Speaker 1: Welcome to the solid verbal home for me.
Speaker 2: I'm a man, I'm forty. I've heard so many players say, well,
Speaker 2: I want to be happy. You want to be happy
Speaker 2: for a day at the steak? Is that woo woof?
Speaker 2: And then and tie?
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the solid verbal boys and girls. My
Speaker 3: name is Ty Hildebrandt, joining me as always over there.
Speaker 4: The one and only the man with the plan.
Speaker 2: Dan Rubenstein, sir, how you doing? I have no plan.
Speaker 2: I have still a tie. Everything's being thrown at me
Speaker 2: right now. I'm pretty good. I am speaking into a
Speaker 2: bit of an audio cave. It's have you heard of
Speaker 2: nuggets in like the uh the sort of foam blocks
Speaker 2: that that little kids use to climb and make forts
Speaker 2: out of. Do you know about this at all? I
Speaker 2: think I do. Actually, yeah, I've got a couple nugget
Speaker 2: wedges on a desk, a standing desk in front of me,
Speaker 2: in a nugget square behind me, and I sound okay, right?
Speaker 2: You do you do?
Speaker 3: You mc guiverrt a studio and whatever the space you're in.
Speaker 2: The nugget cave so far has done pretty well. So
Speaker 2: that's the only plan I have right now.
Speaker 4: Keep nuggeting, keep nuggeting.
Speaker 3: That's good advice as we plot ahead amid a pandemic
Speaker 3: and uncertainty in general around the college football world. We're
Speaker 3: going to get into that here momentarily and when we
Speaker 3: talk through news in the meantime, don't forget to subscribe
Speaker 3: to our show out on Spotify, on Apple, on Google,
Speaker 3: anywhere you get a podcast. We're doing two shows a
Speaker 3: week until until they tell us not to. Frankly, so
Speaker 3: stay right here, go out to our website soliverbal dot
Speaker 3: com if you want to find all of our old stuff,
Speaker 3: and if you don't already, please follow along.
Speaker 4: With the fun on social media.
Speaker 3: We are on Instagram, we are on Twitter, we are
Speaker 3: on Facebook, and oh, by the way, there is a
Speaker 3: subreddit at solid verbal dot reddit dot com. Daniel, I
Speaker 3: will say that last show, know where you're going with
Speaker 3: this far exceeded my expectations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got a lot of reactions of I as
Speaker 2: well am old and decrepit. We fought a lot of expectations.
Speaker 3: We have a lot of high concepts that we like
Speaker 3: to float out just amongst friends, and you never know
Speaker 3: which one's going to stick and which isn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the why as well, I'm very sore all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I as well understand nothing of the age of the
Speaker 2: people under twenty five. Yeah, we got a lot of that.
Speaker 2: So I'm glad we could relate to our audience with
Speaker 2: everything that's deteriorating inside of us and spiritually at the
Speaker 2: same time. Yeah, it was a good time. Can I
Speaker 2: add another one real quick, just to ask if this
Speaker 2: if this time I'm ready?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: What about calling the township to file a complaint? Is
Speaker 3: that an old and washed thing to do?
Speaker 2: I think that's great. I think you got to be polite.
Speaker 2: But no, I mean that sort of is in the
Speaker 2: customer feedback genus that we talked about a little bit.
Speaker 2: I do it from a positive standpoint. I don't like
Speaker 2: to call up and yell and complain. I just like, hey,
Speaker 2: you know, was great with the delivery. But yeah, if
Speaker 2: there's something legitimate to complain about, I don't think I
Speaker 2: think a younger person might sit idly by. Whereas you,
Speaker 2: you're on the back nine. Essentially, you're you're what you're
Speaker 2: only your pre forty is, yes, so you're approaching the
Speaker 2: back nine. So you want it to be as pleasant
Speaker 2: as possible, and you have a very specific thing that
Speaker 2: you want to.
Speaker 3: There's there's a reason that I ask you this question. Okay,
Speaker 3: are you familiar with something called a bird cannon?
Speaker 2: I could figure out what that is. If we're talking
Speaker 2: literal a cannon that shoots out birds. It does not show.
Speaker 3: I was not aware of this contraption until late last night. Okay,
Speaker 3: we are, as you know, pretty close to like an
Speaker 3: expanse of farmland here. Apparently, yeah, yeah, yeah, Apparently a
Speaker 3: bird cannon is something that the farmers used to scare
Speaker 3: away birds and like other critters from messing with their
Speaker 3: crops and animals and whatnot.
Speaker 2: I looked it up.
Speaker 3: It literally looks like a leaf blower hooked up to
Speaker 3: a five gallon propane tank. So they're not shooting out no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: it's not like a hot dog gun.
Speaker 2: There's no projectile.
Speaker 3: Okay, this is a literal sound cannon.
Speaker 2: Okay, an l rad from whale Wars. Correct.
Speaker 3: Okay, the farmer is adjacent to this neighborhood. Have this
Speaker 3: thing going off twenty four hours a day in increments
Speaker 3: of two minutes and fifty two seconds. I don't know
Speaker 3: if there is some importance to that number within the
Speaker 3: animal kingdom.
Speaker 2: I don't know if they're.
Speaker 3: Being overrun by mother nature over there or.
Speaker 4: What is going on.
Speaker 3: But I am telling you this thing sounds like Skipper,
Speaker 3: the Virginia Tech cannon every single time it goes off
Speaker 3: two minutes and fifty two seconds from now. I have
Speaker 3: been up since two thirty in the morning. The neighbors
Speaker 3: are posted on Facebook. The dog doesn't know what's going on.
Speaker 3: We're under attack by the birds, the farmers, and now
Speaker 3: the virus. And maybe Bob Bolesby.
Speaker 4: Will talk about that in just a little bit.
Speaker 3: I just I need to get some damn sleep after
Speaker 3: we hit the stop button here.
Speaker 2: Can I turn this into college football?
Speaker 4: Please? I would love you too.
Speaker 2: You told me about this earlier, so my bewilderment was
Speaker 2: actually fake. I knew what it was. The jig is up,
Speaker 2: but tie. After you told me about this, I looked
Speaker 2: up the best aerial performances by quarterbacks against college football
Speaker 2: bird teams, the literal bird cannons of college football. If
Speaker 2: you will, can you drop me my bird song? Please?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: Sam Howell against Temple and the Bowl lit them up,
Speaker 2: lit those owls up. James Blackman against the Boston College
Speaker 2: Eagles tie. Sharon Williams Miami, already transferred, but absolutely murdered
Speaker 2: the Louisville Cardinals. Bryce Perkins against Virginia Tech the Hockey
Speaker 2: Birds no longer at Virginia, but in a way.
Speaker 4: Effort, not in a winning effort.
Speaker 2: Brock Perdy lit up the Hawkeyes of Iowa, but that
Speaker 2: was in a losing effort. Alex Delton and Max Duggan
Speaker 2: your boys at TCU against Kansas Jayhawks. Sam Ellinger against
Speaker 2: the Rice Owls. Dylan Gabriel against FAU although he only
Speaker 2: did complete forty percent of his passes, but the ones
Speaker 2: he did amazing. Justin Fields against the RedHawks of Miami.
Speaker 2: Ian Book against the Falcons of Bowling Rain Tie just
Speaker 2: torched him. Tied Torch was the bird cannon against those falcons.
Speaker 2: Hank Bachmeer against Air Force four, Boise State to a
Speaker 2: tongue of Iloa against the game Cocks of South Carolina.
Speaker 2: Only a couple more here. Lane Hatcher Arkansas State, who
Speaker 2: I think is the best twenty nineteen quarterbacks, Red Wolves
Speaker 2: against the Eagles of Georgia Southern Brock Purty double bird,
Speaker 2: double bird against Louisiana Monroe, the Warhawks, and finally, perhaps
Speaker 2: actually there's two more. The one that made me the
Speaker 2: status Jayden Daniels of ASU against the Oregon Ducks took
Speaker 2: them out of playoff contention with his area assault. But
Speaker 2: perhaps the most important one Holy Cross is Connor Daganheart
Speaker 2: over the Mountain Hawks of Lehigh legendary performance.
Speaker 4: We remember that one huge.
Speaker 2: So those are your literal bird cannons of twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: We're gonna need to incorporate the bird cannon into our
Speaker 3: normal fare here on.
Speaker 2: We just have to pay attention to the to bird
Speaker 2: teams that lose via a big passing attack.
Speaker 4: Should we get to news, I'd love to.
Speaker 2: We have breaking news.
