were

making fun of me and yelling at me, telling me I was an idiot.

Guess what, guys? She was drafted by the Chicago Sky.

They're not serious.

They are an unserious basketball organization.

And the best thing that ever happened to her was being traded to a serious basketball organization, the Atlanta Dream, because now they are three games away from possibly winning the WNBA finals.

And in large part to her and her just being an absolute dog, especially in this game two, if I were a Valkyries fan right now, I'd be a little nervous.

story

Jess, who asked for this?

It's a great question because it doesn't even seem like with the elimination of the conference championship games that there's going to be that much more money made from this thing.

So even calling it, like, a blatant cash grab, we'll see what the ultimate number ends up being.

It could be ginormous.

But, um, it just, y- the SEC championship game and even the Big 10 championship game make a ton of money, uh, off of their TV deals.

So eliminating those is already you're starting from a place where you've got to make up that amount of money.

Um, but to your point, yeah, I haven't seen fans clamoring for it.

I, I, this is such a bummer.

So, so how shocking is this potential matchup?

I think it's pretty shocking, especially after just the first round of this year's playoffs where the Fever had the best offense in the WNBA this season, and then they go up against this experienced Las Vegas Aces team and they get shut down in three games.

And, you know, they had a really good game two at Cambridge Fieldhouse, but the Aces were totally in control.

And now the Aces are kind of on their heels playing against the Valkyries because, frankly, I think that they just don't have the bodies.

They don't have the depth anymore to compete with the Valkyries because they have so many players that are able to sub into their games and contribute, and they have an inc- incredible coach in Natalie Nakase who, um, you know, we saw Todd Bowles fall to his knees at the end of the Bucs game last night, and it kind of reminded me [laughs] of when she was, like, passed out during the Valkyries game last week and then got back up on her feet like nothing happened.

Um, and she's just apparently been described as a basketball sicko, and the Valkyries have done a really good job of having, uh, an identity in the WNBA after only two years of their existence.

So yeah, it's pretty surprising.

... obviously good

What did you make of that outcome there? Were the Gators just huge frauds?

Okay, no.

I would say I had the opposite take on Missouri last week, which was that it felt a little weird that people were getting bent out of shape that they were in the top 25 given that they had a game against Florida on the schedule where if they lost, they would definitely be voted out of the top 25.

And if they won, it would be completely justifiable because the advanced analytics, Zaz, they like Missouri.

Missouri right now is 16th in FEI, which is... efficiency drive-by-drive basis like they are a team with a very good defense part of that is also now being adjusted because of Florida in what they were able to do to Florida's run game but I don't think this is like a Florida bad Missouri good situation I think this is just college football now where you're gonna have more matchups that come down to individual adjustments versus well, Florida's got all the good players, so they should win the game.

And Missouri, they don't have any dudes, so they're going to lose.

Like, I think this is kind of just how it goes.

This is a pivotal stretch for Notre Dame coming up.

What did you make of that outcome there? Were the Gators just huge frauds?

Okay, no.

I would say I had the opposite take on Missouri last week, which was that it felt a little weird that people were getting bent out of shape that they were in the top 25, given that they had a game against Florida on the schedule, where if they lost, they would definitely be voted out of the top 25.

And if they won, it would be completely justifiable because the advanced analytics, Zaz, they like Missouri.

Missouri right now is 16th in FEI, which is efficiency, drive-by-drive basis.

They are a team with a very good defense.

Part of that is also now being adjusted because of Florida and what they were able to do to Florida's run game.

This is a pivotal stretch for Notre Dame coming up.

Can you tell people... why this was kind of nuts, but also not super shocking, I guess?

Yeah, it's crazy in that, yes, they were an eight seed.

If you were just looking at it on paper, you'd be like, wow, this is a big upset.

That's never happened before.

And obviously, like I mentioned, the format of the postseason's changed a lot, so it's not like there's been that many opportunities for it to happen.

But this season, there was...

there were not a lot of games separating good teams.

really hope it

And Penn State's Iowa State who wasn't ranked.

Let me finish.

So now we'll look at Pitt.

So Pitt is also 4 and 0.

Um, they have wins over UCF, who beat TCU last week.

