Greetings, football enthusiasts. We’re going to get into some timely spring football storylines this week, but this is my first mailbag since publishing a story with Andrew Marchand last week about a group of sports execs proposing an 80-team “Super League” for college football.
Note: Submitted questions have been edited for clarity and length.
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The talk of a Super League has many fans of a certain age getting nostalgic when they view the potential new/old conferences. As someone who misses some of these old rivalries, I understand. But it seems likely that once this season starts and some of these amazing matchups are on TV (Ohio State in Eugene, Georgia in Austin, etc.) fans are not going to be so willing to go back to the days of watching Ohio State play the likes of Purdue 10 times a year. It seems that going back to some of these old conferences is the opposite of what FOX and ESPN would be interested in. What do you think? — Erik W.
I know you had to use someone as an example, but it seems harsh for it to be Purdue just days after that school’s moment in the basketball sun. Don’t let Zach Edey see this, he’ll swat my laptop away.
I’m with you to some extent. This season is going to blow peoples’ minds in terms of the week-in, week-out TV lineup. The kind of marquee intersectional matchups we’d only get a few times a year, mostly in the first few weeks of the season, will be season-long, sometimes multiple times per week. On Oct. 12 alone, we’ll have Ohio State-Oregon, Penn State–USC and Oklahoma–Texas as an SEC game. I can’t imagine many people will bemoan realignment that afternoon/evening.
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But it’s not like Ohio State and Michigan are only going to play each other, USC, Penn State and Oregon or Washington. They still have plenty of games against Indiana/Minnesota/Maryland/Rutgers, etc. And, as of now at least, they still have those two to three games against, in the Buckeyes’ case this year, Akron, Western Michigan and Marshall. The main reason I’ve long assumed college football eventually will end up in a Premier League-type product is that as much as the networks already pay those two conferences, you would think they’d pay considerably more if they were getting 10 marquee games per team each year instead of five.
The College Sports Tomorrow concept we reported on last week surprised people with how inclusive it was. That it’s 80 schools, not 40. Hence, the appeal of, for example, getting the original Pac-10 back together in one division or restoring the old Big East by grouping schools now spread out over four conferences.
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If the scheduling format was to play nine games against your division, two from the other “power” divisions and perhaps one G5, the caliber of schedules shouldn’t be too different from what they are now. And because they’d all be grouped under the same umbrella, the network partners (let’s say ESPN and Fox) would have no problem finding a few marquee games to place in each TV window. It’s essentially the NFL model.
But you’re right about one thing: The TV networks don’t want this. It behooves Fox to have an 18-team Big Ten with a bunch of monster brands and ESPN a 16-team SEC with a whole bunch of blue bloods. They get more bang for their buck in that model than they would in a Super League package where they’d have to pay more to get some, but not all of those matchups, while also obligated to air just as many Georgia Tech–Virginia and Houston–Texas Tech games.
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That’s why the group’s plan is not remotely close to imminent. The entire premise is that it would raise more revenue by pooling everyone’s TV rights and selling them as one package, but the networks already own everyone’s rights through at least the early 2030s and have no desire to sell them back. It’s unclear how the group would unwind those deals.
John Calipari going to Arkansas certainly was a shocker. Do you think Lincoln Riley going from Oklahoma to USC was the college football equivalent, or is there a better comparison? — Timothy D.
Am I the only one who wasn’t shocked by it all? As soon as Kentucky lost to Oakland, I knew he would hightail it out of there. He completely lost the fan base. Granted, I thought it would be for Michigan, not Arkansas, but Arkansas is not some dead-end basketball outpost. The Razorbacks were just in back-to-back Elite 8s in 2021 and 2022 and the Sweet 16 in 2023. But it feels very on-brand for Cal to embrace the villain role and return to Rupp as the coach of an opposing team.
Riley was more shocking because he was still at the peak of his career and was trading one blue blood for another. Calipari has been trending downward as a coach for the past four years or so. He last made it out of the first weekend of the tourney in 2019. The more apt analogy is Jimbo Fisher leaving Florida State, where he won a national championship four years earlier but regressed to 6-6, for Texas A&M, which hasn’t won a national title since 1939 but rolled out the red carpet for him.
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The Athletic’s Dana O’Neil wrote a story in December 2022 asking the question, “Is John Calipari now the Jimbo Fisher of college basketball?” The consensus was he was still recruiting great players but was struggling to figure out an offensive identity. Sound familiar?
If the analogy holds, Calipari will go to Fayetteville and make an immediate splash in recruiting. He may even put up a big season in his first couple of years to get everyone’s hopes up but then struggle from there and wind up a very rich but unemployed man.
