It is the JR Sport Brief Show here with you coast to coast. On the Infinity Sports Network. Mayor All is talk about the NFL. We got college football. That is underway.
I don't know if you want to call it week zero, week one, but the college football season gets started. Tomorrow. Yeah, at noon. If you're on the west coast, it's starting in the morning time. We got Iowa State and Kansas State.
Getting us started. Overseas. I can't wait. To talk about what we can expect, not just tomorrow and next week, but for the next several months, joining us right now is someone who covers college football. all year long, all over the place.
Joining us, welcome back. From collegefootball news.com. Pete Fuelsek. Pete, how are you, man? You bring up the West Coast thing.
I'm a huge fan of that. I'm in Central time zone, so I feel it's all right. I was just in the east time zone. It felt like the world was ending too fast. I love the idea of you wake up.
And you just watch sports, and you know, it just kind of happens all day while you're up and around, doesn't end at one in the morning. I've always kind of dug that. Hey Pete, you can move. You can move out Wes. Go for it.
You you'd think I could, um, and actually I can 'cause I just dropped off second kidney college.
Now it just depends if my you know, my wife wants to come with me or not, which, hey, win-win all the way around if I if I can do this right. Yeah, something that you you definitely have to check out.
Well, we know this game is early tomorrow at noon because it's taking place Iowa State, Kansas State. They're going to be playing in Dublin, Ireland. I mean, last year we saw an interesting matchup last year with the Georgia Tech being out there. What are you looking forward to with this game tomorrow between these two schools? Nobody's expecting them to win any national championships, but they're going to be competitive.
Yeah, it's a cool spot. I mean, like, it's, you know, it's right in the middle of Dublin. It's right around all the food and all the pubs. It's really kind of sweet, but. Uh and and you say that it's what's kinda weird about this is like It's there doesn't seem to be a ton of buzz about it because it's it's a conference game and I kind of object to that.
Whereas last year, I mean, we had the same thing at Florida State and Georgia Tech that turned out to be a big deal. I don't know, conference games need to be I'm a I'm a huge believer that college football games should be on college campuses. And especially like I just said, you know, kids on my kids in college now, it's a thing, you know, it's there for the whole point of this thing is supposed to be there for the kids. And it's double, but all right. But it's these two teams are each good enough to play for the Big Twelve title.
And they're relatively even, just like just what everyone else is in the Big 12. Yeah. And it can go absolutely like Kansas State wins. But It could go either way, and this is where you don't have a preseason like you do in the NFL. And I've always said that tomorrow should be the day when every FBS team plays on an FCS team and just gets it out of the way.
You get one game. Just sort of, you know, get all the kinks worked out. You tune up a little bit and then get going. But these guys hitting the ground running, this one really matters. And that game is is less than 24 hours from now.
But we're we gotta wait. For a marquee matchup, we got to wait at least another week when things really get started. We got Texas. Taking on Ohio State. Both teams obviously.
In the news, Arch Manning comments made by his granddad about whether or not he's going to stick around. Ohio State going with Julian San. Of course, people are going to go back and forth about what we can expect out of both of these guys really making their starts. What are your thoughts on both Texas and Ohio State for the upcoming year? Yeah, I hate this.
I mean, again, this is my point. Like, I wish they could get a game in first before you get this because this matters. I mean, look, Texas still has to go to Georgia. You know, which means if you're going by recent history, And how this is probably going to work if Texas loses this game, and let's say they have a misfire in the middle of the year against an Oklahoma, and then they lose at Georgia. They're nine and three and they're probably out of the college football playoff.
You know, so like Indeed, or Ohio State, you can't really afford another two losses.
So it really is, and you touched upon the big storyline going into the season. How do all these new quarterbacks pan out? Because Penn State's got their quarterback, Clemson's got their quarterback, but Alabama, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio State, Oregon, Notre Dame, I mean, these are power players. Didn't go to the transfer portal. They didn't go after, you know, a Carson Beck or Nico Yolal Lavia.
They just. They went with their in-house guys because apparently they think they're better.
Now we get to see what they can do. Pete Fiottekic is joining us from College Football News.com. You talk about Klubnik and then Drew Aller. What do you expect from both of these squads specifically? Penn State, we've seen what they do.
Is Drew Aller going to continue to grow? And then Klubnick, I mean, he has all the confidence in the world based off of the love from Dabbo. Yes, so this is not the Clemson team of a few years ago. It's good enough to win the ACC again. It's pretty much Miami and Clemson are just as good.
Those are those teams are dead even. Uh except Miami's got a little more high-end talent where I think they could actually do something more if they got in the college football playoff. This is not necessary, at least at the moment. College football playoff championship contender. Whereas Yeah, they're going to play LSU, which actually is a CFP contender, but they can't seem to win an opening game lately.
So, this is the real test for LSU when it comes to a game like this. Penn State, if it was anybody else, this would be everyone's far and away number one team. And everyone kind of forgets, well, two years ago, well, well, Michigan, they can't win the really big one. And they gagged in the college football playoff. Then what happened?
Obviously, there's all the periphery stuff. But it turned out, yeah, this was their year. Ohio State, well, they can't get over that hump under Ryan Day, even though he wins 85% of his games. And it just turned out to be their year. And the same stuff.
Well, Penn State, they can't win the big one.
Well, they won a lot of games under James Franklin. They got to the final four of this whole thing last year. And now they get just about everyone back. And they're deeper than everyone else. Drew Aller's been around long enough.
They've got everything in place for this to be their year, except for the fact that they're Penn State and no one believes that they're going to win this thing. Yeah. Well, Pete, you talk about the Big Ten. We saw the two teams that won the Past two championships coming out of the Big Ten of the Ohio State and Michigan. Michigan getting punished earlier this week.
