Will Christian McCaffrey's Return Jump Start The 49ers?

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That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash listen and use code listen at checkout. I'm living my best life. Yeah, yeah. This is the Rich Eisen Show. Here's the other surprising part. With guest host Brian Weber.

Yeah, big shoes to fill. Eisen's a legend. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. The Rich Eisen Show. Do you know who I am? I'm a guy on television.

I have my own show. And now, sitting in for Rich, here's Brian Weber. It is the final hour of the program, meaning we have to move quickly, especially with our second and final guest coming up in 40 minutes talking more college football.

In addition to the analysis and the hand wringing I've already done, the 12-team format is not an improvement over the Final Four, but I am sitting here as I pensively think about your reaction realizing you're thinking who is this fill-in guy and why is he telling me something that is not going to change one iota college football. Well, I am paid to pass along opinions, and I am Brian Weber, but primarily my job is to give out the phone number, look for interaction at 844-204-7424. Also, you can get at me on the X platform. That is B.W.

Weber, Weber with two B's. I'm here to forward promote. I need you to hang with me 30 more seconds, one more minute. How about 40 minutes from now when we talk college football with Pete Futek of collegefootballnews.com.

He runs the website. We'll get his reaction to the unveiling of the first official rankings that came out last night for the new 12-team playoff. And we'll look ahead to the big games coming up on Saturday, namely in the SEC, the latest edition of the Saban Bowl with Bama on the road at LSU, Georgia and Ole Miss, both games filled with playoff implications even in this 12-team era.

And just to give you the summary of my biggest complaints, and again, this is me being paid to opine, understanding most of you thoroughly disagree. I don't care who the 13th best team or the 14th or the 15th team is going to be when we get to the final verdict in December. I did care on a deep level who the fifth best team was.

Go back to last year. Now, it got muddled because of the Florida State injury situation at quarterback, and we know how that played out in their bowl game, and we know how it's played out for Mike Norvell, who is a good guy, unfortunately, for the majority of the season. I found the back and forth, the discourse entertaining and reminiscent of the old debate has become such a loaded word.

It's been co-opted by all those terrible talking edgios on TV. But the natural organic difference of opinions we had, even back when we had split national champions, AP, UPI, I'm not saying we can unring the bell. I got it. 12 teams is here, and this contract is winding down. A new deal is going to be on the table soon.

That's going to kick in in two years. All we have to do is think logically, if 12 teams is generating X, what's 16 teams for the postseason going to mean financially? A lot is the answer, so it's only going to get more and more watered down, but I am sitting here chasing windmills, and that's not part of the job description as the guest host. I mentioned I'm going to talk Christian McCaffrey here to kick off the final hour of the program. I am going to cover just a little bit of NBA because I love hoops even more than football, and I have the catalyst of a meaningless regular season game between the Warriors and the Celtics. But tonight in Boston, at least we have Steph Curry back from the ankle injury as he returns to the starting lineup the other night in Washington. Unfortunately, no Jalen Brown out again. But I'll use that as a device to focus on the league itself and the state of play early in the season and what is going on in Milwaukee.

Is there any way in the world the Bucks would actually move Giannis? That's coming up in 20 minutes. But I'm going to call an audible and just postpone the Christian McCaffrey thought with a kiss, not a college basketball is back. We'll talk Niner football coming up in just a handful of minutes. But I am live.

That's the whole reason I'm here. And that's also another reflection of how much Rich wants to serve you as the sports consumer with all of the outstanding interviews that Rich does on a daily basis. Michael Buble was in the house this week.

He can play best of any time he wants. Instead, he feels, and I greatly appreciate that mindset, that the audience deserves a live host. So anytime we have a break, I am looking through what's going on on the top websites. And the headline right now on ESPN.com will advance something we mentioned in passing in our conversation with Josh Alper, Pro Football Talk, to wrap up the last hour of the program. I'm Brian Weber, in for Rich Eisen.