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What teams will still be looking to lock in a starting quarterback after the spring? Either through an intriguing camp battle or via the transfer portal. — Steve B., Columbus, Ohio
First, if you’re a head coach today, why would you name a starter in the spring? The backup is all but guaranteed to enter the portal, especially now that players can transfer as many times as they want and play immediately. Coaches are better off extending the competition into August.
But there are several I expect will truly be unsettled come the end of April.
Since Steve is in Columbus, let’s start with Ohio State. The assumption was Kansas State transfer Will Howard, a career 27-game starter, would walk in and take the job, but Devin Brown, who got hurt early in his first start in last year’s Cotton Bowl, is keeping things interesting. The smart money is still on Howard, a dual-threat player who seems like he’d fit nicely in Chip Kelly’s offense, but I’d be surprised if Ryan Day names a starter before August.
Driving north to Ann Arbor, I have no idea who will emerge as Michigan’s new starter. Alex Orji is the most “experienced,” but Michigan has used him mostly in situational packages and entirely as a runner. Classmate Jayden Denegal is another candidate. Seventh-year senior Jack Tuttle feels like an insurance policy. It’s possible one or more of the younger players hits the portal and/or Sherrone Moore goes out and gets a quarterback in the portal.
USC is interesting as it took a complete turn with Miller Moss’ unanticipated six-touchdown performance against Louisville in the Holiday Bowl. That may have scared away any high-profile transfers. But Riley did land UNLV’s Jayden Maiava, the reigning Mountain West Freshman of the Year. Moss holds the lead in large part because he has been in the system, but don’t count out the athletic Maiava.
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More under the radar, I’m intrigued by Arkansas, which is replacing three-year starter KJ Jefferson. Sam Pittman landed Boise State’s Taylen Green, a dual-threat player who was up-and-down in his two seasons leading the Broncos but did produce a 10-win season in 2022 and a conference title last season. He’s battling Jacolby Criswell, a fifth-year player who waited his turn behind Sam Howell and Drake Maye at UNC and Jefferson last season.
Note: Many outlets have included Oregon on lists like these, but I don’t see a scenario where UCLA transfer Dante Moore beats out Oklahoma transfer Dillon Gabriel. Moore is likely being groomed for 2025.
I only follow college football and college women’s basketball. What am I supposed to do with myself until the end of August? — Joshua S.
Plus, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” is over for good. These are tough times for all of us.
But I’ll let you in on a little secret I’ve discovered the past couple of years: College softball is great! I was never able to get into college baseball, but softball moves fast, the pitchers are incredible, and it’s a lot of fun. The players celebrate every out like they just won the World Series. Give it a shot.
How are the former Pac-12 teams going to do in the Big Ten? New coaches for a couple of teams and a new style. Competitive in the first two years? — Brandon M.
I don’t know how you predict anything more than a year out in this sport anymore. There are too many changes from one offseason to the next.
Of the four, Oregon is in the best position for immediate success. It has coaching stability, not just with Dan Lanning but with most of his staff. The Ducks have a proven quarterback in Gabriel, even if he’s new to the program; they’re well-stocked on the offensive line, which is critically important in that conference; they have tons of skill talent; and they have a more established NIL funnel than any current Big Ten school. It would be a disappointment if Oregon does not contend for the championship this season or next.
If Washington hadn’t just lost everybody from its national title game run, it’d be the easy pick No. 2. Instead I’ll give a slight nod to USC.
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I never worry about a Riley offense, and he finally did what everyone wanted him to do and hired a new defensive staff. Defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn moves across town from UCLA, and Riley convinced North Dakota State head coach Matt Entz to become his linebackers coach. We’ve seen a notable uptick in USC’s recruiting recently; it currently has the No. 5 class in the country, headlined by five-star defensive lineman Justus Terry from Georgia. The 2024 schedule is brutal, but there’s no reason USC can’t contend for the crown in 2025.
Washington truly lost pretty much everybody from its great 2022-23 run, from Kalen DeBoer on down. Not just Michael Penix Jr. and those great receivers. Most of the offensive line has never played a down of college football. The defense brings back two starters. Jedd Fisch showed at Arizona he can build a program quickly, so perhaps UW will be back to playoff contention by Year 2, but Year 1 could be pretty rough.
Finally, I don’t have much to offer on UCLA. The Bruins’ uniforms are still sweet? I like the DeShaun Foster hire just fine, but I don’t expect him to work miracles. UCLA is likely a 4-8 team, at best, in 2024, and then we’ll just have to see where the program is this time next year. Even the best-case scenario, however, may be that the Bruins slide into the current Minnesota/Illinois/Nebraska tier of the conference.