What are your thoughts on the fine that was levied down and the lack of more of a punishment, really? Suspension some more? Did they get punished? I mean, really? I mean, like, what?
So, Jim Harbaugh has to make a special application if he ever wants to coach in college over the next 10 years, which he's not going to do because he's going to stay in the pro ranks for pretty much for forever.
So, that's not a punishment.
So, Sharon Moore doesn't have to coach against a central directional state game or something. That's not a punishment. $25 million, that's just pocket change for Michigan. That's not a punishment. There's nothing you can do other than.
Say, hey, you're banned from postseason play, which nobody likes the idea of that. Vacating wins does nothing. Nobody cares.
So, like, There's not it's a part of the prime college. There's nothing you can do. have any sort of punishment. And the crazy part is What are they really punishing for? Because none of the stuff that was in the counter stallions allegedly did or did, or whatever you want to put it.
Is actually against, and it's not against any laws, and it's not really against any, you know, thing in the NCA rule books. It's just kind of more like frowned upon. They're getting in trouble because they didn't necessarily comply with the NCA's investigation or they wrote a couple of emails more than they're complaining more than they're getting punished for them cheating on games, which I don't know. At the end of the day, I think everyone's just mad that they didn't think of it first or do it better. Pete Fuacek is here with us from collegefootballnews.com.
Well, we know Harbaugh, he's not getting punished. He's in a completely different League, the Big Boys League. Pete, I do have to ask you this. We know Harbaugh's back in the NFL trying to. Get his charges to the postseason.
You made mention of all of these teams and what we can expect moving forward, but what do you think is the ideal situation for the college football playoff? Because every time we blink once a week, It's a new commissioner or coach who's given an idea and a thought as to what is the ideal space. This isn't bad as is. I I I You have to have a mechanism where you can play your way in.
So, you know, before, I mean, it was even worse way back before the BCS and the old bull days, where if number one team in the country was Texas and number two was Penn State, it didn't matter what anybody else did. Those two teams were going to play for the national championship no matter what, as long as they kept winning. That wasn't good. The fourteen format wasn't good because You're going off a panel of judges for these four teams.
Now, you could argue that they pretty much got it right most of the time, but then you still have teams like Georgia and Alabama, which. Look, if you didn't get in, you did something wrong.
Now, with 12 teams, that's just about right. It's good to have the games on the college campuses in the first round. You know, right now that if you win your Power Four Conference Championship, you can get in.
So everyone has the same thing. And if you're a group of five programs, look, you're just not as good as everyone else, but you still get a chance. At least maybe get your cuts in.
So. I think right now is the best way to do this. They're gonna, I don't like the idea of expanding it that much further because now you're just diluting the product that much more.
So, and there's no real argument or reason to say that we have to get in four Big Ten or SEC teams because that's going to happen anyway. And if you expand this, so right now, it's about as good as we can probably get to kind of satisfy everyone's issues across the board. Yeah, we know everybody will never be pleased. You can never please all of the people. One thing that we do want to pay attention to are all the new talent.
We discussed the QBs and the situations that they're in, some new faces, new names, and some older ones that we can expect. What are you looking forward to? What players are you really looking out for to kind of take the top off the college football season? We saw the Genties of the world last year, the Cam Wards. We know Jeremiah Smith is back to torment everybody in the Big Ten.
What players are you looking forward to seeing? It's really these quarterbacks. I mean, it just is a Gentie this year. I mean, there's certainly a lot of talented running backs, but they sort of fall by the wayside. They don't get as much love as the quarterbacks and everyone else does.
But I am really looking forward to these new quarterbacks because, again, we don't know what they're getting.
So, again, Alabama said, we have a guy here who's better than anyone we can get through the transfer portal. All right, let's see what you got going here. You know, all right, C.J. Cart better be good for Notre Dame because if Notre Dame had gotten Carson Beck, they'd probably be the number one team in the country right now. Beyond that, all the top players for the NFL draft next year, you're not talking Arch Manning, are either offensive linemen, which, okay, it's kind of tough to get watching them.
I still think I stand this last year too. The best actual football player last year and probably this year. Is Ohio State Safety Caleb Downs. He's one of those guys, we've seen it before, it's the most undervalued position in football. I don't know why they don't get more love in the draft.
If you get a top-notch safety, if you get one of those Polomalus or Ed Reeds, I know I'm going a little older than normal, but if you get a superstar safety, that's the guy you can change around your defense. And this guy's just smarter, more talented, and better than everyone else. The quarterbacks are obviously the marquee guys, but Caleb Duns might just be the number one player in this whole league this year. Hey, something to look forward to. I guess between him and on defense, Jeremiah Smith on offense, the Ohio State University, not too shabby.
Hey, Pete. Thank you for the time. And are you you you're going to ask the wife about moving west, right? I'm just going to go. This time of year, she doesn't even know.
No, I'm basically don't leave my office anyway for the next four months.
So, even if I just left, I don't think she'd even notice.
So, I might just do that.
Okay. All right.
Well, we got evidence here on the radio, which is not a good thing. Hey, Pete. That's fine. Tell everybody where they can follow you and all your work with collegefootball news.com. You got it.
Just collegefootball news.com pretty every single game. This is that time of year and uh now it's Looking game shows are over, now it's fun. Yeah, we get to the football tomorrow. Start starting. Look at me, I picked up an accent just thinking about the game.
Starting. Dublin, yeah, Dublin, right? No, is that bad? Bad, right? Yeah.
Do that. Just say the easiest way to do it is Farti. Ending Farty five minutes from now. Then you got a second down. Farty five.
Farty five. Okay. Exactly. That game is at noon.
Okay, so there we go. Hey, Pete, thank you for the time. We'll catch you down the line, okay? A good one.