If you want to chime in after the program, pretty clear I don't have much of a life, so you can X me. B.W. Weber, Weber with two B's, and I'll get back to you after the show. We talked about the situation in Cleveland, and what a feel-good story it was last week, not this past Sunday, but the week before, when the Browns had that emotional victory over the Ravens, the Art Modell dynamic, don't have to go that far back in the past to connect the dots there, as the Ravens had another baffling loss, just as was the case when they collapsed late in the game, losing to the dreadful Raiders. But if you watched that game, or even red-zoned it, Jameis Winston threw a ball directly into the solar plexus, the core muscles of a DB for the Ravens who dropped it. So that game should have been over before Jameis came up with the late-game magic. Still, a moment to feel good for Cleveland, also with the passing of their longtime radio announcer Jim Donovan, who's been on this show in the past. It was a miraculous win that felt like a higher power got involved, not to get too deep as the fill-in host.

So that's your feel-good moment. Then, things went back to the way they've been for the majority of recent years, since Cleveland gave up on Baker Mayfield, and however you view Baker, and I was not a fan of him going with the number one overall pick, I thought that was a huge reach, you have to admire his tenacity, his ability to bet on himself, remember, bouncing around the league, and lands in Tampa Bay, and he's got to outlast Kyle Trask to win the starting job after the brief period in Carolina, the cameo with the Rams, and he got paid in the offseason, deservedly so, putting up some of the best numbers in all of football. Cleveland decided to bet on Deshaun Watson. You know how that's worked out.

And I don't have to go into all of the character issues that are well-documented. Just from a football standpoint, it has been an unmitigated disaster, and this is not opinion, this is fact, this is now on the short list of the worst trades in NFL history, considering everything they gave up to pry him out of Houston, and without question, the worst contract we've ever seen in the NFL, because every single dollar is fully guaranteed, and Cleveland only has themselves to blame because they agreed to these terms. Nobody else would have done it. The Browns did it because, if you want to get philosophical here, they have no organizational self-esteem. I also understand that Baker was perceived to be not the guy, and I think that was a fair assessment at the time. We can't just look back and say, okay, we know where we are now.

We have to go back to the circumstances as they were. Remember, Baker also getting a little bit banged up during the tail end of his run in Cleveland. The Browns have been looking for a quarterback since Brian Sipe, Otto Graham. Had this not been a spontaneous reaction to what I'm about to tell you was said within the last 20 minutes by Browns GM Andrew Berry, if I was really Hackie Magoo, I would have Googled and printed out all the starting quarterbacks back to, say, Tim Couch in Cleveland, and I could have filled the rest of the hour.

We don't have to go down the Johnny Football road today. So the Browns, because they've been so desperate to get a quarterback, and we forget now because of the horrific decisions made by Watson off the field and the collapse of his play on the field, how Watson was perceived in Houston. He's one of the top 10 players in the league the last year of productivity in Houston, also considered to be, quote-unquote, a good guy. Remember the massive storm that battered Houston, leaving thousands without power, and Deshaun is volunteering in the community, and then everything changed, and I don't know why he became, allegedly, reportedly, I'll just follow the NFL findings in his 11-game suspension, a predator, but again, we'll stick to the confines of football, it has been an absolute disaster. So, with the Browns on their bye week, you get the state of the season address, very presidential, fitting where we are coming off election day. I'm Brian Weber, in for Rich Eisen, in 30 minutes we talk college football with Pete Futek of collegefootballnews.com.

You can express your thoughts on social media, it's PW Weber, Weber with two B's. GM Andrew Berry, in front of the microphone today, was asked a reasonable question, considering the Browns have two wins all season long, and how little return on the massive, crippling investment in terms of the salary cap they outlayed to get Deshaun Watson. What does the future of this franchise look like at the quarterback position? And the headline from ESPN sums it up, Berry was noncommittal, which is interesting because we know, and we'll go back to the conversation we just had with Josh Alper, profootballtalk.com, coaches, and even more to the point, GMs, because this is going to sound like I'm being harsh, but I'm just going to tell it like it is, as Cosell taught us, GMs typically are better educated, more versed in dealing with the media than football coaches, I don't want to sound like I'm being judgmental, but just look at the background of most coaches, if they weren't lucky enough to be at the top of their profession, they have a degree in physical education, and they'd be working at a local high school, so Berry is supposed to be polished. He's supposed to choose his words extremely strategically, unlike say, Matt Eberfluss, who gave the answer he couldn't give, describing what's going on now in what feels like a broken locker room in Chicago with, I don't know why DJ Moore walked off the field, you can't say I don't know. Even if you're bluffing, you can use a word salad just to slalom through the press conference, so Berry had a no, this question was coming, and I'll read you the quote, and then we'll talk some Christian McCaffrey coming up.

