Welcome to the solid verbal home 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 at the steak? Is that woo woof? And then and tie?
Welcome back to the solid verbal boys and girls. My name is Ty Hildebrandt, joining me as always over there.
The one and only the man with the plan.
Dan Rubenstein, sir, how you doing? I have no plan. I have still a tie. Everything's being thrown at me right now. I'm pretty good. I am speaking into a bit of an audio cave. It's have you heard of nuggets in like the uh the sort of foam blocks that that little kids use to climb and make forts out of. Do you know about this at all? I think I do. Actually, yeah, I've got a couple nugget wedges on a desk, a standing desk in front of me, in a nugget square behind me, and I sound okay, right?
You do you do?
You mc guiverrt a studio and whatever the space you're in.
The nugget cave so far has done pretty well. So that's the only plan I have right now.
Keep nuggeting, keep nuggeting.
That's good advice as we plot ahead amid a pandemic and uncertainty in general around the college football world. We're going to get into that here momentarily and when we talk through news in the meantime, don't forget to subscribe to our show out on Spotify, on Apple, on Google, anywhere you get a podcast. We're doing two shows a
week until until they tell us not to. Frankly, so stay right here, go out to our website soliverbal dot com if you want to find all of our old stuff, and if you don't already, please follow along.
With the fun on social media.
We are on Instagram, we are on Twitter, we are on Facebook, and oh, by the way, there is a subreddit at solid verbal dot reddit dot com. Daniel, I will say that last show, know where you're going with this far exceeded my expectations.
Yeah, we got a lot of reactions of I as well am old and decrepit. We fought a lot of expectations.
We have a lot of high concepts that we like to float out just amongst friends, and you never know which one's going to stick and which isn't.
Yeah, the why as well, I'm very sore all the time. Yeah, I as well understand nothing of the age of the people under twenty five. Yeah, we got a lot of that. So I'm glad we could relate to our audience with everything that's deteriorating inside of us and spiritually at the same time. Yeah, it was a good time. Can I add another one real quick, just to ask if this if this time I'm ready?
Yeah?
What about calling the township to file a complaint? Is that an old and washed thing to do?
I think that's great. I think you got to be polite. But no, I mean that sort of is in the customer feedback genus that we talked about a little bit. I do it from a positive standpoint. I don't like to call up and yell and complain. I just like, hey, you know, was great with the delivery. But yeah, if there's something legitimate to complain about, I don't think I think a younger person might sit idly by. Whereas you,
you're on the back nine. Essentially, you're you're what you're only your pre forty is, yes, so you're approaching the back nine. So you want it to be as pleasant as possible, and you have a very specific thing that you want to.
There's there's a reason that I ask you this question. Okay, are you familiar with something called a bird cannon?
I could figure out what that is. If we're talking literal a cannon that shoots out birds. It does not show.
I was not aware of this contraption until late last night. Okay, we are, as you know, pretty close to like an expanse of farmland here. Apparently, yeah, yeah, yeah, Apparently a bird cannon is something that the farmers used to scare away birds and like other critters from messing with their crops and animals and whatnot.
I looked it up.
It literally looks like a leaf blower hooked up to a five gallon propane tank. So they're not shooting out no, no, no, no, it's not like a hot dog gun.
There's no projectile.
Okay, this is a literal sound cannon.
Okay, an l rad from whale Wars. Correct.
Okay, the farmer is adjacent to this neighborhood. Have this thing going off twenty four hours a day in increments of two minutes and fifty two seconds. I don't know if there is some importance to that number within the animal kingdom.
I don't know if they're.
Being overrun by mother nature over there or.
What is going on.
But I am telling you this thing sounds like Skipper, the Virginia Tech cannon every single time it goes off two minutes and fifty two seconds from now. I have been up since two thirty in the morning. The neighbors are posted on Facebook. The dog doesn't know what's going on. We're under attack by the birds, the farmers, and now the virus. And maybe Bob Bolesby.
Will talk about that in just a little bit.
I just I need to get some damn sleep after we hit the stop button here.
Can I turn this into college football?
Please? I would love you too.
You told me about this earlier, so my bewilderment was actually fake. I knew what it was. The jig is up, but tie. After you told me about this, I looked up the best aerial performances by quarterbacks against college football bird teams, the literal bird cannons of college football. If you will, can you drop me my bird song? Please?
Okay?
Sam Howell against Temple and the Bowl lit them up, lit those owls up. James Blackman against the Boston College Eagles tie. Sharon Williams Miami, already transferred, but absolutely murdered the Louisville Cardinals. Bryce Perkins against Virginia Tech the Hockey Birds no longer at Virginia, but in a way.
Effort, not in a winning effort.
Brock Perdy lit up the Hawkeyes of Iowa, but that was in a losing effort. Alex Delton and Max Duggan your boys at TCU against Kansas Jayhawks. Sam Ellinger against the Rice Owls. Dylan Gabriel against FAU although he only did complete forty percent of his passes, but the ones he did amazing. Justin Fields against the RedHawks of Miami. Ian Book against the Falcons of Bowling Rain Tie just torched him. Tied Torch was the bird cannon against those falcons.
Hank Bachmeer against Air Force four, Boise State to a tongue of Iloa against the game Cocks of South Carolina. Only a couple more here. Lane Hatcher Arkansas State, who I think is the best twenty nineteen quarterbacks, Red Wolves against the Eagles of Georgia Southern Brock Purty double bird, double bird against Louisiana Monroe, the Warhawks, and finally, perhaps actually there's two more. The one that made me the status Jayden Daniels of ASU against the Oregon Ducks took
them out of playoff contention with his area assault. But perhaps the most important one Holy Cross is Connor Daganheart over the Mountain Hawks of Lehigh legendary performance.
We remember that one huge.
So those are your literal bird cannons of twenty nineteen.
We're gonna need to incorporate the bird cannon into our normal fare here on.
We just have to pay attention to the to bird teams that lose via a big passing attack.
Should we get to news, I'd love to.
We have breaking news.
