last job, Tie, one last.
Job calling to the wearing him. They have no idea why they.
For one last job? All right, this is this is what I'm thinking. So you have BCS pop up, or we have a BCS pop up via the college Football playoff rankings. So we keep how we get the top two in place, but we're not going full top four.
Let me move on to a different scenario. Okay, all right, something that something that maybe is a little bit more feasible. I don't I kind of say that tongue in cheek. Okay, a ten game fall season for everybody goes off without any real hitches. It ends in December as usual. So let's assume for a second that maybe the worst case scenario doesn't happen. Maybe teams can find a way to
play a ten games slate in the fall. Maybe it starts a little late, maybe it ends a little early, but you know, buy and large ten games at more bye weeks. Sure ten games ain't bad. You can do with that. So well, we get ten games. I don't know if that really changes the equation. We just discussed the the whole uh, you know, rekindling of the BCS or allowing some of our friends in the media to
vote again. Like, I don't know if that changes anything in terms of a postseason, but at a minimum, it does kind of put teams on more of a level playing field if they're all playing the same number of games, And I think it probably makes it easier to determine who a top four would be just because of that.
I think it makes it easier if we're if we're presupposing ten games, are we assuming conference games only because other than the Big Twelve, who can only play nine unless they like add BYU as a probationary member of some kind for this fall, other than BYU or some other team, some other independent I don't know if it's Notre Dame assuming a full Big twelve slate something like that. We're assuming it's just full conference.
I think half games to haf to do at this point.
Yeah, So with that in mind, we will actually have more data on at least Power five teams, but also Group of five teams because they're exclusively playing teams that are on their same talent level, schedule level, resource level, whatever. So we will actually have more data. We will know more about UTAH, we will know more about TCU, we will know more about West Virginia. Well, I guess not West Virginia. I guess if they play BYU. Sure, but
we will know more about these teams than normal. So it actually makes more sense to say, let's just pick two, pick two me So, okay, Well, because if we want to minimize the number of tea because okay, if we want to minimize the number of games for public health reasons, then it makes sense to go from four teams to two at the end of the year, and everybody else just plays Bowl games. But we're talking about a very
limited number of teams. But because we have more data points, it's easier to say Clemson is definitely deserving or undeserving as we see the rest, as we see more ACC games played than normal, or Washington State is definitely undeserving, or Washington State is more deserving because of what they did playing against ten PAC twelve teams, whereas they normally play against nine and they're you know, they're not inflating themselves by playing you know, Sacramento State or Northern Arizona
or something like that.
Yeah, I think I think this would be the target. Honestly, if they're going to try and shoot for anything in the fall ten games slate, minimal hitches, mostly conference games. Maybe you can find some way to squeeze in a non conference opponent. I don't know that to me represents
the best possible case scenario here. Again, I think it's wishful thinking, but you know, I think that would be the target because financially, again, ten is that number you keep hearing, right, they would try for ten if at all possible.
But more bye weeks. So it's two more bye weeks and maybe altered beginning and end. What does Notre Dame do in this situation. They're just going acc and G five.
I guess they're going to see who they can bolt on. Yeah, yeah, okay, you know again, go and listen to the conversation with Pete from a week ago, and I think he's right. I don't think Notre Dame's going to find much difficulty when it comes to seeking out new opponents. Someone from the group of five as will want to play Notre Dame. They'll find opponents, but it's just a matter of, you know, how does it work with the rest of their schedule and does it help or hurt them?
If and when there's a postseason. A lot of variables there.
How many ACC teams do they generally play in a season six? They play six. So if we're talking about an ACC slate in which Notre Dame goes six and oh, and then they fill in everything else with Ball State and Nevada and whoever, and they go ten and oh with four G five schools on their schedule. And we're talking about a crazy hypothetical here, but it's tough to put them into anything given that scheduling advantage.