Speaker 3: This isn't so much breaking, but I saw it. It
Speaker 3: came across two forty one. It came across the wire
Speaker 3: this afternoon. Mark Emmert is quote concerned join the club
Speaker 3: mark about starting fall sports. I read from the article
Speaker 3: here on ESPN dot com. As the start of the
Speaker 3: college football season continues to inch closer and c DOAA
Speaker 3: pre president Mark Emmert said Tuesday, he remains quote very
Speaker 3: concerned about the status of fall sports. Thinks a delayed
Speaker 3: start and shortened schedule might quote make sense again. Welcome
Speaker 3: to the party, mister Emmert saliverbol at gmail dot com
Speaker 3: if you'd like to give us very troubling, very troubling,
Speaker 3: indeed further comment. Moving on, Ohio State has announced that
Speaker 3: they'll be limiting their attendance to twenty percent inside the Horseshoe,
Speaker 3: face coverings will be required and tailgating will be banned
Speaker 3: for the twenty twenty college football season. Again, the face
Speaker 3: coverings are mandatory for all fans and attendance. They're going
Speaker 3: to be physical distancing while in the stadium. Tailgating is
Speaker 3: not going to be allowed. And oh, the traditional skull
Speaker 3: session the pregame festivities at Saint John's Arena will not
Speaker 3: be held. Also, concessions inside Ohio Stadium will be limited
Speaker 3: as well danced. So again, no big surprises there. But
Speaker 3: I think first I've se Geene Smith was running weird
Speaker 3: like algorithms and models two months ago trying to figure
Speaker 3: this thing out. Now I don't I think he tried
Speaker 3: to aim higher than twenty percent when he was he
Speaker 3: was looking inside the matrix or whatever he was doing.
Speaker 3: But you know, still it feels wishful thinking, he to me.
Speaker 3: But if they can figure out a way to get
Speaker 3: twenty percent in the stadium. Again, it holds like one
Speaker 3: hundred thousand, so you know there'd be room in there
Speaker 3: to physically distance I suppose, but didn't get anywhere close
Speaker 3: to that twenty percent number. I guess that would be
Speaker 3: a pretty big win for him.
Speaker 2: Ti'd you go on your first date with solid wife
Speaker 2: Kate to Mexico to a beautiful resort? Did you go
Speaker 2: to Bali?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean we went to Red Robin.
Speaker 2: Does he want to read Robin?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm a big believer in taking things incrementally. Ohio
Speaker 2: is in an okay place, not great, not amazing as
Speaker 2: a state, and this changes by the day. They do
Speaker 2: have a mandatory mass order, which is good. But to me,
Speaker 2: let's let's start with no fans, see how everything's going,
Speaker 2: Maybe up it a little bit from there, you know,
Speaker 2: heavy fan petting if you will tie and see how
Speaker 2: like we don't we don't need to jump into the
Speaker 2: deep end. I understand that that fans and the revenue
Speaker 2: that fans can bring in, but just we're talking about
Speaker 2: a twenty one thousand person gathering plus everybody there to
Speaker 2: actually play in and support the football game. So it's
Speaker 2: it's a lot of people gathering tie, it's still a
Speaker 2: big number of people gathering. I think it should be
Speaker 2: handled more incrementally.
Speaker 1: That's me.
Speaker 3: How do you feel about these cardboard cutout fans that
Speaker 3: we got going on at baseball games?
Speaker 2: Okay, so I don't watch a ton of baseball. I'm
Speaker 2: fine with it. It looks a little bit goofy, but
Speaker 2: twenty twenty is just goofy in general.
Speaker 3: So like, you could pay forty dollars to get a
Speaker 3: Nick Cage cardboard cutout, which is so worth the money.
Speaker 3: But my question, the reason I ask, is because you know,
Speaker 3: as a business entity, now teaming entity that we are,
Speaker 3: do we have budget to buy some select cardboard cutouts
Speaker 3: in the event that say, you know, Texas goes fanless
Speaker 3: and you could pay forty bucks to get soliverbal themed
Speaker 3: cardboard cutout?
Speaker 4: What what thing.
Speaker 2: Of what's the school the smallest school and what I
Speaker 2: would assume to be the least expensive to mass order
Speaker 2: tie and Dan cutouts? So is it a sun Belt team?
Speaker 2: Are we going to settle for being over the over
Speaker 2: the top a streaming service stadium purchase or what's the
Speaker 2: least expensive? So are we buying Kansas? Are we buying Rutgers.
Speaker 2: Rutgers not in good shape right now. No, what would
Speaker 2: be the best investment in terms of getting on TV
Speaker 2: and seeing a stadium full of Dan's and ties.
Speaker 4: That's a great question.
Speaker 2: And maybe Mama h'sm I think I would be okay when.
Speaker 4: H might not want that, But we can have her
Speaker 4: in the upper.
Speaker 2: Deck next to the girl sewing at Kansas.
Speaker 4: All right, let's think about that one.
Speaker 2: That's a let's see, Cal's pretty good.
Speaker 4: Cal. What's the smallest Power five state?
Speaker 2: Well, who's going to be on the PAC twelve network
Speaker 2: the most? That might be the cheapest buy?
Speaker 4: Colorado, Colorado could be interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Carl Durrell, Colorado could get us. We could have
Speaker 2: thirty five hundred Dans and ties total.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would love that.
Speaker 3: I'm for it for like three hundred and fifty bucks.
Speaker 4: Maybe that'd be awesome, all right.
Speaker 3: I Miami has named Deeric King the starting quarterback. You'll
Speaker 3: know him from his time at Houston, where he started
Speaker 3: twenty two games, had eighty two total touchdowns, forty two
Speaker 3: hundred almost forty three hundred passing guards, fourteen hundred plus
Speaker 3: rushing guards. You may recall he went with a red
Speaker 3: shirt last season and transferred to Miami in January. Only
Speaker 3: had four practices, ok this spring with Miami before the pandemic,
Speaker 3: but many days has seen enough. He's ready to name
Speaker 3: your King his starting quarterback.
Speaker 2: Well as your starting quarterback left and the other starting
Speaker 2: quarterbacks are not crazy interesting. So just dear King has
Speaker 2: been good in college football, so makes sense. By the way,
Speaker 2: while you were talking about that is what is the
Speaker 2: rudest possible purchase we could make in terms of cardboard cutout?
Speaker 2: Could we get could we buy ten Greg Chiano's and
Speaker 2: put him in the stands at Tennessee?
Speaker 4: No baby?
Speaker 2: Could we get a Rick Neuheisel Jim moora collection in
Speaker 2: the corner of the rose ball at UCLA?
Speaker 3: This is such a Pandora's box here that we're.
Speaker 1: OK right now.
Speaker 2: It's just what is the most subtle evil? And I
Speaker 2: want everybody to let us know, Twitter, solidverbal, Reddit, whateverver
Speaker 2: you need to soliverble at gmail dot com. What is
Speaker 2: the most subtle evil that you think we could get
Speaker 2: through the gatekeepers in terms of a cardboard cutout at
Speaker 2: a game like Mike Price at Bryan Denny.
Speaker 4: I was gonna say, Mike Price is so good.
Speaker 2: It's so, but that might be cost prohibitive, now I know.
Speaker 2: I mean just one though, just for somebody to notice
Speaker 2: and post on it.
Speaker 4: It's like a where is waldough?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: What can we get through secretly? Because there are a
Speaker 2: lot of a lot of heads, a lot of faces
Speaker 2: that would not be appreciated in certain stadiums.
Speaker 4: Man, oh man, who is a guy who killed the trees?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: At Alabama? Or yeah, at Auburn specifically hy updyke? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: we could get some updykes at Auburn.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: Just put him in, like, just in a suit and
Speaker 2: he's not obviously wearing the furry elephant Alabama hat. Put
Speaker 2: him in a you know, photoshop him into a respectable
Speaker 2: looking suit so he looks sort of like a cleaned
Speaker 2: up Nick Nolty, and just get him at Jordan her
Speaker 2: I'm good with it.
Speaker 1: Ty.
Speaker 2: We need to think of the most evil but not
Speaker 2: not rooted in anything seriously anti human, but just where
Speaker 2: there's weird bad blood. I would love that.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying this is a full podcast episode, but
Speaker 3: it's at least.
Speaker 2: An extended write it down, put a post it on
Speaker 2: your laptop.
Speaker 4: Please, all right?