This isn't so much breaking, but I saw it. It came across two forty one. It came across the wire this afternoon. Mark Emmert is quote concerned join the club mark about starting fall sports. I read from the article here on ESPN dot com. As the start of the college football season continues to inch closer and c DOAA pre president Mark Emmert said Tuesday, he remains quote very concerned about the status of fall sports. Thinks a delayed
start and shortened schedule might quote make sense again. Welcome to the party, mister Emmert saliverbol at gmail dot com if you'd like to give us very troubling, very troubling, indeed further comment. Moving on, Ohio State has announced that they'll be limiting their attendance to twenty percent inside the Horseshoe, face coverings will be required and tailgating will be banned for the twenty twenty college football season. Again, the face
coverings are mandatory for all fans and attendance. They're going to be physical distancing while in the stadium. Tailgating is not going to be allowed. And oh, the traditional skull session the pregame festivities at Saint John's Arena will not be held. Also, concessions inside Ohio Stadium will be limited as well danced. So again, no big surprises there. But I think first I've se Geene Smith was running weird like algorithms and models two months ago trying to figure
this thing out. Now I don't I think he tried to aim higher than twenty percent when he was he was looking inside the matrix or whatever he was doing. But you know, still it feels wishful thinking, he to me. But if they can figure out a way to get twenty percent in the stadium. Again, it holds like one hundred thousand, so you know there'd be room in there to physically distance I suppose, but didn't get anywhere close to that twenty percent number. I guess that would be a pretty big win for him.
Ti'd you go on your first date with solid wife Kate to Mexico to a beautiful resort? Did you go to Bali?
Well, I mean we went to Red Robin.
Does he want to read Robin?
Right?
Yeah, I'm a big believer in taking things incrementally. Ohio is in an okay place, not great, not amazing as a state, and this changes by the day. They do have a mandatory mass order, which is good. But to me, let's let's start with no fans, see how everything's going, Maybe up it a little bit from there, you know, heavy fan petting if you will tie and see how like we don't we don't need to jump into the
deep end. I understand that that fans and the revenue that fans can bring in, but just we're talking about a twenty one thousand person gathering plus everybody there to actually play in and support the football game. So it's it's a lot of people gathering tie, it's still a big number of people gathering. I think it should be handled more incrementally.
That's me.
How do you feel about these cardboard cutout fans that we got going on at baseball games?
Okay, so I don't watch a ton of baseball. I'm fine with it. It looks a little bit goofy, but twenty twenty is just goofy in general.
So like, you could pay forty dollars to get a Nick Cage cardboard cutout, which is so worth the money. But my question, the reason I ask, is because you know, as a business entity, now teaming entity that we are, do we have budget to buy some select cardboard cutouts in the event that say, you know, Texas goes fanless and you could pay forty bucks to get soliverbal themed cardboard cutout?
What what thing.
Of what's the school the smallest school and what I would assume to be the least expensive to mass order tie and Dan cutouts? So is it a sun Belt team? Are we going to settle for being over the over the top a streaming service stadium purchase or what's the least expensive? So are we buying Kansas? Are we buying Rutgers. Rutgers not in good shape right now. No, what would be the best investment in terms of getting on TV and seeing a stadium full of Dan's and ties.
That's a great question.
And maybe Mama h'sm I think I would be okay when.
H might not want that, But we can have her in the upper.
Deck next to the girl sewing at Kansas.
All right, let's think about that one.
That's a let's see, Cal's pretty good.
Cal. What's the smallest Power five state?
Well, who's going to be on the PAC twelve network the most? That might be the cheapest buy?
Colorado, Colorado could be interesting.
Yeah, Carl Durrell, Colorado could get us. We could have thirty five hundred Dans and ties total.
Yeah, I would love that.
I'm for it for like three hundred and fifty bucks.
Maybe that'd be awesome, all right.
I Miami has named Deeric King the starting quarterback. You'll know him from his time at Houston, where he started twenty two games, had eighty two total touchdowns, forty two hundred almost forty three hundred passing guards, fourteen hundred plus rushing guards. You may recall he went with a red shirt last season and transferred to Miami in January. Only had four practices, ok this spring with Miami before the pandemic,
but many days has seen enough. He's ready to name your King his starting quarterback.
Well as your starting quarterback left and the other starting quarterbacks are not crazy interesting. So just dear King has been good in college football, so makes sense. By the way, while you were talking about that is what is the rudest possible purchase we could make in terms of cardboard cutout? Could we get could we buy ten Greg Chiano's and put him in the stands at Tennessee?
No baby?
Could we get a Rick Neuheisel Jim moora collection in the corner of the rose ball at UCLA?
This is such a Pandora's box here that we're.
OK right now.
It's just what is the most subtle evil? And I want everybody to let us know, Twitter, solidverbal, Reddit, whateverver you need to soliverble at gmail dot com. What is the most subtle evil that you think we could get through the gatekeepers in terms of a cardboard cutout at a game like Mike Price at Bryan Denny.
I was gonna say, Mike Price is so good.
It's so, but that might be cost prohibitive, now I know. I mean just one though, just for somebody to notice and post on it.
It's like a where is waldough?
Right?
What can we get through secretly? Because there are a lot of a lot of heads, a lot of faces that would not be appreciated in certain stadiums.
Man, oh man, who is a guy who killed the trees?
Oh?
At Alabama? Or yeah, at Auburn specifically hy updyke? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we could get some updykes at Auburn.
All right.
Just put him in, like, just in a suit and he's not obviously wearing the furry elephant Alabama hat. Put him in a you know, photoshop him into a respectable looking suit so he looks sort of like a cleaned up Nick Nolty, and just get him at Jordan her I'm good with it.
Ty.
We need to think of the most evil but not not rooted in anything seriously anti human, but just where there's weird bad blood. I would love that.
I'm not saying this is a full podcast episode, but it's at least.
An extended write it down, put a post it on your laptop.
Please, all right?
