Chip starts his time with Hayes on a sour note.

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Xfinity Internet required. Add to the win total. 3-0 in bowl games thanks to the Pirates in the Birmingham Bowl. We've got two more today. Duke in the Military Bowl, UNC in the Holiday Bowl. Joining us now to talk those games and college football in general is my good friend, Chip Patterson. Follow him on Twitter at Chip underscore Patterson.

Check out the cover of three podcasts over at CBS Sports where they talk all things college football. Chip, what's happening? It's great to be with you, but I'm sorry I have to start on a sour note because sour is how I felt as Hayes Permar was on the unprecedented statewide platform of the Adam Gold show. And he was talking about how the week between Christmas and New Year's doesn't exist. That nobody works and that nobody has to even put on clothes. And that everyone is just enjoying all this life of leisure and luxury, enjoying Permar week on the Adam Gold show because some of us, some of us are out here grinding.

Whether it's CBS Sports or whether it's the State Employees Credit Union, the Patterson's are out here on the grind. We are thankful that for now at least both of our boys are in a daycare situation that is also open so that I can be here joining you. So yeah, it's not a pajamas only week for everyone.

It's pajamas only. Nobody knows what time it is. But for you, it's the opposite. It's like you still don't know what day or time it is, but it's not because you're not working, it's because you're only working. Like it feels like Saturday, it feels like a Saturday and then another Saturday and then another Saturday and then another Saturday.

Right. I can't, I don't think that a SpongeBob meme reference is going to land with you necessarily, but I think the audience might not. But like, like Squidward peering through the blinds, looking out at SpongeBob having fun outside.

That is me with my neighbors during this week as they are gallivanting up and down the street with all their new Christmas toys and I am waiting for my next hit on CBS Sports. Okay, so funny enough, and now we're just really going deep and I hope people recognize the meme, but like I recognize the meme that you described. It was Squidward looking through the blinds.

But what's funny is, have you not seen the show? I pictured it more, whenever I see that meme, I picture that Squidward is like John McClane in an air duct and he's looking down at them. I never realized it was through the blinds and he's looking out. I thought he was like spying on them from the room above.

So now I even better understand the context of that meme. Interesting. Yeah, somebody else is having fun and you are grumpy and grouchy and not a part of it. So yes, we've got that. I've got it off my chest because I heard you talking about the week yesterday.

And so I just had to say, for those who are out there grinding this week, I hear you. Alright, if anybody else who hears me say something they want to correct, please hit me up. Chip mad because I said that you're all in your pajamas and he's not. My wife mad because I said that I'm a home owner and we have the HVAC and she was like, oh really?

Are you paying for that? Who makes more money? So say, anybody, I know. She went with that, I know. So everybody who's got issues with what I'm saying, just hit me up. I can take it. HVAC or just text. Whatever.

Alright, just hit me up. Alright, we'll talk Duke UNC specifically in a little bit, but I want to ask you something. Generally speaking, and it's a topic we hear a lot in the month of December in college football. If you are the commissioner of college football and you could change anything, you've got a magic wand, would you change anything about the transfer portal right now?

Or is it just coaches complaining because coaches are always going to complain? I like that we have transfer portal windows. And that's one thing that I think we need to, you know, sort of like remind everyone is that this free for all is not going to happen forever. January 18th, the window shuts. So everybody's jumping in the portal. Everybody's scrambling for, you know, trying to get players from the portal to be able to commit to your school. But this isn't something that's going to be going on all the way until next August. There will be another opportunity.

The window will reopen again by the time we get into the summertime. So the transfer portal itself, I don't think that I would change a lot. If I was the commissioner of college football and I got to wave a magic wand, I would change probably the timing of the early signing period.

And I don't have a great answer. But my working theory is actually to move it to before the season, like in August. A lot of these players commit in June and July before their senior year of high school starts. And they remain committed all the way through the early signing period.

And then they finally put pen to paper on that Wednesday in December. So I might move it off because for us to be dealing with the coaching carousel and your early signing period, a.k.a. recruiting high schoolers and the transfer portal, a.k.a. recruiting your own roster and players from other roster. And by the way, maybe trying to prepare for a bowl game and for a very select few trying to prepare for like competing for a national championship. Like that is too much happening all at once in December. So my magic wand would not be specifically about the transfer portal.