But if they go ten and oh, they will have beaten Clemson. Okay, so that's probably the singular best win of the season by any team if they knock off Clemson.
I don't know.
Maybe, I mean, there's other very very good teams in college football, and the weekend week out grind of playing in the Big twelve Pac twelve SEC as opposed to playing sixty percent of a Power five schedule, I don't know. I think I think you probably keep them out.
So here here are two of the odd scenarios that I think could be very realistic as well. They start the season expecting a ten games slate, but because of case spiking or because of who knows really what's going to happen, you have a more of a mixed season, so this is a little bit like the first scenario, or you've got an asymmetrical season, some teams playing more games than others. But what if that number of games is more akin to what we discussed a week ago. What if it's like five games.
What if it's seven games.
What if one team plays five games, another team plays ten? How I don't see how you could have an actual postseason in that scenario. I think it would have to come down to a vote. It would be a season with an asterisk, and they'd have to figure out some way to kind of denote this one in the record books. Because five games or ten, it's it's almost impossible to compare.
Yeah, if we're having five versus ten, you just name a champ and we argue about it for however many months, just because five and seven game seasons for teams means something probably went pretty wrong health wise. And so to say, how do we get around this and say, Okay, Texas Tech only played six games, Alabama played ten, Wisconsin play eight, there's been a big outbreak in West Texas. But because Texas Tech is pretty promising, let's figure out if we
can get them in a big bowl game. It just it feels is I don't know if ikey is the coolest word to use here, but it doesn't feel like it's going in the right direction in terms of the spirit of finding a college football champion.
Now, from the standpoint of the fan, Okay, you know, I've been saying that the spring season, to me, is the most interesting possibility. Okay, if we are keeping this though at least the first part of this conversation in the fall, I think the next most interesting scenario would be a revised and shortened fall season. Maybe it is truly like we discussed a week ago, five to seven games slate, it ends in early December, you got more bye weeks. Maybe there's delay in there.
It's a very.
Weird season, very weird season. But with each team playing only five games, that is a lot of lively college football conversation out on the subreddit, on every message board known to man. Every college football writer is going to be jumping to, you know, unsupported conclusions after watching one or two games of a particular team that from you know,
college football is so tribal. What makes it great is that argument, And I think that's why folks again, such as yourself, prefer that argument at the end of the year as opposed to you know, some body voting on it and putting a couple of teams in the playoff to duke it out. That argument would certainly be rekindled if each team only played five games.
It's very hard to go undefeated over twelve games.
It's not that hard to go undefeated over five.
And I understand that the quality of the competition, and we discussed this on our Banger show, is going to be heightened without having a couple of tune up games or the ability to to navigate with bye weeks and having you know, penciled in bye weeks if you're the SEC and scheduling teams from the Southern Conference later in the season to just sort of even out the schedule.
I understand it's a more difficult five game stretch than it normally would be, but we could have a lot of self congratulatory national championship declarations if we're selecting two teams at the end of a five to seven game season to go and play in a national championship game, or four teams to play in a playoff and a five and zero team is not named in that Power five, G five whatever. Think about how many teams are going to name themselves national champs. Oh yeah, here for it, Tye.
I am absolutely positively here for because everybody's going to be left out.
It's great. What happens if there is no season at all?
Well you still Pit, It's still Pitt National champ. If there's no season, then we just move forward. I don't know what you do in terms of if there's no season, there's gonna be a draft and we're gonna lose promising junior's red shirt sophomores to the NFL Draft without playing a final season, which is a pretty significant bummer. Sure, But in terms of a postseason, I could see, okay, I could see perhaps rivals scheduling a one off in the late spring as just a crazy out and out
maybe for an it's a one game season. Essentially, we have the Apple Cup, we have Oregon Oregon State, we have the Iron Bowl, we have and maybe it's a chance to rekindle. Maybe it's just like, okay, one off, we have Texas, Texas, A and M we revisit some of that. It's not a season, but we say okay with schools that were within and I know I screwed up my driving distances and times before I think I looked up two schools that were probably in the middle
of a traffic zone. You know, it was probably backing up against Atlanta traffic or something. But I would my solution be, no season, Let's just play a every and everything on the line, pride filled rivalry weekend Sinco to Mayo weekend or something like that, or all of may No.