Elsewhere as we make this turn into the weird uncertainty before us Iowa State has replaced Iowa with Ball State on their schedule. The Big Twelve is trying to play twelve games in twenty twenty. Now from the Iowa State standpoint, you know, they're just trying to get games in, trying to fit games in. It made sense for them, it made sense for Ball State. Ball State is currently down three games, not just Michigan and Indiana, but also the
main Black Bears, which we're all looking forward to. Of course, a very interesting state of affairs right now around the world of college football. So the Big Ten came out first and made their announcement about conference only games. The PAC twelve was very soon there to follow. That left the SEC, the ACC, and the Big Twelve in something
of a limbo state. Now we had talked about, I think on our last episode, how next two to three weeks in the world of college football, we're going to be pretty pretty informative about where we're headed as a season in calendar year twenty twenty. It sounds as if a decision could come as soon as Wednesday. On the ACC front, officials are meeting there. They're going to discuss their final decisions, a model, and a start date for
what their twenty twenty season might look like. The SEC has been very tight lipped at this point, though their commissioner, Greg Sankie's been pretty I think, pretty strong in just support of player safety and trying to do things responsibly. The Big Twelve is almost on the far other end of the spectrum. Bob's like, Yo, we're doing this, man, we are doing this thing. I saw some commentary from the Texas Tech president saying that other Big twelve schools
generally want to play a full twelve game slate. Bob Bowlsby's on the record as part of a separate interview talking about how he doesn't necessarily think all Power five conferences need to do the same thing. He's fine with it being asymmetrical. So, you know, there is no czar in college football. We know that Mark Emmertt maybe is somewhat of a figurehead here, but there's no true governing body that's just going to tell them all what they have to do it. It's much more nuanced and complicated
than that. So when we talk about how the scheduling works and the domino effect of a conference like the Big Ten announcing conference only, and where does that leave other conferences. There's just it's very muddled. We're going to get into that with our interview today with Richard Johnson. We are it's it's a good conversation, but it's just so complex and painted in fifty shades of gray. Here, not the fifty shades of gray, but many shades of
band on that thought. Please, no, no, no, please, I'm good.
Come on, Are you chained into it? No, I'm about as chained into this as possible. It's just it's very weird.
It's very nuanced, and honestly, it changes from second to second.
I'll offer you this. At least, it seems the Big twelve is going with an aggressive plan, whereas it seems like I don't necessarily respect it, but I can appreciate the fact that the Big Twelve is like, this is our goal, this is what we want to do. We're going down swinging. I don't know, I definitely don't know if it's the right plan, but from other conferences we're seeing sort of this dipping the toes and we're doing this. No,
we're not doing this. On a certain level, I appreciate the aggression of saying we're living in die and by the three and we'll see what happens TI. But now there is something almost in an evil way, admirable about it.
Yeah, we'll see. I mean, I think a lot is to come. We will talk with Richard about what's going on in Major League Baseball. Part of what college football has said just generally is they want to learn as much as they can from some of the pro sports leagues. And I think we're seeing a very interesting case study
right now. I hate to call it that because it's a health concern, but what's going on with the Miami Marlins is is definitely front and center and something that I know the powers that be are paying attention to around college.
Yeah, definitely.
So we'll see any other news that jumped out at you this week, Dan.
No I have now tweeted out the question of what would be the most hilariously evil cardboard cutout purchase for an empty college football stadium, and we will collect them after our interview with Richard and who is the best absolute purchase?
All right, that's your news for this show July the twenty ninth. Shall we dive into our interview?
Let's do it?
Who is our esteemed interview subject, mister Rubinstein.
A dear dear friend of the show, Richard Johnson, one of the co authors of The Sinful Seven, a new book coming out that I'm not fully sure what it is, so I'm excited to hear what he has in the way of an explanation about a sci fi western that has to do with college football and the NCAA. But you've listened to him on PAPN most recently you read him at Banner Society and Espianation. I've watched Saturday games
with him pretty much every week for the last few years. So, dear dear friend of the show, Richard Johnson.
All right, Dan joining us now, long time friend of the verbal. It has been far too long, mister Richard Johnson, Sir, welcome back to the show. How you doing, man?
Who is good to be back the WAW are still fine? I miss you guys.
I miss you do What are you doing?
Man?
What's up?
Man? I am in I'm in parts unknown. I have socially distanced from Brooklyn, New York for a little bit. I am I'm taking a load off. I'm enjoying some cool summer nights. It's it's as good as it can be given the circumstances of what's going on in the world.
So we're not going to divulge where your location is, parts unknown, but you may have the opportunity to practice survival skills.
Oh yeah, yeah, you know it's it's you know, I can make a fire in under three minutes. You know, sleep out under the stars. You know, if a bear comes after me, I know how to disarm it and take it on.
Come on, now, I saw on bear grills.
If you just yell yo bear like every thirty seconds or so, that'll apparently keep him away.
It scares him away.
Taught him, taught him everything he knows.
Yeah, old old nature boy Richard Johnson. Okay, let's start here because I think we are recording this. I don't know how many hours. I can't do math, but mere dozens of hours before a book you've been working on with Alex kirshn or Jason Kirk and Spencer Hall called The Sinful Seven.
And Jason Whiting cannot forget on.
Jason Whiting, excuse me? And Tyson Whiting, who is the chief artiste and artistic director and all around just a really talented artist had worked with Vox and Espionation for a long time. What is the book? How did it come together? Where can people find it? And it sounds like a Western but it's actually a college football book. Tell me everything I need to know, because I've purchased the book and I can't wait to dive in.
Okay, all right, Sinful. The book is sinful, seven sci fi Western Legends of the NCAA. It drops August first at noon. I am really really excited for people to read it. Man. I mean, it's been the last three months of your life. Look, I would I would not suggest anybody who is creative listening to this podcast to write a book in the span of eleven or twelve weeks.