My magic wand would be about the timing of everything else to allow for there to be a little bit more a little bit more calm. And my best answer is to move early signing period to August, because I do think the players should be able to transfer when the coaches do, because the coaches have had the transfer portal to move freely without having to sit out for years. And so you need to be able to have that same opportunity that as all the coaching changes are happening to Patterson.

Joining us from CBS Sports at the Cover three podcast. Same question, but different topic, name, image and likeness. Do you have anything that you would put in place? I know you wouldn't get rid of it, but it's the thing I hear. I feel like most of the headlines have been coaches griping about transfer portal and oh, guys are getting bought away from us. Right. And they got put under the complaint department of NIL. Are there specific fixes that you would make right now to the name, image and likeness stuff? Yeah, I would raise the floor for just sort of overall name, image and likeness compensation. And I would do that by having the conferences get into the NIL business. So much of the millions of dollars that are flowing into these schools and these conferences are from the media rights deal. And when you just think about the like the image of players is what's leading to the millions of dollars. The media rights deals are coming from the fact that they're on TV. And so if we cut a piece of that pie off, because that's been one of my arguments about NIL hasn't totally fixed the imbalance in terms of the financials within college sports and college football in particular, is that making money off of putting the players on television. It is their talents and is their willingness to go out there and play in these televised games that is allowing all the money to come. But they're still not getting that.

These NIL deals are coming from outside of that pipeline. So if the conferences come in and break off a piece of that pie for some of these players, then it will raise the baseline for how much in the floor for how much some of these players are getting paid. And I think that that will also bring a little bit more balance and a little bit more sense to the idea that schools are making so much money. Also, if the conferences do it, schools don't have to get their hands in it and they don't have to.

You know, we've got so many different ideologies across the universities. They don't want really to be a part of paying players. But I think it'd be a lot easier to create labor negotiations, you know, things that are similar to a union or an outright union if it was at the conference level.

I think you've got a little bit more legal flexibility there. So that's what I would do is I would say, all right, there is an NIL deal for every ACC player with the ACC. And the money that's being paid out there comes from the big old check that ESPN gives to the ACC every single year for its media rights. And then in theory, the conference is distributing slightly less to the schools because that that amount is now going directly to the players. Right.

I like that workaround a lot. And I know we're not deep in the details, but like in theory, every ACC football player is getting somewhere between a ten and fifty thousand dollar salary for playing the league in addition to everything they get. Yeah, I don't know exactly how those numbers would work. And that's why I'm admitting that I'm going to offer an idea here. And I like it when we start to actually tag salaries onto this, I think that so many fans just think back to their own employment history. It's not fair, you know, trying to compare their own experiences and spin it forward.

I don't I don't have a good number for that. I just know that the money that's coming in is from these media rights deals. And even with NIL, they're not getting a piece of that. So let's get them a piece of that. And it creates a little bit more balance to a locker room. Like if you're concerned about a locker room that's divided where someone's getting nothing and somebody else is getting one point two over three years. Well, let's give everybody something.

And yes, the best players, as they always have, if they want to, can go and demand things. It could be money. It can be cars. It can be, you know, an apartment for mom.

It can be plane tickets to an event. You've always the best players have always been able to demand that because of their talent. That will still be there. And of course, with the NIL rules, that'll still be there through the collectives or through the private market. But I think if the conferences get in this and everybody gets a little NIL deal, then that would be one thing that I would suggest as a change. That makes total sense. But basically, like you said, the the conferences are the ones that negotiate the TV deals.

It makes total sense to tie the player, the image part of name image lights to that. And it feels less like a salary getting played to play football, more of this is how much they get paid to be on TV. These are the people who are putting on TV that just like the cameraman gets a cut of the money raised. You know, the everybody gets a little piece, including these people, the players. And when you put it in terms of the larger hierarchy, it breaks down the argument of paying the players and more just like dividing up the billions.

Dividing up the billions that is coming from TV equitably to the people who contribute to it. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

All right. Chip Patterson from CBS Sports, sports joins us and the cover three podcast. Let's talk about the teams that play today, Duke and UNC. Duke's turnaround has been incredible.

Mike Elko getting the team up to eight wins, something that I did not see anyone. No one predicted. So everyone missed it.

