8-9-23 After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 4

Hey, Rob Bradford here. I have set out on a mission with my good friends at FanDuel to prove what I have known for some time. Baseball isn't boring. Now I have a daily podcast to prove it with some of the most notable people in the baseball world, screaming baseball isn't boring for the mountaintops, or at least agreeing to come on our show. Players, managers, GMs, and yes, even the commissioner of baseball, Rob Manfred. It has been a constant wave of baseball to both powerful voices. So join the revolution, subscribe and soak in baseball isn't boring. Listen on your Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You'll be glad you did. I've already gone back and started answering your questions, asking me anything. Some of the questions that we didn't get to, some of them are goofy, but you know, I try. For instance, Roger wants to know if we're doing survivor football this year.

We're doing survivor Island, if that's what you're referring to. Yes, Juan wants to know my favorite number. 11. No, that was my favorite number when I played. My favorite number is actually 33. You can figure it out.

There's many reasons why 33 is my favorite number. I do love some of the brand new questions we got that we've never gotten before. I definitely have new listeners, or at least new visitors to our Facebook and Twitter. Because some of these questions I would think you would have the answers to if you are a regular listener, but we love it when we have new listeners, new fans of our pages. I tell you, give us a couple weeks and we will win you over. You'll be hooked. Whether it's because you love me or hate me, you won't be able to stop listening.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. I mentioned this earlier in the show. I'll bring it up again though. Next week, because it's fairly typical of the summer, little out of my regular routine. So I'm taking off Sunday night. I will not be here Sunday night into Monday morning because I'm going to a concert Sunday night and it's going to be late.

And who knows what time I'll get home with traffic and all that jazz, get out of Newark and get back home to my house in New Jersey and then just thought it would be a good idea to take the night off. So that's one night that I will not be here on After Hours. But then I just found out actually, well I was requested.

I wouldn't say I found out. I was requested to host a different show here on the network come next Friday. So instead of hosting our Thursday night show, I actually have to work later on a Friday. It kind of stinks because usually I start my weekends on Friday morning at 6am Eastern Time. Home, I got the weekend ahead of me or at least until Sunday afternoon, right?

But this is going to be a different weekend because I will have to work until Friday evening. Jay, I don't know how I feel about this. It's different. It's different.

It is different. I'm not even sure I know what time the show airs. So I'm going to be filling in for Maggie and Perloff. They're on summer vacation, at least part of next week. Does the show air at 4 o'clock Eastern, 1 o'clock Pacific? I believe it's 3 o'clock Eastern. 3 o'clock Eastern to 6 o'clock Pacific? Correct.

Wait, I'm sorry. 3 to 6 Eastern, noon to 3 Pacific? Right, right. Are you sure?

I'm pretty positive, yeah. Okay, so 3 to 6 Eastern Time, which means I will then have to catch a train home because I won't be driving that day. Rush hour.

Not just rush hour, but a Friday, which means that you have the influx of people spending the weekend in New York. So I won't probably get home until 7 o'clock our time. And then my weekend begins, but it's not even 48 hours, right? Because we'll have to be ready to come back to work on Sunday evening. Oh man, I don't know how I feel about that. You're getting your weekend gypped. I am.

My weekend's getting clipped in half, really. That's going to be tough. That's a sacrifice. I'm taking one for the team. So yeah, I don't think the show is on CBS Sports Network anymore.

Remember the last time I filled in for Maggie and Perloff, the show was airing still on TV. But apparently it does air live on YouTube. So here's the question. Should I tell my significant other's family, he and his family, that they can watch on YouTube or should I not do that? Well, they found your videos and our videos of our channel.

So it seems like they know how to peruse YouTube and can find it if they want to. But they won't know. They would have no idea because they know right now that I host a show that's late night and early morning. So unless I would inform them, they would have no idea that the show would actually be airing live on a Friday afternoon.

Is there a way you could like slip it in there and just be like, oh hey, by the way, I'll be on Friday. No, no, that's not my question. If I want to tell them, I'll just tell them. My question is should I tell them? Or do you think I'm too much of a spaz and they might decide they don't want me to be part of the family? I think they'd love to watch it.

Hmm. I don't know how I feel about that. You don't think they'd like to watch it? I think they'd like to see it.