You won't sleep much. It'll be pretty tough. And I would definitely not suggest that you write a book during a global pandemic and you know, broader civic unrest, whatever you want to call it. But it's funny. We all the five of us got furloughed from Vox at the
beginning of May, and it's funny. Jason Kirk, who was my college football editor at Spanation Banner Society and is now my co author on this book, basically like asked all of us if we wanted to do this, and Spencer Hall, being the incredible creative mind that he is, we all got on a zoom call one day and he like laid out the idea for a college football western And it was one of those things where Jason kind of floated it and I didn't even I didn't even know what it was going to be, even know
what it could be. It was one of those things where it was like, yeah, you know, that'll be a good use of my time over the next three months or so, I thought. And and it's one of those things where you just start rolling and you know, Dan and Ty, both of you guys, you guys have worked with kind of this crew. You guys know our creative juices.
You guys know how we kind of work. I have trusted these guys that I've worked with for the last three or four years, implicitly ever creatively with my creative development. I think they are the brightest, whip, smartest college football
writers in the industry. And and so there it's not like five people were getting together to do this that didn't know each other or you know that we were mercenary freelance writers you know, we know how each other work, and and you know, it's one of those things where during edits, you know, I had to rewrite like one of my whole chapters. And you know, if it was a different team, like maybe I'd have some inhibitions, maybe I wouldn't trust uh the editor that I'm working with.
But now, like Jason asked me to do something, and like I know, at the end of the day, without a shadow of a doubt, if Jason's asking me to change something, it's gonna make it better. And and that's just how the attitude you have to go with. And I mean honestly, like there's there's some ignorance of like the process. I think that you kind of almost have to have to do something this dumb. And by dumb,
I mean writing a book in eleven weeks. Yeah, it's like it's like as a writer, you're always like hell, yeah, like you know, I'd love to write a book. Write a book's just a long article, and then you write it and you're like this is hell. So it's one of those things where you just I just we all just put our heads down and just wrote and plowed through it. And and Tyson like the four of us are just dumb writers. Tyson Whiting is an absolutely brilliant artist.
He's coding the book so it'll look sexy on your kindle and your iPad and maybe even a PDF if that's how you want to do it. He is is a brilliant creative mind in his own right, and it just is one of those projects that like it just fit. It just fits, and it's really really good. I actually read it cover to cover in its kind of final
version for the first time over the weekend. And when I've read all the chapters kind of individually, but when you read it kind of as a collective work in one or two sittings, you know, you view it a little bit differently. And I got done with it and I literally was like, it's not just because I'm working on this that I say this, Like the book is good and I cannot wait for people to read it.
And you can go pick it up. Sinfulseven dot Com pre order until Saturday, and twenty percent of the pre orders will go the profits of the preorders will go to Feeding America, So you're helping some people in need as well as helping some on college football minds.
So when when you say sci fi or Western legends of the NC double A, what what does that mean is that Brian Bosworth, of these fictional characters.
What do we say, is there a narrative how to row?
How does college football fit into sci fi Western legendary?
So we basically like take the So also, the rhythm of the book is half fiction half nonfiction. So for most of the book it alternates between a fiction chapter and a nonfiction chapter. If you've read the the excerpt that Spencer Hall wrote that went on four to wind
dot com last week, you'll read a fiction part. By the time your people are listening to this, you can go and read one of my exerted chapters on hazlit dot net and that is a non fiction chapter, and so you'll get it is it is a truly unique project because of that. And so basically we are telling and creating a fictional world with and populating that world with characters, stories locales from real college football stories that span from basically the beginning of college sports right around
the nineteen nineties. And it's there are there are things that are on the cutting room floor that we couldn't even put in. I mean, like you guys know that the sport is so rich with characters that are one hundred percent real people that if you took to a Hollywood screenwriter and said this is you know, this is an idea for a fleshed out character, they would say, no, this is too fanciful. I mean the sports and saying we know it, that's why we love it.
You mean like a coach coaching from a hospital bed.
Yeah, like it's it's just there are things like that that you just you just say, you just sit down and you say, like, this cannot be real life. People cannot be actual people. And yet some of them coaching and administrators, like they get entrusted with eighteen to twenty two year old at a time, you know, one hundred of them at a time, Like it boggles the mind truly.
But you know, the game is so rich with stories, and we take and we tweak and we adapt and we try to fit in to this fictional universe what we can. But there are references goal more to college football in here, both in a sci fi realm and a western realm. I mean, somebody is going to be silly enough to try to do a wiki on this book, and I feel for that person because that person who's going to have some work to do.
It feels to me a little bit like Truman Show, where you've built your own like fictional bubble, You've pulled in elements from the outside world to construct that new reality. How are you treating the postseason? Can we just ask, because Dan and I were always at odds with you know, the bowl season or the playoffs?
Is that a character?
Yeah?
Like, how how is that a topic that has broached in your in your so called Western bubble here?
Oh, I will say that it is more than broch, that is uh. I can I can say that. I can say that it is more than broach the postseason of both college football and college basketball, might I add? Okay, so it's it's in there. Trust me, You're you're gonna You're gonna get your fill of college sports postseason. I will say that I'll keep it cryptic.
But if it's if it's cryptic and western, you're gonna do something cool like a duel that would be way cooler if we had it in real life, and you know, far more ghastly, but at the same time definitely fits with the motif here of Western legends.
I I you know, I will neither confirm or deny.
Okay, I know I will neither.
Confirm or deny that Notre Dame has a prominent role in this book.
Wow Wow ham McDaniel supporting character, Tie supporting character not often used running back whose helmet sometimes fell off. Okay, I'm going to do a professional segue here unless there's anything we need to add further, and we'll talk about it at the end of this whole thing. But speaking of science fiction and the wild Wild Wests, Richard, we've
got a possible twenty twenty college football season. I haven't seen you in months, and that's far too long, so I haven't been able to get your extensive thoughts on things. But one of the things Ty and I were recently talking about is the fact that we are so hyper focused on a very binary question of will they won't they and slash how that we don't think about all
of the potential ramifications of the different scenarios. We've talked about different schedule ramifications, but just more on a human level, whether it's players or coaches, or scheduling or TV or the sport itself. Do you have any big thoughts things that have just sort of crawled into the back of your brain and when you're not writing the book about what people perhaps aren't thinking about considering the circumstances of what the twenty twenty college football season might look like.