Speaker 3: Elsewhere as we make this turn into the weird uncertainty
Speaker 3: before us Iowa State has replaced Iowa with Ball State
Speaker 3: on their schedule. The Big Twelve is trying to play
Speaker 3: twelve games in twenty twenty. Now from the Iowa State standpoint,
Speaker 3: you know, they're just trying to get games in, trying
Speaker 3: to fit games in. It made sense for them, it
Speaker 3: made sense for Ball State. Ball State is currently down
Speaker 3: three games, not just Michigan and Indiana, but also the
Speaker 3: main Black Bears, which we're all looking forward to. Of course,
Speaker 3: a very interesting state of affairs right now around the
Speaker 3: world of college football. So the Big Ten came out
Speaker 3: first and made their announcement about conference only games. The
Speaker 3: PAC twelve was very soon there to follow. That left
Speaker 3: the SEC, the ACC, and the Big Twelve in something
Speaker 3: of a limbo state. Now we had talked about, I
Speaker 3: think on our last episode, how next two to three
Speaker 3: weeks in the world of college football, we're going to
Speaker 3: be pretty pretty informative about where we're headed as a
Speaker 3: season in calendar year twenty twenty. It sounds as if
Speaker 3: a decision could come as soon as Wednesday. On the
Speaker 3: ACC front, officials are meeting there. They're going to discuss
Speaker 3: their final decisions, a model, and a start date for
Speaker 3: what their twenty twenty season might look like. The SEC
Speaker 3: has been very tight lipped at this point, though their commissioner,
Speaker 3: Greg Sankie's been pretty I think, pretty strong in just
Speaker 3: support of player safety and trying to do things responsibly.
Speaker 3: The Big Twelve is almost on the far other end
Speaker 3: of the spectrum. Bob's like, Yo, we're doing this, man,
Speaker 3: we are doing this thing. I saw some commentary from
Speaker 3: the Texas Tech president saying that other Big twelve schools
Speaker 3: generally want to play a full twelve game slate. Bob
Speaker 3: Bowlsby's on the record as part of a separate interview
Speaker 3: talking about how he doesn't necessarily think all Power five
Speaker 3: conferences need to do the same thing. He's fine with
Speaker 3: it being asymmetrical. So, you know, there is no czar
Speaker 3: in college football. We know that Mark Emmertt maybe is
Speaker 3: somewhat of a figurehead here, but there's no true governing
Speaker 3: body that's just going to tell them all what they
Speaker 3: have to do it. It's much more nuanced and complicated
Speaker 3: than that. So when we talk about how the scheduling
Speaker 3: works and the domino effect of a conference like the
Speaker 3: Big Ten announcing conference only, and where does that leave
Speaker 3: other conferences. There's just it's very muddled. We're going to
Speaker 3: get into that with our interview today with Richard Johnson.
Speaker 3: We are it's it's a good conversation, but it's just
Speaker 3: so complex and painted in fifty shades of gray. Here,
Speaker 3: not the fifty shades of gray, but many shades of
Speaker 3: band on that thought. Please, no, no, no, please, I'm good.
Speaker 2: Come on, Are you chained into it? No, I'm about
Speaker 2: as chained into this as possible. It's just it's very weird.
Speaker 3: It's very nuanced, and honestly, it changes from second to second.
Speaker 2: I'll offer you this. At least, it seems the Big
Speaker 2: twelve is going with an aggressive plan, whereas it seems
Speaker 2: like I don't necessarily respect it, but I can appreciate
Speaker 2: the fact that the Big Twelve is like, this is
Speaker 2: our goal, this is what we want to do. We're
Speaker 2: going down swinging. I don't know, I definitely don't know
Speaker 2: if it's the right plan, but from other conferences we're
Speaker 2: seeing sort of this dipping the toes and we're doing this. No,
Speaker 2: we're not doing this. On a certain level, I appreciate
Speaker 2: the aggression of saying we're living in die and by
Speaker 2: the three and we'll see what happens TI. But now
Speaker 2: there is something almost in an evil way, admirable about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll see. I mean, I think a lot is
Speaker 3: to come. We will talk with Richard about what's going
Speaker 3: on in Major League Baseball. Part of what college football
Speaker 3: has said just generally is they want to learn as
Speaker 3: much as they can from some of the pro sports leagues.
Speaker 3: And I think we're seeing a very interesting case study
Speaker 3: right now. I hate to call it that because it's
Speaker 3: a health concern, but what's going on with the Miami
Speaker 3: Marlins is is definitely front and center and something that
Speaker 3: I know the powers that be are paying attention to
Speaker 3: around college.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3: So we'll see any other news that jumped out at
Speaker 3: you this week, Dan.
Speaker 2: No I have now tweeted out the question of what
Speaker 2: would be the most hilariously evil cardboard cutout purchase for
Speaker 2: an empty college football stadium, and we will collect them
Speaker 2: after our interview with Richard and who is the best
Speaker 2: absolute purchase?
Speaker 3: All right, that's your news for this show July the
Speaker 3: twenty ninth. Shall we dive into our interview?
Speaker 2: Let's do it?
Speaker 3: Who is our esteemed interview subject, mister Rubinstein.
Speaker 2: A dear dear friend of the show, Richard Johnson, one
Speaker 2: of the co authors of The Sinful Seven, a new
Speaker 2: book coming out that I'm not fully sure what it is,
Speaker 2: so I'm excited to hear what he has in the
Speaker 2: way of an explanation about a sci fi western that
Speaker 2: has to do with college football and the NCAA. But
Speaker 2: you've listened to him on PAPN most recently you read
Speaker 2: him at Banner Society and Espianation. I've watched Saturday games
Speaker 2: with him pretty much every week for the last few years. So,
Speaker 2: dear dear friend of the show, Richard Johnson.
Speaker 3: All right, Dan joining us now, long time friend of
Speaker 3: the verbal. It has been far too long, mister Richard Johnson, Sir,
Speaker 3: welcome back to the show. How you doing, man?
Speaker 1: Who is good to be back the WAW are still fine?
Speaker 1: I miss you guys.
Speaker 2: I miss you do What are you doing?
Speaker 4: Man?
Speaker 2: What's up?
Speaker 1: Man? I am in I'm in parts unknown. I have
Speaker 1: socially distanced from Brooklyn, New York for a little bit.
Speaker 1: I am I'm taking a load off. I'm enjoying some
Speaker 1: cool summer nights. It's it's as good as it can
Speaker 1: be given the circumstances of what's going on in the world.
Speaker 3: So we're not going to divulge where your location is,
Speaker 3: parts unknown, but you may have the opportunity to practice
Speaker 3: survival skills.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, you know it's it's you know, I
Speaker 1: can make a fire in under three minutes. You know,
Speaker 1: sleep out under the stars. You know, if a bear
Speaker 1: comes after me, I know how to disarm it and
Speaker 1: take it on.
Speaker 2: Come on, now, I saw on bear grills.
Speaker 3: If you just yell yo bear like every thirty seconds
Speaker 3: or so, that'll apparently keep him away.
Speaker 4: It scares him away.
Speaker 1: Taught him, taught him everything he knows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, old old nature boy Richard Johnson. Okay, let's start
Speaker 2: here because I think we are recording this. I don't
Speaker 2: know how many hours. I can't do math, but mere
Speaker 2: dozens of hours before a book you've been working on
Speaker 2: with Alex kirshn or Jason Kirk and Spencer Hall called
Speaker 2: The Sinful Seven.
Speaker 1: And Jason Whiting cannot forget on.
Speaker 2: Jason Whiting, excuse me? And Tyson Whiting, who is the
Speaker 2: chief artiste and artistic director and all around just a
Speaker 2: really talented artist had worked with Vox and Espionation for
Speaker 2: a long time. What is the book? How did it
Speaker 2: come together? Where can people find it? And it sounds
Speaker 2: like a Western but it's actually a college football book.
Speaker 2: Tell me everything I need to know, because I've purchased
Speaker 2: the book and I can't wait to dive in.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, Sinful. The book is sinful, seven sci
Speaker 1: fi Western Legends of the NCAA. It drops August first
Speaker 1: at noon. I am really really excited for people to
Speaker 1: read it. Man. I mean, it's been the last three
Speaker 1: months of your life. Look, I would I would not
Speaker 1: suggest anybody who is creative listening to this podcast to
Speaker 1: write a book in the span of eleven or twelve weeks.
Speaker 1: You won't sleep much. It'll be pretty tough. And I
Speaker 1: would definitely not suggest that you write a book during
Speaker 1: a global pandemic and you know, broader civic unrest, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call it. But it's funny. We all
Speaker 1: the five of us got furloughed from Vox at the
Speaker 1: beginning of May, and it's funny. Jason Kirk, who was
Speaker 1: my college football editor at Spanation Banner Society and is
Speaker 1: now my co author on this book, basically like asked
Speaker 1: all of us if we wanted to do this, and
Speaker 1: Spencer Hall, being the incredible creative mind that he is,
Speaker 1: we all got on a zoom call one day and
Speaker 1: he like laid out the idea for a college football
Speaker 1: western And it was one of those things where Jason
Speaker 1: kind of floated it and I didn't even I didn't
Speaker 1: even know what it was going to be, even know
Speaker 1: what it could be. It was one of those things
Speaker 1: where it was like, yeah, you know, that'll be a
Speaker 1: good use of my time over the next three months
Speaker 1: or so, I thought. And and it's one of those
Speaker 1: things where you just start rolling and you know, Dan
Speaker 1: and Ty, both of you guys, you guys have worked
Speaker 1: with kind of this crew. You guys know our creative juices.