I mean, Jay, you're missing the point entirely. It's not that they don't want to. It's that I'm not sure I want them to. I see. Gosh, what's going on in there?

Are we just on the, like, we're on ships passing in the night? Well, I'm just thinking, like, from your point, like, do you want them to see it? Like, I'm sure they would want to see it. No, no, I just told you they would want to see it. No, I'm sure they would.

So in turn, like, I'm just thinking, like, if they want to see it, then yeah, show it to them. Hmm. I don't know about that. I could be a bit of a spaz. No, I don't think so. Oh, you're such a liar.

You know I could be a bit of a spaz. Anyway, we'll see whether or not Bob's family figures it out. Actually, Bob generally tends to spy on me by listening to the show, so he's probably going to find out and tell the family. We'll see.

We'll see how long it takes me to bring it up. So yeah, next Friday, I'll be doing a show. It probably behooves me to figure out what time the show airs, so I'm not an hour later or too early. You're saying I'm following Jim Rome here on CBS 4 Radio? That's right.

Alright, so next Friday, following Jim Rome, filling in for Maggie and Perloff. I don't do it often because I'm pretty happy doing the overnight show, doing after hours. But every now and then, it's good for a broadcaster to get out of his or her comfort zone. In this case, different audience, different producer. Not that I want to replace producer J.

Don't take it like that. It's just good for a broadcaster to get stretched and find a different challenge every now and then. So yeah, it keeps my skills sharpened and keeps me on my toes. I don't think we get too comfortable here on the show, but obviously we have a routine.

We have a format that we stick to, a kind of pattern that we stick to, and so it'll be good for me to try something new every once in a while. But I'm not excited about the fact that my weekend will not start until 7.30, 8 o'clock on a Friday evening. No, that's lame. Ooh, that hurts. Also, Penny, this does not go well with her insulin schedule because I'm going to have to ask the neighbors for favors. All right. All right. So what time are you going to...

The date is August 18th, in case you're wondering. How long are you going to give yourself to get into the city, to get downtown? Well, I'm going to take the train, so I usually show up for the shows. I don't know if on YouTube they do makeup or not, because the last time I filled in for Maggie and Perloff, I had to get makeup done because it was on CBS Sports Network. Do they do makeup for YouTube? I don't know. Maybe unless Samtor is going to, like, put some stuff on you. I don't know. Michael Samtor is not touching my face.

And just so people know, Michael Samtor is the regular producer for Maggie and Perloff. Huh. I'm thinking probably not high-def makeup for a YouTube broadcast. But I could be wrong.

Let's hope I don't have these same contact problems, because they are driving me crazy. So then probably would show up two hours before the show. That's generally the case.

That's a good time. All right. Okay. I don't, yeah, maybe I'll put it out there on social at some point, but we'll see.

We'll see whether or not Bob's family figures it out. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. You can find me on Twitter, A Law Radio, and also on our Facebook page. I discovered a story, you may have heard it by now in the updates, that caused me to giggle driving into work. I seriously am incredulous about this. According to Washington Commanders head coach Ron Rivera, some of the commanders are complaining about their new offensive coordinator. That's Eric Bienemy, by the way. After what was it, a decade in Kansas City with a couple of Super Bowl rings working under Andy Reid, he decided that he needed to branch out. His interview with roughly half the teams in the NFL when they've had coaching jobs available, but still has not been able to land a head coaching gig, and so he took the offer from Ron Rivera and the commanders to join them as assistant head coach and offensive coordinator. But now Ron Rivera admits that some of his players are coming to him and they're a little concerned about Eric Bienemy. I had a number of guys come to me and I said, just go talk to them.

I said, understand what he's trying to get across to you. I think as they go and they talk and they listen to him, it's been enlightening for a lot of these guys. Again, you get a different kind of player from the players back in the past, especially in light of how things are coming out of college football. So a lot of these young guys, they do struggle with certain things.

What certain things would those be? He actually says, he really does make the point, it's subtle, but he makes the point that players are not like they used to be. In other words, they can be a bit softer. And then he points out that a lot of young guys coming out of college didn't have the same intensity. They had a different coaching style.