That's their best win.

That's the best one out of any of these eight teams.

But how much trouble is Lincoln Riley really in? Because it, how much is owed on his $110 million contract?

That, that, that game was in the balance.

It was fascinating.

USC's, uh, issue for the last ha- as long as Lincoln Riley's been there, since 2022, was, has been their defense.

And their defense has let people score a lot of points on them.

And Lincoln Riley in himself, like, he knows how to score points, so he's been in a lot of high-scoring games like that.

Um, but against a Rutgers team that had just lost to UMass to open the season, not what you wanna see in your first power opponent game of the season.

And the flip side of that, Mike, you mentioned Oregon, yeah, coming into the season I was pretty high on them because, look, they were good last year.

That's what he inherited.

team.

What's fascinating is that there was lawsuits ensued once the NCAA said he was ineligible as is the case with all ineligible decisions.

these days but Cody Campbell obviously who like helped you know fund this Texas Tech team he's like very invested in making Texas Tech good at football was very vocally like trying to get him to play this season for Texas Tech and in all of the the midst of this donated to Ken Paxton's Senate race who is running for senator in Texas if you watch any college football games this You've heard from him.

You've seen a lot of commercials about it.

And then the next day, Ken Paxton wrote a letter to the Big 12 conference threatening the conference that if they tried to restrict him from playing because basically the courts were like, yeah, he can play.

And the conference was like, no, he can't because everyone's so mad at him that we don't want him to play.

And like, we're the only people who can really try to enforce this, even though he could probably sue us, too.

What's

I'm just wondering where you think, you know, cause a lot of fans are always saying, well, is this game ever going to get played of some of the future games and is Notre Dame going to have trouble scheduling power for teams outside of the ACC? I'm wondering your thoughts about scheduling and how significant that might've been.

I think it's really significant.

I think if Notre Dame is moving forward with playing USC earlier in the season, obviously the scheduling, you don't want to have what you had in 2025 every single year, playing two really good teams back-to-back.

So having the flexibility to maybe move a power opponent later in the season in the midst of the ACC games, and then maybe you have another group of five team or whatever earlier in the season, that would definitely be better than playing every single season big you know non-acc power game back to back to back to back to start the year so i did think that was really interesting that it was in october i know the the auburn series was scheduled for later in the season as well obviously byu um kind of last minute being done it kind of indicates to me that um the truth of college football scheduling is that Other college football teams like money and this is going to be a guaranteed sellout and also the television networks are going to love it.

So as long as those things are true, people are going to keep scheduling Notre Dame no matter what month it is and probably made people of Aqua very happy that he was able to get that one out there.

And also, Eric, I you probably have have some recollections of some like Notre Dame Nebraska games, but I was very young the last time they did the home and home series in 2000 and 2001.

And looking at the history between the two schools, like really surprised that they hadn't played more.

So what is a typical week like for you during college football, besides finding out what kind of Oreos that Mike Golick Jr. is eating that week?

And I, I will just say again, while I understand it as a symbolic conversation, that game, Jessica, just in, in the context of you love college football, that game ends up living in the fourth quarter up to all the hype.

It was a tremendous game, Dan.

It really, really lived up to the hype.

And I think that's what's, uh, unfortunate about the aftermath.

Because somehow this becomes a story of sports media and how women in sports media always lose.

'Cause now there's a video of a sideline reporter who did nothing wrong getting slapped in the face by AI Steve Sarkisian and the quarterback of the other team laughing about it, and all the beat reporters at the Texas press conference that were there that laughed about it.

Um, that's on video, too.

Geez.

Uh, the Dabo Swinney sound from the weekend

weekendI'm just kidding.

Um, yeah, Dan, Dabo's, he's getting really triggered, like, really early here in these press conferences.

He's gotta make it at least to, like, week four before the...

I, we're gonna have an ultimate trigger-off between him and Belichick in a couple weeks, and I cannot wait for it.

But I do think that...

We talked about this last week.

You're the gotcha guy.

Okay, so Lucy's going through it.

Jess, Notre Dame.

I don't have any good gossip on this current team because they are very – things are very buttoned up around this team at the moment in a good way, in like a professional way.