That's not a knock on media. That's like no one should have expected it. No one did expect it.

He turned it around. My question. It's always easier is the wrong word.

People love it. In the state of North Carolina, we've seen many teams go from a two, three or four win season to a six, seven or eight win season. Right. And that's when we get excited because six, seven, eight win seasons are usually good at UNC, Duke, State or Wake. It seems harder to go from a six, seven or eight win season to a nine, 10 or 11 win season.

So everybody likes to pat Duke on the head and be like, look at them getting eight wins. And what Mike Elko did this year is awesome. Is there a path for Duke to almost like Wake has go beyond that nice little story to be a regular bowl team and go six and six every year to actually get up to a nine, 10 or 11 win team under Mike Elko?

There is a path, but it's going to take like Dave Clausen amount of time. I mean, I think when you hire Mike Elko, somebody who was at Wake Forest with Dave Clausen, somebody who was at Bowling Green with Dave Clausen. And I think either at Fordham or Richmond as well.

I mean, he was part of that that squad that had just been moving around, you know, only about three, four years at a couple of different stops. And I think that when Duke hired Mike Elko, the hope is that what he got to see in terms of laying the foundation at Wake Forest, combined with his experience at Notre Dame, at Texas A&M, big time college football, gives him a tool chest to be able to lead Duke to where it wants to be, which, yes, is competing for bowl games regularly. And when you've got a couple of good recruiting years in a row, when you pop with the quarterback, maybe you do make a run at an ACC championship the way that David Cutcliffe was able to do.

But I do think you've got to give that kind of runway. And Clausen had a little bit of a runway. He had some bumpy years early. Elko obviously did not have that bumpy year right away, but things might come crashing back to earth. And that's why I would preach patience instead of expecting a linear jump, because you have to acknowledge that two things happened to work out perfectly for the Blue Devils. Number one, the ACC coastal division was atrocious. I mean, Duke benefited from the fact that Virginia was down. Virginia Tech was down.

Georgia Tech fired its coach by the end of September. You can very quickly start to stack up those wins along the way. And now you've got a better conference record.

You've got a favorable non-con. You get yourself up to eight wins. As we are saying goodbye to divisions, being able to beat up on a bad coastal division is going to make life a little bit more difficult. If you trade out playing Virginia or Virginia Tech for Louisville or Syracuse, that game might be a little bit more difficult to win. So you give Duke credit for what it's been able to do. It didn't just exceed our expectations. How about exceeding Vegas's expectations? Eight and four straight up. Eight and four against the spread.

Luda, ticket cashing machine. But that's something where you are encouraged by everything that he did, starting with the staff hires. Number two, the buy-in he was able to get from some of the veterans. There's a lot of work left to be done for Duke to be able to hit Wake Forest status. I think you should have the patience that Wake Forest had with Clawson to be able to build up to that point where you're competing for conference championships.

But yes, like that is something where based on everything that we've seen, the fit seems to be right. The vision seems to be good and a plan is in place so that when things break your way, you're going to be able to surge up in the ACC standings. I just don't think that you can count on, as a Duke football fan, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, to all be down as bad as they were this season. And that things are going to get a little bit tougher as those programs start to improve.

Makes sense. Chip Patterson joining us from CBS Sports and the Cover Three Podcast. Looking at UNC, we've seen in recent memory, we've seen UNC find a quarterback, realize they were going to have that really good quarterback the next year only for that quarterback to maybe not quite fulfill the expectations that he had built. It was Sam Howell before where he had the great season, had a lot of pieces around him. He returned.

The pieces did not return. And he was still a good quarterback but didn't quite take the next level to be a Heisman candidate or, you know, first round NFL draft pick. Do you think Drake May is more likely to fulfill the current projections of Heisman candidate and first round NFL draft pick? Or, without Josh Downs and coming into a year where everyone knows that Drake May is the focus of the offense, do you find him regressing back to the mean? And not being seen a fraud, but more having a Sam Howell-like year in his final year where he was still very good and draftable, but not quite the, this is an NFL quarterback that everybody's going to be looking at, which is more likely. The thing I feel the most confident about is that Drake May is a future first round NFL draft pick, top five, top ten.

Interesting. That's, he was one of the five best quarterbacks in all of college football this season. Heisman Trophy is not a statistical award.