I I like the idea teams have scheduled scrimmages with one another in the spring before that. That's not unheard of. So I was hoping you would bring that up because I have seen some conjecture that that could be a potential avenue if things really go sideways, that that could potentially be an option to just have to think about game season against a rival.
Think about teams that have a lot of not a lot, but multiple legitimate rivals. So okay, so if we're going to go through the biggest rivalries in the sport, we're obviously going to say Alabama Auburn a no brainer. Play the Iron Bowl on this Sinko to Mayo weekend, Sinkle to Tyo. If I may sure single to Tyo weekend. We have the Iron Bowl, But then where does that leave Georgia. They don't get the Auburn Games. So Georgia
Georgia Tech. I suppose you have Clemson South Florirolina, Georgia Florida. Yeah, Georgia Florida makes sense, You're right, Georgia Florida. They play in Jacksonville wherever. Okay, So we have Georgia Florida, and then Clemson South Carolina, but then Florida State Miami because we're not gonna have Florida Florida State. So I'm just saying there's a number of really interesting dominoes having in the Northwest. I would rather see. As an Oregon fan,
I'd rather see Oregon Washington. I think there's more bad blood there than either Oregon Oregon State or the Apple Cup.
But I don't know.
It's probably safer to keep any I know, Washington State is pretty far east. We have the big Game Stanford Cali of UCLA USC no travel there, Texas, Oklahoma. I would suppose after the last couple of years, if we're taking away Alabama from LSU, the last couple of years, at least two years ago. It was a crazy game. So I guess LSU A and m No. I know there's LSU Ole miss history, but I think that's probably the way to go there. Big ten, you have Michigan,
Ohio State. I suppose Wisconsin, Minnesota you play for the acts. Yeah, so Penn State, Michigan State, Grant.
Yeah, I guess Penn.
State, Michigan State. Who else in the ACC? What else is movie like Pitt?
Yeah?
I would love for it to be Pitt West Virginia and just do it based on proximity.
You got options.
I hope it doesn't come to that, but I've I've seen a lot written about that lately that potentially that would be on the table.
Everything state.
Who'd Oklahoma State play Iowa State? I mean, you have you have at least history there recently within the last decade.
Oklahoma would have to pick between Texas and Oklahoma State, and they'd.
Probably pick you gotta pick t wh would you rather be? If you got gotta be Texas, you gotta be Texas. I don't know.
Uh, all right, So then you have TCU Baylor. Can you imagine? I mean you'd probably have to space it over the month. It couldn't be Synco to TiO, but that'd be a hell of a may which is already an amazing sports month in normal times.
It could be Mayo to TiO, Mayo to TiO. There you go, that's actually getting me pretty worked up. Tie, I like, well, well, let's work on a helmet schedule for that sixty five games.
Let's figure it out. Yea.
So now we're fully on the spring side of things here.
Now.
I have made no bones about the fact that I think this is where it is headed.
Mm hmmm.
A couple scenarios here they actually close mostly mimic what we are or what we've already discussed in the fall. Right, What if there's a ten game spring schedule or a five to seven game spring schedule. So what I've heard a lot of lately is that if they do it in the spring, they would probably shoot for a ten game slate, that the twelve game thing would probably be out of the picture.
Yeah, each team would shoot for ten games. I have seen some.
Difference of opinion when it comes to when they would start that season, but basically sometime after the super Bowl. It might end at some point in like early May, at which point they would try to stage some sort of some sort of regular, quote unquote regular postseason. I saw that the gentleman who runs the Liberty Bowl made a comment saying, in effect, if the season moved, the Liberty Bowl would try to move with it and try to come up with some way.
