It is the JR Sport Reshow here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. It's May, man I'm itching for football. We got a lot of football going on. We talked about some of the news going on in the professional ranks, who showed up to work, who's not at OTAs. But we got some news in the world of college football as well. We saw an adjustment to the playoff seedings.
It looks like we might have a future expansion, which we also pretty much guessed on. Then it looks like we might have a couple of conferences that might be bullying their way around the NCAA. To talk about some of these issues in college football, it's time to have a chat with someone who covers college football from a national perspective. Right now we're being joined by Scott Doctorman from The Athletic. Scott, how are you? I'm doing great. How are you doing tonight?
I'm excellent. Thank you for taking the time and joining us. I mean, so many questions about conferences leaving the NCAA and the playoff format, what have you. My first question to you is what are your thoughts on the approved new format that we'll be seeing coming up this year? Yeah, I think it was a necessary step and it couldn't have gone worse when you talk about seeding in the first 12 team playoff. If this would have happened after the 2023 season, nothing would have changed. In fact, at that point, you had Michigan, you had Washington, you had Texas, and you had Alabama all in the playoff. And they were the champions of their team, of their conferences, and it looked perfect. Last year when you have the ACC have Clemson not play very well and you had teams falling off, that's when the whole seeding looked out of whack.
So it didn't need to be adjusted. I mean, I kind of hate that now it's going to be really subjective and placed on the committee as to who's one, two, three, and four. It would have been the two teams from the SEC and two from the Big Ten last year.
So I think this was a necessary step. It just now can really skew heavy towards those two leagues. Well, Scott, down in Orlando, we're getting so much news.
I don't even know if it's news or if we want to call it a mess. We have this new proposal by the Big Ten and the SEC to basically bowl guard more of the playoff spots in what would be a 16 team expansion where they would get the majority. They would get four each. What are your thoughts on that? How realistic do you think that is?
I think it's very realistic that it could happen. I think right now there are a lot of different proposals and nobody's really sold on how it's all going to be incorporated. I can understand from the perspective of those two leagues, in particular after their recent expansions, that they're so deep and they're filled with such good teams. What they hate to see is something like a nine and three team that lost to, say, three teams ranked in the top 15 not be able to get in the tournament, whereas you might have in a different league somebody go ten and two and play a week schedule, but because they're ten and two, they get in over them. So I think that's why they want to make sure to protect four teams, but then you start to kind of ruin the randomness in some ways.
Maybe one year the Big 12 might need three teams that are good enough but might not be able to squeeze in here. I think the proposal is fair, but I think some of the other mechanisms, such as incorporating another first round and more buys and then more buys into the second round, I think that's foolhardy. I think if they want to make this work, they're going to have to do it one versus sixteen, two versus fifteen, because otherwise if you start giving more teams buys at the top, it just isn't going to work out.
It's going to be too confusing for everybody. Well, Scott, what would the timeline be on such an implementation? I guess settling at least on what a format would look like.
Yeah, they traditionally go all the way to the last minute and then a couple minutes beyond before they figure things out, which is why we finally got seeding here done in May for the upcoming season. I would expect this to be something that probably doesn't get finalized until next spring. There will be a lot of saber rattling, as we've seen in Destin right now at the SEC meetings. There'll be a lot of quiet, almost passive aggressiveness from the Big Ten, and you'll see some backlash from the other leagues.
But it really, until they are forced into a deadline, they're probably not going to come out with the true proposal. But I do think that it's going to go to sixteen. That's inevitable. And Scott, Doctorman is joining us, covers all things college football for the athletic. You talk about what's going on down in Florida right now, and we've heard about the SEC saying, hey, you know, we're big, we're bad.
We brought over, you know, Oklahoma and Texas now. Is there a real possibility that they could say we don't need the NCAA? There is a possibility. I think it would have to come in conjunction with the Big Ten, though. I don't know that they unilaterally can, you know, secede from the NCAA without having the Big Ten with it. And I do think that there is some real urgency to changing that structure in light of what was going to happen with the House settlement. And once it's finalized and dropped out in California, hopefully soon, that there's going to need some changes. Now, the SEC and the Big Ten have kind of been tired and as well as some of the other leagues propping up the NCAA for several years and not going far enough when you've got an organization with three hundred and fifty people, three hundred fifty programs at the Division one level, counting all the basketball teams. It's kind of, you know, there's a huge difference between, say, Notre Dame and Chicago or Chicago State or somebody like that. So you need to make some changes there. And I could see the SEC and Big Ten deciding to form its own governance structure.
I think that that might be a little bit too much for them to bite off. But the NCAA has really failed in its mission for a long time. And that's why we're seeing kind of a Wild Wild West reality with NIL and some of the other things, because they lose court cases every year.
I mean, they're a mush when it comes to the court system. Well, Scott, we knew that this was coming to a certain degree. There was going to come a point in time where there was going to be NIL. The players were going to be allowed to make money.
And now we're going to see how and when the mechanism is for the players to get paid via the schools. It's just so much. And it feels like a lot of this has changed over the past five and six years. But as you mentioned, from a legal perspective, cases have gone on for decades now. Are you surprised at how fast things have changed over about the past five or six years?
