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00:00 (laughing)
00:02 Welcome everybody into another edition of the Big Ten Show.
00:07 I got a special guest with me today,
00:09 but before he joins me,
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00:37 All right, today I'm joined by multi-time author,
00:40 ESPN's Bill Connolly.
00:42 How you doing, my friend?
00:43 - I'm pretty good, how are you?
00:45 - I'm glorious, dude.
00:46 And I got a whole, like this is real.
00:49 Okay, I always come over prepared.
00:51 Now some of this is for after you,
00:53 'cause you're gonna join me for about 24,
00:54 and some of that's for the 24 minutes I'm on my own.
00:57 But dude, I got so many questions for you,
00:58 and I wanna start off with an article that I saw of yours.
01:01 Okay, you basically went back all the way to 1966,
01:05 and you simulated what an 18 college football playoff
01:08 would look like going back, what, almost 60 years.
01:12 So talk to me, and essentially how this worked
01:15 was the quarterfinals were on campus,
01:16 the semifinals were on campus,
01:18 and then the finals, the championship,
01:19 was always in the Rose Bowl.
01:21 Okay, now before we dive into how that played out
01:23 over those years, okay, the Rose Bowl.
01:26 I've seen and heard this thrown around a million times.
01:29 The national championship needs to be in the Rose Bowl.
01:31 The Rose Bowl is the most iconic bowl game.
01:34 It is the most recognizable bowl game.
01:36 It is the most beautiful bowl game.
01:38 I love everything about that,
01:40 except for one question I've always had.
01:43 Okay, if it's always at the same spot,
01:46 and always at the same location,
01:48 would that not then somehow benefit the California schools
01:51 when it comes to recruiting?
01:52 Hey, you could play a national championship game
01:54 right in your backyard every year,
01:55 especially teams like USC, UCLA.
01:57 What are your thoughts on that?
01:58 - I mean, I can't really prove you wrong.
02:00 I guess technically they still had the draw
02:02 of the Rose Bowl being the biggest bowl game
02:05 no matter what for however many decades.
02:06 And so they still had that card to play,
02:08 but this would, yeah, add a little bit to it.
02:10 It was funny, so basically this was kind of a,
02:13 I wrote two pieces over the last couple of weeks.
02:15 The first one is kind of a history
02:17 of people proposing a playoff and having it fail,
02:20 more or less.
02:21 And that started with Duffy Doherty,
02:23 the Michigan State coach in the mid '60s.
02:26 Actually, it started with Northwestern's idea
02:27 in the early '60s, and that just kind of randomly
02:30 petered out.
02:31 But basically I went back through and looked at
02:32 what they were proposing, what they were thinking,
02:35 and all the ways that the Bulls eventually
02:37 lobbied their way into there not being a playoff.
02:40 It worked for them very well for many, many decades.
02:43 But so what I wanted to do was basically,
02:46 one of the fun things about figuring out what a big playoff,
02:50 the effects it might have moving forward,
02:51 just in terms of how we think about coaches,
02:53 how we think about teams, is showing how different
02:56 a universe with a playoff would have been
02:58 for the last half century.
02:59 And so, yeah, went back to, took a time machine
03:02 back to 1966 and somehow made the magic happen
03:06 to where everybody agreed that we should have
03:09 an eight-team playoff.
03:11 Part of that, the reason I said the Rose Bowl there
03:13 was I figured that's the only,
03:14 they still wouldn't have agreed to it.
03:15 They were never going to agree to it,
03:17 but that's the one thing that might have made them
03:19 1% more likely to agree is basically saying
03:21 that the quarterfinal semis can happen
03:23 in December and it won't impact the small bowl season.
03:27 We'll give the Rose Bowl the title game and there we go.
03:29 So yeah, quarterfinals and semis in home sites.
03:34 And then you could still have your bowls
03:35 with all the teams that didn't make it.
03:37 And you could still have,
03:38 you could have the national title game
03:40 in the Rose Bowl every year.
03:42 - You know, it's interesting to me because I have loved,
03:45 loved college football ever since I was a kid,
03:48 more than any other sport.
03:49 Now, ironically, my favorite sport to play,
03:51 'cause I wasn't allowed to play football
03:52 until seventh grade, growing up was basketball.
03:54 Okay, but I've loved college football
03:56 even more than watching the NFL.
03:58 The NFL doesn't matter until the last week
04:00 of the season going into the playoffs, okay,
04:02 as a general rule.
04:03 But college football has evolved way more
04:05 than I think people remember.
04:06 There used to only be four major bowl games
04:08 on New Year's Day back in the 60s, 70s, okay.
04:11 And there was the conference champion tie-ins.
04:13 And then they used to announce the national champion
04:16 before the major bowl games on New Year.
04:18 Was it 1970?
04:21 - It was, yeah, late 60s, 68, 70, somewhere in there, yeah.
04:24 - Like in 1970, Texas was walloped by Notre Dame
04:28 in the Cotton Bowl, but they already crowned
04:29 the national champion before they ever played,
04:31 or co-national champion, whatever it was.
04:32 I think they shared it with Nebraska that year,
04:34 I could be wrong.
04:35 Okay, and then you get into the four major bowl games
04:37 and the Southwestern Conference always goes
04:39 to the Cotton Bowl, the Big Eight to the Orange Bowl
04:41 for people who remember those conferences.
04:43 I know Big Ten fans and Big 12 fans probably do,
04:45 I don't know about the rest of America.
04:47 And then we eventually got, and it was always the Big Ten
04:50 and the Pac-10 in the Rose Bowl for the longest time.
04:52 And then it was, can we ever get one versus two?
04:55 Can we ever get that matchup?
04:56 And then everybody in every bowl game
04:58 under God's hot sun was cooperating,
05:00 except for the Rose Bowl, which is why in '97,
05:03 we got the SEC champ, number three, Tennessee,
05:05 versus the Big 12 champ, number two, Nebraska.
05:08 But Michigan, the Big Ten champ was still in the Rose Bowl.
05:10 Then in '98, we get the BCS.
05:12 We finally get one versus two.
05:13 And then people, some people I knew called it
05:16 the bull crap system, the BCS system,
05:17 'cause they hated that.
05:18 And then you got the 14 playoff and nobody's happy.
05:20 Now we're jumping to 12, possibly 14, possibly 9,000.
05:24 Okay, how did this, and I'm gonna go back to your articles.
05:26 I wanna get back to your article,
05:27 but I think people forget how this has evolved over time,
05:30 albeit insanely slowly.
05:32 - Right.
05:33 - Give me some of the most unique years
05:35 in this 18 playoff as you went through it year by year,
05:37 decade by decade, that stood out.
05:39 And I know 1966 was interesting,
05:41 but I'm curious about '94, '97, '03, USC, LSU.
05:44 They were co-champs.
05:45 Talk to me about years that stood out in this playoff.
05:47 - Yeah, I tried to basically walk through,
05:50 'cause I mean, yeah, like one of the issues,
05:52 one of the reasons we really started getting
05:54 towards a playoff sentiment was in the '80s
05:56 where the Bulls lobbied so hard to avoid a playoff,
05:59 even after Bulls.
