You ready? Which is it reality? The dreidel? Is it spinning? Is it upright? Is it about to fall over for Texas football? What is going on with Texas right now? And just how big is the pressure for Steve Sarkeesian and Arch Manning?

Yeah, it's really cranked up right now.

It is wild to think that if you've watched Texas this season, and certainly they've underperformed.

I'm not going to say they haven't.

Last year, when Arch was having struggles, you could point to a lot of things that were not up to an elite level on their offense.

right now it does feel like the problem is very specifically Arch Manning and the play calling and their inability to find a rhythm.

Like, yes, the run game is probably not like, you know, for when you got $2 million backs, like, yeah, probably should be a little bit better, but like, man, they've got great players all over the field.

I mean – I know everybody in the industry felt really good about Will Stein and thought highly of him, but did you see this coming from them this year, Max?

It's so great

...

the one side of it is it's gotta be, that's gotta be an all-timer on that side of the stadium when you're running to it, too.

Um, you know, we gotta talk about Arch, we gotta talk about Sark.

Um, I think the evidence, I don't know that I feel personally, like, strongly about this, but I think the evidence is just, like, mounting and mounting that Sark needs to delegate the play calling.

Um, I think they just, they have too much talent, they spent too much money to be punting as much as they, they have, uh, in these last two games.

And, you know, Ohio State, too.

[laughs]

Uh, and then they're matching up in this, this critical game for, for Nebraska and for Indiana both.

Yeah, I, I think with Hoover it's like, it, it surprised me to look this up this week and realize he just, like, still hadn't thrown a pick this year.

And I, and I know obviously Kirk Cignetti had, like, made a point of that because of the comments from Sonny Dykes and just, uh, Josh Hoover's history of not taking care of the ball at TCU, in part because he just had to be the playmaker and, and be the creator there, and he doesn't really have to be when you have Lee Beebe running as well as he did, uh, against Northwestern, when you have, have the backs that you can lean on there.

And so, um, I, I'm interested to see can, can Josh Hoover just continue to, to, you know- Uh, hold up to that, you know, their, their expectations for their offense and, and can he be a guy that can go win big games? Because that's just not really been what he's been at TCU.

And so, you know, the, uh, certainly they talked themselves into like, "Hey, we're, we're giving him a much better supporting cast and system and play calling," and all that's true.

But, um, you know, now it's time to kind of find out, can he be the big game player that, that Fernando Mendoza was? And, and I think for Colandrea, uh, I totally agree.

Like I, I, I think he's been like just a, you know, a delight to coach [laughs] basically, and that was kind of what I expected that he was going to give them a lot of juice offensively.

Are you surprised by the struggles so far? Or is this, uh, you know, the jump from the Big 12 and the Big 10 and, and taking all those players? Like, it's, it's just a different league.

would describe it.

It's fun, but it's difficult.

It is.

And if you just go by gut and eyeballs, people will say, well, you're not respecting the results.

So we need to get a little further.

I would describe it like this.

I think I'd go like an airport scenario here.

It's kind of like that's their DNA now.

Which of Alabama and rain games?

and an incredible 11 a.m. game being potentially broken up by endless delays, which is we've seen so much this year, and that's just so exciting.

Yeah, no, I think Keelan Russell, I had a chance to watch a few of his games this season, and I was high on him coming out of Duncanville where he was just a legend in the DFW area.

But I think when he's right and he's still super young, But when he's right, I think he's going to be a Heisman-level guy.

And, you know, I think they've – certainly he's got great players around him and a great play caller in Ryan Grubb who's going to, you know, really help him shine.

But, like, I think that we are seeing him ascend, you know, right now, and he's going to learn on the go here.

And I think he makes Alabama a real playoff contender, even if on paper you look at them and maybe they're not – maybe they're not even set up this year to be, like, a top-ten type of team.

What's your read on this situation right now?

There's a lot of things going on at USC that really aren't going to excite a lot of people.

Yeah, it's that spot now where you can't just keep telling people, hey, man, it's better than we found it.

Like at some point, they need to see the breakthrough.

I looked up Lincoln Riley's record against top 25 opponents at USC.

It's now 5-14, and when they've given up 30-plus points in those games, they're 1-13.

So it's just kind of that spot now of like something's, Something's got to change.