Asked about Watson's standing with the franchise, Berry replied, quote, really our focus with Deshaun, I would say for any player with a season-ending injury, and a major injury, is first and foremost to make sure he gets healthy, followed by, quote, everything else, we'll deal with that at a later moment. Now, Berry is shrewd in that he didn't really say anything, right? That's why I try my best to read those words slowly to let it sink in.

I know I speak rather quickly. But it's what he didn't say. He didn't say Deshaun is our starting quarterback, and there's no question about that, or Deshaun is our leader and our QB won, because nobody wants the stink of Deshaun Watson on them, and the Browns have locked themselves into this conundrum, because there are two more full years of fully guaranteed money left on the deal. So obviously, if they could move on, they would. If they try in the offseason, and I won't bore you with all the capology, if they just decide for the good of the franchise, and let's say they bottom out, and they have a top-five pick, clearly you take a quarterback there to think about the future. But for the good of the organization and just the vibe with your fan base, although the fans will show up, because we're talking about the Browns. I'll say it again, Cleveland go back to all of the miserable years. I'm old enough to remember Owen's 16, and Hugh Jackson ain't walking through that door. But the fact that Berry didn't say something more definitive, at least now, allows folks like me, who have to be forensically looking through these statements, to say, aha, he's non-committal.

Well, they have no other choice. Unless they make the bold move in the offseason to admit what is obvious, that this was a debacle of a move, and for the good of the franchise, eats the remaining years of the contract, which even the Browns wouldn't do, because of the massive salary cap implications, they're stuck with Watson, whether they like it or not. I'm Brian Weber in for Rich Eisen. Coming up in ten minutes, we'll squeeze in just a little NBA, using the Glamour matchup of the Warriors versus the Celtics tonight in Boston, as that motivating device. I mentioned I wanted to spotlight Christian McCaffrey, because as I'm thinking about teams I believe in, and we spent more time going through the NFC to start the program in the wake of the trade deadline passing yesterday, because I think the NFC conversation at the top is more interesting than the AFC. We can do the AFC together rather quickly. Kansas City, this just in, still undefeated. Ravens right there, and go back to what happened in the season opener, if Zay Flowers had had a cleat that was half a size smaller, or had aligned his foot a millimeter or two inside the chuck, they win that game. Baltimore, Kansas City, could be a rematch of the AFC title game, although based on how the records currently stand to be in KC, this time instead of Baltimore. Remember last year, I'm still trying to figure out what in the world happened with the play calling.

Todd Munkin, who was so acclaimed coming from Georgia, only had running backs run it six times. Clearly going to be a different outlook with King Derrick Henry shredding defenses now that he's landed in Charm City. And beyond that, you got Buffalo.

I'm not that sold on them. If you watch the games, did you watch the Dolphin game? Beyond having to nail a 60-yard field goal in the final seconds, Miami gave them all they could handle on the road in western New York. Still, somebody's got to win that terrible division.

When you do that, you have the right to host a playoff game. We'll learn more about Buffalo when they go to KC next week. And the Bills, I give them credit, have reshaped their roster on the fly. Think about all the departures in the offseason, not just the fond digs. Impactful, veteran players on defense, and they're at 7-2, and a chance to make it five straight wins on the road in Indiana Sunday. After that, there's a massive drop down as you work your way through the AFC to a lot of teams that feel like they're just the same. I put Pittsburgh ahead of that tier.

And we did this in detail in the first hour. Even a team that at 3-6 feels like, you'd have to say, close the lid on the coffin, but the Jets still have a shot contingent on winning on the road in the Valley of the Sun, taking on a vastly improved Cardinal team on Sunday. But I'm not going to waste our time on the south in addition to all the texting conversation we've already had.