06:00 Like one of the ideas was having a four team
06:02 or a plus one after the Bulls were over.
06:04 Bulls still snuffed that out immediately.
06:07 But in the '80s, they were basically signing up teams
06:10 in early November.
06:11 I mean, they were signing up the brands
06:13 and the non-brands really struggled to find their place,
06:18 even if they were really good.
06:19 Like 1990, Virginia goes to number one.
06:21 It's an amazing story.
06:22 Only time they've ever been number one.
06:24 Early November, the Sugar Bowl gets a commitment from them.
06:27 Virginia proceeds to completely fall apart.
06:29 Georgia Tech moves to number two in the same conference,
06:32 wins the ACC, has to play in the Citrus Bowl
06:34 against number 18, Nebraska, actually.
06:36 And they were lucky to snag a share of the national title
06:40 because they didn't have one of those marquee Bulls
06:43 to play in.
06:44 So basically the Bulls system prevented a playoff
06:47 and then kind of just failed in its major duties
06:49 to match up really, really good teams.
06:52 And the sentiment really started shifting in that regard.
06:55 But yeah, looking back, I tried to work through
06:57 a lot of the years where we had split titles
06:59 or controversial titles.
07:01 I was really curious about 1984,
07:03 'cause that was, you know, BYU wins the title
07:06 and it was seen as really, really controversial.
07:08 They couldn't possibly be title worthy.
07:10 Look at their schedule.
07:11 They were really good.
07:12 BYU was awesome for the entire first half of the 1980s
07:16 and only slightly worse after that.
07:18 They were probably the third best team of the year,
07:20 but Washington was also awesome.
07:22 And honestly, Nebraska, with my SP plus ratings,
07:25 was number one that year.
07:26 They just lost a couple of,
07:27 they were dominant except for two games they lost.
07:30 So I was really curious how that playoff
07:32 was gonna play out.
07:33 Nebraska actually enters that playoff with the best odds,
07:37 but it ended up what, being Washington over BYU.
07:42 Washington, BYU beats Nebraska.
07:44 Washington beats Boston College.
07:46 Doug Flutie's Boston College.
07:48 That would have been pretty fun.
07:49 I think that would have gotten decent ratings.
07:51 So that was one interesting year.
07:53 And then the split titles.
07:54 Obviously I went through 1990,
07:56 where Miami actually wins its fourth straight
07:59 national title in a playoff.
08:00 You do think about that time,
08:02 like Miami and Florida State
08:03 were the most consistently awesome teams,
08:05 late '80s, early '90s.
08:07 You do figure either one of them
08:09 would have had a chance to rip off a run of titles
08:12 with a playoff situation,
08:14 with where you could lose ones
08:15 and still actually have a shot at the title.
08:17 1991, Washington wins the title.
08:20 '93, I did simulate that one
08:24 and kind of dive into that one
08:25 because it was the same situation.
08:27 You've got a very, very good Florida State,
08:30 a very good Florida, Tennessee, very good, lots of teams.
08:34 And Florida State wins it that year over FSU.
08:39 - Can I hop in there real quick?
08:41 'Cause '93 never gets talked about.
08:43 So that's the year that Notre Dame
08:45 beat number one Florida State
08:47 in the one versus two matchup in South Bend.
08:49 Okay, Florida State beats Nebraska.
08:51 They missed the late kick.
08:52 They're crowned national champs.
08:54 What I found interesting was Notre Dame had one loss,
08:56 FSU had one loss,
08:57 yet FSU was the national champion that year.
09:00 So in the playoff, FSU wins,
09:01 not Notre Dame or Nebraska or somebody else.
09:04 - Yeah, I do have to,
09:06 like as we're walking through these results,
09:08 these aren't based on anything like,
09:10 it's not really a prediction so much as I use my system,
09:13 simulated it like 10,000 times
09:15 and then just randomly picked one of the simulations.
09:17 So that's how Miami, Ohio snags a national title in 1974
09:22 because OU is the best team.
09:25 They weren't in the competition
09:26 'cause they were banned from the post season.
09:27 And then it was just a free for all and Miami wins it.
09:29 So yeah, it's not a prediction.
09:31 It's not, this would have absolutely happened.
09:33 But yeah, '93, Florida State,
09:34 I did have them as the best team overall,
09:36 but you're right, like the way that plays out,
09:38 Notre Dame beats Florida State
09:40 then loses to Boston College next week.
09:42 If Boston College beats them like week one,
09:45 Notre Dame probably wins the national title
09:46 because of the way polls tend to work.
09:48 But FSU was probably the best team that year
09:51 and they win it.
09:52 This wasn't an incredibly Nebraska friendly simulation.
09:55 And I do have to, it was randomly selected.
09:59 They do win in '95, but Penn State wins in '94.
10:03 '97 is an absolute mess where you've got
10:06 Ohio State beating Michigan
10:08 and Kansas State upsetting Nebraska,
10:10 which I kind of like the parallels of that one.
10:12 And then, so then you get into a free for all
10:14 where Tennessee beats Ohio State in the title game.
10:17 'Cause we would have had those.
10:18 We always think in terms of who won the games,
10:21 they were undefeated, therefore they would never lose,
10:23 but that's not the way it works at every other sport.
10:26 So sometimes chaos happens, but those were fun.
10:30 What else did we have?
10:32 Recent times, I wasn't really impressed with the,
10:35 I wasn't able to produce much chaos
10:37 for the last 10 or 15 years.
10:39 It's either Alabama or Georgia just about every year,
10:41 but it was kind of just fun to look at,
10:44 put the chaos hat on occasionally.
10:45 And we ended up with Kansas State
10:48 winning two national titles and John Cooper,
10:50 John Cooper from Ohio State and Arizona State winning three.
10:53 That's probably not the way that,
10:55 we don't quite remember him as that good,
10:57 but he was a really good coach
10:59 and they might've had a chance.
11:00 - I wanna go to a couple of specific years.
11:03 So 1990, I believe you said,
11:06 'cause that was shared between Colorado.
11:08 The fifth down, the Phantom punt return penalty
11:11 against Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl.
11:13 I'm not a big Colorado fan.
11:14 They're not in the Big 10, so I can track them.
11:16 All right, and they shared it with Georgia Tech,
11:18 who, as you pointed out, never got a chance
11:20 because Virginia got the bid way before the season was over.
11:23 They never got the chance to play in a top bowl,
11:25 played in 18th ranked Nebraska, won that game decisively.
11:28 Unfortunately, if you're a Nebraska fan.
11:30 But you don't have either one of those teams
11:31 won in the title, I believe you said, was it Miami?
11:34 - Yeah, that was another fun one where the semifinals
11:37 are Miami over Colorado and then Georgia Tech beating FSU.
11:41 And then Miami, Miami's probably,
11:43 either FSU or Miami were probably the actual best teams.
11:46 But again, like you couldn't, if you lost a game,
11:49 you had to really hope everybody else lost.
11:51 And obviously Georgia Tech managed
11:53 to slip through undefeated.