However, I do have some like Notre Dame-adjacent good goss involving USC, who I'm not sure if you guys have seen, did not have very many people at their opening game on Saturday.

I only saw that – Because of your guys, Lucy, did you do a reel there? Yes, Lucy did a video on it.

It was great.

Okay, let me start here.

No. Jess, is there any other storyline that you've been thinking about besides the empty stadium gate?

Uh, and the, the stands were way more full, at least the optics provided that.

Well, this is the other piece of context, Dan, which is that this San Jose State game was added in week zero after the cancellation of the Notre Dame-USC series this year.

And n- the USC, uh, faction of this has been saying that they wanna play Notre Dame in week zero.

They wanna move that rivalry game that's historically been played in October, November to the opening week of the football season because it's better for USC's schedule now that they're in the Big 10, even though this was already a non-conference, uh, rivalry before they joined the Big 10.

It was just a Pac-12 and independent, uh, non-conference rivalry, not Big 10 independent.

So nothing has really changed in that respect.

But they were, uh, complaining a lot throughout the off-season that Notre Dame wouldn't move this game to week zero.

Yeah.

How was your week zero?

It was great.

I watched every game laying flat on my back on the floor in front of the TV.

I love a floor lay.

It's nice that there were, you know, only eight FBS games and a lot of them kind of had their own window.

So there wasn't too much overlapping except for a little bit in the afternoon.

But I got to I got to soak it all in.

been two minutes for crying out loud i mean jesus christ what happened Jess, did Carolina win or did TCU lose?

What did you think?

Oh, my God, Stugatz.

The crowd attendance... discourse has been, it honestly, it makes me like miss Miami a little bit because it reminds me of the arguments that we'd have over the Miami home attendance and the Marlins home attendance because USC, I don't know if you saw the pictures, they didn't have a lot of fans in the Coliseum for kickoff against San Jose State in week zero, which I should remind you was the game that they had to replace the Notre Dame game with because they canceled the Notre Dame series after they were about to announce an extension for the next two years that would have done like the typical October, November things.

And then they had to schedule San Jose State in week zero.

And apparently it was very hot in LA.

So not a lot of people went and it was a San Jose State game, not a Notre Dame game.

So it was not as interesting of a draw as a Notre Dame game, I suppose.

terrible fans at san jose state that city does not deserve la a good premier college football program they won't support it they'll support it when it's pete carroll and matt leinert and reggie bush but if they're average or just very good no one's coming to their games period end of discussion get college football out of la how about that

Mm-hmm.

And comparing quarterback stats across the last, I don't know, even 30 years, Dave, it's kind of pointless because not only have there been so many rule changes, but also like you're comparing players who could not transfer without a penalty or would not ever transfer or usually would stay for four years even if they played the first three.

Like, that just doesn't really happen anymore.

Like, there's some specific circumstances where that'll happen, but like someone like Fernando Mendoza, like he plays one year at Indiana, and it was, it was quick, right? 'Cause like [laughs] it was one semester and then he's off training for the NFL.

And, and it's like impossible to compare that to players that played for like f- four full seasons in a passing attack offense 20 years ago, and then it, like now there's five for five.

So you're gonna have players that have five years at different colleges, most, I mean, I assume most of them at different colleges, maybe some at the same college.

Like, it just has gotten way too hard to keep track of all these things.

Exactly, right

Mm-hmm

... kind of demure sport.

And then there, there's all these, like, new, younger people trying to get people into the game and be, you know, more exciting and upbeat.

And they have these YouTube channels.

And this group has over two million followers, and they do have some female creators as part of their network apparently, too.

And, and the guy in that video is one of the co-founders, and the woman is someone who is part of the network, so I've read.

I was not familiar with this group.

... spearheading the bullshit.

In order to-

... women love wives.

Women love girlies.

We gotta do the things that the ladies like.

We can't do the things that might, the women might be like, "You know what? Uh, probably would be a good idea if you, you know, had some, a bit of a spine when it came to some of the players that might not be up to good things off the field." Instead, just feed us these, uh, videos of quarterbacks being, whispering sweet nothings into their fiance's ears and pretend that it's real.