The north, I've taken you through. The east is a train wreck. When we look at the NFC, now we could spend the majority of the rest of the 40 minutes or so together going team by team. I agree with the leading question that I asked Josh Alper at ProFootballTalk.com to wrap up the last hour of the program. Undeniably, Detroit is the most complete team in all of football, and the pickup of Zadarius Smith, while not an earth-shattering move, certainly addresses their glaring need of getting to the quarterback. They have no pass rush, and remember, for all the positivity surrounding Detroit, making it all the way to the NFC championship game last year, their defense was far too inconsistent last year. Now, they won those games because, if need be, they could take care of an arena football-type score, 32-28. And this year, Jared Goff has been superhuman. Now, the difference is they're asking Goff to do less because of the 1-2 punch they have on the ground in Gibson, Montgomery, but Goff has been playing almost immaculate football. So, you got the Lions. And if you're bopping around, I would say Atlanta's going to be the class of the south, not just because they're currently in first place. They have the head-to-head win twice now over the Bucs, and Kirk Cousins is balling out, validating that huge payday that he got, and he's got a ton of weapons around him. Atlanta feels like Kansas City Light. They play a lot of one-score games, but back to that notion of, even if your defense is suspect, if you can win a game, 35-31, it still goes down as a W. In the NFC West, I have no firm comprehension on what's going on in that division.

Now, I'll give you my lesson objective view. I have never been a Matthew Stafford fan. I think his stats are the equivalent of empty calories. I can't take away the Super Bowl, nor would I try, but he's not a Hall of Famer, and I will skip the entire exercise reminding you about lack of MVP consideration, never at all pro, that kind of criteria, but I'd be a fool to try to parse what the Rams are doing other than who they're beating. And yes, quality win, quote-unquote, against Minnesota, I'm not that sold on the Vikings because Sam Darnold, to me, feels a lot like a taller Case Keenum. And we saw it again, even in a victorious situation on Sunday night with some very questionable turnovers, and that's what Sam has done every step of the way going back to USC.

I went to grad school there. I saw him play just about every significant game, and I'm happy for him. I believe in second and third chances, and think about his run of terrible football luck. To wind up in the gutter with the Jets and then go even lower to Carolina, all he needed was a chance, a little bit of a rehab in San Francisco. So I'm not crushing Sam Darnold.

I just don't believe he's going to come playoff time. I do believe as much praise as I've been given Arizona and begrudgingly accepting where the Rams are, having won three straight, miracle win on the road in Seattle at Stafford, making me look dumb with that laser in the walk-off victory. Amazing throw for the touchdown to win on the road in Seattle.

I am fascinated to see what's going to happen in San Francisco the rest of the way. Now, if you want to talk Super Bowl loss hangover, Kyle Shanahan has a couple of those to be used to it. The biggest issue clearly has been a wave of injuries. No Brandon Iook moving forward with a torn ACL.

Deebo Samuel, latest ailment was pneumonia. Kittle's been banged up, but the heartbeat of that team is Christian McCaffrey. Back on the practice field for the first time this season, because of all of the wear and tear, the heavy workload that he has accumulated back to his college days for the Stanford Cardinal when he should have won the Heisman, McCaffrey is beat up.

Tendinitis now that has reportedly impacted both Achilles still. He's a gamer. He's trying to get out there. And the Niners desperately need him because I think what we've learned in his absence, beyond validating that he's the single most important player on the roster, is that unfortunately, San Francisco fans, I'm not trolling you, it's a reality, Brock Purdy is just a guy. Now he's just a guy at an all-time discount. When you are the very last pick taken in the draft, you are incredibly cheap. And the Niners will pay him when they have to, middle of the road quarterback money, because it makes sense from a cap standpoint. But we've seen without McCaffrey, Brock Purdy cannot win football games for you. And it feels like I'm cherry picking.

I will. What did he do head to head against the Chiefs in the Super Bowl rematch this year? Three interceptions. What did he do on Christmas Day in the marquee matchup against the Ravens 11 months ago?

He imploded. What did he do when the game was on the line in regulation of the Super Bowl? Could not pick up a critical third down conversion. Niners should have won that game in regulation. So, even though I pointed out all these flaws, I believe in McCaffrey enough, in a division that is largely mediocre, I think the Niners figure it out, they win that division, I need to see more consistency defensively. What has happened to that defense that had as much of a reason for the Niners making the Super Bowl, twice in a handful of recent years, as the addition of Christian McCaffrey did, especially in the fourth quarter, to me that's as concerning as their inability to stay healthy. I'm Brian Weber, in for Rich Eisen.