11:54 So yeah, those years where there really wasn't
11:58 a genuine standout team,
11:59 it was just one that maybe won all the close games.
12:02 Those are the years that produced some pretty wacky results.
12:04 And then the next year, '91 split title,
12:06 Washington was just phenomenal that year.
12:08 They were the best team in the country by far.
12:10 And I was happy that I picked a simulation
12:13 where they won the title.
12:15 - Let's go to '03, USC, LSU, they split the title.
12:18 Okay, USC dominates a very good Big Ten champ,
12:22 Michigan team in the Rose Bowl.
12:24 Okay, and Oklahoma, who'd been number one the whole year,
12:26 got blown out by K-State in the Big 12 title game,
12:28 lost again to LSU in the Sugar Bowl.
12:31 So USC, LSU, are they in the title game?
12:33 And who wins if they are?
12:34 - That was the year where they were,
12:36 that was one of those no dominant teams years.
12:38 Oklahoma was the best team.
12:40 We kind of forgot how good they were before Jason,
12:42 what was it, Jason White?
12:43 It was like he broke his hand in the Big 12 title game
12:45 and then his foot in the Sugar Bowl
12:47 or the reverse or something.
12:48 He had a couple of different injuries late that year.
12:50 And so basically looking at the, I set up odds
12:53 just so we could see how things might play out.
12:55 It was like LSU at 22%, Oklahoma at 20, USC 13,
12:59 whole bunch of teams between about four and 9%.
13:01 So this was a potential free-for-all year.
13:04 And we got a free-for-all, number seven,
13:05 Florida State beats number four.
13:07 Chris Ricks, national champion, Chris Ricks,
13:09 wins the title for Florida State over number four, Michigan,
13:12 after some pretty wacky results.
13:14 So those are, I always say, we need those blip years,
13:17 those chaos years.
13:18 We haven't had one of those in quite a while
13:20 in college football.
13:22 And hopefully, I don't know,
13:23 like maybe a big playoff in the transfer portal
13:26 makes those slightly more likely moving forward.
13:29 - I love that you brought up '84 as well.
13:31 Now, BYU, that BYU team is the only
13:33 quote-unquote non-power team.
13:35 I know Notre Dame's been independent,
13:37 but most people view them as a power conference team,
13:39 just not in a conference.
13:41 They're the only G5 team, I know they're in the Big 12 now,
13:44 so to speak, to win a national title in history.
13:46 And I believe they beat a six and five Michigan team
13:48 that year in the Holiday Bowl and able to do it,
13:50 which is why there was so much controversy.
13:52 I love a lot of the years that you brought up
13:55 and a lot of the things, like '93 never gets talked about,
13:57 '84 never gets talked about.
13:59 Now, all these other years with the split titles
14:01 is interesting.
14:02 I do have to ask one specific thing, '94, okay?
14:07 Now, '97, Michigan, Nebraska,
14:09 I've always thought Florida State
14:10 was better than Tennessee that year, okay?
14:11 Even before the bowl games.
14:13 And I think Florida State beat Ohio State
14:15 pretty solidly in the Sugar Bowl that year,
14:17 if I remember correctly.
14:18 I always thought they were the second or third best team
14:20 in the country in that mix with Nebraska and Michigan.
14:22 But '94, so you have a team that doesn't win either poll,
14:27 okay, phenomenal offense.
14:29 Kerry Collins, KJ Carter, even other people
14:31 I can't remember right now on that offense.
14:33 Didn't play a whole lot of defense.
14:34 Got lucky versus Illinois that year,
14:36 if you remember that game.
14:37 And then versus a Nebraska team
14:39 who had to win with three different quarterbacks,
14:41 beat Miami in Miami, which is incredibly hard to do,
14:44 but yet Penn State, according to this,
14:46 and I know you said it's not a prediction,
14:48 I just gotta ask, how does Penn State
14:50 end up beating Nebraska in that particular scenario?
14:52 Just out of curiosity.
14:53 - That was, because Nebraska had so much
14:56 turnover on offense all year,
14:58 and the quarterback position was kind of unstable there
15:01 for a decent chunk of the year.
15:02 They don't grade out, because I'm using my SP Plus ratings,
15:05 they just see the full year of results.
15:07 And so they see that Nebraska was clearly awesome on defense
15:10 but merely 12th on offense because of all the situations
15:14 where all these other years in that time period,
15:17 they were much higher than 12th.
15:18 And so basically it just sees Nebraska
15:19 as a merely very good team, as opposed to a great team.
15:23 Penn State grades out ahead of them.
15:24 That's probably honestly the best Penn State team
15:26 of all time.
15:27 It's funny, they snagged the 82 and 86 titles.
15:30 This team was probably much better than that,
15:31 but Nebraska won out and fended them off in both polls.
15:35 And unlike a year like '90 where it felt like
15:38 the coaches poll almost,
15:40 it was like almost some protest votes
15:42 to make sure Georgia Tech got a share
15:45 in the title or something.
15:46 Penn State didn't get that.
15:47 Nebraska gets both, but Penn State was extremely deserving.
15:50 And my numbers liked them a little bit more than Nebraska.
15:53 I don't remember, well, I guess it was Auburn
15:55 that they lose to, because Auburn was the nine seed
15:57 so they would have played in the quarterfinals.
16:00 Yeah, that was a pretty unique situation there
16:03 'cause I have Auburn fifth overall.
16:06 So it's only a slight upset,
16:08 but that would have been a kind of an interesting year
16:10 and Penn State closes it out with a title there
16:13 before Nebraska obviously just romps
16:15 to a title the next year.
16:17 - So talk to me about '86.
16:20 - '86.
16:21 - Miami, Penn State, one versus two,
16:24 the only undefeated teams in the Fiesta Bowl.
16:27 I could be wrong.
16:28 I know for decades, that was the most viewed
16:30 college football game of all time.
16:31 Maybe it's been surpassed since then
16:33 in the past 10 years or so, but up until 10 years ago,
16:35 most viewed college football game of all time
16:37 was that Fiesta Bowl, 1986.
16:40 Does Penn State still come out on top in '86
16:43 or does Miami or somebody else get it?
16:44 - So Miami and Oklahoma both graded out
16:46 quite a bit better than Penn State.
16:48 That was just one of those Penn State teams
16:49 that did absolute bare minimum on offense,
16:51 just knowing that they were gonna hold the other team
16:53 to like seven to 10 points.
16:54 That's how they won the title game.
16:57 But that was another year where there wasn't,
16:59 as much as we remember that Miami team
17:03 as for the fatigues and all these other things,
17:06 that wasn't the best Miami team that year.
17:08 They were second overall, OU was first,
17:11 but nobody was really separated from the pack.
17:13 So I was hoping that would be a chaos year
17:15 and I would say number seven, Arizona State
17:18 beating Miami in the title game
17:19 qualifies as being a little bit chaotic there.
17:23 That was a very good, Arizona State was seventh that year,
17:27 really, really good defense.
17:28 John Cooper, before he left for Ohio State,
17:31 he brought them to the Rose Bowl that year.