How is that Eric Bienemy's fault? It's the NFL. It's the NFL.

You now play football for a living. If you cannot handle a coach who's intense and yells at practice, how are you going to make it through an entire season? Do you think on the sidelines when tempers are flaring, when emotions are running high, nobody's yelling? This blows me away. Who cares if he yells?

Just do your job. Who cares if he yells? And that's the story. According to Eric Bienemy as well as Ron Rivera, it's his intensity that is causing concern. And Rivera even said, because Bienemy can ride his players. And even after he was hired, I guess, so this goes back to even before practices start, there was some anxiety over whether or not Bienemy's tough, hard-nosed approach would be too much, would be too much to handle.

Oh, my gosh. I can't get over this. First of all, I wouldn't be caught dead complaining about a coach and how intense he or she is. I got yelled at by coaches. I mean, I had a coach make me cry once.

Whatever, who cares? Suck it up, really. That's not what the coach said to me, but that's ultimately what I feel I had to do. And in the case of Eric Bienemy with his coaching style, he's not going to apologize for it, but there's a reason for it too.

I'm always going to be loud and I'm always going to be vocal. I'm always going to demand from our leaders, but sometimes they may not like it. And I'm perfectly fine with that because that's my job. Because if I ain't doing my job, my ass gets fired. It's my job and my responsibility to make sure that I'm getting our guys to do what I expect them to do. If I'm not getting the results, it's my ass that gets fired.

That's a good point. So players have complained or gone to Ron Rivera to let him know they're concerned by Bienemy's intensity and the fact that he rides them a little bit. I just can't get over this. If you can't deal with it now in practice, when you don't have to wear pads every day, when there's not actual tackling going on most of the time, I mean, part of the new CBA has watered down the preseason and training camps even more. And so here's a coach yelling about, I don't know, whatever, needing to finish.

I saw a story about how he yells finish at the end of every drill and how he has very high standards. If you can't handle it now, how are you going to make it through another season? How are you going to make it through when there's pressure and intensity just by virtue of being in one of the toughest divisions of football?

Remember last year the NFC Beast had three teams make the playoffs. If you can't toughen up in practice and respond to a coach who's louder, yells, rides you, has higher expectations, because that's what it means to me. Eric Bienemy has high expectations. He expects you to live up to a certain standard. And you know why coaches have those standards?

Because they believe in you. And that's what he's saying. Yeah, sure, I am loud. I am intense. I'm not going to change my style, but... Eric Bienemy is who he is, okay? Eric Bienemy knows how to adapt and adjust. Eric Bienemy is a tough, hard-nosed coach.

But also understand I'm going to be the biggest and harshest critic, but I'm also the number one fan because I got their back and I'm going to support them at all times. Us as a coach, I kind of have to assimilate and get a feel for everybody. Eric has an approach and it's the way he does things and he's not going to change because he believes in it. Having been a head coach, I think Jack has a tendency to try and figure guys out a little bit more as opposed to, hey, this is it, this is the way it's going to be, that type of stuff, where Eric hasn't had that experience yet. When they came to you, it was just they felt like Eric was riding them too hard? They just were a little concerned. A little concerned. Again, it's practice.

Who cares? Oh, by the way, Ron mentions Jack Del Rio, who is the defensive coordinator, who's been a head coach before and maybe takes a more measured approach before he starts to deal with, or I want to say he starts to deal with players, takes a measured approach to kind of figuring out which coaching style works for each player. And that's great.

Fine, do that. But there is such a thing as tough love and maybe a balance, too. Ron Rivera is a little more laid back. Jack Del Rio maybe takes a more measured approach. So Eric Bienem is tough, and he's intense, and he rides you.

Again, I think it has to do with expectations and believing that you can be better than what you are, believing that there's more to get out of you. But also, who cares? What, are your feelings hurt?

Come on, it's just yelling at football practice. What would you like him to do? Write you a personal note? Send you a postcard? Say, please, would you finish on this drill? Hey, I really believe in you. I know you can do it. Could you possibly give me a little more effort?

I'm going to need to see a little more from you. Never raise your voice ever? Soft. Again, this is the NFL. It's the NFL. If you can't handle some yelling in practice, I'm not sure you're long for the league.

