Speaker 1: Ka Boom. If you thought four hours a day, minutes
Speaker 1: a week was enough, I think again. He's the last
Speaker 1: remnants of the old Republic, a sole fashion of fairness.
Speaker 1: He treats crackheads in the ghetto Cutter the same as
Speaker 1: the rich pill poppers in the penthouse the clearing House
Speaker 1: of hot takes break free for something special. The Fifth
Speaker 1: Hour with Ben Maller starts right now in the air everywhere,
Speaker 1: back at it. A weekend has begun. It's the Fifth
Speaker 1: Hour with Ben Maller and Danny g Radio. Not here today,
Speaker 1: but he'll be here on Saturday and Sunday, because four
Speaker 1: hours a night are not enough. We do this eight
Speaker 1: days a week from a podcast studio at a secret
Speaker 1: location somewhere in the north Woods. And we thank you
Speaker 1: for subscribing for this thing, for downloading the podcast. And
Speaker 1: it is Friday, so that means a chance to catch
Speaker 1: up with someone in the world of media sports that
Speaker 1: we can have a conversation with. And the big story
Speaker 1: this week has been all about college football and coaches
Speaker 1: getting ridunculous amounts of money. Brian Kelly leaving Notre Dame
Speaker 1: to go to l s U and Lincoln Riley saying
Speaker 1: goodbye to Oklahoma to go to USC. These are massive
Speaker 1: stories which is going to shift the entire financial spectrum
Speaker 1: of coaches salaries for every other sport to trickle down effect,
Speaker 1: certainly in football, and there's talk now of NFL salaries rising.
Speaker 1: Inflation is coming um to the world of sports. The
Speaker 1: contracts already outrageous, but the money is getting even more
Speaker 1: and more into the stratosphere in the world of football.
Speaker 1: And who better to break it all down then someone
Speaker 1: who has been the one man band, at least it
Speaker 1: seems that way. Behind the website College Football News dot Com,
Speaker 1: Pete feu Tak joins us. Now this week we're gonna
Speaker 1: have a conversation here with Pete. Now, Pete, I have
Speaker 1: described College Football News dot Com as the bible of
Speaker 1: the college gridiron. It is my go to site. When
Speaker 1: I need some information on college football, I always turn
Speaker 1: to your website. How would you sum it up for
Speaker 1: those that haven't read it a way that I have
Speaker 1: not had to go get a real job in a
Speaker 1: long time. So that's basically yet everything brown This is
Speaker 1: about me having to get this living, this weird, crazy
Speaker 1: world of college sports and deal with it all. But
Speaker 1: it's fun. You know. The whole idea and is that
Speaker 1: everyone gets too crazy about sport in general, especially when
Speaker 1: there are real world topics that actually matter. Uh. In
Speaker 1: the fun part about college football is you've got some
Speaker 1: of the richest, most powerful people on the planet who
Speaker 1: get just insane over what a bunch of eighteen to
Speaker 1: twenty three year old kids do on a football field
Speaker 1: and or god forbid you, you know, do their their
Speaker 1: school sign up or down, or make fun of their
Speaker 1: fight song or anything. And uh, it's all supposed to
Speaker 1: be silly. It's all fun, and you have people take
Speaker 1: it so seriously and beyond that, just predict games and
Speaker 1: go from there and give the people what they want,
Speaker 1: especially like the season this year. It's gonna whole lot
Speaker 1: of fun and even more than ever after doing this
Speaker 1: for as long as we've been doing this for Yeah,
Speaker 1: what what what did you do Pete before this? Like
Speaker 1: I've only known you as this guy, like you've had
Speaker 1: that I was doing a website. I had a rumor
Speaker 1: website for a while, and you guys were doing you know,
Speaker 1: you were doing your thing at College Football News, and
Speaker 1: you know, I haven't done at a long time. And
Speaker 1: you're still pumping out story after story after story, your machine.
Speaker 1: What what did you do before this? Not to put
Speaker 1: a log on the fire here and get this whole
Speaker 1: They'll do as fast as possible. I started on advertising.
Speaker 1: I worked then for a now defunct publication called Pro
Speaker 1: Football Weekly here in Chicago for several years. UH, and
Speaker 1: then in the late ninety nineties, a couple of guys
Speaker 1: there and I were like, hey, you guys should take
Speaker 1: this print publication and make do this whole online thing.
Speaker 1: And they weren't really into it, and then it was
Speaker 1: too late for that. And then one day I there
Speaker 1: was some data out there that said that the most
Speaker 1: red stuff on the Internet in the nineteen nineties came
Speaker 1: out of like the Dallas Morning News and the recruiting
Speaker 1: rankings and anything to do with college football. And I
Speaker 1: just so happened to like, say, I love college football,
Speaker 1: I love making picks in writing about this, and I
Speaker 1: started up then in and it's gone from there and
Speaker 1: UH quickside true story. I actually really took off with
Speaker 1: the Fox World UH on my birthday one year, I
Speaker 1: think it was two thousand issues. So UH had had
Speaker 1: the newspaper and we used to get the newspaper and
Speaker 1: the uh, the wife looked in and looked at my
Speaker 1: horoscope and for my birthday that day, and how what
Speaker 1: are your lucky letters for the the upcoming year? And
Speaker 1: the lucky letters were f o X. Okay ha ha.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just send out a just a blind email
Speaker 1: to Fox and just say, I know you're changing up
Speaker 1: your site and stuff if you're looking for college football content.