17:33 So yeah, they actually, they're the ones
17:35 who do the deed against Miami eventually
17:38 and not a good, but relatively flawed Penn State.
17:43 - So Arizona State won the national title.
17:46 - Arizona State won the national title in '86.
17:47 - A little bit of chaos, I like that.
17:49 All right, and let's go back to '90
17:50 'cause I think you bring up a great point.
17:51 That Colorado team played a tough schedule.
17:53 I know I mocked them for the fifth down
17:55 and the Phantom punt return call
17:57 that where the penalty was,
17:58 there was no penalty on Rocket Eastmails return
18:00 for a touchdown in the Orange Bowl, but I digress.
18:02 Okay, but they played a tough schedule that year.
18:04 One of the toughest in the country, if not the toughest.
18:06 They had, it was either one loss in a tie
18:08 or two losses in a tie.
18:10 Do you happen to recall?
18:11 - One loss, they were 11 and one and one
18:12 at the end of the year.
18:13 - And I think you're right.
18:14 I think people didn't want a team with a loss
18:17 and a tie to win the national title
18:18 when you had this undefeated team, Georgia Tech over here,
18:21 who didn't play a bunch of tough teams.
18:23 So you could be correct on that.
18:24 One question I had for you,
18:26 why eight teams in this simulation?
18:28 Why not four or six or 12 or whatever?
18:31 - So that was, 'cause I think when we originally conceived
18:35 this piece, we were like,
18:36 what if we took the 12 team playoff that we have
18:38 and move it all the way back?
18:39 And when I started playing with that,
18:41 I just couldn't make sense of it
18:42 because if we'd gotten,
18:43 they only talked about an eight team playoff
18:45 from like 1960, really until the early seventies.
18:49 That was just, that was the idea on the table.
18:51 Six conference champions, best two independents
18:54 and on you go.
18:55 And so that's what I started with.
18:57 And then I started just,
18:58 instead of riding the eight team route all the way through,
19:01 I was thinking about, in the mid seventies,
19:04 the NCAA basketball tournament expanded dramatically
19:07 from like mid seventies to mid eighties,
19:09 they went from like 24 teams to 64 or something like that.
19:13 Because they started realizing like a lot of the best teams
19:15 don't win their conference tournament.
19:16 So we should get them in and have a bigger field.
19:19 So what I ended up doing was expanding to 12 teams
19:22 in the late seventies.
19:24 And then just saying by the late eighties,
19:27 everybody needed money.
19:28 We would have had a 16 team playoff by the late eighties.
19:31 That was a, lots of teams were struggling
19:33 with budgets and whatnot.
19:35 So that, I just kind of use some general bracket creep
19:38 assumptions there.
19:39 Honestly, we'd probably have a 24 team playoff by now
19:42 if we had a 16 team or in the eighties,
19:44 but I stuck with 16 all the way through.
19:47 And that was just kind of the general logic there.
19:49 And it was, I mean, some of those years
19:51 where you have a 16 teamer and like the number three
19:53 and 12 teams are basically same quality.
19:56 You could have had so much just fun.
19:58 It would have been a lot of fun.
20:00 I don't know how the bulls play out
20:01 once we get to 16 in the eighties.
20:04 If it's a case where, you know, the quarter five,
20:07 like we have now, the quarters and the semis are all in bulls
20:10 or how exactly that plays out.
20:11 But I, that's why I expanded when I did.
20:15 - So that's actually leads perfectly to my next question.
20:18 I have, why the eight teams, but going forward, okay.
20:22 Let's go from this year on 2024 on,
20:24 do you like the BCS model top two, four, six, eight,
20:29 what we're going to do for a couple of years, 12, 14.
20:32 If it was up to you, how many teams would be in the playoff
20:35 going forward, starting this season?
20:37 - If it was up to me,
20:38 it would be 16 with all conference champions.
20:40 That's clearly not what we're going to get.
20:44 That was actually, it's strange how in the last 10
20:47 or 15 years, how dramatically that's shifted.
20:50 I went back and read "Death to the BCS",
20:53 the 2010 book by Dan Wetzel and company.
20:55 Really interesting book.
20:56 They obviously, they hated the power conference
20:59 commissioners, they hated the BCS, all that stuff.
21:01 But it was really interesting to kind of jump back
21:03 in the time machine and remember what people were saying
21:06 in the late 2000s, when you had Boise State and Utah
21:09 and TCU and all these quote unquote mid-majors proving
21:13 that they could play at a top five level
21:14 with everybody else before Alabama had completely changed
21:18 what we consider dominance to be.
21:20 They proposed a 16 teamer with all conference champions
21:24 and like five, what was it, 11 conferences then.
21:27 So five at-larges.
21:29 That was not uncommon.
21:31 I think I wrote about that at Football Outsiders
21:33 around that same period.
21:34 Like we need to say, we need all the automatic bids
21:37 and whatnot.
21:37 And I still think that would be great for the sport
21:40 but it's clearly, the sentiment has changed so drastically
21:43 and pulled things so dramatically in a different direction
21:46 over these last 15 years.
21:47 And now you've got the Big Ten and SEC working together
21:51 which is not going to benefit the rest of the sport at all.
21:54 And now we might get 14 just so they can sneak a couple
21:58 of extra bids in there.
21:59 And just so there will be two buys.
22:01 And I wonder who will get those two buys
22:03 every single year as well.
22:05 So I kind of hate it.
22:06 I'm getting what I want.
22:07 This has been the last five years of college football
22:08 is I get most of the stuff I want.
22:10 NIL, get rid of divisions.
22:13 Let's expand the playoff, all these things.
22:15 And I hate it all because it never kind of unfolds
22:19 how I think it should because it always just unfolds
22:22 in favor of the richest teams and the richest conferences.
22:25 And that's exactly what we should be trying to work against
22:28 if we want an actual healthy sport.
22:29 So we'll see.
22:30 Like I have no problem with 16.
22:32 I just know that if any expansion we get
22:34 will be because it benefits the SEC at this point.
22:36 And that's not really what I want.
22:38 - Yeah, the SEC and Big Ten.
22:39 I mean, they're the big dogs in the room.
22:41 They're going to throw their weight around.
22:42 That's just how business works
22:43 whether other people like it or not.
22:45 It doesn't have to be fair.
22:46 It just got to be profitable.
22:47 - Well, it's definitely not fair
22:48 but it's certainly the way things are going.
22:51 - So it's funny, you referenced some of those years
22:53 and I was with the Rams at this point.
22:55 So it would have been between '07 to '10,
22:57 that four year period.
22:58 I remember an undefeated TCU
23:00 and Boise State playing in the Fiesta Bowl.
23:02 I think three versus five was that matchup.
23:05 And I think Boise State upset TCU.
23:07 I remember a year where Boise was top 10.
23:09 Louisville, who was not in the ACC at the time was top 10.
23:12 And I think TCU was top 10.
23:14 Like there was a time where the non power conference teams
23:18 so to speak were on the rise.
23:19 And it's like the power conference teams looked around
23:22 and said, "That ain't happening."
23:24 And it's been on the decline ever since.