I think the like on the top, like people ask me, like do you know, and I'm like no, and I don't know because the people I talk to don't know. Nobody knows, and like there are some things that you can speak to with like relative certainty and confidence. But when I tell you, guys, this is the blind leading the blind. And I'm talking all the way up to like school presidents, conference commissioners, all that kind of stuff. I mean, we talked to people in the industry, coaches, agents, whatever,
like everybody's like, what the hell is going on? Like nobody knows what's going on? Like I there. I if you've seen the college football Reddit matrix that shows like what conferences in leagues are playing and what and which ones aren't and like who's canceled? Like I actually had a coach dm me on Twitter yesterday. Uh he dm me that picture and it literally says, and I quote, what the f are we doing here? Like nobody knows
what's going on. And that is the thing that I before I tell anybody, you know, my opinions on things, I have to preface that, like, it could change in a week. And there's so many things in this world right now that you can say that about, but college football is what we're talking about, So yeah, it can change in a week. You know. The one thing that I think I can talk about with some pretty a pretty big amount of certainty is that the spring thing is probably a non starter at least for the Power
five leagues. And it's because, honestly, it's because of the NFL. Like the NFL is not. I don't know if the NFL is going to finish its season, but I will say I'm pretty sure they're going to try to kick it off labor the weekend. And because of that, I don't think the NFL is going to push I don't think the NFL is going to try to push the combine back. I don't think the NFL is going to
push the draft back. And so what you may run into is Trevor Lawrence Justin Fields, if you were playing in the spring, for instance, Trevor Lawrence Justice Fields getting paid a lot by an agency to sit out and in the agency gets the money on the back end when they get drafted and get their signing bonus or something like that of that nature. If I'm Trevor or
justin God bless Clinton in Ohio State. But I got a lot of money riding on me not tearing an ACL February fifth and potentially jeopardizing my twenty twenty one regular season in the NFL. So that I think is the big thing with Spring. I don't personally view Spring. I personally view Spring as something of a non starter, at least for the Power five League.
So that's go ahead.
I'm sorry, go ahead, go ahead.
Well, I would say I do. I would say to the Power five I'm like, look, the Power five leagues, the Commission need to get together like the PSI families in the in the Godfather movies, right, get together and just say, look, this is how we're gonna do testing. This is how we're gonna do this is how we're gonna do that. The NC double A has already said, is on record saying basically, it's y'all's problem. The NC double A is not gonna put a foot down and
regulate this and all this kind of stuff. And that's because the NC double A is what the NC double A is. And by the way, you can read about the NC double a's formation in the Central seven SI by Western Legends of the NC double A dropping August first at noon Central seven dot com. Like, uh, it's just one of those things where it's like the NCAA is not going to force a hand here, so it's
gonna be up to the leagues. And it's it's so piecemeal like Michigan State all the entire team's court quarantining, h Rutgers the entire teams court quarantining. But then maybe another team has a few cases and the whole team doesn't quarantine, but you quarantine a position group or something like that. Like it's it's it's like whack a mole man. It's like, Okay, here's one problem, We've saved that. Okay, here's another one. It's okay, we're gonna have twenty percent
fans in the stands. Well that means well, we're not gonna have tailgating. So who's gonna come. It's not gonna be students, right, Like is it gonna be kids' parents? Like, is it gonna be boosters? Is it you go on and on and on, and you spiral, and that's just me talking as some dummy who's not a conference commissioner. I can only imagine the levers and what is going on in some of these conference offices. Man, it's crazy.
So let me play Devil's advocate.
We talk about the NFL, and we don't know if they're going to finish the season given current events.
We don't know if the Marlins are going to finish the week.
Okay, So yeah, to your point, there's a lot going on. But I think you're right about the spring thing to the extent that if the goal is to win a championship, then losing Trevor aren't losing justin fields. Losing some of these elite caliber players is certainly a consideration and a problem. I question whether or not that's the goal here, right, because.
That's what I've been saying all along, Ty.
You know, and Dan, sure, let's harken back to your age old point here. If that's the goal, then fine. But if the goal, as I understand it, is to just play as many games as possible to earn as many bucks as possible so that schools and programs don't go under wouldn't the cost of you know, playing three games in the fall and then having to suspend the whole damn thing be far greater than saying, you know what, this isn't going to work. There isn't going to be
a championship, at least in its normal sense. Anyway, why don't we just push it off to the spring. The cost of doing business in this sense will be that we lose some of our elite players, but at least maybe we know we can get ten games in.
Well. The problem is the other problem with spring is that you with a lot of these programs, you run into other sports. So I went to the University of Florida, right, a very big, very robust athletic department, and a lot of the I'm not even talking about I'm talking about
like sids and stuff like that. A lot of the uh it's football is kind of like all hands on deck for the athletic departments because in the fall at a lot of these places, they're only it's only really like football, volleyball, maybe soccer, and then in the winter obviously basketball starts, and then like wrestling and stuff. But for the most part there's not to be sports but when you get to the spring, there's so many sports
that are going on. It's one of those things where you may end up just running everything together and you may overly tax these athletic departments who don't have the resources for everybody to do, you know, six games on a Saturday, one of which being football. And you know this is obviously like a minor thing because maybe we won't have fans in a potential spring twenty twenty one, but like, how do you get a campus mobilized to hold those events now if there's not fans? Again, different story.
But those are just some of the contingencies that are the collateral damage maybe that you may think of about moving the games to the spring. You know, I think the I hesitate to say the word easy, but you know, conference only schedules maybe eight games, because that gives you the opportunity to cancel a week, sit out a week if you've got a lot of positive tests or whatever. And I know that I you know, I don't want to sit here and sound like I'm playing around with
a very serious public health matter right now. But if we want to be pragmatic, machiavellian, whatever, at some point, somebody's going to say the quiet part out loud here, which is that we've just got to play football to undergird the economics of college athletics because they are so fundamentally warped now, you know, it just it just is what it is. Yeah.
