What’s the irony in the Northwestern case regarding hazing?

Let's start with Greg Sankey from the other night. And I've been beating this drum forever, so I don't want to completely destroy it because I'm probably going to talk a lot more about this next week. But the notion that there's nothing that college football, there's nothing the NCAA can do to deal with the uneven nature of varying state laws regarding name, image, and likeness, that we need Congress to step in. Isn't it fair to say, no, the NCAA can simply get rid of the fact that incentivizing the recruitment process through NIL is no longer a violation. If we get rid of that, we don't need any laws or enforce it. Well, they can't enforce it. They've been trying to enforce it for forever.

They can't do it evenly. And now a lot of that stuff, not the recruiting inducement part, but a lot of it is legal. So what are we doing? It's too easy to hit me. No, no, I want to put it in the NCAA's court. Enforce it. Like you, go ahead. Okay. And let's see how the legal battles play out, right?

I mean, you heard this a lot before NIL even began. And then everybody was talking about the unintended consequences. And the thing that I echoed, I was like, okay, well, let's see what they are. Let's break some stuff.

Let's get in there and let's then we will adjust. But that's where I say for the NCAA. All right. Okay.

You're so concerned about it. Go enforce it, prove it, have allegations, have violations and go through the process and try to issue penalties and see if they're challenged because that's what the NCAA, the NCAA cannot be sending strongly worded memos and expect anything to happen. The only thing that the NCAA can put out that will lead to any action is going to be a notice of allegations. So to that, I would say, and you and I have discussed this. The only thing the NCAA has done is nail Miami women's basketball for one dinner with the Kavender Twins and John Ruiz.

Okay. Why don't you go and you take some of these other places that are making you so uncomfortable and why don't you go and issue violations? And maybe I am saying this because I just saw the NCAA slap an eight million dollar fine on Tennessee in the wake of the Jeremy Pruitt impermissible benefits. Only 200 plus violations of NCAA bylaws.

Listen, I think that that is hitting them in their pocket because first of all, big takeaway from that. Thank goodness that the NCAA is not doing postseason bowl bans for violations that happened in the years past. We slammed the NCAA so often. I do want to at least acknowledge when something that is sensible is happening.

Let's see if there are dollar amounts that make schools a little bit uncomfortable. I mean, we act like there's no limitless resources in places like the SEC and the big 10, like go hit Texas A&M with a whole bunch of violations for recruiting inducements with name, image and likeness and see how it works. And that's where I am with the, you know, the idea that anything is going to happen in Congress is not going to work. And I've recently in the last several weeks sort of been turned on to the next part is that while you might have bipartisan support on having some kind of legislation, details of it is where you split along party lines, because, you know, one side is very interested in being able to create money and funds for college athletes to be able to tap into for years to come. And I don't think the other side is a part of that. You do have bipartisan support for some kind of athletes bill of rights. But then when we get into the details of it, you're not going to agree on it.

So I would not count on Capitol Hill at all for being able to imagine like this. Gosh, they in it. First of all, the cliche that they have more important things to worry about is true, right?

That is that is an absolute fact. They have way more important things to worry about. And not to say that this is not an important matter. It is an important matter. But it's one that doesn't need congressional intervention to deal with. It just needs sensibilities at the administrator level of the NCAA, of individual institutions to handle this.

But there's no stomach anywhere to to, I mean, completely blow up the model that made everybody so much money in the past, because this is not the world we live in. Like because the next step is organization of athletes, athletes forming some sort, whether it's a union or an association, getting together and organizing to have more uniform benefits throughout. In which case, if I was going to think about what the landscape looks like going forward, if there is that sort of an organization, it doesn't work if it's all across the NCAA. It doesn't even work if it's all across FBS football.

Correct. It's probably just the, I mean, we'll be generous here, the power five, right? We'll be generous because I don't even know that it really works for all in the power five. But let's be generous and say that. And there's a separation and they're no longer part of the NCAA. And they deal with other things like revenue sharing with athletes out of TV money. And maybe that's where we're headed. And maybe that's where we're headed.

And we might be closer to that than we think. There are active court cases that could have rulings that determine that a high level college football player is an employee. Oh, absolutely. They are employees. That is like bubbling to the point where I think that the efforts to try and get congressional intervention included antitrust exemptions and a declaration that student athletes were not employees.

And guess what? Since you're not going to get that, there's going to be a judge out in California who is going to determine that student athletes are employees based on the amount of time that they commit to the sport, the sacrifices they have to make, and that their terms of fulfilling their place as a member of a football team is similar to the terms of an employment and the sacrifices that all of us make and the deals that we sign in order to have our jobs. So I kind of think that a lot of name image and likeness hand wringing is just sort of wasting our time for when we head to something similar to what you and I have talked about a lot, which is a little bit more organization in terms and revenue sharing and those sorts of topics. Yeah, I think what Greg Sankey had to say Monday is really just a delay tactic.