23:26 Cincinnati was third in the Sugar Bowl one year
23:28 got absolutely destroyed by Tim Tebow in Florida that year.
23:31 Not a great example, but outside of Cincinnati
23:34 and Luke Fickle in the playoff a couple of years ago
23:36 against Bama.
23:37 And I don't know who would have done much better
23:39 against that Bama team in that five.
23:41 - I always point out Cincinnati did better in that playoff
23:43 than Michigan did against Georgia.
23:44 That's all I can say.
23:45 - That's what I'm saying.
23:46 The point margin was actually less than Georgia, Michigan
23:50 which was 34-3 in the Orange Bowl.
23:52 And people are like,
23:52 "That proves that the G5 teams don't belong in the playoff."
23:55 I'm like, "That doesn't prove jack crap.
23:57 You're just looking for a narrative
23:58 and you found a way to push that narrative."
24:00 Just my opinion.
24:01 All right, man, I appreciate you joining me.
24:03 This has been fun.
24:04 We got to do it again.
24:06 Ladies and gentlemen, as always, I want to give a shout out
24:08 and a thank you to our good friends
24:10 over at the Jacobson Seed Company,
24:12 your healthy hybrid advantage at jacobsonseed.com.
24:16 Thanks for joining me, Mr. Bill Connolly.
24:18 Let's do it again next time.
24:20 So I was just joined earlier
24:22 by ESPN's own two-time author, Bill Connolly.
24:24 We had quite the discussion about what an 18 playoff
24:29 would have looked like going back nearly 60 years to 1966.
24:34 And the college football landscape has changed so much.
24:39 Now, as of 19, like the '60s to the early '70s,
24:43 they would crown a national champ
24:45 before the bowl games were ever played.
24:47 There was really only four major bowl games for a long time,
24:50 all played on New Year's Day, and that was it.
24:52 Okay, then eventually they added the Fiesta Bowl
24:54 and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
24:56 And they went to 9,000 bowl games.
24:57 And I told people for years,
24:59 I said, "You're gonna dilute the bowl games
25:01 "and people aren't gonna care."
25:02 And people shouted me down.
25:03 They said, "More football is better."
25:05 Well, if you keep printing money,
25:07 eventually that money doesn't have the same value.
25:11 And then people said, "Hey, let's create the playoffs."
25:13 And that diluted bowl system just hasn't stood a chance.
25:16 But originally there was four major bowl games
25:18 on January 1st.
25:19 And a lot of times they would crown the national champ.
25:21 Like in 1970, they crowned Texas the national champ
25:24 before they played their major bowl game,
25:27 which was against Notre Dame.
25:28 And they got thrashed in the Cotton Bowl by Notre Dame.
25:30 Okay, other teams benefited, won national titles that year
25:33 and ended up working out all right.
25:35 Okay, a piece of the national title, I should say.
25:37 Okay, and then was it 1990, the bill talked about Virginia.
25:42 They were giving out bowl invitations in early November
25:46 with weeks left to play.
25:47 Virginia was number one in the country, top of the ACC,
25:50 top of, well, number one in the country,
25:52 top of all the rankings.
25:54 Got the invitation to the Sugar Bowl
25:55 and then had a rough November.
25:57 And as a result, they went and played in the Sugar Bowl
25:59 instead of Georgia Tech, who ended up undefeated,
26:00 split the national title.
26:01 Here's my point, college football, once again,
26:03 as I mentioned earlier, has evolved so much
26:05 from just a few bowl games.
26:07 From crowning national champs
26:09 and sending out bowl invitations
26:11 before, okay, the bowl games were ever played.
26:15 So, all right, now we've got conference champ tie-ins,
26:17 Big Ten, Pac-10 for years in the Rose Bowl,
26:19 the Big Eight to the Orange Bowl,
26:20 the Southwestern Conference to the Cotton Bowl.
26:22 You got the SEC to the Sugar Bowl.
26:24 You got the ACC champ that could just kind of float wherever.
26:26 And then when the Fiesta Bowl came around,
26:28 they basically said, you know what?
26:29 We're gonna take whoever the top two,
26:31 and the Big East, back when Big East had football as well,
26:34 okay, that champ could float as well
26:36 to whatever major bowl game was available.
26:37 And that's when the Fiesta Bowl said, you know what?
26:40 We got no conference champion tie-ins for years.
26:42 We're just gonna take the top two
26:43 highest ranked teams available.
26:44 And that worked well for them.
26:45 Then eventually, we were able to get,
26:48 and people just wanted one versus two,
26:49 one versus two for years.
26:51 And then we almost got it.
26:53 Okay, the Rose Bowl, it's kind of like Notre Dame.
26:55 They think they get to have their cake and eat it too.
26:57 So everyone agreed to let the conference champion
27:02 bowl tie-ins go so we could get one versus two,
27:05 except the Rose Bowl.
27:07 Okay, we had a few years in there
27:08 where the Rose Bowl said, uh-uh.
27:10 So we had the Orange Bowl, Nebraska,
27:11 Tennessee in '97 as an example, two versus three,
27:14 'cause everyone else agreed, the Sugar, the Orange,
27:16 the Cotton, everybody else agreed, said,
27:17 hey, we'll let one versus two play,
27:18 but the Rose Bowl said, not until '98.
27:21 We're gonna keep our Pac-10, Big Ten championship tie-in,
27:23 which is why Michigan played number eight,
27:25 Washington State that year,
27:26 instead of number two, Nebraska.
27:27 Finally, in 1998, we get one versus two.
27:30 That's what people had clamored for for so long.
27:33 There's people listening to this who weren't even alive.
27:36 They have no recollection of people
27:38 just wanting one versus two.
27:39 There are people listening to this who remember it,
27:41 but have forgotten it.
27:43 Okay, that was the big deal.
27:44 We finally got one versus two, BCS.
27:46 1998 was the first year we got that.
27:49 Tennessee upsets Florida State
27:51 to win the national championship,
27:52 with T. Martin not pitting Manning at quarterback.
27:55 Then, that wasn't enough, okay?
27:59 And I'm not saying it's a bad thing.
28:00 I'm just saying, people hated the computers
28:03 picking the teams.
28:04 Now, people hate people picking the teams, okay?
28:06 The committee.
28:07 We finally got one versus two,
28:09 but then, that wasn't working out.
28:12 And really, the only year that bothered me was '04 Auburn,
28:15 'cause they were undefeated, number three in the country,
28:16 won the SEC, won a major bowl game,
28:18 beat VodTech in the Sugar Bowl,
28:19 and didn't get to play for national title.
28:21 Outside of '04, the BCS really didn't bother me.
28:23 One versus two, the system of how we got one versus two,
28:27 I didn't like.
28:28 When you think about, what was it, 2000, I believe,
28:31 when number one Oklahoma played number two Florida State,
28:34 even though number three Miami had beat them,
28:36 because the computers said that Florida State was better,
28:40 even though the head-to-head, Miami won.
28:43 Now, for me, I always thought one versus two was okay.