The other thing that I wonder, and I mentioned this to Dan, you know, now there's news coming out and I don't know how how significant it is, how seriously I should take it. I think we're all in the same boat when it comes to things like vaccine development, right like we do a college football show. We'll leave that to the experts. But if in fact we do have some sort of vaccine developed by the end of the year, could that be something of a tipping point.
Knowing that so much of this revenue on the college end does come from putting fans in seats, might that give them some further clearance to say, you know what, maybe spring does make more sense.
Depends on It just depends on, like a mass production schedule. It depends on you know, there are already kind of early signs right now that trials are doing well in the early stages right now with some of these vaccines today, the text A and M I think is getting a grant to help with production mass production or something like that. So, yeah,
the wheels are turning there. It definitely would, But you know, I don't know if the leagues are going to sit here and say we can wait that long, because I don't know if they can, you know, and the other like, I think we think we kind of keep it on the team level because you know, that's what that's what pertains to us or whatever. But I don't think the problem or the I don't think the biggest red flag
is these teams being amongst themselves. It's the fact that college kids are going to go out to parties, They're going to go out to bars, They're going to hang out with their friends, They're going to hang out with their significant others. That's where we talk about. That's where that's where real spread occurs, particularly in the Southern States
where it's really popping off right now. But then the other thing that may rear its ugly head is, well, what happens if where me and Dan, where me, Dan and Ty, where all three of us lives, what happens in the northeast? Does the second wave in October? You know who knows? Man it's just I don't know. I don't know. You know. I love college football, you know, we all do. We all rely on it for our
for our livelihoods. But there is a lot up in the air, and it changes every day, and it's it's just who knows, man who knows.
One of the things I want to get back to you mentioned something about like the five Families, the five Power five conferences getting together and discussing things and figuring out where they stand apart from the NC double A. I'm wondering if we could see a situation and I've
only heard about this recently. Sometimes, and these are generally older people, they'll go in for a medical procedure, like they'll get something work done on, like they'll get a broken nose fixed, and they'll say, Hey, while you're in there, why not fix my eyes a little bit. Why not give me a little bit of a facelift. Why not, you know, give me some lepo, because I'm going to be recovering anyway, and nobody's going to know the difference. They're just going to say, wow, you look great after
all that time off. Could this be a situation if we have a shortened if we have a canceled if we have an altered season in some way that the powers that be be it, you know, TV and conference commissioners and everybody getting together saying, let's let's use this opportunity, this time off for an almost restructuring to sort of centralize power in a now national sport whereas you know, we have all this separated and disparate power because it used to be a regional sport. Now it's a lot
more nationalized because of TV. Could we see a situation in which they use this recovery time to I guess, become more efficient in terms of how the sport is structured.
I do wonder. I mean that now that appeals to the better angels of the nature of college administrators, and that would that would take some of them seeding power and we all know that adding going to happen, you know. I One of the things that I was batting around with somebody is do we think that this could be a thing where power five like out and out, really
breaks off. I mean, they already have so much autonomy to set rules as they want given the NCAA rule book, but it would this be a thing where they really truly break off and just really say, you know, kick rocks to the rest of college sports. I don't think that's going to happen, primarily because leaving the nc double A something, doing something that drastic would leave NCAA tournament TV money on the table, and obviously nobody's going to do that. So I don't think it'll get that drastic.
I don't think it'll get that bad. The economic fallout, as we know, is absolutely going to be felt by the by the Group of five schools and by the SCS schools, and you know, all the way down that's you know, it trickles down. The ship rolls down ill as we know, and you know, I look at so right the Big Ten cancels it, it's out of conference games, and a lot of people were a lot of people kind of within college sports outside of the Big Ten
were kind of like, why'd you go so early? Why didn't you hold out a few more weeks to kind of say something. Obviously we've seen the PAC twelve has also moved. But at the time when the Big Ten made its call, I guess the weekend after the fourth A lot of people were like, why didn't you wait, Why didn't you just hold you know, you could have waited to make that announcement, and so you know, the
Big Ten says that. And so I take a school like Bowling Green, Right, Bowling Green's got what two I think Big Ten games on its schedule against Illinois and Ohio State. And so I think about a school like Bowling Green. Maybe that's two point five million dollars in guarantee revenue that they were going to get from those two games that is now no longer there. And you know they I think Bowling Green's revenues last year was something like tw're twenty five million dollars like that two
point five man, Like, that's something there. Man, that is a decent chunk of money that if you're Bowling Green you were counting on. So what do you do. Do you sue Ohio State to try to claw back some of that money? Well, you probably can't fight Ohio State in court because they'll just sit on the ball. But the other thing is that Ohio State spent eighty years not playing anybody in Ohio and they've only recently come
around in the new millennium. And it's really good for everybody because it's a symbiotic relationship and bowling Green players get and fans get to take a cool trip to Columbus and they get to say they played in the shoe and it's an in state thing and all that
kind of stuff. So maybe you don't want to piss Ohio State off, so you're gonna have to settle for less than the one point two one point five million dollar guarantee, and so maybe you leave as much as a million dollars on the table and Ohio State says we'll play again in twenty twenty six or whatever in a settlement like this is this is when I talk about the shit rolling downhill, Like that's what I'm talking about.
That's kind of how this works. And there are going to be hundreds hundreds of those type of decisions and calculuses and all that kind of stuff. And I'm sure some of these games have insurance clauses and active god clauses and stuff like that for something like this, but
then other games won't. And so you know, we know the bifurcated nature of this sport where you know, one hundred and twenty major college football teams are not playing on the same playing field, and that doesn't even get near SCS get near HBCUs, getting near D three, all that stuff.
What I'm curious about is how much, maybe and especially when as it relates to players, but I guess somewhat with coaches and coaches families, how much you've thought about geography. We've seen stories about you know, recruits potentially staying closer to home, not necessarily because you know, they're scared of travel or their families are scared of travel. Well, we're
also in pretty dark economic times. It's going to be it is expensive to travel across the country, somewhat across the country, pay for hotels, maybe a rental car meals. That's an expense that has become even more difficult as
the economy has taken a pretty significant hit. What do you think about and I just mentioned the word national and nationalized, what do you think about the sport becoming almost more regional because of the realities economically and public health wise of the current world.