And, you know, weirdly, like, I was really curious to see, they invested a lot of money in a really interesting process in terms of putting this freshman class together.

Yeah, it's,

What do you think of Houston-Texas Tech? And then on top of it, what does that maybe tell you about the Big 12 and sort of the race there where, to me, it feels like the gap between Texas Tech and everyone else is a little smaller?

Yeah, like I think if you're at Houston, you're feeling pretty good about, like you would have liked to win that game and it sucks to lose.

on a failed two-point conversion to tie it.

But I think if you're Houston, you feel pretty good about your ability to stay in this Big 12 race and that maybe it is kind of wide open at the top here.

I think BYU deserves the respect for having defeated Arizona, that they're probably the best team in the conference right now and the team you'd probably pick as just the safest pick to win the Big 12 now.

Texas Tech is just a work in progress, and I've probably said that before on here, but I think you watch them play and they're kind of learning on the go, and that's not just because of Will Hammond's inexperience, but, you know, I don't think their defense and their pass rushes played at the level they expected.

You saw some good moments in the Houston game, but, you know, I've probably made a little bit of an error and sort of like, oh, man, on paper, they're too loaded to fail.

Is it too simple to say Trinidad Chambliss because of the way things have gone for them in these first few weeks?

What do you think of LSU's playoff chances at this spot, Max? We'll do the same for Ole Miss in a second.

Yeah, I think it's treacherous.

And, you know, you could say, okay, yeah, A&M is not the team we thought they would be.

You certainly got exposed by Kentucky yesterday.

But that's going to be a really tough one.

I still, you know, I think Mike Elko is going to, you know, whip his team into shape this week after a game like that.

And... what a brutal loss at home like i there's just yeah you're you're right dan you go through the schedule and there's just not a lot that you're just sort of riding off his automatic wins um especially if levitt you know obviously what a miracle that he was able to play in this game after all of his ailments but you know you got to keep him healthy and and you gotta you know you you gotta you know the trade is green injury you know i hope it's not severe but i mean You're going to need some injury luck to kind of get through this run because this is a team that, you know, you didn't get that second portal in the spring to go fix all your needs.

Max, what are your thoughts on the tied win?

When did you kind of get the sense that Oregon was just going to be kind of a mess throughout that contest? Was it early on, and then did you think they were going to right the ship? Or when did it sort of just come together that this was going to be a very unusual Oregon performance?

Yeah, you know, I think you start the game early on.

Oklahoma State gets a stop, and then Messmaker, you know, does the RPO keep for 75, and that gives them a spark kind of early on.

But I think the thing – that was kind of alarming at first was you watching Dante more and it's just sort of like, Oh, he's, he's not really seeing it.

Like, I don't, you know, I think they threw some, there's some stuff in him.

He wasn't maybe totally prepared for, and that there's some advantage to that when you're a new staff, but it kind of felt like, uh, you know, he was not finding open receivers.

Guys were not getting open or getting separation.

Is there any way with an interim athletic director or a new athletic director that he could survive this?

But, Max, you just don't see a lot of situations where that guy who is struggling like he is at this point sticks around and stays it out at Michigan, and then it ends up being a success story because the patience with quarterbacks is, you know, everybody's older at that position around the country.

Yeah, and I think, like, you know, obviously Nebraska went through this over the last two years, but I don't think that we ever talked about Dylan Riella from this standpoint.

I think it was much more like, all right, can you kind of get the supporting cast right? Can you get the defense right? Like, can you kind of put him in position to really maximize his abilities? Cause you can see the gifts.

I think with Bryce Underwood, it's like, Ooh, I just don't know if this thing's like fully baked yet.

Like, I don't know if this guy's ready for these big games yet.

And, and does he kind of fit what they're doing? And like, you know, where, where is he at in his own development? And I know, I remember talking to Kyle Whittingham at media days and it's like, you know, that kid had like six different people in his year last year in terms of his his individual quarterback development.

I think they tried to get that right with their, their staffing this year, but it's kind of like, I think they inherited more of a project than they expected for, for the dollar sign.

Max, who breaks the narrative about themselves more this weekend? Arch Manning or Julian Sane? Hmm.

It was the worst possible step, and we're used to Clemson taking pretty bad steps to start the season.

I agree with you on the defense.

I mean, certainly as the game went on, they flashed a lot of new toys on offense.

But to see healthy Witt Weeks, he looked like an All-American last night.