We're just kicking the can down the road. One quick thing. You don't need to address this, but I want to point it out. The irony is that we don't have to go back that far to where Northwestern football players were considering unionizing and Pat Fitzgerald lobbied actively against it and convinced many players that it was bad for them to have representation as a whole.

Actually, it's one of the things that likely would have prevented this from happening. Let me ask. We had Phil Steele on earlier this week, and I don't know if you're a Phil Steele college football yearbook guy. You have.

Oh, he's going to pull it out. Here it is. It's sort of the Bible for nuts and bolts football personnel rankings, all of that. And he's got a brain that just fits all of this stuff in.

It is amazing. I asked him who the best offensive lines were in the ACC. He said Florida State one Clemson to pit three. Do you concur?

So I would let me let me sort of work in reverse. Obviously, Virginia. No, Virginia Tech. No, Georgia Tech. No, Boston College. No, Boston College usually has a good one, but that's probably true.

Mahogany is a good player. I don't think one through five and certainly not one through eight, which is really what you need for your offensive line. You don't need 10, which, by the way, the reason why Florida State is one is because they have 10 that they can count on something that we haven't seen since 2013 or 2014 in Tallahassee. I would give Duke consideration for top five offensive lines. Wow.

Yeah. The height, weight and speed is not there, but the production is they get after it. They move you off the ball. They create a lot of good running lanes for all those versatile skill players that they have right there. I would not put not put North Carolina in there. I would not put Wake Forest in there. I would I think that I'm with you on top three. And then I would say, Duke, maybe in their Louisville, maybe in there for a top five consideration.

Yeah, that's I would say I agree with that. The thing about Clemson is that he you can run through the personnel, you know, height, weight, speed. It's almost like the opposite of Duke, where with Duke, I'm looking at the production and the way that performed and having to acknowledge that that might be a disconnect from the way the depth chart looks printed out on paper. Clemson's the opposite, where on paper, everybody's 66, 330 pounds and checks out, you know, across all the recruiting rankings. But, man, like they had a really hard time running the ball in some short yardage situations.

So need to step it up just a little bit. So, you know, the Clemson one is interesting, but Florida State is undoubtedly the number one right there in terms of the best offensive line in the ACC. And it's why a lot of people are excited about Florida State. I'll tell you what, I was surprised that a feature that went up on CBS Sports today, I do it in the offseason, it's called Mystery Teams, where you're trying to find across Phil Steele, Athlon, Lindy's, Bill Connolly's SP Plus. I want to find the teams that have differing rankings, you know, the teams that no one can agree on. Everyone seems to agree that Penn State is somewhere between six, seven or eight, that Florida State and LSU and Texas are somewhere near the edge of the top 10. Clemson's either like 14 or two.

Phil Steele's got him at number two behind Georgia. He said they'd be in the playoff this year. He said they'll be favored in every game and they'll be in the playoff.

I mean, they might be favored in every game, but. But it's, it's really interesting that a narrative going into next week, the ACC football kickoff is that in the eyes of many, Florida State has taken the ACC from Clemson. And my rebuttal is that Clemson's won seven of the last eight ACC championships.

So show me the rings, Florida State, and then we can have that conversation. Here's where I look at Clemson. Yes, they have been the class of the league for a long time. Nobody is doubting that, much like Florida State was for their first decade plus in the Atlantic Coast Conference. But I've looked at Clemson in comparison to the Alabamas of the world, the other upper crust teams. And when I watch the Tigers, I have seen a pretty significant gap, not just the last couple of years. That's obvious. But even as they were making the playoff, you know, the, when they won two out of three years, yeah, that team was as good or better than everybody else in the country.

And nobody could deny that. But they no longer have the wide receiver talent. The offensive lines have been meh. Even they hadn't really been dominant in the ACC. Quarterback play, and I was critical of Trevor Lawrence's last two years, which I think as good as he is, I don't know if he was better as a sophomore and a junior as he was as a freshman. And maybe that's because the personnel started to drop around him. They've had great personnel on defense, and that has basically helped them hang in.

But I think their offense has been largely unimpressive the last five years. Five? Pretty much, yeah.

That's musicbest.org, brought to you by our gold sponsors, First Bank, Loudon Mutual, and LD&B Insurance. Man, we are talking about a program. They only have five years. I was going to say, they won an 18, right? They won an 18? They won 29 straight games across 2018 and 2019. And the only team that beat them was an LSU team that might go down as one of the greatest single-season teams of all time.

Yep, I get it. The team that beat Ohio State right in the semi-final? And then lost to LSU in the championship game in 2019. Did they compete with LSU in that game?

Yes, I was there. In the third quarter, Trevor Lawrence was driving. It was a one-score game. Yeah, the scoreboards. I felt like that LSU looked significantly better than that.

