Hey Pete, how are you? Oh those guys leaving are coming. That's happening in the near future.
That's going to have to be part of the cake that's going to be baked in college sports going forward. How are you doing? Well I'm very well thank you. So let me ask you about this.
We know Matt Sluka is gone. Said they didn't pay me my money, I'm leaving UNLV. What prevents this in the future? Do we need federal regulation? The NCAA obviously isn't going to step in. What prevents this?
Anything? Paying them, like doing it. Look there's no regulation here which is the problem. It's not like you have a professional league where you have collective bargaining and contracts. This is all so murky that it is really just old school NFL. It's just the craziest type of thing.
The other weird part that everyone has to get used to is the players are right. They're entertainers. This is a multi-billion dollar business. Everyone's making money. This is not some quirky after school activity that these guys are doing. They are entertaining. They are entertainers. And if they are promised money of some sort, then that's got to kind of be the deal.
Now this Sluka thing is murky on several levels. But the whole idea is, oh he's quitting on his team. This is a business. These aren't soldiers going into war or something. They're guys who are entertaining and just wait. Come bowl season, what are we going to get? We're going to get all these coaches who are leaving their teams for better jobs. During the bowls. Did they quit on their teams for the bowls? Yes. And they're doing it because they're going to go make a lot more money somewhere else.
And it's just kind of how this world's going to have to work now and everyone's going to have to kind of get used to it. And Pete Futek is here with us on the JR Sport Reshow Coast to Coast. Let's talk about another quarterback. And Hikiette and I have had conversations about, well two quarterbacks down in Texas. Quinn Ewers and then also Arch Manning.
We know Arch still has some room to grow. Quinn Ewers just has to go out there and stay healthy. They take on Mississippi State. You would think that this is just a game in the bag. If Quinn is ready to go, do you want to see Arch in this game or is that even still too risky against Mississippi?
Just put Quinn back in the bag. I would say Mississippi State is awful. I still play Arch and you give Ewers this week and they have next week off and then it's Oklahoma and then the tougher part of the schedule kicks in.
This is a luxury here. Give them time to heal. That's why these coaches do get paid the tens of millions of generational wealth dollars. Make the call.
You have to evaluate your talent. But make sure it's a long season because it's faster than baseball or the NBA or anything like that. But it's a longer season this year because if you're winning, the national championship is January 20th.
So we have a long way to go. Keep your guys healthy. And if you have the luxury of giving Quinn Ewers another two weeks off to heal up that abdominal injury so he's closer to 100%, then you do it. Because you've got Arch Manning there, you're going to be just fine with him.
Well, Pete, there was a lot of talk heading into the season about Quinn Ewers and Carson Back. These are some of the early candidates for the Heisman. We've got a guy balling out right now in Miami, Cam Ward, who's already thrown for another two touchdowns tonight. Arguably, he's playing like the best QB in college football right now. What are your thoughts on what, Cam Ward, and that you have been able to do so far this season?
Well, it's nice, but this is the only time anybody's ever going to watch him again. I mean, Miami just does not play that great a schedule. So if you look forward, the Florida State game is not anything big.
They don't play Clemson. So until we get to the ACC championship potentially, this might be the only time America watches Cam Ward. So it's going to be kind of a stats thing with him.
But he's not doing it in these big, giant games. Let's see what Jalen Milro does tomorrow. Last year, I know we had to all vote for Jaden Daniels.
I had to hide and vote and all that. But Jalen Milro actually last year deserved it. He had the play of the year with his throw against Auburn. He had the game of the year with his performance in the win over Georgia. And he was better than Jaden Daniels in the head-to-head versus LSU, and his stats were good enough.
And now he's in an offense that just bombs away. So if he's really, really good tomorrow, they don't even have to win. I mean, this might be the first of three matchups between Georgia and Alabama.
So as long as he's really good, I kind of think he is the one who's got to be the favorite for this thing because he's just playing bigger games. Whereas Cam Ward, he's playing Virginia Tech, and the ACC is nice. It's just not the same as doing it up big in the SEC or even the Big Ten. Pete, a few seconds joining us from collegefootballnews.com, talking about that game tomorrow between Georgia and Alabama.
That's the big one that the country is going to tune in on. We saw what happened last year in the SEC Championship Game. Alabama winning and ultimately pushing Georgia out of the playoff. Georgia, their offense has been kind of slow. We know they're missing some key pieces that are now in the NFL. What are your thoughts on what the Bulldogs look like and where they can go outside of that great defense?