With March Madness still fresh in our minds and remembering the complaints about decisions by the committee (Indiana State) even in a 68-team tournament, I’m wondering about the complaints we will have in December about the 12-team College Football Playoff. How do you think the selection committee will view the four losers of the power-conference championship games? Without divisions, all participants will have the two best records in their conferences. Do you think a loss in a conference championship game will significantly impair a team’s chance at selection? — David T., Hoover, Ala.
I can’t imagine there will be many scenarios where the second-best team in one of the major conferences could lose its championship game and fall behind a team that didn’t play.
In 2014, Georgia Tech (10-3) lost in the ACC title game and fell from No. 11 to No. 12, which would have theoretically bumped it out of the field (the highest-ranked Group of 5 champ was No. 20 Boise State), but who knows whether the committee would have handled it the same if there were real stakes. In 2021, Oregon (10-3) fell from 10th to 14th after losing 38-7 to Utah. It would likely take a result like that.
But the controversies in this new system won’t be limited to the selections. A coach I spoke with recently made this observation: In the new system, you’re better off finishing third in the SEC than losing your conference championship game. Either way, you’re playing a first-round game in mid-December, but the team that finished third gets an extra week to rest. Arguably the most contentious point of all will be No. 8 vs. No. 9, as that determines whether you get a home game or a road game. And you just know that there’s going to be a lot of splitting hairs between 10-2 teams with similar resumes.
How good of a college tight end would Edey be? Would he not be a weapon in the red zone? — Eric W.
Good point. I feel like the “50-50” jump ball to Edey in the end zone would be more like “95-5.” But I’m not sure he’d be a great blocker. He’d be so high off the ground on a three-point stance that the oncoming blitzer might be able to just scoot underneath him.
The CW aired football from the ACC last season. There are rumors it may air games from the Pac-2 this fall. How did the games perform last year? Is that a good fit for the Pac-2? — Brad, Seattle
Using the trusted data at Sports Media Watch, those games averaged around 500,000 viewers — not amazing, but not bad. Like with any TV package, it depends in large part on the quality of the teams. Florida State-North Alabama — the late-season game where Jordan Travis broke his leg — topped 1 million. But there were far more Wake Forest–Syracuse-type matchups that fell below 300,000.
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Given the most realistic options (i.e., not ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX/ESPN), the CW is probably as good as Oregon State and Wazzu could land. As much as people make fun of that network, it’s an over-the-air network available in nearly every TV home in America. And there likely will be decent time slots. I’d rather that than play at 10:30 p.m. ET on FS1 or CBS Sports Network, as will likely be the case with those schools’ games at Mountain West stadiums.
As a point of comparison, on Oct. 21 last season, a Virginia-North Carolina game that kicked off at 6:30 p.m. ET on the CW fared nearly as well (788,000) as a UCLA-Stanford game in the 10:30 p.m. ET ESPN slot (852,000).
As much as they try to spin it otherwise, Oregon State and Washington State are Group of 5 programs now, and their schedules/TV windows will reflect that. But the CW would at least get a few decent matchups: Oregon, Purdue and Wazzu are playing in Corvallis, Texas Tech in Pullman. Now it’s a question of whether the Pac-2 themselves are good enough to merit eyeballs.
How do coaches figure out whether their team had a good spring scrimmage? If one side is successful, then the other side is unsuccessful. Does it come down to throwing results out the window and evaluating the All-22 play-by-play and grading each player’s technique? — Shane B.
The coaches are certainly better at it than those of us watching on TV or in the stadium. I watch a lot of spring games, and generally, all I can glean from them is whether the quarterback looks good. Or you may see a receiver or defensive back make a highlight-worthy play.
But the coaches, who know what play was called on each snap, can watch the tape and see which individuals did their jobs well and which ones screwed up. They’re also seeing up and close in practice who is moving well, who is reacting too slowly, etc.
Most of all, scrimmages are an opportunity for certain guys to “pop.” While it’s true, if a defensive lineman swarms into the backfield, it’s hard for the layperson to say how much of it was him and how much was poor blocking by the offensive line. But the player still made a big play, and that counts for something. Spring games are when I first noticed the likes of Marcus Mariota, Jameis Winston, Trevor Lawrence, Jerry Jeudy, Garrett Wilson, Malik Hooker, Kool Aid McKinstry and others.
This weekend we get Ohio State’s spring game at noon ET on Fox and Alabama’s at 4 p.m. on ESPN. This means the 2024 college football season is officially underway.
Hopefully, I do better on my spring football bracket than I did on my basketball one.
(Top photo: Gaelen Morse / Getty Images)