I mean, he was just in the backfield nonstop.

I thought the third down playoff where they drop their 255-pound edge rusher from Tennessee, Jordan Ross, and, you know, Vazina throws it right to him and he houses it.

That was just like, okay, they got...

So it ended up making the difference, but they made Oregon play really well, especially in the second half to beat them and play like that 12 more times, you're going to go 12-1.

So are you, are you excited a little bit maybe for Colorado Georgia tech tonight? We were just kind of talking about it for a few minutes and I think we stumbled upon excitement for the game.

I am excited.

Yeah.

I think, um, I have enjoyed the, the go-go offense that, um, Brandon Marion called it, you know, it'll be two years ago.

And, you know, we talked to Colorado players a big time.

It is, I think they're very excited about what that looks like.

Um, I know there's going to be a lot of tension on Juju Lewis and just kind of what kind of growth he shows as a sophomore, but I do think that offense is going to be fun to watch and Colorado did a pretty good job of, as they always do, just trying to completely flip the roster with new transfers again.

classrooms.

Was j- was he just sitting there waiting to commit to Texas Tech or like how did this go for him?

That's a good question.

Um, I think there, there is that, and, and this is kind of that, uh, special like group that gets the exception in this is that there are ...

You know, it's a very narrow, narrow, uh, scope here.

But those guys that only played four years, never redshirted, and then went undrafted, went to a rookie mini camp, never got picked up by anybody, those are the guys that get to come back.

But it's a good que- I mean, like if you're Thomas Castellanos.

He went, I believe he went to a Dolphins rookie mini camp and he tried out as a wide receiver.

Um, but, like, pretty, pretty bold by the Big Ten to jump out in front and now everybody, of course, is following suit.

So I wonder, I know you don't talk to every single coach, but of the coaches and the people around college football that you talk to, what is the temperature of whether or not people think this is good or bad right now?

Yeah.

A few weeks ago, the, the college football GMs had their annual summit in Nashville, and, and this was right as this stuff was dropping with the, with the Colorado federal case.

And, you know, now you've got the option to potentially bring players back from, from last year's roster, and you talk to some of those GMs and, um, obviously they're sweating this stuff.

But some of them are like, "Man, my head coach is not down for this," and it's a relief.

I mean, because ultimately, like even if you can pursue this, you know, some people are still looking at this and saying, "We shouldn't.

We don't have to." And, and I think that Dan Lanning's frustration that he spoke on Saturday is, is one that you're gonna hear a lot this fall.

And that's the part where I think like the collective of it going, is this really what you want it to be? Now, if you're an LSU fan being like, "Hey, this is awesome," yeah, I get it, but this is where you, I think you have to kind of think of like the greater good going, is this really what you want the sport to be? And I'd have to think like over 90% of fans want nothing to do with this.

I mean, what a ridiculous, you know, 48 to 72 hours we're talking about here.

For sure.

And I, you know, I know when, when Kenny Mitchie flipped, like, you know, people did not see that coming at all.

And I was told that essentially like he called the Kentucky OC to say like, Hey, thanks so much for recruiting me.

I'm not going there.

And the OC kept him on the phone for like two hours.

And by the end of the call, he's like, okay, fine.

What is a common agent-to-player relationship in a situation like this where it just feels like it's a big scramble of a matchmaking game and the agent's on the horn just trying to figure out, okay, where do we get this guy where he's going to be the starting quarterback next year or whatever the quarterback sort of desires? I mean, you've got to be – that's a lot of trust, I think, to put in the agent if you're the player, if you're a free agent quarterback in the transfer portal.

How sustainable is the spending, the player spending, when it comes to NIL? And will we see that plateau or level off in the foreseeable future?

It's a great question.

You know, you talk to people a year ago and they would say, well, we're going into a salary cap here.

You know, everybody, the institution has to keep it to $20 million and no more.

And so, you know, these players are going to be making less next year.

Well, that's just not true.

I think when you get into how competitive this stuff is and everybody wants to win and they're eventually going to say the number that they need to say to get the player, the spending just keeps going up.

So what makes him worth that?

But even as you work your way through the SEC Big Ten, as you get to the middle and the lower tiers of those leagues, how dramatically or does it drop off the price?