Speaker 1: And so I sent down just that one of the
Speaker 1: general mailbox at Fox sports dot com and within like
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes later got something back saying, yeah, we really
Speaker 1: luck you guys. You guys are great. This is great,
Speaker 1: not knowing that it was just me doing this, and
Speaker 1: then I hooked up with Fox and was with them
Speaker 1: for about fifteen years or so as a content provider,
Speaker 1: and uh, all that and everything to start of took
Speaker 1: off from there. That's not supposed to work, Pete, as
Speaker 1: you know, that's not Yeah, you're you're not just fishing
Speaker 1: and and that's that's awesome. And you are a one
Speaker 1: man band, right, I mean, do you have other people
Speaker 1: every time? I'm amazed at the amount of content that
Speaker 1: you turn out every day. It's in it's an insane
Speaker 1: you've got that down to a science there. How many
Speaker 1: I don't have as much of an ego about it
Speaker 1: as you think, considering my name is slapt on everything.
Speaker 1: But there are minions behind the scenes who do lots
Speaker 1: of grunt work, who help out with the basics and
Speaker 1: research and a whole lot of other things. But yes,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, I finalize everything and
Speaker 1: put it all off under CFN. But we do have
Speaker 1: other guys who worked there, uh, not as made in
Speaker 1: the Fox days when you know, we had a staff
Speaker 1: about fifteen guys who helped crank stuff out. And it's uh,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a fun, interesting, quirky CFN tree of
Speaker 1: talent out there doing all sorts of other things uh
Speaker 1: in the world as we speak. Some in the sports
Speaker 1: world there fully start out at the UH CFN, Russ Mitchell,
Speaker 1: who is a famous radio guy across the SEC plane
Speaker 1: and guys who do, like I said, who've gone on
Speaker 1: to do much bigger and much better things than this.
Speaker 1: But it's just been around long enough, and it's been crazy.
Speaker 1: It's every year is different. The Internet always changes. The
Speaker 1: sports business world has never quite been the same. UH.
Speaker 1: Through COVID, through UH you name it, through different algorithms,
Speaker 1: through everything. It has not been the same any of
Speaker 1: the years. I've been doing this for the last twenty
Speaker 1: something years or so, and I gotta give you credit. Pete.
Speaker 1: You're a Chicago guy and I read your stuff. I
Speaker 1: don't sense maybe I'm missing it, maybe I have a
Speaker 1: blind spot, but I don't sense any kind of like
Speaker 1: bias towards a a certain Big ten schools. And when
Speaker 1: you were growing up, what was your team when you
Speaker 1: were when you were young. Yeah, I grew up in Minneapolis,
Speaker 1: and my dad worked in colleges all all My dad
Speaker 1: worked in colleges all his life, so I've grown up
Speaker 1: on college campuses all my life. So I grew up
Speaker 1: in Minneapolis. He worked in the University of Minnesota. I
Speaker 1: went to Wisconsin because it got me in state tuition.
Speaker 1: UH in with Minnesota uh and then I live in Chicago.
Speaker 1: So I do, of course like the Big ten. But
Speaker 1: i'm my biases towards anything over the last you know,
Speaker 1: millions of years. It's just to the Power five schools,
Speaker 1: because for example, all the Cincinnati arguments, all the other
Speaker 1: things when it comes to any other smaller school. Not
Speaker 1: that I'm not rooting for the little guy. But I
Speaker 1: just know now what goes into these Power five schools
Speaker 1: and just big machines they are, and just how much
Speaker 1: talent it takes to keep those things going and how
Speaker 1: hard it is to get to those schedules. So I
Speaker 1: do admit to being a total Power five snob, and
Speaker 1: at this point, honestly, I just root for great games,
Speaker 1: great moments. I want to see the big moments, you know,
Speaker 1: Like again, I went to Wisconsin, but I was kind
Speaker 1: of mad that Iowa lost. I beat Nebraska and so
Speaker 1: that it would have been Minnesota versus Wisconsin for a
Speaker 1: shot to play for the Big Ten championship. I root for,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to see the big giant game.
Speaker 1: And beyond that, you know, my biases pretty much go
Speaker 1: for whatever my picks are for that week. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: see this is I'm glad you brought them because I
Speaker 1: have this argument in college basketball every year when the
Speaker 1: n c A Tournament comes around and I hear all
Speaker 1: these people, I want to see the small schools when
Speaker 1: you know, in the early round of the tournament, and
Speaker 1: you know, being a radio guy, we do I do
Speaker 1: an overnight show, and so we talked that's when we
Speaker 1: mostly talk college basketball, there's no Jews. People don't I
Speaker 1: don't care. They don't want to talk about the smallest school.
Speaker 1: They everyone wants to see the upsets. But when Duke wins,
Speaker 1: and you know, for example in basketball or something like that,
Speaker 1: people call up, they want to talk, you have opinions
Speaker 1: about it, and and it's kind of be the same
Speaker 1: thing in college football, right, I mean, as you point out,
Speaker 1: you you see the data on the traffic and what's
Speaker 1: getting clicks and all that, right, and that's that's a factor.
Speaker 1: It works for oh, it works for Power five conferences
Speaker 1: to Stanford being good, people's pageview death, you know, so
Speaker 1: that's just that does not you know, there's certain schools
Speaker 1: that will help me. I'm always had, but you know,
Speaker 1: on the flip side, Marshall, places like you know, every
Speaker 1: once in a while, like Coastal Carolina last year and
Speaker 1: it was rocket and rolling, uh, certain East Carolina certain
Speaker 1: you know, you CF certainly has a massive enough fan
Speaker 1: base where it certainly helps business wise. But again, I
Speaker 1: just kind of roots for the big things and you're
Speaker 1: dead on right when it comes to gets a tournament.