28:46 You're gonna run into that once in a decade year, okay,
28:49 where an Auburn '04 undefeated team gets left out,
28:53 but it wasn't the one versus two system,
28:55 it was how we picked one versus two, in my opinion.
28:56 Then we get to the four-team playoff.
28:58 People had been clamoring for a four-team playoff for years.
29:00 Now, Bill was right.
29:02 The most common thing that people asked for for years
29:04 was eight, an eight-team playoff.
29:06 I heard that ever since I could remember.
29:09 I remember walking in my diapers
29:10 and people talking about a potential eight-team playoff.
29:13 I don't remember any of that,
29:14 as far as my diapers and walking,
29:15 but I do remember the eight-team playoff
29:17 being talked about ever since I could remember things.
29:20 But the four-team playoff comes around.
29:22 And again, is it the way we pick the four teams?
29:25 Is it the fact that you had
29:26 to win a conference championship, okay,
29:29 in order to be prioritized?
29:30 Which, there's an argument to be made for,
29:33 if you're not the best team in your conference,
29:34 how can you be the best team in America?
29:36 There's an argument for that, and I buy into that argument.
29:39 But also, the four best teams
29:41 aren't always in four different conferences,
29:43 which is why I always kind of like the idea
29:45 of the six-to-eight-team playoff.
29:48 Now, if we had four power conferences like we do right now,
29:51 it's really two power and two mid, and then everybody else,
29:54 the Big 10 SEC and then the Big 12,
29:55 what's left of the ACC.
29:57 For now, they're hanging on by a thread,
29:58 and then everybody else.
30:00 Okay, I would have liked six.
30:01 You take those four champs and you take two at large.
30:03 But in a perfect world,
30:05 'cause we have five power conferences at the time,
30:07 which were a lot more equal at the time,
30:09 I would have said the top five,
30:10 or the five conference champs,
30:12 I would have said the top group of five team
30:13 and two at large.
30:14 Eight would have been pretty simple.
30:16 Okay, but the four team wasn't working out,
30:18 just like the two team wasn't working out,
30:19 just like the bowl tie-ins wasn't working out,
30:21 just like giving bowl invitations
30:23 at the beginning of November,
30:24 and crowning national champs before,
30:26 like two, three weeks before the bowl games
30:28 were ever played didn't work out.
30:31 So of course, the one thing people have clamored for
30:33 for years, we finally get one versus two.
30:36 We finally get the top four teams.
30:39 The next logical step is either six or eight teams, right?
30:41 Nope, we're gonna jump to 12.
30:43 The logical thing that people have clamored for
30:45 for years is eight teams.
30:47 It's the one thing we're never gonna get,
30:49 'cause you bet your rear end, we ain't going backwards.
30:52 These conferences, these commissioners,
30:56 these TV rights and companies,
30:58 they're not taking money out of their pocket
31:00 and giving it back.
31:01 They're not going from 12 teams to eight, we know that.
31:04 So the one thing that probably should have happened
31:05 for decades is never gonna happen,
31:06 which is the 18 playoff.
31:07 But now we're going to the 12 team playoff for two years,
31:09 then a potential 14 team playoff.
31:12 Well, I say potential 'cause it's not set in stone yet,
31:14 but let's be real, it's happening.
31:15 Then we're eventually gonna go to 16.
31:17 And Bill, when I spoke with Bill, he's like,
31:20 "You know what, had we started an 18 playoff back in 1966,"
31:23 which is when he started his model,
31:25 and he basically went through every year
31:27 and crowned a national champion per his model.
31:29 Now he said it wasn't 100% accurate.
31:31 There's years where chaos happened
31:32 and maybe it was more chaos than what would have made sense,
31:34 but you never know.
31:36 These are 18 to 22 year old kids,
31:39 even though they're basically semi-pros now at this point.
31:44 But that's a topic for another day,
31:45 some good, some bad, and all that.
31:47 We're a vet, he goes, "Had we started this in '86,
31:49 "we'd probably be to a 24 team playoff
31:51 "or a 32 team playoff by now.
31:53 "Who knows, maybe we'd be to the 64
31:55 "like the NCAA tournament."
31:56 Well, actually that's 68.
31:57 So here's the interesting thing.
32:01 Whether you like what's going on in college football,
32:03 there's a lot to talk about.
32:05 Whether you don't like it, there's a lot to talk about.
32:07 There is so much to talk about in college football.
32:10 For me, okay, the 14 team playoff
32:15 is probably going to happen.
32:18 The next two years, it's 12 team playoff.
32:19 Three years from now, we're gonna have a 14 team playoff.
32:21 Now I have been told that the SEC and Big 10
32:24 automatically get in the one and two seat
32:26 every year in that 14 team playoff
32:27 starting three years from now.
32:28 The automatic first round buy has been flat out rejected
32:31 by the Big 12 and ACC.
32:33 And I find that interesting
32:37 because I guarantee part of the reason
32:38 they wanted to go to 14 teams to begin with
32:40 was the Big 10 and SEC,
32:42 they're gonna get three automatic bids every year
32:44 no matter what.
32:46 They might try to get four, but they're gonna get three.
32:49 So when you do that with 12 teams,
32:50 it doesn't leave a whole lot of other spots
32:52 once you add in the Big 12 champ and the ACC champ
32:54 while that conference still exists.
32:55 And then you add in the top group of five team.
32:57 And then if Notre Dame comes in as an at-large,
32:59 this doesn't leave a whole lot of spots.
33:01 So the Big 10 and SEC, I guarantee you said,
33:02 "You know what, we'll go to 14
33:04 "and we'll give the Big 12 and the ACC
33:05 "two automatic spots instead of just one."
33:08 And that was their bone to the Big 12 and the ACC
33:09 that they were throwing them.
33:11 And in return, they said, "We want the top two seeds
33:13 "every year, one and two, we want the first round buy."
33:15 The Big 12 and ACC have flat out rejected it,
33:17 which, man, that's a ballsy move
33:19 'cause they don't have the leverage in this
33:21 because here's what the Big 10 and the SEC can do.
33:24 They can say, and I'm gonna steal this from Josh Pate.
33:27 If you've ever listened to Josh Pate,
33:28 he has thrown this out there several times
33:30 and it makes so much sense
33:31 because the Big 10 and SEC
33:33 don't have a whole lot of motivation
33:35 to really try to work with the Big 12 and ACC.
33:37 The Big 12, maybe a little bit
33:40 'cause the ACC probably ain't gonna exist
33:43 in a couple of years.
33:44 FSU, they're gonna be gone.
33:46 You think Miami's staying?
33:47 You think Clemson's staying?
33:48 You think the top brand in that league,
33:50 which is actually North Carolina, is staying?
33:52 You think Virginia, which is gonna bring
33:53 a bunch of eyeballs, is gonna stay?
33:55 Uh-uh.
33:56 The ACC, oh, by the way,
34:00 yeah, their deal goes on for quite a few more years
34:02 with ESPN, but ESPN in two years,
34:04 they can pull the plug on that deal.
34:06 So ESPN, who has the rights
34:08 to so many of these power conferences
34:11 and is motivated to try to bring more eyeballs
34:13 to the SEC and the Big 10,
34:14 has the power to pull the TV plug deal
34:19 on their deal with the ACC in a couple of years.