Yeah, I wonder if this I almost wonder if it becomes a thing where the top upper cross the power five, the upper thirty forty, where they actually end up maybe playing each other even more in some of these out of conference bonanza games, right like you know, Florida, for my dear dear alma mater, for something like thirty years, didn't play an out of state, out of conference game. And then Jerry Jones said, hey, we'll give you six million dollars played Michigan, And so Florida went and played
Michigan a couple of years ago. So I you know, we know that those games have been happening more and more in the last couple of years. I wonder if that is something that we see an even more increase on. But then you think about, yes, the collateral that you're talking about, Uh, you know, can mom and dad fly from California to watch Johnny offensive Lineman play in lambeau Field? What you know? Can they do that? And so yeah, that's where we talk about people getting left out of
mc coold. But then on a regional level, I do wonder if it if it sort of forces kind of that belt tightening, uh and and and things of that nature. You know, if that's something where that starts to affect the upper crust of Power five and the upper crust of college football, maybe we sort to maybe we end up going back to you know, Florida doesn't ever leave the State or USC doesn't barnstorm and and I think, you know, you you lose some of you know, Florida
State built it's its brand right on. We'll play anybody, any place, anywhere, anytime when they were a when they were an independent before the ACC. And we love these intersectional games. And I do wonder if those end up going on the chopping block because of just realities of the situation. You know, I don't know how much the NCBLA could potentially step in the kick in there. I know the NCBLA pays parents ways for at least the final four, if not all of them, and the NCAA
Men's basketball tournament. You know, I don't know if the NCAA steps up more to do that with college basketball, I don't know their jurisdiction and football to even do that. That probably comes from the conferences. But then we go back to if the conferences are losing television money, then the conferences don't have that much money to potentially dole
out and give. So it's all this systemic symbiosis and everything's intertwined and all this kind of stuff, and then you inject a global pandemic and everything is up for grounds.
Richard. I know you're a youth. You are, you are young. You are in tune more than Ty and I are as washed as we are. You are you are much better in tuned with people who are college aged, I would say, because you just happen to be cooler and younger. Does Instagram have the server room and capability to handle the sheer number of dms that will be going on because people are going out less and they need to find someone on Friday or Saturday night on a college campus.
Oh it's I mean, the sliding has already begun. I you know, I wonder I hope that tinder, bumble grinder, whatever. I hope that those servers are ready for what is going to go on when students return to college campuses. And you know, we talk about community spread and all that kind of stuff and where the virus actually spreads. That is, uh, that's what we're talking about.
Also, social media snitching is going to be a thing. We're going to start seeing. We're going to see Instagram stories and there's going to be a player, an outside linebacker at Minnesota, a corner from Texas A and M that is supposedly trying to quarantine between games and all of a sudden, they're out at a house party, they're out at a bar outside or something like that. The first social media snitch situation. We've already had it with the NBA and Lou Williams going for wings in Atlanta.
It's a certainty, right, It's an absolute one hundred lock to happen.
You are going to find there are going to be some truly asinine reasons why some player ends up contracting the virus. I mean, I know, I'm not sure if we know when the first Marlin caught it, but I am waiting to find out that it is just the dumbest reason why a Miami Marlins player risked his health and the health of his family and or his teammates to do whatever activity it is that he deemed necessary to do in the epicenter of coronavirus in the United
States of America currently, which is Floria. So you know, I don't know how there is no bounds to the ingenuity of how coronavirus, unfortunately may spread amongst college football players and college just college students football when students return to campus.
You know what I struggle with in thinking about the season, and obviously the complexities and the strange stories that will no doubt be discussing here. This is a very serious situation to public health crisis. As he said, Richard, we're trying to trying to squash this virus as best we can. We all have a rooting interest we want college football to be played. But I think you're right to say that there's gonna be some really like just asinine stories
that come up. I struggle with how much light I am allowed to make of some of these stories, you know, because on one hand, on one hand, it's like, this is a serious thing, you don't want people to get sick. On the other that that's so much of what we've done over the last decade here on the show. I'm still kind of struggling with how to walk that that balance.
I like, I sincerely hope that Lou Williams and Jack Harlowe are healthy and that the ladies that they were cavorting with last week are healthy, and that the Wings were good, because I need to be able to make fun of the fact that a professional basketball player left Disney to go to a strip club on an off day when he was supposed to be quarantined. I mean, calm on, but if anybody's sick, we don't want to make fun of it. You're right, Ti, It's.
Just such a such a tentative balance, and you know, I mean, hope that's not the wrong thing to ask, but it really does weigh on me when we log on to do this show every week, like, Wow, this is this is a really delicate situation.
Approaching it from a life perspective, Yeah, sure, yeah.
I just like some of the ways that some of the like I've read somebody some in New Jersey there was like a seven hundred person mansion party that got busted, and I you know, I don't know if you've heard about Dan on Long Island, there was like a chain smoker's concept saw that that Goldman's Axis Deo DJ, like, what are we doing? What? What?
Supposedly it was supposed to be a car only concert, but then people got out of their cars. Who could have seen that coming?
I don't know, Man.
A couple of other I think ramifications or just stories that I think are going to be interesting to follow is we're pretty sure the coaching salary bubble has popped now, right, And you know, I Mel Tucker just was was the big last winner of the coaching salary bubble.