You can pass along your thoughts on the X platform. That's B.W. Weber, Weber with two B's. Less than 20 minutes. We talk college football with the first official rankings of the new 12-team era coming out last night. Looking forward to our conversation with Pete Futek of collegefootballnews.com. Straight ahead, just a few minutes on the NBA. Warriors-Celtics tonight. I'm going to widen the focus. Is it time to talk about systemic change in the NBA? Can we do anything about the Avalanche of three-pointers?

And would the Bucs really be so out of their minds to be open to trading Giannis? All that and more coming up. Always a pleasure to keep the chair warm for Mr. Eisen. I'm Brian Weber. This is the Rich Eisen Show. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. The Rich Eisen Show is sponsored by Grainger. You're a maintenance specialist and you've been squaring off with a leaky radiator at your facility for hours.

You're both drenched in sweat. You've thrown the whole playbook at it, but so far it's got an answer for everything. What you need is a teammate, a pro who's seen it all before, and that's Grainger. With support specialists always ready to chat the product you need plus a million more, just give this ringer a ring. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click Grainger.com or just stop by one of their local branches. Welcome back to the Rich Eisen Show Radio Network. Brian Weber with you and I'm sitting at the Rich Eisen Show desk, furnished by Grainger. With supplies and solutions for every industry, Grainger has the right product for you.

Call clickrainger.com or just stop by. Home stretch on this very active Wednesday. I appreciate the company. If you enjoy my approach, good news is I'm back on Thanksgiving Day.

If you have endured and been with me this far and have said, yeah, that guy is not for me, I have better news. Just one day, absence for Rich and the team, and you've got to be with us tomorrow as the simulcast returns in all its glory on the Roku channel. Rich live from Munich, Germany, getting you fully lined up for his call of the Giants and the Panthers coming up on Sunday as the NFL International Series continues in the game in Germany. Last year featured some of the best atmosphere, especially from an audio standpoint, bleeding through your speakers in recent memory across the NFL. If you're not an NBA fan, I keep giving you these options. If you don't like me, I'll be gone in a half hour. If you don't like the NBA, I have another positive development because I supersized no onion rings, but I went extremely in-depth on the NFL monologue given the update we got from Cleveland. I have left myself only a few minutes to talk NBA, which is reasonable, because I want to have the ability to stretch out with the takeaways offered by Pete Futak of collegefootballnews.com coming up in ten minutes when we go through what we learned last night with the first reveal of the official rankings of the new 12-team college football playoff. If you're thinking, hey, loud guy, why do you over enunciate? I'll save that for my podcast.

The Art of Broadcasting with B-Web, available wherever you get your podcast. But if I'm talking NBA, there must be a reason. Well, first reason, I love basketball more than football.

And I have a microphone, and I get to choose the topic. Secondly, there are newsworthy developments already in the NBA. Now, I'm of the mindset and I understand why they shifted the calendar, but talking basketball in early November just seems weird. As I mentioned, I'm aging out of the coveted 18-54 demo at midnight.

Double nickel tomorrow, my life has been over for a while, and now it's all officially downhill coming up in just over 12 hours. But because I go back to the way things used to be, most of us, let's just talk college basketball, you start thinking about it around Thanksgiving, best case with the holiday tournaments. NBA, a lot of you don't pay any attention until football is done. Then you turn on the All-Star game and you go, what in the hell is this?

I don't blame you. The NBA reportedly, and it wasn't just the scowl that Adam Silver offered postgame after that ridiculous carnival of an All-Star game last year, the NBA opened to any suggestions to fix that broken exhibition game. Feels like the Pro Bowl, they should just take it out back and shoot it, but they won't because it still generates a number and it's all about revenue. But with the Warriors taking on the Celtics tonight, that is a spicy regular season matchup, at least we have Steph Curry to watch, unfortunately for the Celtics who brought everybody back from last year's team, that was dominant both in the playoffs and with the 64 wins in the regular season.

No Jalen Brownie sideline again tonight. Still, for someone who loves hoops the way I do, that's must-see TV. But even I have to admit, and maybe it's just because I'm easing back into basketball and all of the nonsense about Brownie and all of the sidebar topics, I like the aesthetics of basketball. I just like to watch hoops even with the sound down, the way the court is spread, the way the ball moves. But this three-point, and it's not a new development, but for whatever reason it just sort of hit me viscerally, the overwhelming reliance on the three-pointer has just destroyed the flow of the game. And maybe because as I was preparing how I wanted to format the show, I thought Celtics, and then I thought what they did in opening night with that record-setting game just bombing away from three-point range. At some point, the NBA has got to address this. Now, I'm not going to hand you the easy solutions. The ones that come to mind push the three-point line back, but Steph's still going to shoot from 45 feet and make it because he's one of one.