Speaker 1: You showed me, you know, Central Connecticut Tech State beating
Speaker 1: Duke in the second round, and I'll show you a
Speaker 1: n third round matchup somewhere coming in and down the
Speaker 1: rides road. So I mt churning even more than anythink.
Speaker 1: E it's give me the top four teams, give me
Speaker 1: the monsters at the very end. And yeah, but look,
Speaker 1: and then there is a flip side all this. And
Speaker 1: in the college football playoff world, you know, we've had
Speaker 1: monsters over the last few years. We've had the biggest
Speaker 1: of the big names get in and you've had the
Speaker 1: you know, the l s U and Alabama, Clemson and
Speaker 1: House States, and we've had blowout after blowout in these
Speaker 1: college foo all playoff matchups. So I do say all that,
Speaker 1: and I'm tongue in cheeks say I am a power
Speaker 1: five snow, but I do get it when the public
Speaker 1: out there is sick of Alabama, when it's sick of
Speaker 1: the same old, same old schools, And it's more fun
Speaker 1: in the year like this when you do have you know,
Speaker 1: a Cincinnati in an Oklahoma state and you know even
Speaker 1: in Michigan who are more and even Georgian to a
Speaker 1: certain extent, are kind of the new teams involved in this.
Speaker 1: And I think when they do expand the college football playoff,
Speaker 1: whatever that does happen, it's just going to expand it
Speaker 1: even more and get more programs involved in, more fan
Speaker 1: bases involved, without ruining the integrity of the regular season
Speaker 1: of college football. Kind of like they've already done that
Speaker 1: with college basketball, but uh, it is more fun when
Speaker 1: you get more fan bases involved in this. Be sure
Speaker 1: to catch live editions of The Ben Maller Show weekdays
Speaker 1: at two a m. Eastern eleven pm Pacific on Fox
Speaker 1: Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app. So what
Speaker 1: what is the big hit on college footballs? You you
Speaker 1: do a lot of game previews and all kinds of things.
Speaker 1: Is it the gossipy stories or is it the hardcore
Speaker 1: like football breakdowns? Like? What is it that really? Addictions? Predictions, predictions, predictions.
Speaker 1: That's that everything you know, everyone wants to and as
Speaker 1: much as I fought it for many years, predictions are
Speaker 1: always what everyone wants, especially now, and that's where things
Speaker 1: have changed more than anything else over the time. The
Speaker 1: starting is because it used to be that you want
Speaker 1: the longer content, you want the feature articles, you want
Speaker 1: the you know, the two thousand word article things that
Speaker 1: people would read and now everyone's on their phones, and
Speaker 1: so they just want bam bam band, they want list,
Speaker 1: they want quick. They went in out there. You know,
Speaker 1: they're commuting to work or you know, they have a
Speaker 1: few minutes wherever they're able to look at it, and
Speaker 1: they just want to be able to look at something fast,
Speaker 1: get their content and move on. And so really the
Speaker 1: idea of pivoting from when I first started, where we
Speaker 1: used to have a schlew of writers who would write
Speaker 1: these million word articles and they would just you want
Speaker 1: to keep people on the side, make up sticky, get
Speaker 1: him to the message boards. Back in the day, keep
Speaker 1: people engaged on the site. Now nobody does that. So
Speaker 1: the idea of getting people to the homepage doesn't really
Speaker 1: matter because it's that it's all search engines. It's do
Speaker 1: are do younger? S c O right. It's really more
Speaker 1: technical because that was really where where Fox used to
Speaker 1: help out more than anything else where. I could write
Speaker 1: an article on CFN and we get traffic. If Fox
Speaker 1: took it would be great. If Fox put it on
Speaker 1: f MSN, it would go ballistic. So it really just
Speaker 1: depends you have everyone's writing good stuff. It just depends
Speaker 1: who gets to it and how they can see it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you also, I know on your website, I don't
Speaker 1: know how many user you but do you pick NFL
Speaker 1: games too? Like you be handy handicapped the games in
Speaker 1: the NFL, not just college football. Yeah. You know. The
Speaker 1: weirdest part about all this, I think our biggest traffic day,
Speaker 1: maybe ever at least since we've been with the USA
Speaker 1: and a platform, has always been the Wednesday slash Thursday,
Speaker 1: right before March madness, you know, I mean, just it's
Speaker 1: crazy how we again s c O who gets the
Speaker 1: right algorithm and stuff to happen, and it just happens
Speaker 1: to be. Our site has sort of clicked in with
Speaker 1: where people go to our site now when it comes
Speaker 1: to picks predictions on the right day, and those have
Speaker 1: always been the biggest stuff, so even college basketball stuff,
Speaker 1: but really the NFL. You know, as much as I
Speaker 1: love college football NFL, I'm actually pretty more fluid in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. Uh. And last year during COVID,
Speaker 1: when it looked like there wouldn't be a college football season,
Speaker 1: me and a couple other guys really sort of got
Speaker 1: a couple of guys help me out. We pivoted Chafts
Speaker 1: and said all right, well, we're just gonna be all
Speaker 1: NFL just to try to get us through the season.