Sure, sure, sure. Very, very fickle. So when you come down the stretch with three losses and you have only one touchdown to four interceptions in those three losses, and a lot of Heisman Trophy voters don't even start paying attention to the World Series is done.

Sorry, bud. Like everything was going well. And then all of a sudden it wasn't. But you look at the season totals and, you know, whether you're talking about total yards, yards per attempt, touchdowns, touchdown to interception ratio, passer rating. The dude was one of the five best quarterbacks in the entire country this year.

And now he's going to be coming back next year. Like I, I tend to believe that his Heisman Trophy candidacy is linked very closely to North Carolina's win loss record. But his NFL draft stock, what's done is done. The things that I'm hearing from people is not just the numbers that I just laid out for you, but some of the throws that he makes. I mean, the skill set, the tools, it's just different the way that he can be on the run. I mean, everybody wants to make the off-platform throw. We've all got the Mahomes disease that led us down the road of believing Zach Wilson was a number two overall pick. And look how that worked out.

But the way that he can spin that thing as he's moving his body and he's super athletic, it's incredibly impressive. So I'm I believe that Drake May is going to be a first round NFL draft pick. But his when we talk about Heisman stuff, that's going to be tied much more to team success and team success for North Carolina. I mean, I say the same thing for North Carolina that I did for Duke. I think Mac Brown even said this in his pre ACC championship game presser. He was like, you know, we finished with the best record in the division. But we were in a lot of close games and the division wasn't very good. They just ended up on top of that division as we start to open this thing up in the ACC is one through 14.

Stack them up. Top two teams go play for a title. Life's going to get a little bit tougher. So team success is going to require a lot of improvement on defense. You are I know that we got one wide receiver from the transfer portal. I also think that sneaky thing about North Carolina is that they utilize their tight ends a lot. I think they've got great size and athleticism at the tight end position, and that seems to work out well for the Tar Heels. But you got to be able to run the ball better in the red zone.

You got to be able to play better defense. Got to be able to win games if we're going to talk about Drake May as as winning the Heisman Trophy. But look, when we watch this Holiday Bowl later on Wednesday night, you are watching two players at the heart of the Heisman Trophy discussion. Caleb Williams as the reigning Heisman winner is going to be there. Michael Pennix from Washington, who's going to be in the Alamo Bowl against Texas, who has Quinn Ewers. Those are two other names to watch. But Bo Nix and Drake May are two of the five to seven top contenders and top names to watch when it comes to the Heisman Trophy conversation for 2023. And what makes it awesome is that Oregon's pass defense number one hundred and five three already also down its top corner back because of an opt out. North Carolina pass defense number one hundred twenty one down multiple defensive backs because of the transfer portal. So buckle up, y'all, because we got two elite quarterbacks and no pass defense in San Diego.

Light them up, as they say, light a mop. Let's get it going. We all want to make money. So what are the trends in bowl games right now that we can use to blindly put faith in as we put money down on these games coming up Wednesday, Thursday or Friday? Are unders hitting or underdogs?

I feel like typically if you had to pick one or the other and blindly bet favorites or underdogs in bowl season, I feel like history would say take dogs in the points. Right. But but I don't know.

But I could be wrong. I don't know what is what are the trends this year? They the trend that I will that I will lean the hardest on is that favorites in the college football playoff semifinals have crush. OK. And they are profitable against the spread. They often win straight up. And there are not many college football playoff semifinals since the format was introduced in 2014 that are even decided by single digits. My theory behind that trend is that you are giving the very best teams in the country a ton of time to prepare for one game and one opponent. You know how you get in the college football playoff. Be really good and take good coaching. You know, like I this really came to fruition for me.

I saw Georgia linebacker Nicobe Dean against Michigan in the semifinal last year was calling out Michigan's plays. Drop everything and hurry to the Xfinity Hello 2023 sale now through January 10th. Learn how to get five hundred dollars back with Xfinity Internet and two lines of Xfinity Mobile. Visit Xfinity dot com slash Hello 2023 today. Restrictions apply.

Xfinity Internet required. It was playing was calling out the places that they're about to run the orb screen. You see him point to where the ball is going to go.

And that's where the ball was going. But whether it's Georgia, whether it's Michigan, these are super teams that are undefeated with terrific defenses that have executed at a high level. They're coachable. They take that coaching.