Not as much. I was really I think right around 2013 and 14 was when you could see the groundswell of support for athlete pay go up dramatically. We saw a couple of things happen then that really set the stage for what we see now. One was former Northwestern quarterback Kane Coulter came out and tried to bring his team into a union. And initially, the Chicago chapter of the National Labor Relations Board came out and approved it later on in a full vote.
It was it was denied. However, the points that he made and you know, it should have really scared them into thinking we need to make some changes now. Likewise, even something small like Shabazz Napier from Yukon coming out saying, I go to bed hungry every night during the NCAA tournament. Now, they didn't make changes to the food policy, but when you start to see the combination of all these things going on, it needed to spur something quickly. And the NCAA chose to fight it all the way to the Supreme Court for the Alston case and now the House settlement. And it lost nine to zero in the most polarized Supreme Court in American history. It shows you that there is just the NCAA was fighting a losing battle, never wanted to change. And then it just dramatically shift, you know, shifted so quickly that now everybody's trying to catch their breath. And had they done something in 2016 to that, you know, they could have controlled it a lot better.
This is just the inaction as a spawn these reactions. It's got document here from the athletic. Scott, as we start to wrap things up, as we talk more about it, I guess, dare I say, a little bit more of an immediate future. What could things look like with the transfer portal? I know that Kirby Smart had some questions and concerns about when is it, how's it going to change? We got God's transfer and during the playoffs and just this kind of crazy. Yeah, there does need to be some adjustments to it. But, you know, one of the adjustments the coaches want to make is to end the April transfer portal. And you're not you're going to get sued right away and you're going to lose right away if you do that.
I mean, how many kids, you know, and I call them kids. I mean, they're young adults, but they go into spring football and they're going into their junior year. And this is their chance to prove that they are worthy of the 2D. Well, if they don't crack the 2D, then they need an option to do something different.
And so I don't understand the reluctance to allowing this to happen. But, yeah, I think that there does need to be some changes. And I wrote a 10 part list on what needs to change. And one of them is to push the transfer portal in the next semester.
So you don't have this urgency to have to get it in school and start classes January 8th or 5th or 15th or whatever. That that's part of it. But it's there are so many things right now in line.
I think the portal they need to leave as is until they straighten out some of the other issues. You talk about changes. North Carolina is certainly going through a change, Scott. Do you think things have settled down for a little while with Mr. Belichick? Are we are we past the TMZ part of things or is it just going to permeate throughout the whole year? You know, if Jordan Hudson can stay out of the headlines, then I think it'll slide down a little while.
And we won't really see much or hear much from from this type of issue for a while. But if she's in the forefront and, you know, she answers the door, you know, when somebody is knocking on Bill's door or something like that, I mean, yeah, it could be really it could be out there again. And the thing you've got to worry about if you're a college coach is the next six weeks. Any small thing will jump immediately to the forefront. If somebody gets an OWI or DUI, you know, it becomes front page news because this is the time of year where college football kind of goes to face the background. And so one small move, you know, a car accident, whatever.
It jumps up. So if she she and Bill are walking, holding hands in Atlantic City, everybody's going to know it. Well, we see we already saw the man walk out the house one day and ended up on a ring camera. It's a crazy world that we live in. Hey, Scott, I know you cover all things college football.
Also know you're out of Iowa. Bad, terrible news with Kaitlin Clark, right? That's I feel like the economy now and women's basketball is going to tank. Yeah, I think we're going to get a glimpse over the next two weeks as to what the WNBA will be like without Kaitlin Clark.
You're going to see a drop in ratings and prices for those games that have dropped dramatically already. I mean, she is the golden goose. She was certainly here in Iowa for four, you know, for four years where she could do no wrong. And she was like a rock star going to these other arenas, too. I think you're going to get the same thing in the WNBA. And I'm sure right now CBS and and the WNBA is just cannot believe their bad luck that the sky game against a fever that was set for a Saturday night in primetime on CBS. She's not going to appear. So I think the interest will drop. So I think they need to protect their golden goose a little bit better.
And that's both PR wise and on the court. Yeah, without a shadow of a doubt. Hey, Scott, thank you so much for the time. Where can people follow you and all of your work following college football?
Yeah, thanks. I'm on exit at Scott document also on Blue Sky and and at the athletic. Just follow me under college football. And we've got some news this week, so I appreciate you giving me the plug there. Oh, no doubt about it. Thank you for taking the time. We'll catch you down the line, Scott. OK. All right. Thanks so much for having me. No doubt about it.
It's the J.R. sport re show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. Every week there's something new, something different about what's changing in college football. It's like every month something is different. Maybe one day they will have some stability. But when have they ever had stability?
The answer is never. And now we're really moving into the wild, wild west. We're in it already. You know what? When we come back on the other side of the break, we'll talk more about Kaitlyn Clark, because there is going to be a massive and already has been a massive impact now that she is out with this quadriceps injury that they're saying will take, what, two weeks minimum for her to return and doesn't mean that she's going to pop up back on the court in two weeks. So we'll get into that and we'll talk. Nicks and paces are waiting on them to get underway in about 30 minutes or so. This is a lot more for us to do. But right now, here on the Infinity Sports Network, it's time for a news flash.