Speaker 1: As it turned out, just as many people wanted to
Speaker 1: see NFL picks and they want to see college picks
Speaker 1: and same sort of thing. As long as you don't
Speaker 1: have to engage people for that long. If they want
Speaker 1: to get on okay, like who's gonna win tonight New
Speaker 1: Orleans or Dallas? Bill, get getting get out and move
Speaker 1: on with it. So hey, more intent the better. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And now do people I do a bit on my
Speaker 1: radio show, which I've done on the internet too, is
Speaker 1: benny versus the penny? Now do people give you a
Speaker 1: hard time? Do they bust your chops to? Don't if
Speaker 1: you don't get to pick right pete? Are they well
Speaker 1: you gotta is it? Is it that? Or they'll leave
Speaker 1: it alone on that. It depends on how wacky I
Speaker 1: try to be. I get Usually I will always get
Speaker 1: tagged if there's something just wrong, like if there's something
Speaker 1: factually incorrect, which drove me crazy this year because, for example,
Speaker 1: the n c A official stats site was wrong and
Speaker 1: on their stats on a couple of certain things throughout
Speaker 1: the year. They just didn't have it quite plugged in, right,
Speaker 1: So whenever we go through the tea and the game
Speaker 1: previews and then do one final check to make sure
Speaker 1: things are right with the n A Stats site because
Speaker 1: they're usually the side of record. Well, the Cincinnati fans
Speaker 1: let me hear about it. When I wrote like the
Speaker 1: three words or something about the Cincinnati pass rush just
Speaker 1: being okay, and I based it mainly off of and
Speaker 1: say stat site when they were wrong, it was my
Speaker 1: own fault for not checking out elsewhere, then I will
Speaker 1: hear it. But if I really diff a call or
Speaker 1: a pick alright something. Every once in a while I
Speaker 1: get something, I'll really hear it when I do something
Speaker 1: really stupid, like picko House steak to beat Alabama the
Speaker 1: National Championship last year. But hey, I'm all, I'll put
Speaker 1: it out there. I will gladly take it when we
Speaker 1: get it wrong. We get it wrong, and uh that's
Speaker 1: part of the game, that's part of the front and
Speaker 1: all this. But uh, the other thing too, which is
Speaker 1: awesome and crazy about this compared to the even the
Speaker 1: Fox days, is people aren't quite as nasty as they
Speaker 1: used to be when it comes to miss picks. And
Speaker 1: I do have a theory that people's iron anger have
Speaker 1: turned more towards more real things, like political things and
Speaker 1: real world things. So the idea of oh, you got
Speaker 1: this pick wrong, the venom isn't quite there like it
Speaker 1: was back in say, the early commit two thousand's, as
Speaker 1: it's been over the last you know, four or five
Speaker 1: years or so. Oh yeah, to do though, if you
Speaker 1: want to upset people just mentioned Republican or Democrat, boom,
Speaker 1: everyone will explode in a fitteration. You want to You
Speaker 1: had a great point, and you've you've done this, You've
Speaker 1: talked about this before. But the college football this is
Speaker 1: a big weekend in college football because championship weekend and
Speaker 1: all that and conference championship games, and you pointed out
Speaker 1: how much better this could be by spreading it out,
Speaker 1: and and it's everything is pretty much being played within
Speaker 1: the same few hours. And so as you have correctly
Speaker 1: point out, you we can't really watch everything, right, Peter,
Speaker 1: I mean this is a mistake in college football. Will
Speaker 1: it ever actually be rectified? Yeah, you're you're talking about
Speaker 1: is right? When I point it out where I don't
Speaker 1: get it. I know, networking TV guys, I've talked about
Speaker 1: this with college football playoff people at the highest levels.
Speaker 1: I've talked about this with network people, and they all
Speaker 1: have their actual reasons. Obviously there's a site that these
Speaker 1: people aren't dull. They have a reason are putting the
Speaker 1: games on when they are. But the problem is, for example,
Speaker 1: who's going to watch the American Athletic Conference Championship when
Speaker 1: you have the Big twelve Conference championship at the same time.
Speaker 1: Who's gonna watch the a c C title game where
Speaker 1: the Big ten championshipside at the same time. You know, so, uh,
Speaker 1: you have all these games that like in the MAX
Speaker 1: figured out, they have the hot action stuff. There's a
Speaker 1: reason why I can talk about traffic before. Traffic for
Speaker 1: for Central Michigan Eastern Michigan on a random Tuesday night
Speaker 1: is massive because all the degenerate gamblers out there, which
Speaker 1: I say, the perfection, Uh, we're gonna go check out
Speaker 1: that picks. That's the only think going on on Tuesday night.
Speaker 1: So for the conference championships, there's no reason why the
Speaker 1: MAX should not be playing their championship game on a
Speaker 1: Wednesday night. People will watch that. You know, I know
Speaker 1: there's NFL on Thursday, but you could also have like
Speaker 1: a sun Belt championship. That would get his viewership too.
Speaker 1: When you have a blood of games on Saturday, people
Speaker 1: are just gonna want to watch the biggest, big games
Speaker 1: and they're not gonna flip around and watch them all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I had those same conversations like in the NFL,
Speaker 1: because they play everything, you know, the one o'clock eastern
Speaker 1: window and then the four o'clock Eastern window, and they
Speaker 1: could spread that out and but the you know, the
Speaker 1: same thing, the same thing. Oh no, you don't. You
Speaker 1: will not change my red zone habit, red zone fan
Speaker 1: at the red zone as someone who's completely converted, who
Speaker 1: cannot sit and watch a full NFL game without other options.