I'm old, man. My memory could be completely gone, but I have not seen the same Clemson team at all the last year. I was at that LSU Oklahoma game where Joe Burrow had eight touchdowns in the first half of the semi-final that year. I was at the LSU Texas game when Joe Burrow went into Austin. They had 600 yards and he said in the postgame press conference, visiting locker rooms, small, small cramp space, Joe Burrow looks around and goes, we could have had 700. I've got my finger on that LSU team.

They were phenomenal. It's like when Brian Kelly is sitting up there and they're like, coach Kelly, do you all have a problem getting over the hump? And he goes, guys, he had lost to Clemson in 2018 in the semi-final and Alabama in 2020 in the semi-final. He's like, guys, we just played like two of the best teams. We played two eventual national champions. I don't think that there's anything wrong with our program.

We just ran into a juggernaut. And I think that Clemson ran into a juggernaut in 2019. In 2020, they still made the playoff again. And then, yeah, they had down years. And you know what happened in Clemson's down years? 21 wins and two top 15 finishes nationally.

How much of that is the ACC? I just don't think we've lost the plot by that much. I don't think it's going to take that much for Clemson to be clicking things back. It is a proposition that rests entirely on Garrett Riley and Cade Klubnick and the ability for them to be able to have an offense to scheme guys open. Because I do believe that they benefited from having wide receivers that didn't have to be schemed open. That they could. I mean, Deshaun Watson won a national championship just being like, Mike Williams, go get it.

You know, just throw it up there. Hunter Renfro was like their third wide receiver. He's still in the NFL.

You know, T. Higgins. You know, just like the entire run, I agree 100%. But if you have a system that with tempo and with spreading the field and with being able to have smart, good decision making, then like, yeah, Clemson does still have athletes and four and five star players at wide receiver. They just haven't quite been developed to be elite. Can Garrett Riley be able to help them get more production out of that?

That opens things up for Will Shipley and Phil Moffa. I don't know, man. Do you have any Clemson gear in there? Do you have any Clemson gear in your office?

I'm just pushing back because if you were to sit down and have a third, how about this? If you were to have a 30 player draft of Clemson and Florida State players, you just want the dudes. You're drafting 25 Clemson players and five Florida State players. And that Florida State, the resurgence is amazing.

They're probably going to play twice and the games are going to be incredible. And Florida State may win the one that matters, which is going to be on the first Saturday in December. But I just think it's a little absurd that we've seemed to have agreed that Florida State has taken control of the ACC.

I honestly don't know because I don't really follow the portal. I don't follow recruiting. You don't have to follow the portal for Clemson. We know that. I know. They don't want Dabo.

And I know Florida State has completely restocked. They've probably done as well or better than anybody else in portal world this year. But because I don't follow, I don't know who's the next guy pushing these guys out. I just know what I have seen from the tigers. And what I've seen from the tigers is taking advantage of a lot of guys that just physically can't compete. A lot of teams that physically can't compete with them. But as you said about Duke's offensive line, give me the blue devils on labor day right now. It's a difference what Florida State did for 12 years, that when they entered the ACC, you just knew that, well, this is different than the other eight teams in the league. A hundred percent.

They've been very different. All right. Final thing for you before we say goodbye to Chip Patterson, cbssports.com, at chip underscore Patterson on Twitter.

I don't know if you're on threads or not, but I'm sure it's the same. So Nick Saban said his favorite cake was carrot cake. I'm with him.

This is like the first thing I agree with Nick Saban on. I am team carrot cake. Where, where do you stand on carrot cake? Oh, all the way in on carrot cake. I mean, what a better way to get your vegetables as a root, as a root vegetable.

Check Mark on the pyramid, baby. Carrot cake as my vegetables. Awesome. You're the best man.

High for fruits. I will talk to you later. I'll see you next week, man. Thanks.

Sounds good. Y'all be well. I mean, completely in the conversation when you say they want a better way to get your vegetables. Gosh, I am.

Where do you stand on this? Victoria team carrot cake. Oh, all the way. Now I will say it might be a little hypocritical of me because I'm not a big fruitcake fan. I don't like fruitcake, but those are not the same.

But those are not the same. I do like fruitcake and carrot cake or not. I mean, I'm not a fruitcake expert, but I don't think those two things are in the same stratosphere. I really don't know. No, carrot cakes, my favorite cake. Yeah.

Then they're not all created equally. There are bad carrots. There is back. Bad everything. There is bad everything. People try to say there's bad pizza. I mean, there's just not great pizza.

I don't know. Right. It's bad.

Well, I mean, I've had bad pizza. I've had like, no thanks. Yeah.

Not interested. Not wasting that time. Right. But oh, man, carrot cake when it's done right. With the cream cheese.

You got to have cream cheese icing, too. I saw some slander on Twitter about that, of course. I know.

Carrot cakes. Our guy Travis in Charlotte, too, saying it's the worst. Thinking about having him on to talk about it tomorrow. I really liked him, too. I know. Yeah. We used to be friends. We used to be. Then he said that. Unbelievable.