Like, there's probably better ways they could be doing.

This feels like blatant, kinda obvious pandering, and I don't know if I like that.

He's the ultimate

Really?

I, that is stunning to me.

So, look, I'm not gonna lie to you.

Sometimes when there are certain neutral site college football games, or destination college football games, like this year there's a Kansas/Arizona State game at Wembley Stadium.

There was supposed to be a North Carolina/Virginia game in Brazil.

That got moved back to the US because I think the ticket sales were not what they expected.

But, um, the, the Dublin game I feel like is the exception.

Yes.

It's so hard to know what these teams are going to look like preseason.

I think that that's true, although I think that if you had to guess, the top 25 here are a pretty good place to start.

I think what is most difficult about the new transfer stuff and new coaches and all that is with the group of six teams.

I think that's where it's really hard to figure out, especially this year when James Madison was really good last year and they have a new head coach and Tulane was really good and they have a new head coach.

and there's so much quarterback movement in the group of six it like quarterbacks on like their third and fourth team transferring that's where i think it's really hard to predict it um but with when you have programs like the ones usually in the top 10 of the ap poll or the coaches poll That's where I think it's a little bit easier just to say, okay, I think this team will be good.

It's kind of a known quantity.

We know what a Ryan Day Ohio State team is or a Dan Lanning Oregon team is.

we touched on this briefly today on the Levitard show do the preseason does the preseason poll matter

What's your read on it?

Hmm.

My read on it is the, the commentary about everyone hating them 'cause they're Texas Tech and being afraid to play them, and, um, the, you know, conference putting the hammer on them just because they're Texas Tech.

Like, all of that stuff and all of the reaction to the Soresby stuff being put on everyone else instead of on them and just saying nothing at all I think made them look worse than had they just said nothing at all and been like, "We stick behind our player.

If he's eligil- eligible to play, we're gonna play him." That would've been better than all of the stuff that they've done and said since, which I think has left a really bad taste in people's mouth.

Now, when it comes to scheduling out of conference, I don't think that should really matter too much.

If I'm an AD at another school, and I have a, a b- a window for a team, and I wanna play a team like Texas Tech, um, I am of the opinion that in the 12 to whatever the expanded playoff ends up being, if it does expand, uh, team playoff, playing good teams is generally a, a good thing.

... uh, like, does she like her job?

So we got that as a feather in our cap as well.

Yeah, this WNBA three-pointer in a game record is one that so many players have been on the cusp of breaking.

Even this season, Marina Mabry had two games this season where she had nine threes in each.

And so that was the record that it's been so hard for players to break.

And so Kayla McBride breaks the three-pointer in a game record on Sunday on this Lynx team that is...

By far and away, I think the team to beat right now, if you're talking about championship contending teams that have very few weaknesses, that have bench players that are able to come in and help, that have stars in McBride and Courtney Williams and Nafisa Collier, who's coming back now.

She was out for the first part of the season with ankle injuries.

Jess, tell the people why they should be paying more attention to the young Washington Mystics team right now.

[laughs]

Call plays.

Yeah, so they have this, um, lottery going right now.

It says, "Make history and be the lucky season ticket holder to design the opening drive of the home opener when Zips Football host Robert Morris." Robert Morris is an FCS team, so, like, it's the opener against a team that's not a, a D1 FBS team.

They're a D1 FCS team, so, like, okay, that's, you know, maybe, maybe you let your fans have a couple plays in that game.

I'm assuming if you win this, you are just, like, sitting in a, on a call or in a meeting the week before the game and, like, talking to the staff, and then you're scripting it together.

But the, like, real crazy person in me is thinking, "Wow, what if they are just giving a random guy, like, a headset on the sideline and handing him the playbook and saying, like, 'Go for it'"? 'Cause I, I...

The-

What can we do to fix this?

Well, I think they need to bring back the four point line.

First of all, I think that was the fact that the players didn't know that until like an hour before the game was crazy to me.

And the fact that we didn't know that as fans was also crazy to me.

So I think they need to bring that back.

What about you?

Appointment television.

What I think is that All-Star is for the gays and we love the relationship drama.