Speaker 1: You guys know how we kind of work. I have
Speaker 1: trusted these guys that I've worked with for the last
Speaker 1: three or four years, implicitly ever creatively with my creative development.
Speaker 1: I think they are the brightest, whip, smartest college football
Speaker 1: writers in the industry. And and so there it's not
Speaker 1: like five people were getting together to do this that
Speaker 1: didn't know each other or you know that we were
Speaker 1: mercenary freelance writers you know, we know how each other work,
Speaker 1: and and you know, it's one of those things where
Speaker 1: during edits, you know, I had to rewrite like one
Speaker 1: of my whole chapters. And you know, if it was
Speaker 1: a different team, like maybe I'd have some inhibitions, maybe
Speaker 1: I wouldn't trust uh the editor that I'm working with.
Speaker 1: But now, like Jason asked me to do something, and
Speaker 1: like I know, at the end of the day, without
Speaker 1: a shadow of a doubt, if Jason's asking me to
Speaker 1: change something, it's gonna make it better. And and that's
Speaker 1: just how the attitude you have to go with. And
Speaker 1: I mean honestly, like there's there's some ignorance of like
Speaker 1: the process. I think that you kind of almost have
Speaker 1: to have to do something this dumb. And by dumb,
Speaker 1: I mean writing a book in eleven weeks. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like it's like as a writer, you're always like hell, yeah,
Speaker 1: like you know, I'd love to write a book. Write
Speaker 1: a book's just a long article, and then you write
Speaker 1: it and you're like this is hell. So it's one
Speaker 1: of those things where you just I just we all
Speaker 1: just put our heads down and just wrote and plowed
Speaker 1: through it. And and Tyson like the four of us
Speaker 1: are just dumb writers. Tyson Whiting is an absolutely brilliant artist.
Speaker 1: He's coding the book so it'll look sexy on your
Speaker 1: kindle and your iPad and maybe even a PDF if
Speaker 1: that's how you want to do it. He is is
Speaker 1: a brilliant creative mind in his own right, and it
Speaker 1: just is one of those projects that like it just fit.
Speaker 1: It just fits, and it's really really good. I actually
Speaker 1: read it cover to cover in its kind of final
Speaker 1: version for the first time over the weekend. And when
Speaker 1: I've read all the chapters kind of individually, but when
Speaker 1: you read it kind of as a collective work in
Speaker 1: one or two sittings, you know, you view it a
Speaker 1: little bit differently. And I got done with it and
Speaker 1: I literally was like, it's not just because I'm working
Speaker 1: on this that I say this, Like the book is
Speaker 1: good and I cannot wait for people to read it.
Speaker 1: And you can go pick it up. Sinfulseven dot Com
Speaker 1: pre order until Saturday, and twenty percent of the pre
Speaker 1: orders will go the profits of the preorders will go
Speaker 1: to Feeding America, So you're helping some people in need
Speaker 1: as well as helping some on college football minds.
Speaker 3: So when when you say sci fi or Western legends
Speaker 3: of the NC double A, what what does that mean
Speaker 3: is that Brian Bosworth, of these fictional characters.
Speaker 2: What do we say, is there a narrative how to row?
Speaker 3: How does college football fit into sci fi Western legendary?
Speaker 1: So we basically like take the So also, the rhythm
Speaker 1: of the book is half fiction half nonfiction. So for
Speaker 1: most of the book it alternates between a fiction chapter
Speaker 1: and a nonfiction chapter. If you've read the the excerpt
Speaker 1: that Spencer Hall wrote that went on four to wind
Speaker 1: dot com last week, you'll read a fiction part. By
Speaker 1: the time your people are listening to this, you can
Speaker 1: go and read one of my exerted chapters on hazlit
Speaker 1: dot net and that is a non fiction chapter, and
Speaker 1: so you'll get it is it is a truly unique
Speaker 1: project because of that. And so basically we are telling
Speaker 1: and creating a fictional world with and populating that world
Speaker 1: with characters, stories locales from real college football stories that
Speaker 1: span from basically the beginning of college sports right around
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties. And it's there are there are things
Speaker 1: that are on the cutting room floor that we couldn't
Speaker 1: even put in. I mean, like you guys know that
Speaker 1: the sport is so rich with characters that are one
Speaker 1: hundred percent real people that if you took to a
Speaker 1: Hollywood screenwriter and said this is you know, this is
Speaker 1: an idea for a fleshed out character, they would say, no,
Speaker 1: this is too fanciful. I mean the sports and saying
Speaker 1: we know it, that's why we love it.
Speaker 2: You mean like a coach coaching from a hospital bed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like it's it's just there are things like that
Speaker 1: that you just you just say, you just sit down
Speaker 1: and you say, like, this cannot be real life. People
Speaker 1: cannot be actual people. And yet some of them coaching
Speaker 1: and administrators, like they get entrusted with eighteen to twenty
Speaker 1: two year old at a time, you know, one hundred
Speaker 1: of them at a time, Like it boggles the mind truly.
Speaker 1: But you know, the game is so rich with stories,
Speaker 1: and we take and we tweak and we adapt and
Speaker 1: we try to fit in to this fictional universe what
Speaker 1: we can. But there are references goal more to college
Speaker 1: football in here, both in a sci fi realm and
Speaker 1: a western realm. I mean, somebody is going to be
Speaker 1: silly enough to try to do a wiki on this book,
Speaker 1: and I feel for that person because that person who's
Speaker 1: going to have some work to do.
Speaker 3: It feels to me a little bit like Truman Show,
Speaker 3: where you've built your own like fictional bubble, You've pulled
Speaker 3: in elements from the outside world to construct that new reality.
Speaker 3: How are you treating the postseason? Can we just ask,
Speaker 3: because Dan and I were always at odds with you know,
Speaker 3: the bowl season or the playoffs?
Speaker 2: Is that a character?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Like, how how is that a topic that has broached
Speaker 3: in your in your so called Western bubble here?
Speaker 1: Oh, I will say that it is more than broch,
Speaker 1: that is uh. I can I can say that. I
Speaker 1: can say that it is more than broach the postseason
Speaker 1: of both college football and college basketball, might I add? Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's it's in there. Trust me, You're you're gonna
Speaker 1: You're gonna get your fill of college sports postseason. I
Speaker 1: will say that I'll keep it cryptic.
Speaker 3: But if it's if it's cryptic and western, you're gonna
Speaker 3: do something cool like a duel that would be way
Speaker 3: cooler if we had it in real life, and you know,
Speaker 3: far more ghastly, but at the same time definitely fits
Speaker 3: with the motif here of Western legends.
Speaker 1: I I you know, I will neither confirm or deny.
Speaker 2: Okay, I know I will neither.
Speaker 1: Confirm or deny that Notre Dame has a prominent role
Speaker 1: in this book.
Speaker 2: Wow Wow ham McDaniel supporting character, Tie supporting character not
Speaker 2: often used running back whose helmet sometimes fell off. Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm going to do a professional segue here unless there's
Speaker 2: anything we need to add further, and we'll talk about
Speaker 2: it at the end of this whole thing. But speaking
Speaker 2: of science fiction and the wild Wild Wests, Richard, we've
Speaker 2: got a possible twenty twenty college football season. I haven't
Speaker 2: seen you in months, and that's far too long, so
Speaker 2: I haven't been able to get your extensive thoughts on things.
Speaker 2: But one of the things Ty and I were recently
Speaker 2: talking about is the fact that we are so hyper
Speaker 2: focused on a very binary question of will they won't
Speaker 2: they and slash how that we don't think about all
Speaker 2: of the potential ramifications of the different scenarios. We've talked
Speaker 2: about different schedule ramifications, but just more on a human level,
Speaker 2: whether it's players or coaches, or scheduling or TV or
Speaker 2: the sport itself. Do you have any big thoughts things
Speaker 2: that have just sort of crawled into the back of
Speaker 2: your brain and when you're not writing the book about
Speaker 2: what people perhaps aren't thinking about considering the circumstances of
Speaker 2: what the twenty twenty college football season might look like.