The Liberty Bowl wants that, sure, of course.
Yeah, And I mean, who knows if other Bowl games would follow suit, but it it would present a logistical challenge. I'm sure. All I know is that's at least one Bowl chairman who says, yeah, sure, we'd be interested in it if it if it made sense. So you play a full ten game slate, presumably in the springtime, and I hope in the springtime we have this thing better under control. Maybe you can get more fans in the stands,
and more fans in the stands at home sites. Probably means more fans in the stands or at least some fans in the stands at bowl games as well. So I think if you've got a ten game spring season, the most likely scenario here would be that they try to try to pull this thing off like they normally would. Maybe there aren't like forty eight bowl games or however many we're up to now. But I got to believe
they would try to do a playoff. I got to believe that they would try to do some semblance of a modified Bowl season as well.
Yeah, I see that. My concern would be packing airports and planes for games that ultimately mean even less than usual. Why, you know, why do Notre Dame fans need to be traveling to New York from the Midwest for the pin Straight Bowl, even if it's a half empty Yankee Stadium. Why are we traveling to the Liberty Bowl from Louisiana?
Why?
I mean, if it's if we have drivable sites and it's drivable bowl tie ins, and we just moved the Liberty Bowl for a year to I don't know, we move the Liberty Bowl to Miami, we move the Liberty Bowl to you know, in a place where we can have a number of Bowl games in the same stadium over a given amount of time. I still, I don't know.
It still strikes me as the actual least important thing here is making sure and I understand from a school payout perspective it's important, but a lot, you know, having the New Mexico Bowl, having the the I know, some of these the Bowls about thet you all don't exist, sorry, New Mexico having you know, having minic Care, having you know, minu Key, having all of these Bowl games which sort of exists because their TV shows go off happen. I
don't know. It strikes me as not keeping with the spirit of trying to modify the season for the better.
Tony the Tiger would like a word, sir, Sorry, Duke's mayo.
Well, I think if we get a ten games slate, they're going to try it, but it will be modified.
I think it's going to have to be modified.
I don't think every Bowl game can can't afford to make that move. And you know, we already dressed sort of this scenario in which we've got a five to seven games slate.
Maybe they can't get ten in.
Maybe there's more virus to deal with, maybe there's delays along the way. Five to seven games slate again, it ends like late spring something something akin to that. If you have a five games slate and then it just come back to this point for a.
Second, Yeah, are you able to stage playoff?
Probably a minimum nine games to have a full fledged playoff where it's just like, okay, we were able to play nine college football games in the fall or the spring. So we've done something right in terms of protection, and we haven't had to shut down the season because of anything catastrophic. We've earned a playoff five games. I mean, I am now grating, gravitating much towards just anarchy, chaos of only playing the season in October, playing two games
a week, two quarters each game. That's what I want, Ty, I want express rules. I want personal pan college football.
Well, the trans perfect Music City Bowl or a tropical Smoothie Cafe Frisco Bowl.
YEP, would be sorely disappointed.
Dan.
I read good friends over at at Duke's Mayo.
But do you have a Mayo preference?
Brand wise? I'm not a big Mayo guy. We talked about this.
Oh that's too bad. Just good males out there. Yeah, you've got Japanese mayo qupi. I think it's how it's pronounced Mayo. Helman's Duke's is pretty good.
I'm going to get a palette of Duke's Mayo ship to my house, aren't I.
That's fine secret weapon for grilled cheese tie. If you like a good grilled cheese spread some mao on each on each of those uh oh pieces of bread. Stop oh stop it caramelizes real nicely got the oil in there. I don't care what it moliza is whipped egg whites and oil tie.
Come on, no no, no, no, no, no no.
Right in cellverbal at gmail dot com, let us know your thoughts on the matter.