Speaker 1: At this point, I need more options in the four
Speaker 1: o'clock late game hour because after those first step first,
Speaker 1: this mash up of games is so awesome, and then
Speaker 1: when you only have like two games, and if the
Speaker 1: Lake Monster game turns out to suck, it's like, wait
Speaker 1: about I want five or six other options at this point,
Speaker 1: so that I kind of get, but they don't really
Speaker 1: have that red zone option. They've tried it with college
Speaker 1: doesn't quite work out as well. Yeah, it's it's there's
Speaker 1: too many teams, right, and that's the problem with college football.
Speaker 1: It's still spread out, and and it's a different animal
Speaker 1: because obviously fantasy makes a difference. Uh, you'll never have that.
Speaker 1: There is a fantasy element of some you know, creaty
Speaker 1: people like myself in college football, but obviously it's not
Speaker 1: even one of the same as it is, Uh in
Speaker 1: the NFL side, where you want to you know, flip
Speaker 1: around the game, game, game, game game. I need to know.
Speaker 1: I might live in Chicago, but I sure as shoot
Speaker 1: care about you know, what's appening with two and done
Speaker 1: in Miami, and you know, if I'm going against Russell
Speaker 1: Wilson up in Seattle and all around the rest of
Speaker 1: the world. And plus obviously on the betting side of things,
Speaker 1: NFL is a whole other weird animals opposed to college football. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and as far as some of the other stuff going
Speaker 1: on in college fotball, has there ever been a coach
Speaker 1: who decided to get a different job that was not
Speaker 1: met with a mob holding pitchforks and torches as they left.
Speaker 1: We've we've seen that that's been a theme this week
Speaker 1: in college football, where the fan bases are insane and
Speaker 1: upset and all that the only way I've determined that
Speaker 1: the people are happy is if they're firing the coach
Speaker 1: because the coach is bad, then they celebrate. But if
Speaker 1: you if the coach gets a better job or what
Speaker 1: he thinks is a better job, there must be a
Speaker 1: mob listen online, mob destroying the coach. Pete right, that's
Speaker 1: the way it has to work. Now. There is no dumber,
Speaker 1: weirder aspect to American society than college football coaching things.
Speaker 1: Because on the one side, if you win two games,
Speaker 1: you get an extension and get the seven years added
Speaker 1: on with an extra ten million a year, all because
Speaker 1: you had a little mini hot Street. If you lose
Speaker 1: two games, fired, can't coach anymore. You stink, you don't
Speaker 1: know what you're doing. We need to move on from this.
Speaker 1: It is hilariously weird how this all works. But you
Speaker 1: are right. It depends on the situation though, because the
Speaker 1: crazy part about the coaching care asselt to what you're
Speaker 1: speaking of, is every big time fan base you can
Speaker 1: search any major program's name here thinks, why don't why
Speaker 1: wouldn't want somebody coach here? Why wouldn't someone want to
Speaker 1: have this job? And I stayed this with affection with
Speaker 1: the Texas job when it came open with Matt Brown
Speaker 1: and finally decided like, go, I'm speaking to very high
Speaker 1: end people there, and they were dead serious. They were like, well,
Speaker 1: we're just gonna get one of the harbors are we can.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't Mike Tomlin want this? Or we'll we'll pay
Speaker 1: for Nick Saban to come here. Every and that's every
Speaker 1: single opening. They think we could just pay to get
Speaker 1: this guy to come here, and sometimes it works. You know,
Speaker 1: USC was right, we could just pay to get Lincoln
Speaker 1: Riley to come take this job. Uh And for the
Speaker 1: most part, a certain statement the fan base and the
Speaker 1: fan base in Oklahoma that you know, kind of Newton
Speaker 1: Lincoln Riley was never going to be in Oklahoma for forever.
Speaker 1: Where I think they got mad was he took the
Speaker 1: USC job and not say the Dallas Cowboys job, where
Speaker 1: he seemed like he was going to be on the
Speaker 1: Cliff Kings very path to the NFL. So there's something there.
Speaker 1: Oddly enough, there aren't a whole lot of fans out
Speaker 1: there who seemed that upset over Brian Kelly leaving Notre Dame.
Speaker 1: It's they're like, we appreciate what you did. You did
Speaker 1: you won a lot of games here, but all right,
Speaker 1: don't go to l s U. And that was one
Speaker 1: of the weirder big hires of this whole care AUSEL.
Speaker 1: Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Meller
Speaker 1: Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific. He's
Speaker 1: Mike Carmen. I'm Dan Buyer, and we have a brand
Speaker 1: new fantasy football podcast called I Want Your Flex. Twice
Speaker 1: a week, every Tuesday and Friday, we come up with
Speaker 1: new episodes to not only look back at what happened,
Speaker 1: what you need to do at that minute, and also
Speaker 1: look ahead of what's coming up in the fantasy football world.
Speaker 1: That's right, Dan. Every week we're gonna scour the waiver
Speaker 1: wire to find the pickups to turbo boost your fantasy lineup, sits, starts,
Speaker 1: fantasy football players rankings to get you ready to dominate
Speaker 1: the competition. Listen to I Want Your Flex with Mike
Speaker 1: Carmen and me Dan Buyer on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcast and wherever you be your podcasts speaking. And
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought up the Notre Dame thing because
Speaker 1: I want to ask you I've I've been hearing through
Speaker 1: the grapevine here that as you referenced, they weren't that
Speaker 1: upset that Brian Kelly left it. The people behind the
Speaker 1: scenes at Notre Dame, the people who have influenced there.