Speaker 1: I think the like on the top, like people ask me,
Speaker 1: like do you know, and I'm like no, and I
Speaker 1: don't know because the people I talk to don't know.
Speaker 1: Nobody knows, and like there are some things that you
Speaker 1: can speak to with like relative certainty and confidence. But
Speaker 1: when I tell you, guys, this is the blind leading
Speaker 1: the blind. And I'm talking all the way up to
Speaker 1: like school presidents, conference commissioners, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, we talked to people in the industry, coaches, agents, whatever,
Speaker 1: like everybody's like, what the hell is going on? Like
Speaker 1: nobody knows what's going on? Like I there. I if
Speaker 1: you've seen the college football Reddit matrix that shows like
Speaker 1: what conferences in leagues are playing and what and which
Speaker 1: ones aren't and like who's canceled? Like I actually had
Speaker 1: a coach dm me on Twitter yesterday. Uh he dm
Speaker 1: me that picture and it literally says, and I quote,
Speaker 1: what the f are we doing here? Like nobody knows
Speaker 1: what's going on. And that is the thing that I
Speaker 1: before I tell anybody, you know, my opinions on things,
Speaker 1: I have to preface that, like, it could change in
Speaker 1: a week. And there's so many things in this world
Speaker 1: right now that you can say that about, but college
Speaker 1: football is what we're talking about, So yeah, it can
Speaker 1: change in a week. You know. The one thing that
Speaker 1: I think I can talk about with some pretty a
Speaker 1: pretty big amount of certainty is that the spring thing
Speaker 1: is probably a non starter at least for the Power
Speaker 1: five leagues. And it's because, honestly, it's because of the NFL.
Speaker 1: Like the NFL is not. I don't know if the
Speaker 1: NFL is going to finish its season, but I will
Speaker 1: say I'm pretty sure they're going to try to kick
Speaker 1: it off labor the weekend. And because of that, I
Speaker 1: don't think the NFL is going to push I don't
Speaker 1: think the NFL is going to try to push the
Speaker 1: combine back. I don't think the NFL is going to
Speaker 1: push the draft back. And so what you may run
Speaker 1: into is Trevor Lawrence Justin Fields, if you were playing
Speaker 1: in the spring, for instance, Trevor Lawrence Justice Fields getting
Speaker 1: paid a lot by an agency to sit out and
Speaker 1: in the agency gets the money on the back end
Speaker 1: when they get drafted and get their signing bonus or
Speaker 1: something like that of that nature. If I'm Trevor or
Speaker 1: justin God bless Clinton in Ohio State. But I got
Speaker 1: a lot of money riding on me not tearing an
Speaker 1: ACL February fifth and potentially jeopardizing my twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: regular season in the NFL. So that I think is
Speaker 1: the big thing with Spring. I don't personally view Spring.
Speaker 1: I personally view Spring as something of a non starter,
Speaker 1: at least for the Power five League.
Speaker 2: So that's go ahead.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 1: Well, I would say I do. I would say to
Speaker 1: the Power five I'm like, look, the Power five leagues,
Speaker 1: the Commission need to get together like the PSI families
Speaker 1: in the in the Godfather movies, right, get together and
Speaker 1: just say, look, this is how we're gonna do testing.
Speaker 1: This is how we're gonna do this is how we're
Speaker 1: gonna do that. The NC double A has already said,
Speaker 1: is on record saying basically, it's y'all's problem. The NC
Speaker 1: double A is not gonna put a foot down and
Speaker 1: regulate this and all this kind of stuff. And that's
Speaker 1: because the NC double A is what the NC double
Speaker 1: A is. And by the way, you can read about
Speaker 1: the NC double a's formation in the Central seven SI
Speaker 1: by Western Legends of the NC double A dropping August
Speaker 1: first at noon Central seven dot com. Like, uh, it's
Speaker 1: just one of those things where it's like the NCAA
Speaker 1: is not going to force a hand here, so it's
Speaker 1: gonna be up to the leagues. And it's it's so
Speaker 1: piecemeal like Michigan State all the entire team's court quarantining,
Speaker 1: h Rutgers the entire teams court quarantining. But then maybe
Speaker 1: another team has a few cases and the whole team
Speaker 1: doesn't quarantine, but you quarantine a position group or something
Speaker 1: like that. Like it's it's it's like whack a mole man.
Speaker 1: It's like, Okay, here's one problem, We've saved that. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's another one. It's okay, we're gonna have twenty percent
Speaker 1: fans in the stands. Well that means well, we're not
Speaker 1: gonna have tailgating. So who's gonna come. It's not gonna
Speaker 1: be students, right, Like is it gonna be kids' parents? Like,
Speaker 1: is it gonna be boosters? Is it you go on
Speaker 1: and on and on, and you spiral, and that's just
Speaker 1: me talking as some dummy who's not a conference commissioner.
Speaker 1: I can only imagine the levers and what is going
Speaker 1: on in some of these conference offices. Man, it's crazy.
Speaker 2: So let me play Devil's advocate.
Speaker 3: We talk about the NFL, and we don't know if
Speaker 3: they're going to finish the season given current events.
Speaker 4: We don't know if the Marlins are going to finish
Speaker 4: the week.
Speaker 3: Okay, So yeah, to your point, there's a lot going on.
Speaker 3: But I think you're right about the spring thing to
Speaker 3: the extent that if the goal is to win a championship,
Speaker 3: then losing Trevor aren't losing justin fields. Losing some of
Speaker 3: these elite caliber players is certainly a consideration and a problem.
Speaker 3: I question whether or not that's the goal here, right, because.
Speaker 2: That's what I've been saying all along, Ty.
Speaker 3: You know, and Dan, sure, let's harken back to your
Speaker 3: age old point here. If that's the goal, then fine.
Speaker 3: But if the goal, as I understand it, is to
Speaker 3: just play as many games as possible to earn as
Speaker 3: many bucks as possible so that schools and programs don't
Speaker 3: go under wouldn't the cost of you know, playing three
Speaker 3: games in the fall and then having to suspend the
Speaker 3: whole damn thing be far greater than saying, you know what,
Speaker 3: this isn't going to work. There isn't going to be
Speaker 3: a championship, at least in its normal sense. Anyway, why
Speaker 3: don't we just push it off to the spring. The
Speaker 3: cost of doing business in this sense will be that
Speaker 3: we lose some of our elite players, but at least
Speaker 3: maybe we know we can get ten games in.
Speaker 1: Well. The problem is the other problem with spring is
Speaker 1: that you with a lot of these programs, you run
Speaker 1: into other sports. So I went to the University of Florida, right,
Speaker 1: a very big, very robust athletic department, and a lot
Speaker 1: of the I'm not even talking about I'm talking about
Speaker 1: like sids and stuff like that. A lot of the
Speaker 1: uh it's football is kind of like all hands on
Speaker 1: deck for the athletic departments because in the fall at
Speaker 1: a lot of these places, they're only it's only really
Speaker 1: like football, volleyball, maybe soccer, and then in the winter
Speaker 1: obviously basketball starts, and then like wrestling and stuff. But
Speaker 1: for the most part there's not to be sports but
Speaker 1: when you get to the spring, there's so many sports
Speaker 1: that are going on. It's one of those things where
Speaker 1: you may end up just running everything together and you
Speaker 1: may overly tax these athletic departments who don't have the
Speaker 1: resources for everybody to do, you know, six games on
Speaker 1: a Saturday, one of which being football. And you know
Speaker 1: this is obviously like a minor thing because maybe we
Speaker 1: won't have fans in a potential spring twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: but like, how do you get a campus mobilized to
Speaker 1: hold those events now if there's not fans? Again, different story.
Speaker 1: But those are just some of the contingencies that are
Speaker 1: the collateral damage maybe that you may think of about
Speaker 1: moving the games to the spring. You know, I think
Speaker 1: the I hesitate to say the word easy, but you know,
Speaker 1: conference only schedules maybe eight games, because that gives you
Speaker 1: the opportunity to cancel a week, sit out a week
Speaker 1: if you've got a lot of positive tests or whatever.
Speaker 1: And I know that I you know, I don't want
Speaker 1: to sit here and sound like I'm playing around with
Speaker 1: a very serious public health matter right now. But if
Speaker 1: we want to be pragmatic, machiavellian, whatever, at some point,
Speaker 1: somebody's going to say the quiet part out loud here,
Speaker 1: which is that we've just got to play football to
Speaker 1: undergird the economics of college athletics because they are so
Speaker 1: fundamentally warped now, you know, it just it just is
Speaker 1: what it is. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The other thing that I wonder, and I mentioned this
Speaker 3: to Dan, you know, now there's news coming out and
Speaker 3: I don't know how how significant it is, how seriously
Speaker 3: I should take it. I think we're all in the
Speaker 3: same boat when it comes to things like vaccine development,
Speaker 3: right like we do a college football show. We'll leave
Speaker 3: that to the experts. But if in fact we do
Speaker 3: have some sort of vaccine developed by the end of
Speaker 3: the year, could that be something of a tipping point.