Yeah, I think the question there is, especially with how things are right now, and obviously we know it's kind of a mess right now, but it's sort of like, are you abiding by the rev share budget or are you not? And I think for the schools that have a harder time generating a lot of outside money and the football roster is closer to $15 to $20 million, I think then you're talking about, all right, we have to be smart about how we spread out this money.

And if you've got an expensive quarterback, for example, you're probably cheaper at some of these other positions.

And I think that that's a reality that I think a lot of ACC and big 12 schools are dealing with, you know, obviously not Miami, not Texas tech, but I think for a lot of these, these schools, as the price of this stuff keeps going up, like it is a challenge to go find the money to stay competitive on this stuff.

And I think, you know, even when you talk about the potential of this thing going to, you know, 45 million plus for a cap for some schools, that's easy for some schools, that's going to be extremely difficult.

And I, so I think the talent market is, continues to kind of bear that out where I think you see those guys transferring out of Big 12 and ACC programs just because they know there's other programs out there that can offer you $700,000, $800,000 like it's nothing.

And that is, as you talk to some of these GMs and agents, I think that's kind of the perception right now in this stuff is after this offseason and how much the top programs spent, I think the difference between the good programs and the elite ones in terms of their investment, that that gap is absolutely widening right now.

Where do they fit? And I'm sure it depends on who they are, but how is that game playing right now?

Is that about what you would think if you were to sum up those three teams? Is that the hierarchy?

I think so, and maybe we're giving – I'm just super interested to see how Josh Hoover and the new guys in Indiana come in and play up to the standard that's been set by Sig's first two teams in Bloomington.

I think that they simultaneously did an excellent job of recruiting their needs in the portal, but it's also like you kind of wonder, can these guys be as good as the JMU guys right away? Can this all fit together? How many of these guys are NFL draft pick type talents and how much of it is going to kind of be depth.

I think the defense will be nasty this year, and I'm just really interested to see how Josh Hoover performs within that offense.

And yes, it's not, you know, a browse offense anymore, and it's not about him trying to throw it all over the yard, but he's still got to be a better decision maker and take care of the football and stuff like that.

Yeah, I mean, I think Oregon is like, it's not a now or never year for Oregon by any means, but I mean, I think we've seen the theme here of really the last three or four years is like, when you're able to get a big group of guys to stay out of the draft and come back, like that is why Ohio state won a national title with Ryan day.

That is why Jim Harbaugh won a title at Michigan.

Is SMU, like if they make the college football playoff again this year, we have to kind of start changing how we talk about them, right? Like they feel like they could be a really, you know, good team in this era of college football, given the money and the interest that's behind it, SMU football.

So, Max, did you have any of these instances that was your favorite outcome in terms of the college football playoff of like the bracket that got set up or the teams that made it to the final because of, I don't know, pure anarchy or whatever else? Anything really stand out, rise above the rest in these 26?

Yeah, we're always looking for the chaos bracket where things just go really wrong and weird.

And this year, we had Boise State making a Cinderella run, 12-1 through the Pac-12.

And yet, they got the 10 seed.

They came to Lincoln, Nebraska.

They routed Nebraska in the first round.

Then they knocked out Notre Dame.

Is there one thing over the other that you're really looking forward to hearing from Tony Petitti next week?

I do, I do sort of wonder, I think I asked you this a couple of weeks ago on, you know, what they're, um, you know, if they sort of like being in the position that they're in, it sort of feel like it felt like they were kind of enjoying at the time being the, uh, villain of sorts i don't know if they were trying to do that but the position that they were in was the position that they were in and they were going to keep defending it i wonder what you sort of think about that now especially after everything has changed and and we're past the brendan soars be part of it now like is it we're we're coming off of that

yeah look i think to some extent um joe mcguire and kirby ho cut and the president lauren scuba i think they're definitely like sensitive to the opinions of their their colleagues and like they I think they know that as they're going through that they're like yeah man we're in a pretty tough position here and like don't love it and didn't think he was going to get the injunction I think that's sort of the overriding thing here from a lot of people is just sort of like man really didn't think we'd be put in that position and thought that that would kind of solve it and then once that happens then you got to put a plan in place but In terms of being the villain and the blackout and all that, Cody Campbell's great with it.

He's left no doubt about that.

He'll say whatever he wants to say.

When you're the billionaire board chair, it's not like anybody else can be like, hey, Cody, let's talk about our messaging and maybe settle down on this stuff.