The problem is the rest of the league isn't Steph, but he forever changed the game along with analytics. I do like this concept, and I'll talk about this more. I'm back with you Christmas Day, by the way, if you want to write that down as well.

If there's a holiday, I'm here. I think they should cap the number of threes a team could take and follow the baseball rationale that changed, for example, the approach to stealing bases. They large in the bags, and they also limited the number of pick-off attempts.

And what do you know? It felt like Vince Coleman was running wild again at Busch Stadium in 1985 this year, and part of the reason why? Otani became the first 50-50 player in baseball history, one minute on the debacle that is Milwaukee at 1-6.

They had a lot of problems. Namely, they should never have fired Adrian Griffin because at this point, how much more mileage is Doc Rivers going to get out of that one title? But Doc is a master politician.

He reads the room well. He ingratiates himself to the decision-makers, and now there are reports that Doc has the ear of ownership, and he's saying, you know, I'm looking around this team, but I'm in this locker room. I don't think it's working. Maybe it's time to blow it up. And reportedly, they could be open to trading Giannis?

Are you insane? When's the last time the Bucks had a top-five player in the league? His name was Lou Alcindor, right? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. They have been in the wilderness since Sidney Moncrief or Big Dog Robinson. You finally have a transcendent talent who I know has been hurt in critical situations, especially in the postseason the last couple of years. You just won a championship not too long ago, and you're open to trading Giannis?

Absolute insanity. And we did the NBA in the inspired fashion of the 24-second shot clock. Coming up, we'll go through the fallout from the college football rankings being released last night, and that raises this question. How many SEC and Big Ten teams are going to make the final field of 12 when we get there in a month? Looking forward to checking in with Pete Futek of collegefootballnews.com.

That continues our college football conversation as we roll on Weber in Verizon on the Rich Eisen Show. When you think about businesses that are selling through the roof, like Alo or Skins, sure, you think about a great product, a cool brand, and brilliant marketing. But an often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the business, making selling, and for shoppers, buying simple. For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify.

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Shopify.com slash Westwood1. The search for truth never ends. Introducing June's Journey, a hidden object mobile game with a captivating story. Connect with friends, explore the Roaring Twenties, and enjoy thrilling activities and challenges, while supporting environmental causes. After seven years, the adventure continues with our immersive travels feature. Explore distant cultures and engage in exciting experiences. There's always something new to discover. Are you ready?

Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Brian Weber back with you. Rich and the guys return tomorrow.

If you want to get at me via social media after the program, hit me up on the X platform. B.W. Weber, Weber with two B's. Let's get through the remainder of our time together by bringing in the voice of reason in college football. It is Pete Futek of collegefootballnews.com. Pete, I am about as skilled in the area of clock management hosting a program as Lincoln Riley is at USC, but I've given us 12 minutes to share together how are you and what stood out last night with the standings and the rankings and the seedings all being revealed for the first time.

I will admit my focus was a little divided. Well, why don't we stop right there? Why didn't they push you back 24 hours and reveal it tonight? I don't know. I have no idea what you could have done this Monday.

I remember doing this more specifically in 2016. It was doing a big TV show and coming off and being like, is anybody watching this right now because there's something else happening? You and I watch, Paul. I didn't. Don't you really? I appreciate you being that transparent. Well, there's no point. Look, I do this.

This is just an exercise. The thing to remember about these college football playoff rankings, and I work with them. I know how they work. I know the inner workings.

I know the Grapevine Texas thing. This is just preseason. All it is is just them kind of doing a snapshot of what the rankings are and kind of giving everybody a view. It's a made-for-TV program, which to your point, if you're going to do a made-for-TV program to showcase your thing, why are you doing it on Tuesday night of election night?

Like you said, even if it was an hour earlier, not only did they do it that election night, the first polls closed the second that they reached the rankings. I get it. Stick to sports and all that kind of stuff. But on a macro level, why are you trying to promote your showcase event when the world has got their divided attention anywhere? Now, of course, I dove into it after they came out.