Speaker 3: Knowing that so much of this revenue on the college
Speaker 3: end does come from putting fans in seats, might that
Speaker 3: give them some further clearance to say, you know what,
Speaker 3: maybe spring does make more sense.
Speaker 1: Depends on It just depends on, like a mass production schedule.
Speaker 1: It depends on you know, there are already kind of
Speaker 1: early signs right now that trials are doing well in
Speaker 1: the early stages right now with some of these vaccines today,
Speaker 1: the text A and M I think is getting a
Speaker 1: grant to help with production mass production or something like that. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: the wheels are turning there. It definitely would, But you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if the leagues are going to sit
Speaker 1: here and say we can wait that long, because I
Speaker 1: don't know if they can, you know, and the other like,
Speaker 1: I think we think we kind of keep it on
Speaker 1: the team level because you know, that's what that's what
Speaker 1: pertains to us or whatever. But I don't think the
Speaker 1: problem or the I don't think the biggest red flag
Speaker 1: is these teams being amongst themselves. It's the fact that
Speaker 1: college kids are going to go out to parties, They're
Speaker 1: going to go out to bars, They're going to hang
Speaker 1: out with their friends, They're going to hang out with
Speaker 1: their significant others. That's where we talk about. That's where
Speaker 1: that's where real spread occurs, particularly in the Southern States
Speaker 1: where it's really popping off right now. But then the
Speaker 1: other thing that may rear its ugly head is, well,
Speaker 1: what happens if where me and Dan, where me, Dan
Speaker 1: and Ty, where all three of us lives, what happens
Speaker 1: in the northeast? Does the second wave in October? You
Speaker 1: know who knows? Man it's just I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know. You know. I love college football, you know,
Speaker 1: we all do. We all rely on it for our
Speaker 1: for our livelihoods. But there is a lot up in
Speaker 1: the air, and it changes every day, and it's it's
Speaker 1: just who knows, man who knows.
Speaker 2: One of the things I want to get back to
Speaker 2: you mentioned something about like the five Families, the five
Speaker 2: Power five conferences getting together and discussing things and figuring
Speaker 2: out where they stand apart from the NC double A.
Speaker 2: I'm wondering if we could see a situation and I've
Speaker 2: only heard about this recently. Sometimes, and these are generally
Speaker 2: older people, they'll go in for a medical procedure, like
Speaker 2: they'll get something work done on, like they'll get a
Speaker 2: broken nose fixed, and they'll say, Hey, while you're in there,
Speaker 2: why not fix my eyes a little bit. Why not
Speaker 2: give me a little bit of a facelift. Why not,
Speaker 2: you know, give me some lepo, because I'm going to
Speaker 2: be recovering anyway, and nobody's going to know the difference.
Speaker 2: They're just going to say, wow, you look great after
Speaker 2: all that time off. Could this be a situation if
Speaker 2: we have a shortened if we have a canceled if
Speaker 2: we have an altered season in some way that the
Speaker 2: powers that be be it, you know, TV and conference
Speaker 2: commissioners and everybody getting together saying, let's let's use this opportunity,
Speaker 2: this time off for an almost restructuring to sort of
Speaker 2: centralize power in a now national sport whereas you know,
Speaker 2: we have all this separated and disparate power because it
Speaker 2: used to be a regional sport. Now it's a lot
Speaker 2: more nationalized because of TV. Could we see a situation
Speaker 2: in which they use this recovery time to I guess,
Speaker 2: become more efficient in terms of how the sport is structured.
Speaker 1: I do wonder. I mean that now that appeals to
Speaker 1: the better angels of the nature of college administrators, and
Speaker 1: that would that would take some of them seeding power
Speaker 1: and we all know that adding going to happen, you know.
Speaker 1: I One of the things that I was batting around
Speaker 1: with somebody is do we think that this could be
Speaker 1: a thing where power five like out and out, really
Speaker 1: breaks off. I mean, they already have so much autonomy
Speaker 1: to set rules as they want given the NCAA rule book,
Speaker 1: but it would this be a thing where they really
Speaker 1: truly break off and just really say, you know, kick
Speaker 1: rocks to the rest of college sports. I don't think
Speaker 1: that's going to happen, primarily because leaving the nc double
Speaker 1: A something, doing something that drastic would leave NCAA tournament
Speaker 1: TV money on the table, and obviously nobody's going to
Speaker 1: do that. So I don't think it'll get that drastic.
Speaker 1: I don't think it'll get that bad. The economic fallout,
Speaker 1: as we know, is absolutely going to be felt by
Speaker 1: the by the Group of five schools and by the
Speaker 1: SCS schools, and you know, all the way down that's
Speaker 1: you know, it trickles down. The ship rolls down ill
Speaker 1: as we know, and you know, I look at so
Speaker 1: right the Big Ten cancels it, it's out of conference games,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people were a lot of people
Speaker 1: kind of within college sports outside of the Big Ten
Speaker 1: were kind of like, why'd you go so early? Why
Speaker 1: didn't you hold out a few more weeks to kind
Speaker 1: of say something. Obviously we've seen the PAC twelve has
Speaker 1: also moved. But at the time when the Big Ten
Speaker 1: made its call, I guess the weekend after the fourth
Speaker 1: A lot of people were like, why didn't you wait,
Speaker 1: Why didn't you just hold you know, you could have
Speaker 1: waited to make that announcement, and so you know, the
Speaker 1: Big Ten says that. And so I take a school
Speaker 1: like Bowling Green, Right, Bowling Green's got what two I
Speaker 1: think Big Ten games on its schedule against Illinois and
Speaker 1: Ohio State. And so I think about a school like
Speaker 1: Bowling Green. Maybe that's two point five million dollars in
Speaker 1: guarantee revenue that they were going to get from those
Speaker 1: two games that is now no longer there. And you
Speaker 1: know they I think Bowling Green's revenues last year was
Speaker 1: something like tw're twenty five million dollars like that two
Speaker 1: point five man, Like, that's something there. Man, that is
Speaker 1: a decent chunk of money that if you're Bowling Green
Speaker 1: you were counting on. So what do you do. Do
Speaker 1: you sue Ohio State to try to claw back some
Speaker 1: of that money? Well, you probably can't fight Ohio State
Speaker 1: in court because they'll just sit on the ball. But
Speaker 1: the other thing is that Ohio State spent eighty years
Speaker 1: not playing anybody in Ohio and they've only recently come
Speaker 1: around in the new millennium. And it's really good for
Speaker 1: everybody because it's a symbiotic relationship and bowling Green players
Speaker 1: get and fans get to take a cool trip to
Speaker 1: Columbus and they get to say they played in the
Speaker 1: shoe and it's an in state thing and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. So maybe you don't want to piss
Speaker 1: Ohio State off, so you're gonna have to settle for
Speaker 1: less than the one point two one point five million
Speaker 1: dollar guarantee, and so maybe you leave as much as
Speaker 1: a million dollars on the table and Ohio State says
Speaker 1: we'll play again in twenty twenty six or whatever in
Speaker 1: a settlement like this is this is when I talk
Speaker 1: about the shit rolling downhill, Like that's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: That's kind of how this works. And there are going
Speaker 1: to be hundreds hundreds of those type of decisions and
Speaker 1: calculuses and all that kind of stuff. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: some of these games have insurance clauses and active god
Speaker 1: clauses and stuff like that for something like this, but
Speaker 1: then other games won't. And so you know, we know
Speaker 1: the bifurcated nature of this sport where you know, one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty major college football teams are not playing
Speaker 1: on the same playing field, and that doesn't even get
Speaker 1: near SCS get near HBCUs, getting near D three, all
Speaker 1: that stuff.
Speaker 2: What I'm curious about is how much, maybe and especially
Speaker 2: when as it relates to players, but I guess somewhat
Speaker 2: with coaches and coaches families, how much you've thought about geography.
Speaker 2: We've seen stories about you know, recruits potentially staying closer
Speaker 2: to home, not necessarily because you know, they're scared of
Speaker 2: travel or their families are scared of travel. Well, we're
Speaker 2: also in pretty dark economic times. It's going to be
Speaker 2: it is expensive to travel across the country, somewhat across
Speaker 2: the country, pay for hotels, maybe a rental car meals.