But they do this. Remember a couple years ago, week three, Kent State, they might have had a lead on them in the fourth quarter. But it was like, really, Kent State is pushing Georgia?
And what did Georgia do? They won, they moved on, they ended up beating PCU 155-1 in the National Championship. There were a couple years there where, uh-oh, Missouri's got them beat until they didn't. What did they do in the Kentucky game?
Was it pretty? They survived in advance. But okay, let's see, what got really forgotten fast is they just absolutely destroyed Clemson in the second half of that opener. What has Clemson done since? Granted, they've played, I think it's Appalachian State and NC State, which is pretty good.
They have gone off. That offense has been absolutely unstoppable over the next week. That's the team.
I know we're all in love with Miami now. Clemson's the best team probably in the ACC. And Georgia shut them down cold.
It's a focus thing. I will be shocked if we don't see, you know, playoff Georgia here, where this team just kind of rises up to a moment and we're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone's doubting us, doubting us, doubting us. And then they just unleash what they do. I think Georgia pulls this off. But again, this might be the first of three between these guys because Alabama's just that good. Well, Pete, let's look at a guy or a team that's not going to the playoff, but we hear about the coach and the team because the coach is complaining about everybody. I'm talking about Hugh Freeze over at Auburn. We know Peyton Thorn is going to get the start at quarterback. Is Hugh Freeze, is he ready to just like run away from Auburn or get the boot?
Like, what's his deal, complaining about everything? He made his bones because Ole Miss beat Nick Saban a couple times. And so SEC fans had it in their head. This guy is the guy who can beat Alabama and Nick Saban. And he has got this, he's an SEC coach. And when he was at Liberty kind of paying his penance after all the fallout from the problems at Ole Miss, everyone's like, okay, just wait until he gets back here. Just wait until he gets back to the SEC. Everyone wanted him and it's just not working. They're just not getting anything out of this offense. Their defense has been all right, but they just can't get that O going yet.
But you're right. I mean, they're going to have to really fight and claw to get to a bowl game this year because he's just not getting the job done quite yet. And that's going to be away from the SEC now. I mean, it's just going to be hard because with all those good teams, someone's got to lose.
So yeah, it's okay. You get Texas and Oklahoma, yay. Ask Oklahoma how hard this is going to be going forward.
It is not easy. I mean, now some teams miss all the big teams. Like look at Texas A&M's schedule and they seem to somehow miss everybody. But then others have to play like Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, Alabama. So Auburn just so happens to have a bad combination of a mediocre team and a rough schedule. Now, man, you talk about all these new teams that are hopping now into the SEC. I'm looking at the Pac-12, Pac-6, Pac-8. People are stealing teams and people are suing conferences for stealing teams. It's becoming difficult to keep up.
I have to put a chart together about where everybody's going and moving around. What conference is not going to exist in a few years, Pete? Somebody has to disappear. And let's go back to the original part where we first talked about up top, where we got exit fees and we've got all these business decisions and we've got these multi-billion dollar TV deals and we've got its business. And so we're asking, why are these players wanting their cut? Well, here's why.
Because it's a business and they figured out how to make money doing this somehow. So we're going to still have the same conferences that we've had because the other part that's kind of being underplayed here, they're just going to keep adding schools. So like in North Dakota State's going to get in the mix somehow. Sacramento State is making a big push to upgrade their facilities and some of these other schools that have been pretty good at the FCS level, they're all of a sudden going to start to populate more. So instead of having 134 major FCS college football teams, the near future will have like 140-ish, 145.
So they'll just have more and more of them. And look, sometimes it works. I mean, look at how good James Madison has been so far.
Liberty went from nothing to this. Jacksonville State in their first year went to a bowl game and was really good. So some of these programs are really good. They're not going to be Big Ten or SEC, but there's enough to have decent level college football happening in these conferences. There was a report, Pete, that the SEC and the Big Ten are planning a meeting to think about a revamped playoff this and a revamped that.
Are we looking at any type of consolidation in the future? If it were to happen, it would be to try to get more teams. They're going to expand to 16.
They actually got it right with 12. It's a good number. If you can't get everyone in, you have to earn your way in.