34:23 The ACC has even less power than most people realize
34:26 because if they do that, the ACC is absolutely done.
34:30 Those teams that I just mentioned
34:31 from the ACC, Florida State, Miami,
34:33 North Carolina, Virginia, et cetera,
34:34 they ain't staying, they're gone.
34:36 So that's why I say the SEC and Big 10 really have,
34:41 you think they mentioned that,
34:43 talked about that with the ESPN execs?
34:45 You think it ain't been brought up?
34:46 They really have no motivation to care about the ACC.
34:49 The Big 12, maybe, because the Big 12,
34:51 while not as powerful, okay,
34:54 don't have as many big brands as the SEC and Big 10,
34:57 is probably at least still gonna be around
34:59 and probably gonna be large
35:00 'cause they might keep expanding.
35:02 They might get upwards of 20 teams, maybe.
35:06 So at least they have a little bit of incentive
35:07 to try to work with the Big 12, but not a ton,
35:09 because here's the deal,
35:10 if the ACC is not around in two years,
35:12 Miami, Florida State, Clemson, North Carolina,
35:13 here's what's interesting about North Carolina,
35:15 because when I heard that NC State might be tied
35:19 to North Carolina's future, that didn't make any sense to me.
35:23 I was like, what?
35:24 Why?
35:25 Here's why.
35:26 North Carolina, anything they do,
35:28 they have to get approved by the board.
35:29 Here's the deal.
35:31 There is a lot of NC State people on that board.
35:33 So if those NC State people on the board
35:35 wanna say no to North Carolina,
35:37 there's nothing they can do about it,
35:38 which means wherever North Carolina goes,
35:41 they probably gotta bring a little brother, NC State, too,
35:44 which is why North Carolina and NC State
35:47 are probably tied at the hip wherever they go.
35:49 Okay, now you look at Virginia,
35:51 they're gonna bring a lot of eyeballs.
35:53 People keep bringing up Virginia Tech.
35:54 I don't know why.
35:55 Virginia Tech, no disrespect, much love.
35:57 One of my favorite teams growing up, Frank Beamer.
36:00 Love that dude.
36:01 Beamer ball, special teams, all that stuff.
36:03 They were got off before he got there.
36:05 And frankly, they weren't very good
36:06 for his first six seasons there,
36:08 but they had eight or more wins, okay?
36:12 I think it was 15 out of his last 17 years there,
36:16 and double digit wins almost 66 to 70% of the time
36:20 while he was there.
36:21 But since he's left, they haven't been the same.
36:23 And I don't know that they're really good
36:24 in any other sport.
36:25 So I've never really understood why Virginia Tech
36:27 would come along in this conversation.
36:28 I've always thought, no disrespect,
36:29 I'll do respect to them, man.
36:31 Again, they were one of my favorite teams growing up
36:33 'cause I saw them as kind of the outsider team
36:36 that never got the respect that they should.
36:38 All right, but why not a team like Pittsburgh?
36:41 Why would you not bring a team like Pittsburgh?
36:42 You know, and I've kind of poked at Georgia Tech
36:44 in the past just 'cause Georgia's in the same state,
36:46 but they have that Atlanta TV market, Georgia Tech does.
36:50 You know, Boston College is never brought up
36:51 and they're probably never going to be,
36:52 but at least they'd have that Boston TV market
36:54 if you did bring them.
36:55 You know, it's still interesting to me
36:57 'cause Duke's a lot better in football
36:59 than they used to be and they're still Duke in basketball
37:01 while they're never brought up in these conversations.
37:04 Poor Wake Forest.
37:05 But it's interesting to me
37:07 'cause it's kind of a given
37:08 that Miami, Florida State, Clemson, North Carolina,
37:10 Virginia are gonna do whatever they're gonna do
37:12 and they're probably gonna do it together.
37:14 NC State's probably tied to North Carolina.
37:16 Virginia Tech consistently brought up as that seventh school.
37:19 Personally, I'd go with Pittsburgh if it was me.
37:24 And I know they're in the same state as Penn State,
37:25 but I'm just saying, I'm not on that board.
37:28 I ain't tied to nobody.
37:29 These are just my thoughts.
37:30 My point is simply this.
37:33 The Big 12's probably gonna expand.
37:35 The SEC and Big 10 probably ain't done.
37:38 And it's probably due to what's gonna happen
37:40 to the ACC in the near future.
37:41 So here's the deal.
37:43 Let's say a lot of these schools go to the Big 10
37:46 and the SEC and let's just say for kicks and grins,
37:49 the Big 10 and the SEC end up with,
37:53 let's just say 24 teams.
37:55 Okay, right now I believe the SEC is 16.
37:58 I believe the Big 10 is 18.
38:00 And who knows?
38:02 Maybe the Big 10 and SEC poach some Big 12 teams.
38:04 Doesn't seem likely or they'd already be over there,
38:07 but you never know.
38:08 Let's just say each conference has 24 teams.
38:11 They pull away.
38:13 Oh, and I forgot where I was going
38:14 with the whole Josh Pate thing.
38:15 And here's where I was going with the lack of motivation
38:17 with the Big 10 and SEC to actually figure something out
38:19 with the ACC especially, but the Big 12 and the ACC,
38:22 because they can pull away and have their own championship.
38:25 Now, is that better for college football?
38:27 Absolutely not.
38:28 You're gonna alienate so many fan bases.
38:30 You're gonna make so many people mad.
38:32 Remember how much bigger boxing used to be?
38:36 There's no one person in charge of boxing.
38:38 And look where it's at now compared to UFC.
38:41 Even WWE is much bigger, despite all their recent drama.
38:45 I'm not saying that's gonna happen to college football.
38:50 What I'm saying is the people in charge
38:51 don't care about the fans, do not care about the players.
38:53 So don't give me that crap player safety BS.
38:57 They don't care about what's best for the game.
38:58 There's no president, college football president.
39:01 There's no overarching body that's in charge
39:03 that cares about the health of college football.
39:06 The people that are in charge
39:07 are in charge of their independent conferences
39:08 and they're in charge and all they care about
39:10 is making money, that's it.
39:12 So if the Big 10 and SEC pull away and do their own thing,
39:17 it's not the best thing for college football.
39:19 It's gonna make a lot of people mad.
39:19 You're gonna alienate a whole lot of fans
39:21 from a whole lot of teams across the country.
39:24 I don't know that they care
39:25 because they're just gonna make that much more money.
39:27 Let's say the SEC and Big 10
39:29 somehow get to 24 teams a piece
39:30 because here's what could potentially happen.
39:34 They could go to four divisions of six teams.
39:36 Sound familiar?
39:37 AFC, NFC, Big 10, NFL, I'm sorry.
39:39 AFC, NFC, and the NFL, easy for me to say.
39:43 And they could have four divisions.
39:45 They could have their own SEC championship tournament,
39:49 Big 10 championship tournament,
39:50 a la AFC, NFC, and then meet
39:52 in the College Football National Championship,
39:54 kind of like the Super Bowl.