Speaker 2: That's an expense that has become even more difficult as
Speaker 2: the economy has taken a pretty significant hit. What do
Speaker 2: you think about and I just mentioned the word national
Speaker 2: and nationalized, what do you think about the sport becoming
Speaker 2: almost more regional because of the realities economically and public
Speaker 2: health wise of the current world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder if this I almost wonder if it
Speaker 1: becomes a thing where the top upper cross the power five,
Speaker 1: the upper thirty forty, where they actually end up maybe
Speaker 1: playing each other even more in some of these out
Speaker 1: of conference bonanza games, right like you know, Florida, for
Speaker 1: my dear dear alma mater, for something like thirty years,
Speaker 1: didn't play an out of state, out of conference game.
Speaker 1: And then Jerry Jones said, hey, we'll give you six
Speaker 1: million dollars played Michigan, And so Florida went and played
Speaker 1: Michigan a couple of years ago. So I you know,
Speaker 1: we know that those games have been happening more and
Speaker 1: more in the last couple of years. I wonder if
Speaker 1: that is something that we see an even more increase on.
Speaker 1: But then you think about, yes, the collateral that you're
Speaker 1: talking about, Uh, you know, can mom and dad fly
Speaker 1: from California to watch Johnny offensive Lineman play in lambeau Field?
Speaker 1: What you know? Can they do that? And so yeah,
Speaker 1: that's where we talk about people getting left out of
Speaker 1: mc coold. But then on a regional level, I do
Speaker 1: wonder if it if it sort of forces kind of
Speaker 1: that belt tightening, uh and and and things of that nature.
Speaker 1: You know, if that's something where that starts to affect
Speaker 1: the upper crust of Power five and the upper crust
Speaker 1: of college football, maybe we sort to maybe we end
Speaker 1: up going back to you know, Florida doesn't ever leave
Speaker 1: the State or USC doesn't barnstorm and and I think,
Speaker 1: you know, you you lose some of you know, Florida
Speaker 1: State built it's its brand right on. We'll play anybody,
Speaker 1: any place, anywhere, anytime when they were a when they
Speaker 1: were an independent before the ACC. And we love these
Speaker 1: intersectional games. And I do wonder if those end up
Speaker 1: going on the chopping block because of just realities of
Speaker 1: the situation. You know, I don't know how much the
Speaker 1: NCBLA could potentially step in the kick in there. I
Speaker 1: know the NCBLA pays parents ways for at least the
Speaker 1: final four, if not all of them, and the NCAA
Speaker 1: Men's basketball tournament. You know, I don't know if the
Speaker 1: NCAA steps up more to do that with college basketball,
Speaker 1: I don't know their jurisdiction and football to even do that.
Speaker 1: That probably comes from the conferences. But then we go
Speaker 1: back to if the conferences are losing television money, then
Speaker 1: the conferences don't have that much money to potentially dole
Speaker 1: out and give. So it's all this systemic symbiosis and
Speaker 1: everything's intertwined and all this kind of stuff, and then
Speaker 1: you inject a global pandemic and everything is up for grounds.
Speaker 2: Richard. I know you're a youth. You are, you are young.
Speaker 2: You are in tune more than Ty and I are
Speaker 2: as washed as we are. You are you are much
Speaker 2: better in tuned with people who are college aged, I
Speaker 2: would say, because you just happen to be cooler and younger.
Speaker 2: Does Instagram have the server room and capability to handle
Speaker 2: the sheer number of dms that will be going on
Speaker 2: because people are going out less and they need to
Speaker 2: find someone on Friday or Saturday night on a college campus.
Speaker 1: Oh it's I mean, the sliding has already begun. I
Speaker 1: you know, I wonder I hope that tinder, bumble grinder, whatever.
Speaker 1: I hope that those servers are ready for what is
Speaker 1: going to go on when students return to college campuses.
Speaker 1: And you know, we talk about community spread and all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff and where the virus actually spreads.
Speaker 1: That is, uh, that's what we're talking about.
Speaker 2: Also, social media snitching is going to be a thing.
Speaker 2: We're going to start seeing. We're going to see Instagram
Speaker 2: stories and there's going to be a player, an outside
Speaker 2: linebacker at Minnesota, a corner from Texas A and M
Speaker 2: that is supposedly trying to quarantine between games and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, they're out at a house party, they're
Speaker 2: out at a bar outside or something like that. The
Speaker 2: first social media snitch situation. We've already had it with
Speaker 2: the NBA and Lou Williams going for wings in Atlanta.
Speaker 2: It's a certainty, right, It's an absolute one hundred lock
Speaker 2: to happen.
Speaker 1: You are going to find there are going to be
Speaker 1: some truly asinine reasons why some player ends up contracting
Speaker 1: the virus. I mean, I know, I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: we know when the first Marlin caught it, but I
Speaker 1: am waiting to find out that it is just the
Speaker 1: dumbest reason why a Miami Marlins player risked his health
Speaker 1: and the health of his family and or his teammates
Speaker 1: to do whatever activity it is that he deemed necessary
Speaker 1: to do in the epicenter of coronavirus in the United
Speaker 1: States of America currently, which is Floria. So you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know how there is no bounds to the
Speaker 1: ingenuity of how coronavirus, unfortunately may spread amongst college football
Speaker 1: players and college just college students football when students return
Speaker 1: to campus.
Speaker 3: You know what I struggle with in thinking about the season,
Speaker 3: and obviously the complexities and the strange stories that will
Speaker 3: no doubt be discussing here. This is a very serious
Speaker 3: situation to public health crisis. As he said, Richard, we're
Speaker 3: trying to trying to squash this virus as best we can.
Speaker 3: We all have a rooting interest we want college football
Speaker 3: to be played. But I think you're right to say
Speaker 3: that there's gonna be some really like just asinine stories
Speaker 3: that come up. I struggle with how much light I
Speaker 3: am allowed to make of some of these stories, you know,
Speaker 3: because on one hand, on one hand, it's like, this
Speaker 3: is a serious thing, you don't want people to get sick.
Speaker 3: On the other that that's so much of what we've
Speaker 3: done over the last decade here on the show. I'm
Speaker 3: still kind of struggling with how to walk that that balance.
Speaker 1: I like, I sincerely hope that Lou Williams and Jack
Speaker 1: Harlowe are healthy and that the ladies that they were
Speaker 1: cavorting with last week are healthy, and that the Wings
Speaker 1: were good, because I need to be able to make
Speaker 1: fun of the fact that a professional basketball player left
Speaker 1: Disney to go to a strip club on an off
Speaker 1: day when he was supposed to be quarantined. I mean,
Speaker 1: calm on, but if anybody's sick, we don't want to
Speaker 1: make fun of it. You're right, Ti, It's.
Speaker 3: Just such a such a tentative balance, and you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, hope that's not the wrong thing to ask,
Speaker 3: but it really does weigh on me when we log
Speaker 3: on to do this show every week, like, Wow, this
Speaker 3: is this is a really delicate situation.
Speaker 2: Approaching it from a life perspective, Yeah, sure, yeah.
Speaker 1: I just like some of the ways that some of
Speaker 1: the like I've read somebody some in New Jersey there
Speaker 1: was like a seven hundred person mansion party that got busted,
Speaker 1: and I you know, I don't know if you've heard
Speaker 1: about Dan on Long Island, there was like a chain
Speaker 1: smoker's concept saw that that Goldman's Axis Deo DJ, like,
Speaker 1: what are we doing? What? What?
Speaker 2: Supposedly it was supposed to be a car only concert,
Speaker 2: but then people got out of their cars. Who could
Speaker 2: have seen that coming?
Speaker 1: I don't know, Man.
Speaker 2: A couple of other I think ramifications or just stories
Speaker 2: that I think are going to be interesting to follow
Speaker 2: is we're pretty sure the coaching salary bubble has popped now, right,
Speaker 2: And you know, I Mel Tucker just was was the
Speaker 2: big last winner of the coaching salary bubble.