Yeah, congratulations. I hope to check clears for mel Tucker. Yeah, I mean, I like, is the bubble gonna burst? I don't know. I think it'll be. I think what will happen is it'll be more assistant salaries that you may
see go or get chipped away. And and I should say if you do see coaching salaries go down, it may be because a coach is trying to balance and say I'd rather have that money in my assistant pool anyway, because that's what like, as you know, Alabama kind of led the charge with forty five analysts on the sideline. You know, if you're trying to keep up with the Joneses in that way, which is what you have to do to compete for national championship in this sport. Yeah,
you know, the money's got to come from somewhere. But then I look at, uh, you know, if it's coming from these boosters, what's going to happen with when these boosters are potentially seeing their own businesses unfortunately dry up because of the coronavirus and its impact on the economy and whatever sector it is that may be happen You know, we all joke about what's going to happen to Texas, A and M if the oil industry drives up, But you know it's serious. You know, think about a school
like I think about a school like FAU. Right, Fau's got a whole bunch of it, of its athletic department budget that's wrapped up in student fees. Well, what happens if there aren't any students on campus or if there are dramatically less students enrolled in the university for a semester, And then FAU goes to the state of Florida and says, we need some extra funds, and the State of Florida says, sorry, we ain't got it like that because we're trying to
battle global pandemic. You know what happens. Then It's just there's a lot to think about about the economics of of the country in general. You can't just dip into an endowment like it's like it's a savings account to save your university, you know, or to save your athletic program. If you could do that, Stanford would not have cut so many sports the other day, by.
The way, could have a lot more Clay Helton situations across the country. Teams unwilling to fire a coach they want to fire because they have no intent of paying a buyout they have.
They're like buy out agents agents that negotiated the thick buyouts. That is the one thing that I will say. I think I thought the buyout bubble was basically going to bust anyway because we just can't keep You just can't keep going on like this. As far as the economics of the coaching industry, you just cannot keep doing this
with buyouts. So I think more than anything like that, maybe another way where you see the economics crey drastically change because when a school I'm like, yeah, like, can't do a buyout, can't do a deal with that, with that have a buyout in there.
By the way, a jimbo Fisher check out at Texas A and m knowing how much money he's owed. If he just decides that, like you know what, I'm good and he just pulls a full office space, a full Peter from office space in college station where he just guts a fish at his desk in his office because he knows they're not going to fire him. Holy hell.
And I know that people are in the back of mind thinking are thinking that's what we did at Florida State, right, But it's very real that a coach could full on check out knowing they're not buying them out.
Yeah. I also wonder what happens with like if we see more David Baty situations right where the school says, hey, we need it back and we're going to manufacture an NCAA violation to try to get it back.
Clay Helton might be there forever in this new economy.
Build a a statue, man, build him a statue.
Finess God once again. Richard Johnson, one of the co authors with Spencer Hall, Jason Kirk, Alex Kirsch, and Tyson Whiting of The Sinful Seven Available August first noon Eastern? Is that what the time zone?
High?
Noon?
Hi?
Recently, you've heard obviously Richard on PAPN. You saw him at Banner Society, Espionnation, Box Media. I don't think Richard's going to be a free agent for very long. So we're very excited to, hopefully sooner rather than later, figure out what what's happening in sports media and college football media, because, as we all know, Richard Johnson rising star Richard, thank you very much for your time. Sinful seven dot com.
Always a pleasure, boys cinfil seven dot com.
Take care man.
Thanks all right, good conversation again our good friend Richard Johnson. Please go out and buy that book. Sinful seven looks very interesting. You said you did buy it. I bought mine.
Oh, I bought it a long time ago. I pre ordered. I'm excited to uh to take a full gander.
Absolutely looks exciting and a lot of creative people working on that. Yes, doing what I can to support them. It feels good, especially in this weird time right.
Oh.
Absolutely. And by the way, the responses are rolling in about the most hilariously evil cardboard cutout purchase for an empty stadium. I don't know if we'll fully do it today go through all of them, but Urban Meyer at Michigan was an early one, and the surrender Cobra Kid at Michigan during the Michigan I think it was the Michigan State punt at the end of the game game That one has been offered out. But we're getting a
lot of really good responses. The popcorn guy from Wazoo to get his presence back in the stadium at Martin Stadium. I think would be be a big, big win. I think that would get through the censors. I think he specifically would.
Yes, this definitely has a game day signed feel to it, where you need to be clever enough to beat the sensors, but at the same time not too esoteric that folks aren't going to know what the heck you're talking about.
Like Lane Kiffin's not getting through the censors in Knoxville. No, no, no, right, that that is like one of the obvious Harvey Updyke if you dress him up and it seems more respectable. Perhaps, Man, there's so many, especially players who have been total Like if you had like a Tavon Austin cut out in the stands at Norman in Norman, I know, I think they lost that game West Virginia to Oklahoma when he had the huge game.
Oh here we go, Here we go.
Chris Davis in one of the Alabama end zones.
Oh yeah, or excuse me, kicksex.
That would be That would be so.
Many good responses. All right, a right review these next time.
Yeah, thank you again for spending some of your time with us. We as always thank our esteem guest, mister Richard Johnson for stopping by. Great conversation. Good to hear from him. We'll bring him back soon. We promise. We would encourage everyone to subscribe to the podcast. If you
don't already, we are at sliverbo dot com. You could find all the links there, but subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts on Spotify and Apple, on Google, you name it, overcast all these hot spots that we've talked about over the years, And if you like the show, please do give us five star review. We promise that stuff helps. We are trying to reach out to as many college football fans as humanly possible do in this show that
we love to do twice a week. We will continue to do twice a week until to tell us we we shouldn't do that anymore, or until we get crushing season news. Who knows, but we have every plan to continue on our current trajectory.
Wes Byram the Auburn kicker, who chomped, Who chomped? The Gators? Get him at the swamp. No, no, oh no, there's a lot of good ones.
These are cold blooded.
Oh man lovey with his beard in camp Randall, that'd be great, that'd be great in any Stadium. Frank Case McCoy at Kyle Field, the last Texas quarterback to beat A and M was a response from Danny, I love.
Beard is a national treasure. We need to bring that back.
Yeah he can. You know what, if you can grow a beard like that, then I don't think it's going to take that long. He can bring it back one hundred.
Percent for that guy over there, my good friend Dan Rubinstein, For myself, Tie hilden Brand, thanks again so much for downloading, for listening, for playing along at home, and your support all that stuff. It's it's great. We appreciate it. We hope you're all doing well.
We will talk to you all in a few days.
In the meantime, stay solid, peace,