He's going to say what he wants to say.

I think that certainly throughout the Big 12, I think the last couple of years, there's been a lot of Cody Campbell envy because everybody else is like just trying to figure out how to pay their bills and trying to figure out how to, how to even get, you know, 10 or 15 million bucks for a football roster and Texas Texas blowing them out of the water.

I think he's always

You already kind of mentioned Oklahoma State, but was there another one where you felt just good vibes, like legit coming away?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's going to be an interesting race at the top because certainly, you know, everybody's chasing Texas Tech and, you know, nobody's investing more than Texas Tech.

But I think if you're at BYU, you're at Utah, you're at Oklahoma State, you feel like we're going to make a run at them.

And I know TCU feels that way too.

You know, sitting down with Sonny Dykes and his staff, you know, this spring, they feel like this is potentially their best team since the one that went all the way to the national title game.

I think there's a a ton of confidence in gordy samus their new offensive coordinator coming in from yukon and they're going to move to more pro style offense they're going to run the ball and they're going to be very different than what you saw under kendall bryles and garrett riley but i think that's something that's really exciting to sonny dykes and he wants to be different he's tired of of watching spread and he's tired of watching too many turnovers he's tired of turnovers right yeah he's Outer turnovers, there's no doubt.

And, you know, so Gordie Sam is coming in there.

But in your overall estimated opinion, what can Will Hammond do there to separate himself from Baron Morton and the failed efforts in the college football playoff last year?

I think in

his time he was.

But like, you know, I think you can also look back and say like, man, ETN was probably the best running back in the country for that little period of time too.

And like, you know, certainly Clemson really had that thing rolling and had great D-lines and a lot of support and stuff like that.

But Yeah, and I think the year he won the national title, I think it was against Tua when Tua was injured and stuff like that, but it was a blowout.

But all-time 16, yeah, I don't know.

I think Peyton is probably getting a lot of credit for the NFL career and some strong credit for his time at Tennessee.

but

You got a trademark there.

No, I think there's something to that, and I think that you look at some of the biggest hits of the portal era.

I think of Kenneth Walker at Michigan State.

It's like, man, if you get a guy that can beat every down back, it can completely change your offense.

That's worth a lot.

As much as a quarterback and a tackle is... and maybe a number one receiver or like the premium positions.

Like I do think people are coming around to like, yeah, these, you know, a key one waste Lacey was, was worth a lot of money.

690 700 yards and so he's right you know like what happened in the regular season or what happened in the college football playoff and then are you going to get that guy for a whole year or was that just you're playing playoff football so Miami's utilization of them is different than what it would be in the regular season

What's the calendar look like for them? What's the next meeting so then we can get one of these worthless statements?

Yeah, the board meeting for the Big 12 presidents and chancellors is on Monday.

Obviously, among their athletic directors, this is clearly a 15-1 issue here that they do not believe that Brandon Sorsby should play for Texas Tech this season based on...

All of the, you know, thousands of impermissible bets he's placed.

You know, it's a very clear thing to the Big 12 coaches and ADs.

I'm curious how engaged their bosses are on this and certainly what is their appetite for taking action that could lead to more legal action, right? So, I mean, that's certainly the threat from Ken Paxson and Cody Campbell and Texas Tech.

And so, Brett Yormark has a really – Critical decision to make here for his legacy and kind of for how this conference moves forward this year.

What did people tell you about what they're expecting from him during his third year?

I

was worried you were, like, setting up the, like, Max, don't you think Congress needs to get involved? Can we go right to that? I think for Texas Tech, it's a tough, weird spot to be in, and I think you can look at it a few different ways.

Certainly, Texas Tech could have just said, all right, well, we're going to try and reinstate them, and if that doesn't work, it doesn't work, and we'll move forward.

when the NCAA denied his request for reinstatement, then the school made a decision to move forward on this and appeal it and stuff.

And I know they want to say, like, hey, we're not a party to this suit, and we're not the ones who are fighting for his eligibility necessarily.

But, you know, now that that judge granted that, and no one can really totally believe it, but now that the judge granted it, like, I expected there would be, like, an extreme amount of backlash, and there has been.

you know, the whole like big 12 teams won't play them and stuff.

Can that fence be mended because it seems like it's a bit of a struggle and that's a very, very impactful player? as far as how the Big Ten looks.