Speaker 1: Yeah, congratulations. I hope to check clears for mel Tucker. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I like, is the bubble gonna burst? I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think it'll be. I think what will
Speaker 1: happen is it'll be more assistant salaries that you may
Speaker 1: see go or get chipped away. And and I should
Speaker 1: say if you do see coaching salaries go down, it
Speaker 1: may be because a coach is trying to balance and
Speaker 1: say I'd rather have that money in my assistant pool anyway,
Speaker 1: because that's what like, as you know, Alabama kind of
Speaker 1: led the charge with forty five analysts on the sideline.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're trying to keep up with the
Speaker 1: Joneses in that way, which is what you have to
Speaker 1: do to compete for national championship in this sport. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, the money's got to come from somewhere. But
Speaker 1: then I look at, uh, you know, if it's coming
Speaker 1: from these boosters, what's going to happen with when these
Speaker 1: boosters are potentially seeing their own businesses unfortunately dry up
Speaker 1: because of the coronavirus and its impact on the economy
Speaker 1: and whatever sector it is that may be happen You know,
Speaker 1: we all joke about what's going to happen to Texas,
Speaker 1: A and M if the oil industry drives up, But
Speaker 1: you know it's serious. You know, think about a school
Speaker 1: like I think about a school like FAU. Right, Fau's
Speaker 1: got a whole bunch of it, of its athletic department
Speaker 1: budget that's wrapped up in student fees. Well, what happens
Speaker 1: if there aren't any students on campus or if there
Speaker 1: are dramatically less students enrolled in the university for a semester,
Speaker 1: And then FAU goes to the state of Florida and says,
Speaker 1: we need some extra funds, and the State of Florida says, sorry,
Speaker 1: we ain't got it like that because we're trying to
Speaker 1: battle global pandemic. You know what happens. Then It's just
Speaker 1: there's a lot to think about about the economics of
Speaker 1: of the country in general. You can't just dip into
Speaker 1: an endowment like it's like it's a savings account to
Speaker 1: save your university, you know, or to save your athletic program.
Speaker 1: If you could do that, Stanford would not have cut
Speaker 1: so many sports the other day, by.
Speaker 2: The way, could have a lot more Clay Helton situations
Speaker 2: across the country. Teams unwilling to fire a coach they
Speaker 2: want to fire because they have no intent of paying
Speaker 2: a buyout they have.
Speaker 1: They're like buy out agents agents that negotiated the thick buyouts.
Speaker 1: That is the one thing that I will say. I
Speaker 1: think I thought the buyout bubble was basically going to
Speaker 1: bust anyway because we just can't keep You just can't
Speaker 1: keep going on like this. As far as the economics
Speaker 1: of the coaching industry, you just cannot keep doing this
Speaker 1: with buyouts. So I think more than anything like that,
Speaker 1: maybe another way where you see the economics crey drastically
Speaker 1: change because when a school I'm like, yeah, like, can't
Speaker 1: do a buyout, can't do a deal with that, with
Speaker 1: that have a buyout in there.
Speaker 2: By the way, a jimbo Fisher check out at Texas
Speaker 2: A and m knowing how much money he's owed. If
Speaker 2: he just decides that, like you know what, I'm good
Speaker 2: and he just pulls a full office space, a full
Speaker 2: Peter from office space in college station where he just
Speaker 2: guts a fish at his desk in his office because
Speaker 2: he knows they're not going to fire him. Holy hell.
Speaker 2: And I know that people are in the back of
Speaker 2: mind thinking are thinking that's what we did at Florida State, right,
Speaker 2: But it's very real that a coach could full on
Speaker 2: check out knowing they're not buying them out.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I also wonder what happens with like if we
Speaker 1: see more David Baty situations right where the school says, hey,
Speaker 1: we need it back and we're going to manufacture an
Speaker 1: NCAA violation to try to get it back.
Speaker 3: Clay Helton might be there forever in this new economy.
Speaker 1: Build a a statue, man, build him a statue.
Speaker 2: Finess God once again. Richard Johnson, one of the co
Speaker 2: authors with Spencer Hall, Jason Kirk, Alex Kirsch, and Tyson
Speaker 2: Whiting of The Sinful Seven Available August first noon Eastern?
Speaker 2: Is that what the time zone?
Speaker 1: High?
Speaker 2: Noon?
Speaker 1: Hi?
Speaker 2: Recently, you've heard obviously Richard on PAPN. You saw him
Speaker 2: at Banner Society, Espionnation, Box Media. I don't think Richard's
Speaker 2: going to be a free agent for very long. So
Speaker 2: we're very excited to, hopefully sooner rather than later, figure
Speaker 2: out what what's happening in sports media and college football media, because,
Speaker 2: as we all know, Richard Johnson rising star Richard, thank
Speaker 2: you very much for your time. Sinful seven dot com.
Speaker 1: Always a pleasure, boys cinfil seven dot com.
Speaker 4: Take care man.
Speaker 3: Thanks all right, good conversation again our good friend Richard Johnson.
Speaker 3: Please go out and buy that book. Sinful seven looks
Speaker 3: very interesting. You said you did buy it. I bought mine.
Speaker 2: Oh, I bought it a long time ago. I pre ordered.
Speaker 2: I'm excited to uh to take a full gander.
Speaker 3: Absolutely looks exciting and a lot of creative people working
Speaker 3: on that. Yes, doing what I can to support them.
Speaker 3: It feels good, especially in this weird time right.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. And by the way, the responses are rolling in
Speaker 2: about the most hilariously evil cardboard cutout purchase for an
Speaker 2: empty stadium. I don't know if we'll fully do it
Speaker 2: today go through all of them, but Urban Meyer at
Speaker 2: Michigan was an early one, and the surrender Cobra Kid
Speaker 2: at Michigan during the Michigan I think it was the
Speaker 2: Michigan State punt at the end of the game game
Speaker 2: That one has been offered out. But we're getting a
Speaker 2: lot of really good responses. The popcorn guy from Wazoo
Speaker 2: to get his presence back in the stadium at Martin Stadium.
Speaker 2: I think would be be a big, big win. I
Speaker 2: think that would get through the censors. I think he
Speaker 2: specifically would.
Speaker 3: Yes, this definitely has a game day signed feel to it,
Speaker 3: where you need to be clever enough to beat the sensors,
Speaker 3: but at the same time not too esoteric that folks
Speaker 3: aren't going to know what the heck you're talking about.
Speaker 2: Like Lane Kiffin's not getting through the censors in Knoxville. No, no, no, right,
Speaker 2: that that is like one of the obvious Harvey Updyke
Speaker 2: if you dress him up and it seems more respectable. Perhaps, Man,
Speaker 2: there's so many, especially players who have been total Like
Speaker 2: if you had like a Tavon Austin cut out in
Speaker 2: the stands at Norman in Norman, I know, I think
Speaker 2: they lost that game West Virginia to Oklahoma when he
Speaker 2: had the huge game.
Speaker 4: Oh here we go, Here we go.
Speaker 3: Chris Davis in one of the Alabama end zones.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, or excuse me, kicksex.
Speaker 4: That would be That would be so.
Speaker 2: Many good responses. All right, a right review these next time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you again for spending some of your time
Speaker 3: with us. We as always thank our esteem guest, mister
Speaker 3: Richard Johnson for stopping by. Great conversation. Good to hear
Speaker 3: from him. We'll bring him back soon. We promise. We
Speaker 3: would encourage everyone to subscribe to the podcast. If you
Speaker 3: don't already, we are at sliverbo dot com. You could
Speaker 3: find all the links there, but subscribe anywhere you get
Speaker 3: your podcasts on Spotify and Apple, on Google, you name it,
Speaker 3: overcast all these hot spots that we've talked about over
Speaker 3: the years, And if you like the show, please do
Speaker 3: give us five star review. We promise that stuff helps.
Speaker 3: We are trying to reach out to as many college
Speaker 3: football fans as humanly possible do in this show that
Speaker 3: we love to do twice a week. We will continue
Speaker 3: to do twice a week until to tell us we
Speaker 3: we shouldn't do that anymore, or until we get crushing
Speaker 3: season news. Who knows, but we have every plan to
Speaker 3: continue on our current trajectory.
Speaker 2: Wes Byram the Auburn kicker, who chomped, Who chomped? The Gators?
Speaker 2: Get him at the swamp. No, no, oh no, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of good ones.
Speaker 4: These are cold blooded.
Speaker 2: Oh man lovey with his beard in camp Randall, that'd
Speaker 2: be great, that'd be great in any Stadium. Frank Case
Speaker 2: McCoy at Kyle Field, the last Texas quarterback to beat
Speaker 2: A and M was a response from Danny, I love.
Speaker 4: Beard is a national treasure. We need to bring that back.
Speaker 2: Yeah he can. You know what, if you can grow
Speaker 2: a beard like that, then I don't think it's going
Speaker 2: to take that long. He can bring it back one hundred.
Speaker 3: Percent for that guy over there, my good friend Dan Rubinstein,
Speaker 3: For myself, Tie hilden Brand, thanks again so much for downloading,
Speaker 3: for listening, for playing along at home, and your support
Speaker 3: all that stuff. It's it's great. We appreciate it. We
Speaker 3: hope you're all doing well.
Speaker 4: We will talk to you all in a few days.
Speaker 3: In the meantime, stay solid, peace,