Speaker 1: Even though Notre Dame had a great season, they say
Speaker 1: they only lost the Cincinnati and uh at a solid
Speaker 1: year yet again, and they've been very good in the
Speaker 1: in the regular season with Brian Kelly, and they haven't
Speaker 1: done very well in big games and the ball games
Speaker 1: and whatnot. But that the program, the term that I
Speaker 1: kept hearing was it was it was stale, and that
Speaker 1: there wasn't a lot of despite the winds, that it
Speaker 1: could be bigger and better, and that things have kind
Speaker 1: of grown, uh doll if you will, which is odd
Speaker 1: because they're winning a lot. Have you heard any of
Speaker 1: that you're in the ear in the Midwest? Is that?
Speaker 1: Is that yeah? Nonsense? Or is there's something to it?
Speaker 1: There's there's a there's he's if you're Notre Dame. He
Speaker 1: got them to a certain love where I have a
Speaker 1: whole slew problems with Brian Kelly and pass things that
Speaker 1: happened under his watch at that program off the field,
Speaker 1: but on the field, what the guy got into to
Speaker 1: College Football Playoff appearances, one BCS Championship appearance. Uh, he
Speaker 1: has gotten that program to a level where it is
Speaker 1: just close enough and that no, it's not Alabama or Clemson,
Speaker 1: but like that's an unrealistic even for Notre Dame expectation
Speaker 1: because it requires some dumb luck to be at that
Speaker 1: oh my dear god level that Alabama has been at,
Speaker 1: or you know, the Clemson with that before this year
Speaker 1: under devil screening will probably be out again very soon.
Speaker 1: But there is the theory. I think it's Mike Sachowski's
Speaker 1: thought that you could stay at a place for too long,
Speaker 1: and he did end up staying there for too long.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it seemed like it was just one
Speaker 1: of those moments where they just needed a little bit
Speaker 1: of a shift, a new energy, maybe something different, a
Speaker 1: little more innovation, a little something differ. But like you said,
Speaker 1: look they're in the College Football Playoff. Throughout this chase,
Speaker 1: throughout this whole run. It's been a great season under
Speaker 1: Brian Kelly. However, it just everyone wants to kind of
Speaker 1: move on and do different things and make different changes,
Speaker 1: and it just seemed like that with Notre Dame as well. Well,
Speaker 1: now the reports Marcus Freeman, the defensive coordinator, apparently he's
Speaker 1: he's in line and to be the head coach and
Speaker 1: be the full time guy. Is do you think that
Speaker 1: actually filed they follow through with that and would that
Speaker 1: be a money with Notre Dame be doing that to
Speaker 1: save money or is there something else going on here.
Speaker 1: It's not a crazy thought because of the of the
Speaker 1: history of low ball offers and uh two guys like
Speaker 1: Urban Meyer and the past and not overpaying for coaches,
Speaker 1: except for the fact that you can't find anybody who's
Speaker 1: ever had anything to do with the Notre Dame football
Speaker 1: program who can say anything thing but glowing recommendations and
Speaker 1: is not in total love with Marcus Freeman, uh in
Speaker 1: terms of energy, in terms of being able to sell
Speaker 1: the program, in terms of being just the youthful energy
Speaker 1: that who just is always go go go, always positive forward.
Speaker 1: And it's just kind of embodies what you want in
Speaker 1: a college football head coach in the modern era, where
Speaker 1: you want a guy who's got that that fire, who's
Speaker 1: got the energy to be able to always be recruiting.
Speaker 1: And I know a lot of Nor Dame friends of
Speaker 1: mine and guys who do this always are thinking about, well, look,
Speaker 1: you know, Nordame is one of those jobs that they
Speaker 1: can really actually go after anybody, and someone like John
Speaker 1: Harbaugh would think about, or un Mike Tomlin would think about,
Speaker 1: or any pro coach would have to for a split
Speaker 1: second thing he the kind coach and Notre Dame. That's
Speaker 1: just the thing. The problem with that is pro coaches
Speaker 1: going to college, you know, going from movies to TV.
Speaker 1: The idea of like clip Kings very going from Arizona
Speaker 1: where they're in the Super Bowl hud to Oklahoma. Once
Speaker 1: you've lived and tasted that pro life, going back to
Speaker 1: having to suck up to seventeen year old on a
Speaker 1: daily basis, it's kind of a hard thing to do.
Speaker 1: That's why kind of a guy like Marcus Freeman, who
Speaker 1: is young and who is in the college at game
Speaker 1: right now, who is in that world, is a perfect
Speaker 1: fit and a perfect guy for the time. Now. Well know,
Speaker 1: as people are listening, there's something might have changed really drastically.
Speaker 1: But the big argument was that Brian Kelly left six
Speaker 1: days before knowing whether or not his team was actually
Speaker 1: out of the College football Playoff. Chase Luke Fickle is
Speaker 1: still in the college football playoff chase, at least as
Speaker 1: we speak right now, and so they're gonna probably wait
Speaker 1: and see on that. If there is an announcement, they're
Speaker 1: not going to do anything until after we know what
Speaker 1: since the day's future is kind of like Lincoln Riley
Speaker 1: didn't make the move. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. His agan
Speaker 1: was obviously talking to USC before the end of the
Speaker 1: regular season, but it wasn't all announced after the Oklahoma
Speaker 1: State game. So I do think if your Notre Dame,
Speaker 1: you do have to wait a little while. But certainly
Speaker 1: Marcus Freeman, if he's not at the top thest he's close,
Speaker 1: and you might have a swap where if it is
Speaker 1: Luke Fickle, then Cincinnati would be like, Marcus Freeman, our
Speaker 1: old defensive corner, please come here, take over this job
Speaker 1: and take us into the new era and the big
Speaker 1: twel coming up in a few years for that program,
Speaker 1: the old Switcher ru And as far as Brian Kelly,
Speaker 1: I we talked about some my Overnight show, did Kelly
Speaker 1: going to baton Rouge and they you talk about a switch.