They turn it into execution. I just I think that there's a reason why the favorites continue to be successful and win by double digits in the semifinals. And it's because they're the favorites for a reason. They can prepare for an opponent and they can execute at a high level. So that's that's the trend that is the most interesting to me as we look ahead at the next week or so.

Sure. That's that's a year over year trend. Right. And that is a smart one to look at the basically in the semifinals. It's often a mismatch.

The two best teams are maybe a cut above teams three and four. Have you noticed any and I'm putting you on the spot on this one. But in 2022 alone, has there been any kind of trend as far as like scoring is up in bowl games, scoring is down, underdogs or teams? We've the anomaly that was this past weekend has thrown a wrench in all of it. OK, what was the anomaly this weekend? 19 degrees. Blame conditions.

They've been absolutely horrendous. You know, people getting tickets and like, oh, yay, I'm going to Alabama or Florida. And it's like, well, congratulations. This is the weather that you get cold.

Yeah. The armed forces bowl down in Fort Worth, where the wind gusts were up to 50 miles an hour. Like I just that has been something that I mean, the Liberty Bowl, for example, today, not a great thing.

But you have to take it into consideration for your wagering. No water at the hotel. We've got a boiling water advisory because of the aforementioned freezing weather.

Water mains have burst in downtown Memphis. The restrooms unusable at the Liberty Bowl. We just got a string of porta potties lined up.

And these teams have been living on bottled water for like you need to brush your teeth or get some bottled water. I mean, it has been not the best conditions to which I say you really think they want this game to last a long time. You're running this clock.

You think we're going to be trying to get this over with as fast as possible. So, yeah, the the last five days or so of inclement weather and the impact of that inclement weather have created an environment that I think has sort of thrown a wrench in a lot of our trends. In general, we did see the Mac have a little bit of a return to form.

That's one thing you always used to blindly fade the Mac. They're starting just a little bit. The Mountain West are starting to put some of their worst teams out there. And after we saw Fresno State get the win, after we saw some some good performances by the teams at the top, we started to see some Mountain West teams fade just a little bit. And then, frankly, we're just starting to get data points on the ACC, the SEC, the Big Ten.

You know, this is when things really show up. Mike Gundy had covered in six straight bowl games prior to the game against Wisconsin, which led to one of the more bizarre things that I've seen. I don't know how much you were watching the guaranteed rate bowl between Wisconsin and Oklahoma State, but Luke Fickle is the next head coach. We always see the next head coach on the sideline, but he's normally standing by the cheerleaders. Maybe he goes up in the booth to do the conversation with the announcers. Fickle was wearing a headset. He said he was letting the interim coach, Jim Leonard, the defensive coordinator, do his thing.

The offensive coordinator, Bobby Ingram, was doing his thing. But Fickle, I think this might be the future. I think we're going to see more of these new hires coach the bowl game, but maybe not coach the bowl game.

And I think it's because player evaluation happens 12 months a year now. With the transfer portal as it is, Luke Fickle is like, I want to see you. I want to see them in their eyes.

I want to see how they compete out there. You know, that kind of stuff. But still strange. Is it also coach evaluation? Is he trying to figure out who?

Yeah. One of the reasons I wish I'd known the stat about Gundy covering in six straight bowl games, that would have caused me to pick Oklahoma State. I picked him instead and was wrong, obviously, but it was because Wisconsin fired their football coach. They went to a bowl game. That means they had the opportunity to install Barry Alvarez as the head coach. They did not do it.

And therefore they do not deserve to win their bowl game. I was very disappointed. I would have been totally fine if Luke Fickle had a head set on as long as Barry Alvarez were on there with a cane and a headset on beside him. Greenlighting the whole thing. But the fact that they went away from that, the standard in Wisconsin, that made me mad and caused me to root against them.

Chip Patterson, CBS Sports and the Cover Three Podcast. When do you get a day off next? I think New Year's Day is a Sunday. That leads, you know, NFL teams got to work, but that'll be nice to be able to spend New Year's Day hanging out around town. Are you around town? I'll be here, yes.

We should get up. Maybe I'll see you at the park. Check him out, Chip Patterson. Chip underscore Patterson on Twitter. Check out the Cover Three Podcast at CBS Sports all the time. Appreciate it, man. Sounds good.

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