And I did watch after because right after it comes out that I do stuff for the site and all that kind of stuff. I do care. But really, at the end of the day, all that matters, did you win your Power Four conference, or did you get to 10 and 2 this year, at least get you into the discussion, and 11 wins is going to get you into the top 12 this year? Or, to boil it down, just playing the Big Ten and the SEC. So we have 8 of the 12 current fraudulent spots.

I know it's a snapshot. But 75% of the bracket is the SEC and the Big Ten. What do you think that number is going to be when we get to the final reveal? That's going to be the big question mark. And what you also see is, yes, it's Big Ten and SEC mostly, but it's also the teams with the awesome records, too. So part of it is that if you perceive that the Big Ten and SEC have the best teams, well, if you've beaten a lot of the best teams, then that's how you got there. So, yes, I do think, though, that the Big 12 is going to eat itself up, and I do think BYU has got a couple of losses coming its way, and Iowa State has another one or two. So Big 12 is probably a one-bid conference. I think the SEC, you know, let's see what happens to SMU, but that might be a two-bid conference.

And this will all shake out. Look, I know this is because it's Alabama clause, and you saw it tonight. Alabama is the one team that this committee always seems to love because they're kind of right.

It's Alabama. But if you notice in the rankings, that's the one outlier with a six-and-two team that's a little bit higher than most. And that's even with the win over, you know, the loss to Vanderbilt and the other loss to Tennessee. So at the end of the day, I do think that if you go over the ten-year history of how the college football playoffs worked and how their final rankings shook out, again, ten and two will get you close. I do believe 11 wins is going to, especially for a Power Four conference, is going to get you in maybe 11. The big question, Mark, is going to be how much are they going to factor in the teams that lose conference championships and what can they justify. And if they can justify a good record, even if the schedule isn't that great, they'll be able to do it. He is demonstrating why he is billed as the voice of reason on campus, PFUTech, collegefootballnews.com.

People should be following you on the X platform. If they do, they'll get nuggets like this. And for all the deserved buzz surrounding Ashton Gente, I'd give him the Heisman, Boise State's, an incredible story. We could see them potentially. Again, these are the meaningless brackets. But a 5-12 matchup against Ohio State and Columbus would be a marquee game. You keep pointing out, be mindful of too late.

Why do you feel that way about the green wave? Yeah, but again, be mindful of that. I've got to cross back, but this goes to your question, is all the stuff with, oh, after the first rankings, here are the brackets.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't go by the latest rankings to come up with your brackets and think, oh, this matchup will be fun because it's not happening. It will not happen. The LSU-Alabama winner is probably going to move on and the payment losers is going to probably be out. So like all these things that are coming off of yesterday, why I say that is I still think that Boise State, if it wins out, now, yes, they played a Mountain West schedule. But their one loss is going to be to Oregon. And that was less than a touchdown, right, on the road in Eugene?

Uh-huh. 37-34. Now, Oregon is your No.

1, your be-all, und-all No. 1, and they played them tougher than anybody else seems to be able to do it so far. I still think if the Big 12 champion has a two loss Big 12 champion, maybe not. But if it's a three loss Big 12 champion, I think Boise State is going to get a four seed. Because remember, even though they might be ranked like tenth or ninth in the final rankings, the top four conference champions get the top four seeds. And that's where this really gets funky because you're going to have some amazing second round matchups. And the thing that's going to be tweaked after this year, because it's going to have to be, is they don't re-seed.

So you might be the No. 1 team and have to play a much tougher team in the second round than the No. 2 or 3 team does.

But to your point of Filane, Filane's lurking. Remember, if Boise State slips, if they don't beat either Colorado State or UNLV, which it's probably going to be, in the Mountain West championship, Boise State's not going to get into the college football playoffs. They're not going to take a couple of Group of Five champions in this thing. So you have to win your Group of Five championship to get in this, for the most part.

You don't have to, but you pretty much do. So let's say Boise State loses to UNLV or Colorado State in the Mountain West championship, and Filane rolls on through. And their losses early on in the season, I believe to Kansas State and Oklahoma, back when Oklahoma was still Oklahoma. And then if they come in on a big winning streak, Filane might be the team that kind of leapfrogs in the final rankings.