It's still a fight. You're not being like baseball where everybody gets in, or hockey where everyone gets in. NBA is the worst, actually, because you have something crazy like 68% or 70% of the teams actually make the playoff if you count the play in. This is a good number. They're going to expand to 16, and they're probably going to expand that further out from there because the Big Ten and SEC want more teams in the playoff system, which I don't really like that much. I think the expanded playoff is good because it gives more teams an opportunity. You're allowed to spill. You're allowed to have a miss.
You don't want the 60. Don't let this be the NCAA basketball tournament where you finish eighth in your conference, you get hot for a few games, and all of a sudden you're in the Elite Eight and you've had a great season. You have to have some worth at the end to make the regular season count and matter more. But this whole idea that they're going to just run away and form their own mini NFL and stuff, it's not going to happen for the exact reasons that we just talked about where not everyone can win. And so if you look back at the 2020 season, for example, in the COVID year when it was all SEC versus SEC, all Big Ten versus Big Ten, only five teams in the SEC ended up with winning records because everyone had to play Alabama. Everyone had to play Georgia. So the South Carolinas and Kentuckys and Mississippi States of the world, if you go to an all-SEC Big Ten format, you've got all these big giant schools with really rich alumni whose schools are never, ever, ever going to play for anything again, and you see again, as is with the lack of divisions in the SEC and Big Ten, we're not, we have, people forget that we had Iowa and Purdue were in the last two Big Ten championships.
That's never, ever going to happen ever again. Well, thank God for Iowa. I like to see some offense and some scoring every now and then.
So I wouldn't mind that. Hey, Pete, let me ask you that. Speaking of the playoff, we got about four teams that are trying to fight their way in, even though it's still kind of early. Oklahoma State, I don't know what the hell is going on with Ollie Gordon. They're taking on Kansas. And then Notre Dame has Louisville, and I still don't have a clear idea on who Notre Dame is. What are some other games or matchups that we should pay attention to tomorrow?
Yeah, you kind of hit the big ones. I mean, you're right. Notre Dame versus Louisville, everyone's going to care about Alabama. This is one of those ones where if you look at Notre Dame's schedule, if you're a playoff team, you've got to take this one down at home. Louisville's good, but they're not, it's again, not like playing Georgia or Alabama. So if you're Notre Dame, you've got to pull this off because that Northern Illinois loss from before doesn't give them a whole lot of wiggle room the rest of the way because their schedule's just not good enough until they play USC at the very end of the rainbow here. So that's one of those games where, like you said, Notre Dame probably wins, and we're still not quite sure exactly what they are. And that's the other part of this new college football playoff that's going to make this fun is get to the conference championships because conference championship weekend is going to be huge because that's a playoff game. Because you win your Power Four conference championship, you're in the playoff. So you've got to get there first, which makes Kansas State versus Oklahoma State a giant deal because both of those teams were right there with Utah at the beginning of the season as the favorites to win the Big 12. Well, the loser of this is probably out, and we just, you know, we're not even to October yet, you know, after both of them lost last week. So that Kansas State, Oklahoma State's going to have a whole other level of just intensity and effort in that one because, you know, all of a sudden, you lose that one and you're owing two in the Big 12.
That's a big problem. Yeah, well, we got some good matchups to have. We got a good one on right now. See, Virginia Tech just tied it up following an interception by Cam Ward.
14 all. Oh, there goes Heisman. That's over. Oh, well, that one interception did it in.
Hey, Pete, do us a favor. Where can people follow you and all of your work at collegefootballnews.com? Exactly, collegefootballnews.com, all the picks and predictions going up, did the weather reports today. I've never done that one before, but it's so crazy with the hurricane where you have, here's the funky one of the week is that I don't think Stanford is at Clemson yet. Like, they had to play all the way across the country. Their flight got delayed this morning because of the hurricane, and they're going to get there at the very last second to deal with that Clemson team. So there's a lot of crazy things going on right now, thanks to Mother Nature kind of screwing things up for our college football weekend here. All of those nerds couldn't figure out a way to get out to South Carolina?
Come on, now. You'd think they would. You'd think that those, well, actually, they couldn't figure out that, you know what, they played Syracuse last week and then flew home, and now have to fly 3,000 miles back across the country. The classes, they have to go to school. Of course, school. It's all online now. All these kids take their classes online anyway.
Just, you know, hang out at Starbucks somewhere and take your classes there. It'd be fine. Hey, Pete Futesack, thank you so much for joining. We'll catch you on down the line, okay? Absolutely. Have a great night.