39:55 AFC, NFC champs meet,
39:56 but it'd be the SEC champ, Big 10 champ, potentially.
39:59 I just know things aren't going great
40:00 and deadlines are coming up soon
40:02 and I hope they work everything out
40:03 for the greater good of college football.
40:04 If you're a Nebraska fan, at least we know we're in.
40:07 I don't wanna say that we don't care, but we're in.
40:10 So we're good.
40:11 So let's say the SEC and Big 10
40:16 don't work it out with the Big 12 ACC.
40:18 I'm going that route 'cause it's a lot more dramatic,
40:21 a lot more to talk about, and it is actually possible.
40:23 Because Josh Pate has said,
40:25 "The Big 10 has thrown some things out there
40:27 and if it doesn't work out,"
40:28 and here's where I was going earlier with what he said,
40:29 "They can say, 'We tried.'
40:31 They're not all that motivated to figure it out,
40:33 but they can at least look people in the eye and say,
40:34 'Well, we tried.
40:35 We gave it the old college try,'" pun intended,
40:37 "and if it doesn't work out, we're gonna go do this."
40:40 So let's say they both got 24 teams in each conference,
40:45 48 teams, two 24-team power conferences.
40:47 AFC, NFC is what it's become.
40:48 The champions of each conference, Big 10, SEC,
40:50 meet in the College Football National Championship,
40:52 which is basically the Super Bowl.
40:55 Four divisions, six teams in each division.
40:57 You take the four division champs
40:58 and the two highest rated teams.
40:59 You got six teams in the Big 10 playoff.
41:01 You got six teams in the SEC playoff.
41:04 That was the exact NFL model until about five years ago
41:09 when they went to seven teams in the NFC,
41:11 seven teams in the AFC,
41:13 and then they played off to the Super Bowl.
41:14 There was 12 teams.
41:16 There was four division champs in the AFC,
41:17 four in the NFC, and then there was the wildcard teams.
41:20 That's what it could be for the Big 10 and SEC.
41:24 And they don't care whether that's the best
41:26 for college football or not,
41:27 because it is the best for their pocketbooks,
41:29 and they got the power to do it.
41:31 And they can look people in the eye right now
41:33 and say, "We tried," if it doesn't work out.
41:34 And their motivation level's not super high
41:37 to figure it out with the Big 12 or the ACC at all.
41:40 Their motivation level, because they've got the power,
41:43 they got the ability, they got the brands to do it,
41:45 and college football, make as much money as possible.
41:49 I'm not saying it's gonna happen.
41:52 I'm not saying we're gonna have Big 10 and SEC
41:55 every year playing for the championship automatically
41:57 with the Big 12 left out, the ACC defunct,
42:00 which I do think that will happen,
42:02 and all the G5 teams probably doing
42:03 their own national championship tournament,
42:05 which a lot of people want.
42:07 I don't.
42:08 I like the Cinderella story.
42:09 I just like having the chance for something to happen.
42:13 When Cincinnati lost to Alabama a few years ago
42:16 in the college football playoff,
42:18 their margin of loss to Alabama was actually less
42:21 than number two Michigan's margin of loss
42:24 was in the Orange Bowl to number three Georgia that year.
42:27 Michigan lost by 31 points.
42:29 Nobody looked at Michigan that year and said,
42:31 "You didn't belong."
42:32 Cincinnati's margin of loss was less to Alabama,
42:35 higher rated team, I might add,
42:37 but everybody's like, "Oh, they don't belong in."
42:40 There's gonna be years where a G5,
42:42 the best team gets destroyed.
42:43 There's gonna be years where that happens
42:45 with a conference power conference champ
42:47 or an at-large or wildcard team,
42:48 whatever you wanna call them.
42:50 But just a chance for a Cinderella story
42:53 just is always intriguing to me.
42:55 The bowl games that I watch every year,
42:56 I make sure to watch no matter what.
42:58 First of all, when Nebraska gets back to a bowl game,
43:01 number two, the Rhodes Bowl,
43:04 number three and four are the college football playoff games.
43:07 There's always two right now.
43:08 There's gonna be more in the future.
43:09 National championship game.
43:10 The other game is the New Year's Six Bowl game,
43:14 which has the highest ranked G5 team.
43:17 I watched Tulane upset USC a few years ago.
43:19 I've watched the Boise State, Oklahoma game.
43:21 I watched Utah upset Alabama in '06, okay,
43:24 in the Sugar Bowl.
43:25 I watched Utah destroy,
43:26 I think it was Big East champ, Pittsburgh.
43:28 And this is way back in the day, I get that.
43:30 But I love these upsets and they happen.
43:31 And then you got the Hawaii year
43:33 where they get obliterated by Georgia,
43:34 but that happens anyways.
43:35 At least there's just that potential
43:37 for the Cinderella story that excites me.
43:40 I'm not sitting here talking doom and gloom
43:42 for college football.
43:43 I actually think it's riveting these changes
43:46 and following what's happening
43:47 and seeing how it progresses.
43:49 There's pluses and minuses.
43:50 This is just what I'm hearing.
43:53 This is just what I'm seeing.
43:55 In a perfect world, based on the situation we have now,
43:59 the Big 12, the ACC stays together in a perfect world,
44:02 the Big 10, the SEC, and they work,
44:04 come together and they work it out.
44:06 And they somehow find a way, in my opinion,
44:07 to include at least one G5 team,
44:09 which I think they will.
44:10 And that's what happens going forward,
44:12 in a perfect world.
44:13 That'd be my preference.
44:15 I fear the ACC will be gone.
44:17 I fear the Big 10 and SEC are gonna say,
44:19 "We tried, it didn't work.
44:21 "You're bad, not ours.
44:23 "We're gonna go do our own thing."
44:25 And then we could end up with basically
44:27 the college football version of the NFL.
44:29 And I'll be honest with you, that doesn't uber excite me.
44:31 But these are all things that are on the table
44:32 and there's a lot of deadlines coming up
44:35 in the very near future where things gotta be figured out.
44:37 The reason I've talked about it so much recently
44:39 on the Big 10 show, a 937, the ticket,
44:42 is because you're gonna be hearing a lot more
44:45 about these headlines and decisions
44:47 and what they reach and don't reach here
44:48 in the next very near future.
44:51 All right, ladies and gentlemen,
44:52 again, I wanna give a shout out
44:53 and a thank you to the Jacobson Seed Company.
44:56 Check them out at jacobsonseed.com.
44:58 They are your healthy hybrid advantage.
44:59 Farmers, they will take care of all your seed needs.
45:02 And I hope you enjoyed this fine program today.
45:04 If you're interested in sponsoring as well,
45:06 you can always send a message to me on Twitter, on Facebook.
45:09 You can hit up 93.7, the ticket,
45:11 or the Believe Podcast Network as well.
45:13 All right, ladies and gentlemen,
45:14 this has been the Big 10 Show.
45:15 Hope you have a great day, a glorious week.
45:17 And if it's spring break, be safe,
45:20 but have a hell of a lot of fun.
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