And even if they don't leapfrog Boise State in the final rankings, where you could have Boise State being like 16th and Filane 17th, Filane, as the conference champion, would then go in over Boise State, even if Boise State's ranked higher. And now we know some of the rest of the story. Pete, fewtechcollegefootballnews.com is our guest here on the Rich Eisen Show. Pete, because you are so exhaustive with your analysis, I'm going to put you on the clock. You have three minutes, and you'll take every second of this, I know, to answer the Notre Dame question. Now, call me a cynic.

This is a TV show. This committee would love to have Notre Dame especially play on that first Saturday, going head-to-head with an NFL doubleheader. So, if the Irish win out, are they in?

Oh yeah, definitely. No question, no way, no how, no chance. An 11-1 Notre Dame is not in the college football.

What about the missing data point? I'm not playing in a conference championship game. No, because here's how this, the offset's up by, Notre Dame cannot get a four seed, one of the top four seeds. So, what happens is effectively, and it's actually a plus for them, is instead of having to play a conference championship, they actually get an extra week off, and then instead of that 13th game being a conference championship at best, let's say that they're a five or six seed, and then you get to play a Boise State or an 11 seed, which at home, instead of a neutral site. So, it's actually a better overall deal for Notre Dame if this happens.

But no way, no how, no chance. 11-1 Notre Dame is not in the college football playoff. Now, 10-2, if they, because they already have lost the Northern Illinois, Right, they could lose the Army. really bad, they could, well, they're not going to lose the Army. They could, they lost the Northern Illinois at home. Well, to go way back to your beginning here, and now that USC finally figured out that they probably had the wrong guy at quarterback, they could lose.

Fair observation, I'd buy that, yeah. So, if they, you're right, if they can't hit the knuckleball on the right day, the Army could win. But let's say the rest of the schedule isn't nasty enough, where 10-2 Notre Dame, that gets to be a little bit tougher, unless Texas A&M beats Texas and goes 10-2, and then they have on the resume that home win at Texas A&M to start the season. Pete, 30 seconds or less, with the contract expiring, new deal in two years, are we going to 18 in two years? Oh, yeah, absolutely, it's going to be too lucrative, and this is going to be such a big, it's going to be such a big, but remember, even if they go to 18, it's still a smaller, smaller, smaller percentage of teams that make the playoffs, compared to the 62% of teams, NBA teams that make it into the playoffs, 50-50. Because that's professional sports! Well.

And I know college is virtually the same now, that was a rhetorical observation. And the NCAA basketball tournament, which lets in like 39% of its teams, it'll still be a smaller percentage. Alright, they're going to go to 100 teams because they need more money too. Pete, you're the best, and I'm thanking you in advance, your phone will be ringing around Thanksgiving time, so we'll confirm that soon, alright?

Absolutely. Thank you, Pete, be good. Pete Futek, collegefootballnews.com, be sure to check out the website, and I apologize for stepping on Pete, but we've been doing that dance for at least a dozen years now, and not only did it ring through all the knowledge he has at his disposal, Pete's got a great sense of humor, and he puts things in context, and again, that's why I love college football, because of scenarios, but when we get to 18, which he just said's a fait complete, one more big word on my way out the door, I'm going to care even less who the 19th team is in college football that's going to be telling me they got screwed. Because this year, when we get the final reveal, I have no interest in team number 13 or 14, yes, I'm not going to be a hypocrite, I'll be watching, because of my passion for the sport, and it is my occupation, and I've been doing it now for 34 years, still, doesn't mean I have to just blindly say, oh yeah, this is terrific. Plus, we know, now Rich takes a different approach, that's why his career is thriving, and I'm the guest host, negativity is the lifeblood of sports talk content. And with that deep thought, I want to thank our guest, Pete Futek, delivered as always, check out his terrific content on collegefootballnews.com, our number two featured NFL insights from Josh Alpert of profootballtalk.com. Want to thank Mr. Eisen, Bruce Gilbert, all the great people at Westwood One, our outstanding technical producer, Art Martinez. And as a reminder, the simulcast is back tomorrow live from Germany, I'll speak to you on Thanksgiving Day here on the Rich Eisen Show. And use code LISTEN for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash listen and use code LISTEN at checkout.