And I'm not saying it's necessary, right? It just happens to be Eric Bienem's style. He's intense, he's passionate, he has high expectations. But if you are a player and you don't understand that that's just who he is and how he gets the best out of you, especially when you hear guys like Tyreek Hill stumping for him, Patrick Mahomes, and these are World Series, these are Super Bowl champions who will attest to Eric Bienem and his coaching style and who have been saying he should be a head coach in the league for years now. The proof is there, the proof is in the pudding. What, do you think he toned it down for the Kansas City Chiefs the last 10 years?

No! You can say all you want about how it's Andy Reid's system and Andy Reid calls the plays, but Eric Bienem was in on it. That toughness, that intensity, that riding of players, that's led to one of the best offenses that we've ever seen in the NFL.

Five consecutive AFC championship games hosted in Kansas City, three Super Bowl appearances, two rings, a two-time MVP, a quarterback. Bienem was part of that. It's not like he was just some decoration on the wall. No, he was part of that.

These offenses that Kansas City has put on the field, incredible. Bienem and his style and his coaching, definitely part of the reason why they had so much success over the last five years. Andy Reid trusted him. The players trusted him. And yeah, remember, who was it? Was it Shady McCoy, who after he left there was complaining about Bienem? Right, and that does suck. I mean, sometimes you have players that leave the Patriots who complain about Bill Belichick.

I get it. Coaching styles can rub some athletes the wrong way, but the track record is one of success and winning. And how many AFC West titles in a row? Seven, eight now?

I guess it's seven going back to Super Bowl 50. He has high expectations because he believes in you. He has high expectations because he believes that you can be better than what you're showing.

So what if he yells? Who cares? I'm telling you, this is summertime.

It's practice. If you can't deal with it now, maybe the NFL shouldn't be your thing. On Twitter, ALawRadio, maybe pro sports isn't your thing.

We're world champs! Oh, but it's okay to yell after you score a touchdown, right? Okay to yell after a big run. Okay to yell after a huge victory, but not okay to yell in practice. Oh, stop it. I can't help but I giggled at this whole thing.

Just like Patrick Holmes. Alright, on Twitter, ALawRadio, also on our Facebook page. It's good to have you with us on our Hump Show. After Hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio. You are listening to the After Hours Podcast.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. We delivered a eulogy on Team USA at the Women's World Cup earlier in the show. We're able to ask our favorite former pro goalie, Jesse Bradley. He joined us from San Francisco, and he's going to be playing for us at the women's World Cup. He's going to be playing for us at the women's World Cup. He's going to be playing for us at the women's World Cup.

Former pro goalie, Jesse Bradley, joined us from Seattle. So we talked about Team USA. He had some really interesting thoughts about what was missing from the American's World Cup campaign that ended in the round of 16 earlier than it ever has before and also why they struggled so badly to come up with offense. Acknowledging that the game against Sweden was one dominated by the U.S. in many ways, but why then?

Why did it go down to penalty kicks and why is Team USA already out? So I would say it's a really great insight from Jesse. It's part of our podcast. You can catch that link and the link to every podcast right as the show is done every weekday morning. We put it up on our show Twitter, After Hours, CBS, as well as on our Facebook page.

And then later in the day, I post the links to the guests specifically. But since the women are done and Messi is still dominating, we instead want to let you hear a little bit about what Messi means to the MLS and to the United States right now. And Jesse, again, as a former pro soccer player himself, he's eating it up. He loves seeing what Messi is doing with Miami. Still Robert Taylor floats it towards Josef Martinez, settles, Messi!

It continues to go perfectly to enter Miami script. Another brace for little Messi. Right now, you've got so much attention in the United States on MLS because of Messi. Messi has landed.

Oh my goodness. And also, I feel like he's toying with some of the defenders in MLS. But what's it been like to watch this incredible star, Jesse, in our own league? Yes, he picked a great time to come because there's no NBA.

There's no NFL started yet. And then he joins in Miami. I mean, you've got to give some props to Beckham. And it's a reminder, you know, this is about trust, relationships, and vision. Beckham had a bold vision, bringing Messi. And it just didn't happen.

Like, he just didn't pick up the phone. And it was like two days later, Messi's here. It was a vision.