What would you like to see in a postseason in any of these scenarios? Again, we're talking maybe some wish wishful thinking, but full twelve games slate, maybe a ten games slate, maybe only five to seven games, different teams playing different amounts of games. You know, we've had weird suggestions that have come into the inbox.
I'd love to read more. I'm just so fascinated by this scenario. I am with you ultimately. You know, just from a fan interest standpoint, anything different is at least interesting. We always see a little bit of a drop off towards the end of the year, and presumably that's because folks they root for a team and then they're out of it and then they stop paying attention.
That happens to a lot of us, right and we see it.
We don't get as many downloads towards the latter half of the season. That's just the normal course of doing business here on a podcast. But you introduce a quirk like an asymmetrical season, like a really asymmetrical season, or move it to the spring, or some sort of flex scheduling scenario.
That to me is very interesting.
And I don't want to speak for all of our listeners, but I think I can speak for most of them when I say that that is worth tuning in to to listen to more of and hopefully to call the reverb line about, just because it's so different, it's so unprecedented. We'll never have it again, hopefully, and you know, it could make for a very interesting outcome with a lot of debate.
I'm not po you can correct me on this, because this I think is in your home state, the Little League World Series Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Of course, we have some sort of pseudo Little League World Series rule where we have five conference games and then whoever is determined to be the champion, and maybe it's like a World Cup element to it, so it's like points four points against, and you get more points for road winds and road scoring.
Whatever.
We sort of come up with a traveling team scenario. I assume you're familiar with how you know sometimes in
local sports leagues. You know, it'll be a little league, baseball league, I guess, just little league, and we have all these teams playing, and then at the end of the season, there's an all Star game and all Star team, and then that all Star team becomes the traveling team you take on other little leagues, right, you know you probably did that with basketball, and so at the end of the season in the way that we have and I know it's like, you know, the team from Tom's
River is the Northeast, right, It's it's the same team. It's not like they've drafted the best players from upstate New York and New Jersey and Connecticut whatever.
But what if we get that, what if at the end of the year it's a AU all over again.
Correct, we have AAU college football where okay, let's say Mario cristaball and Oregon go five and oh nobody else is undefeated. The Pac twelve beats itself up. But then Mario Christibaal says, okay, I'm I'm now the coach, and I have a limit to the number of Oregon players I can select for the West team. So he selects you know, Pinay Sewl and CJ. Verdell and whoever on their defense, cave On Thibadeau, and that's that. You can't select more than eight players from any team, you know,
and they set a geographical boundary. So this is how you get to go from five standard season games and all of a sudden, we then have an eight team regional playoff, an eight team regional playoff that's inclusive. So then you get buy in because Okay, maybe there's a
couple of Fresno State players on this team. Maybe there's a couple of San Diego State players, maybe there's a couple of you have ASU players, you have Utah players, and then they're taking on and there's some sort of G five minimum that you have to take a certain number of G five players from your region as well.
Right in, celiverbo at gmail dot com, did you see that Trevor Lawrence got again it?
Yeah, it seems early. Yeah, it's a little early.
But best of luck. I mean this genuinely best of luck to him. But I speak for myself when I say Trevor, that's it. That's my full solid verbal.
Gmail dot COM's the email celiverbal dot com is the website. Don't forget to subscribe, don't forget get to rate and like and review and follow us on social media at Instagram, on Facebook, on on where else, YouTube, got a Twitter, got all sorts of stuff. Also, when you're at the website, sign up for the newsletter Dan. We'll be back on Friday talking more college football with all y'all fun show tonight talking about postseason possibilities again. Write in let us
know your thoughts. We'd love to hear more.
I think we're probably gonna go to a more reality based writ I think so.
I think so, I think yeah, I think that's probably the move. But I enjoyed this.
That guy over there, my good friend Dan Rubinstein, for myself, Ti Hillebred.
We will be back in a few days. In the meantime, stay safe, stay solid, Peace,