Speaker 1: They had the most Louisiana occasion coach they could have
Speaker 1: with coach Oe and Brian Kelly is like the polar
Speaker 1: opposite of you. When you think of Louisiana Baton Rouge,
Speaker 1: the SEC, you don't think of Brian Kelly. How long
Speaker 1: is a honeymoon period gonna last for coach Kelly there
Speaker 1: at l s U. It's it's over. It was over
Speaker 1: ten when ten minutes ago. Look, I was on a
Speaker 1: good nature joking fund with the one of the radio
Speaker 1: stations done a Baton Rouge where they weren't asked. You know,
Speaker 1: we've got into the argument what's the better job USC
Speaker 1: or L s U? And I kept yawning at him.
Speaker 1: You guys are crazy. Why would anybody want this L
Speaker 1: s U job? Because you can't go tenant, you can't
Speaker 1: lose three games in a row. You can't lose ever
Speaker 1: because that fan base has experienced the top of them out.
Speaker 1: Not only did they experience three national championships in you know,
Speaker 1: recent times under three different head coaches like Nick Nick
Speaker 1: Saban wasn't exactly Mr New Orleans when he took over
Speaker 1: that gig when he came down from Michigan State. Obviously
Speaker 1: one of one there was great. Les Miles obviously was
Speaker 1: great there until he wasn't. And at our dron put
Speaker 1: together arguing the greatest season in college football history, and
Speaker 1: two years later complete failure. Can't coach? God, who wants
Speaker 1: to deal with that? I mean, I obviously Brian Kelly does.
Speaker 1: But you're getting gobs and gobs of money for this,
Speaker 1: but the pressure for that job when Alabama is still
Speaker 1: a thing, when Auburn is still good, when Old Miss
Speaker 1: is still good, when you still have a Georgia from
Speaker 1: the East. It's just it's impossible for every team in
Speaker 1: the SEC to be awesome, especially in a year where
Speaker 1: just about every team was above averager better, when thirteen
Speaker 1: of the fourteen teams are going bowling, you know, so
Speaker 1: like it's I it's just an impossible expectation to ask
Speaker 1: Brian Kelly or anybody to step in right away and
Speaker 1: win a national championship now. But if he doesn't do
Speaker 1: it in the next two or three years, everyone's gonna
Speaker 1: be screaming at him, just like they're screaming at like
Speaker 1: Gimbo Fischer now that he sucks and can't coach because
Speaker 1: they haven't won a national championship in Texas A and
Speaker 1: even though they were this close to getting into the
Speaker 1: College Football Playoffs last year, they fired Dan Mullen. Sucks
Speaker 1: can't coach, even though last year at this exact time
Speaker 1: they were still in the College Football playoff. Life. It's
Speaker 1: an insane world in the SEC. But boo, who all
Speaker 1: these guys are getting paid generational wealth to be allowed
Speaker 1: to live that life. Yeah, and it's it's really you
Speaker 1: think of the SEC and the big name coaches, it's
Speaker 1: it's tilted heavily towards the SEC West obviously with that
Speaker 1: that half, with all the big names there, and who's
Speaker 1: who's the next coach out in the SEC, A big
Speaker 1: name coach? Who do you think is on the hottest
Speaker 1: of the problem is right now, as we've kind of
Speaker 1: we've gone through this process at this point, there really
Speaker 1: isn't one particular guy I would say in terms of
Speaker 1: just flat out pressure Dud's got to start winning bigger now.
Speaker 1: It's Jimbo Fisher because the crazy part about Jimbo is
Speaker 1: on the one side, he was rumored to be on
Speaker 1: the shortlist for l s U And on the other side,
Speaker 1: you've got the fan base is like her, all right,
Speaker 1: so let's win a national championship already. We want to
Speaker 1: be that team that gets into the College football playoff hunt.
Speaker 1: Uh So, it's there's a whole lot of you know,
Speaker 1: every school's got that guy, because now if you look
Speaker 1: at the coaches across the board, it's pretty massively awesome.
Speaker 1: I mean, Lane Kiffin should I thought Lane Kiffin would
Speaker 1: have been great back at USC and in a dream world,
Speaker 1: he'd be great for Ordre Dame. But he's one of
Speaker 1: the best coaches going and he's at all miss Mike Leach. Look,
Speaker 1: the guy's never won anything, and I have major problems
Speaker 1: with him as a human being, but he's great. He
Speaker 1: that offense is phenomenal at Mississippi State. Kirby Smart Okay, fine,
Speaker 1: as we speak right now, he has won a national championship. Yep.
Speaker 1: But obviously he's got that program rocking and rolling. We'll
Speaker 1: see what Billy Napier does at Florida. Josh Hype could
Speaker 1: not be a hotter candidate for Oklahoma with what he's
Speaker 1: doing at Tennessee. So the coaches in this conference all
Speaker 1: bring it. And going back to what we talked about
Speaker 1: the very very beginning, why I'm a Power of five snob.