It was intentional. There's trust. There's relationship. That's the core of all great teams.

And Messi comes in. And like you say, you know, like Mohamed Ali used to toy with some people in the ring, having some fun with them. Seriously?

It feels like I remember watching the Harlem Globetrotters. And it was like, all right, are the Washington Generals going to win this? No, there's no chance. And you knew it was coming. You didn't know how. But these scripts, Messi is winning these games. And I know it's not scripted. I know there's no bribes.

It's the real deal. Like, he's going against professionals. But when you have someone at that level, I mean, this Messi, you know, he might be an MLS All-Star if he keeps this going. It's the only award he doesn't have yet.

You know, after the World Cup, he just really wanted that MLS All-Star. No, I'm tongue in cheek here. But, you know, when someone's dedicated, I remember going to the symphony in Dallas. And I'm not someone who usually goes to symphony. But when I went there, I was in awe because of the dedication and the excellence and the skill. And it was just beauty, all those instruments playing together and what they could do with it. And it's like a life that's been devoted. And you just appreciate it.

I don't know that much about music, but I couldn't miss what was going on. So, you don't have to be a soccer fan to watch these clips and what Messi's doing. And the shots and the passes, the dribbling, the savvy, the awareness. Like, he's hitting these free kicks that are just going barely over. There's a wall of, like, seven people. And they're going just over the wall. And then they travel up to the corner in the top bin of the goal. And there's even a guy running backwards trying to hit it. And it's just going right over his head, the goal he's flying across. He can't get it.

And it's just pinpoint accuracy. So, Messi right now is having fun. When you change the culture, when you bring in some skill and you start winning, this is the beautiful thing about sports. Miami right now, the city is lit.

And you got LeBron flying in. You know, so you got our greatest athletes traveling across country just to see him get a hug from Messi. We have the World Cup coming in three years to America. It's coming right here in Seattle.

Looking forward to it. But this is all part of the momentum. And when you have someone like Messi, I was saying this about the women, it awakens the dreams and the potential of the kids. And now what they see Messi do, they start to practice in their backyard.

And for any athlete, you improve at your normal practice, but greatness comes in your backyard or in your garage. And it's when you get that passion for the game, and you don't know what else to do, but to go out there and just practice those moves and pretend like, you know, you're Messi on the free kick and watch what'll happen just from Messi coming here and playing. You know, when Pele came to New York, it moves soccer so far forward for the for our nation and Messi stirring some of those dreams for kids right now. It's it's fun to watch.

And if you're not into soccer, just go to YouTube, type in Messi, Miami, and then just watch some of these highlights right now. And it's it's inspiring. And it just gives a lift to everybody. That's what sports can do, though. It just changes even the tone in a city. There's just something that happens through sport where people come together.

I remember back in the Twin Cities where I grew up when the Twins won a World Series. It was just like everyone was best friends. And the mood just changed for about four years there. It felt like in the summer.

So it's a party in Miami and everyone should be enjoying it. Jesse Bradley from Seattle, former pro soccer goalie. Great stuff about the U.S. women's national team and why they failed their quest to three peed. Some good insight that I hadn't heard anywhere else, but also really fired up about Messi and his impact. And honestly, he's the hottest ticket in sports right now. The NFL is still a few weeks away.

Messi is where it's at. Jeremy's like, let's go. So all of our guests are podcasted separately. Again, the podcast link is available every weekday morning on both Twitter and Facebook.

Straight ahead, Greg Sankey, who certainly has engineered his own expansion for the SEC and has poached, if you will, schools from other conferences. He's weighing in about what's happening with the Pac-12 and the latest round of conference realignment. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. You are listening to the After Hours Podcast.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. That's Jake Dickert of Washington State. Yeah, there's a lot of emotion swirling around what's been this latest frenetic round of conference realignment that has left the Pac-12 in a perilous position. Not sure if you heard the latest, but the ACC presidents met on Tuesday morning and they were discussing the idea of inviting Stanford and Cal, but apparently they did not vote on it Tuesday morning.

So after this season, here's where we stand right now. After the 23 season, well, it goes into early 24, eight schools have already agreed to join other conferences, leave the Pac-12 and join other conferences, eight of them, which puts Stanford, Cal, Washington State, and Oregon State kind of in no man's land wondering where they go from here. I mean, think about, and I know this is not unique to the ACC should it invite Stanford and Cal, but think about the travel logistics of Stanford and Cal and how almost every one of their road games would be across the country. It's just a disadvantage for those two schools.

And that's just football. Think about all the other sports that Stanford and Cal field and joining the ACC and the enormous pressure and extra responsibility that puts on the student athletes, not only to keep up with their academics, but to be performing at a highest level when they're constantly traveling across three time zones, six hours, one way. It's brutal for any of you who go cross country back and forth for business or for family. It's not easy. It messes with your body clock, but then they're supposed to perform at the highest level and they're supposed to also keep up with their academics.

I don't love it. And a lot of these conference realignments, they don't really make sense for the student athletes, for the academics. But obviously we know those are not the most important things to these commissioners. Just after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio, I just mentioned Stanford, we've been hearing different coaches and athletic directors speak out over the last couple of days. According to Troy Taylor, who's the head coach at Stanford, remember he's a first year head coach, but he's taking over and he's saying that, yeah, we're still power five caliber. We still belong in that conversation with the power five schools and the power five conferences. The problem is that the Pac-12 is left with only four member schools, and this is pre-Cal and Stanford, accepting any type of invitation. You don't have enough for a conference. You can't field conference games. You certainly can't have a conference championship.

It's against the rules. So they are going to have to fight another maybe mid-major conference to merge with or they're sunk. But you know what? The Big 12 came back from the dead. So the Pac-12 should be able to as well.

All right. The latest round of conference realignment is more focused on Big 10, Pac-12, Big 12, but it's not that long ago that it was the SEC that was in the center of this, right? Taking schools from the Big 12 or inviting schools from the Big 12, going back to say Missouri, Texas A&M, and of course you've got both Texas and Oklahoma that are joining the SEC coming up a year from now. And Commissioner Greg Sankey, he's the one who oversaw that transition. There was plenty of criticism back in 2021 at the surprise nature of our Oklahoma and Texas announcement. Yet from that point forward, we and those two universities and our entire conference has sought to be orderly in the process and respectful in our communication, and I think we've done that.

So then what is his reaction to seeing these latest announcements? Oregon and Washington, they're headed to the Big 10. You've got Utah, Arizona, Arizona State, and of course Colorado going to the Big 12. It's not like he hasn't been the commissioner that has been on the hot seat in the spotlight, people talking about him, but this time he's on the outside looking in. I will point publicly that I think that the speculation and some of the pronouncements we've seen since that time about growth or directional growth is problematic, and even for me, with the security of the Southeastern Conference, whether it was Friday afternoon or through the day Saturday fielding phone calls, which really were more conversations, nobody thinks happening, there's nobody calling me, you know, seeking or demanding entry, a lot of commentary publicly, you know, it just wasn't one of those great feelings to work in college sports in my experience. Sankey actually admitted he called both Washington State and Stanford in their ADs just to talk to them, saying, this is the term that he used, he has great empathy for what they're going through, which again, it's a little bit ironic, right, because as the commissioner of the SEC, I don't want to say they started all this because that's not fair, but they've certainly been part of one of the more drastic rounds of conference realignment, and he also refers to kind of the secretive nature of them inviting Texas and Oklahoma and what a bombshell that was to the Big 12, but not to mention the rest of college football.

That's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. So what does it look like moving forward? That's the question I asked Brian Fisher on our show Monday night into Tuesday. We don't really have answers, and we're not really sure when this latest kind of round of I want to call Russian roulette, but that's fatalistic. This latest round of kind of musical chairs stops. So what about you, Greg Sankey?

What does it look like? Well, it remains to be seen, but you know, how many FPS conferences will exist in 30 or 60 days, particularly as we had in the next season if you want to lengthen that timeframe. We've been engaged in the right kind of conversations around future media opportunities, around the logistical issues and decisions related to the first round of games on campus, and how do we move that into bowl games, but we do have changed circumstances. Right now we still have 10 FPS conferences, but there's obviously a great question about whether that will remain, and yeah, that could create a thought in my mind and I think in others about some level of adjustment being made. Yeah, so right now there's 10 conferences, but that doesn't mean it will be this way, say a couple months down the road, well, really not a couple months down the road because they've got this whole season to go through, but preparations are being made.