Speaker 1: You want to talk about the difference between Okay, Cincinnati
Speaker 1: beating Notre Dame. That's all awesome, great win, Then do
Speaker 1: it again, don't you know? Not only get what you know? Tolane, Tulsa,
Speaker 1: East Carolina. Whereas if you were Texas A and M. Great,
Speaker 1: you beat Alabama, super beat Arkansas, beat Oldness, beat Mississippi State,
Speaker 1: beat Georgia whatever else. It's it's not the same when
Speaker 1: it comes to the big gigant or conferences like that
Speaker 1: and the other nonpower file conferences. And that's just life
Speaker 1: in the SEC. Yeah. And as far as Lincoln Riley,
Speaker 1: I have been bombarded. I have friends at USC people
Speaker 1: that have been pumping their chest out, walking around like
Speaker 1: pead uh, why why did Lincoln Riley take? That's not
Speaker 1: I know it's l A and all that, but the
Speaker 1: sc the USC football program has been going the wrong
Speaker 1: direction for a long time. And he he created you know,
Speaker 1: he didn't really create Oklahoma. Bob Stoops created Oklahoma. But
Speaker 1: was that a money play? Why? Or did you want
Speaker 1: to live in l A? What are you? What are
Speaker 1: you hearing on? Why Lincoln Riley chose he could have
Speaker 1: had any job he wanted, he chose the US season?
Speaker 1: Why USC? Yeah? I think it's Kirk Curvester you phrase
Speaker 1: that Yeah, he got the keys to the maserati at Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: and now he doesn't quite have that that USC. But look,
Speaker 1: USC can flip around fast. They were so they had
Speaker 1: the talent this year. Then in the pactulth Championship hunt,
Speaker 1: it just didn't happen right away. That can be flipped instantly.
Speaker 1: And again I mentioned before, he's getting the recruits to
Speaker 1: come in uh to USC right away. Certainly Caleb Williams
Speaker 1: could follow him from Oklahoma to get there. Right now,
Speaker 1: USC is going to be at the top of every
Speaker 1: recruits list because it's l a, because it's USC. Because
Speaker 1: especially in that era and now work with name, image
Speaker 1: and likeness for all the stuff that USC got hammered
Speaker 1: for under Pete Carroll with the rush Reggie Bush sanctions
Speaker 1: are now part of the norm, like like, oh what
Speaker 1: did what did they get the coma penalty for? They
Speaker 1: got it because Reggie Bush worked with a marketing company
Speaker 1: and he worked with an agent and he did oh
Speaker 1: he had the subway deals lined up for him. You know,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, he's history's greatest monster. And they, you know,
Speaker 1: pretty much killed the USC program for a couple of years.
Speaker 1: Now that's part of the deal. So if you're a
Speaker 1: recruit and you're saying, Okay, I could go to this
Speaker 1: school or I could go to the school in l A.
Speaker 1: The prospects of making the money there are so much
Speaker 1: bigger and better and under Lincoln Riley and being in
Speaker 1: that offense and that team that is going to be
Speaker 1: the hot team, hot program, and just straight professionally, Look,
Speaker 1: Lincoln Riley is going to be the highest paid football
Speaker 1: coach in Los Angeles. It's the money that they're giving
Speaker 1: college coaches now compared to the NFL is just insanity.
Speaker 1: So why wouldn't you want to live in l A?
Speaker 1: You know, live the life there, the weather, the city,
Speaker 1: the media market, the recruiting opportunities, and on top of it, look,
Speaker 1: he's gotta beat what Colorado and Utah and u C
Speaker 1: l A and eras Oonah. That's a little different than
Speaker 1: Oklahoma going into life of the SEC and having to
Speaker 1: beat Nick Saban in Alabama and l s U and
Speaker 1: everything we just talked about with the SEC world. Well
Speaker 1: and also Pete, I mean the details on Oklahoma and
Speaker 1: his house is the USC bought two houses from Lincoln
Speaker 1: Riley and they they're paying for his house in l
Speaker 1: a that maybe we all find someone in life to
Speaker 1: want to hire us to pay for houses. And my god,
Speaker 1: what an amazing thing. I didn't even know as my
Speaker 1: as my as my running gag goes melt Tucker Uh
Speaker 1: and I were at Wisconsin at the exact same time
Speaker 1: we had classes. I was in a bunch of classes
Speaker 1: with him UH, And little did I know that at
Speaker 1: the time that the two of us combined would be
Speaker 1: worth one million dollars over the next ten years. So great,
Speaker 1: great gig if you can get it as one of
Speaker 1: these college football head coaches who uh is on the
Speaker 1: on the rise and it's really good at what you're
Speaker 1: doing well. And also it's driving up the prices in
Speaker 1: the NFL now that the NFL is going to have
Speaker 1: to compete financially with who thought? Who? Who would ever
Speaker 1: thought they're gonna have to compete with Michigan State and
Speaker 1: Penn State and USC and and these these things. It's crazy. Hey,
Speaker 1: I'll let you go, Pete. I don't I've kept you
Speaker 1: a long time. How can people follow you on college
Speaker 1: football news is where you hang out all the time,
Speaker 1: But on social media if they want to catch up
Speaker 1: with you, I'll put it all on the yeah college
Speaker 1: football college football news dot com obviously uh my personal one,
Speaker 1: Pete few tech f I U T a k. And unfortunately,
Speaker 1: since College Football News does not have enough characters for Twitter,
Speaker 1: it is cool. College football News horrible handle, but it's
Speaker 1: all up there as well on the Twitter machine. Awesome.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Pete, appreciate it. Hey time you have a
Speaker 1: great one.