This is all future stuff now. And I also asked Brian, and if you missed that conversation, he's a national insider for Fox Sports. It's part of our podcast this week. I asked him about college football playoff and the expansion, and here's what I found really intriguing from Greg Sankey, as he explains why they expanded, at least from his perspective as the commissioner of the SEC, you almost think that doesn't apply right now. So they had one original goal for expansion, but is that going to work with this latest round of conference realignment? Here in the SEC, we wanted college football to be strong nationally, and we've not seen a West of the Rockies participant in the playoffs since, I believe, 2016. And so the expansion was about making sure we brought in Western football. Well, now what's happened is Western football has come into other conferences.

The net of that is circumstances have changed, and I think it's wise for us to take a step back and reconsider what the format might look like given these changed circumstances. I mean, Sankey's had a very personal hand in this college football playoff expansion. In fact, he was one of the guys who originally was asking for and was drawing up this 12 team format, which will begin in 2024, just about the time that all these conferences add new members, or in the case of the Pac-12, are left kind of holding the bag with a hole in it at the bottom. Right now, the model is based on the six conference champions who are the highest ranked, okay? So those would get the automatic bids, so to speak, to the college football playoff. The six conference champs who are the highest ranked at the end of the year, right, and it's still a committee, it's still the college football playoff committee that would choose and would decide the rankings, but it would be conference champions and the next six highest ranked teams. And as Sankey is pointing out, the idea was to try to add a Western component to the college football playoff, but now the teams that would be most competitive are moving east, or at least moving into conferences that have a more east coast or eastern half of the country flair to them.

So it kind of defeats the purpose, but also I wonder if the whole idea is to expand the presence and to give more teams a shot, right? That's the idea behind the college football playoff is being dominated by the same schools. It was being dominated by a couple of different conferences.

So by expanding it, in theory, you give more schools and more conferences a chance. Think about March Madness, except that the difference is there, there's a lot more teams and conference champions automatically get in, all of them, not just six of them. But in college football, if what you're going to do is have a footprint at least for six conference champions, okay, so then maybe have a little extra flair, though the Pac-12 may not exist by the time they start. But then what's going to happen with the next six highest ranked teams, it's going to end up being teams from these power conferences. So you're not going to end Big 10, Pac-12, I'm sorry, Big 10, Big 12, SEC, ACC, it's going to end up being more of the same.

At least that's how it feels to me. As opposed to having more variety, as opposed to including more of your time zones, more of your conferences, as opposed to adding the western half of the country to the mix, in a more substantial way, it's going to be more of the same. Because these conferences are adding, hoarding, gobbling up schools. And so the rich get richer.

And that applies both monetarily as well as to the power component. And actually, do we have time for one more? We have time for the last one. Okay, so Greg Sankey has this idea, this ideal about them coming together as commissioners. Even though we disagree, we can move forward, what's key is to identify the points of disagreement and then work on those. And of anything that frustrated me through that CFP experience, is we never made the effort to work through some of the stopping points.

Interesting. So he does point out that there are definitely some miscues, some missteps that have been made by the Power Five commissioners. And they could come up against some other hurdles, which is why he's saying we have to work together. Because if the Pac-12 can't continue, if it disbands, that's a funny word for it, then you're going to have these commissioners have to go back and figure out how do we decide the 12?

Right? How do we come up with the 12 automatic bids, quote unquote? Do we make it five, since there's no more Pac-12? Do we invite, you know, different teams, different schools? Do we make it wide open, so it's based on rankings?

Yeah, everything. All of a sudden it's uncertain footing in college football. All right, we're back tonight. Have a great Wednesday. It's after hours, CBS Sports Radio, boom. The official Winning Time podcast from HBO is back. I'm Rodney Barnes, executive producer on the show. Magic and the Lakers are back to defend their title. Join me as I break down each new episode with sports writer, Jeff Pearlman and the actors, directors and key collaborators who brought the 1980s Showtime Lakers to life. It's not about basketball, it's about winning. Listen to HBO's official Winning Time podcast on Sundays after the show airs on Max.