Major Realignment Dominoes About to Fall? Big 12 Has Inside Track on ACC Drama

College football realignment may be ready to heat back up, and the Big 12 could have a new window into the ACC drama. With Miami reportedly searching for a new athletic director and Brett Yormark’s brother Michael Yormark connected to the job, the Big 12 may suddenly have a fascinating new tie to one of the most important brands in the ACC.

We’ll talk about what that could mean for Miami, the Big 12, Brett Yormark, and the next round of realignment. Plus, the Big 12 had a record-setting NFL Draft, Cody Campbell’s push to amend the Sports Broadcasting Act just got some major validation, and we’ll look at whether Kyle Whittingham can actually succeed at Michigan after leaving Utah.

Get ‘Open For Business’ a Big 12 newsletter sending the key headlines, interviews, and my analysis straight to your inbox. No more college football news through an SEC/Big Ten lens. If you're a Big 12 fan (or just curious), sign up below!
https://bit.ly/OFBNewsletter

🎙️ New to streaming or looking to level up? Check out StreamYard and get $10 discount! 😍 https://streamyard.com/pal/d/6321527093067776

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Conference realignment. Remember that we've got conference realignment back in the news today because man, some comments from uh the Florida State Athletic Director, I think, have gone far too unnoticed. Plus, the your mark name is making a real mark on realignment as well. And that probably doesn't mean what you think. Okay, but I'm going to get to that. Uh we've got the NFL draft. I thought the Big 12 had a nice draft. Do not let the haters fool you. I will give you the context that you need to know about the Big 12's performance in the NFL draft. And uh Cody Campbell got a win. Plus, I want to examine, put Kyle Whittingham under the microscope. Okay. The most high-profile exit from the Big 12 within the last year has been Kyle Whittingham. Let's put him under the microscope. Will he fail at Michigan? Welcome in. This is the Open for Business Big 12 podcast. I'm your host, John Kurtz. This is where the Big 12 just means more. I appreciate everybody for joining tonight. Please do like the video. Please subscribe to the channel as you file in tonight. It is much appreciated. Lots of ways you can communicate with the show tonight. Like my friend Bracket Cat, who is in the chat. You can just fill up the chat. You can click the dollar sign below the chat box if you want to submit a super chat, which means that your question or comment will make it on the show tonight. You can also hit me up on Venmo at John-Kurtz-4 if you're not watching live. And you leave a super chat that way, I will kick off the next show with it. Free ways to help. Like, subscribe. That makes a big difference. A lot of you watch the show, but do not subscribe. It would help me a lot if you do subscribe to get that number up. We're pushing to 35k, people. Uh thank you so much, everybody who does that. And finally, you can sign up for the Open for Business Big 12 newsletter, which is at OFBnews.com, or click the link in the description of this video. Again, that is OFBnews.com twice a week, totally free, straight to your inbox. 6,200 plus Big 12 fans subscribe already. Okay. You guys ready to get rolling with this? It's been a minute since we've had some realignment, right? Feels a little bit refreshing. Back to our roots, so to speak, here on this channel. Get ready for this question. Does the Big 12 suddenly have an in with Miami? That's what I asked. Yes, it appears the Big 12 does, and it all centers around your mark. Notice I didn't say Brett Your Mark. Your mark, regardless of whether or not you think the Big 12 would ever land Miami. They're about to get a major in with the hurricanes, it would appear. In this video, I'll explain what exactly is going on and the likelihood that the Big 12 actually can land a major brand or other schools from the ACC. So remember the ACC, uh ACC realignment got really hot and heavy there for a while. About a year ago, this time is when it really died down because we had a settlement or, well, the lawsuits got dropped between Florida State, North Carolina, and the ACC. You had like four concurrent lawsuits going at one time. They got dropped and the ACC basically acquiesced and gave Florida State everything it wanted. They got the opportunity to make more money because of their brand, the opportunity to make more money because of accomplishments, which hasn't gone very well lately, womp womp. They got unequal revenue sharing in the ACC, and they got a finite amount of money that it would take. Here's the number. Here's the answer if you want to actually leave the ACC, right? So it was in some ways a short-term win for the ACC while also being a long-term win for Florida State and a short-term win for Florida State. Florida State got a lot of W's out of that. And we know ultimately Florida State, Clemson, North Carolina, perhaps Miami, and Virginia are all going to wind up at some point in the Big Ten or the SEC, or maybe just in a big ol' super league if that's what's going to happen, right? So the ACC really has no leverage in its current situation at all. They're they're basically at the they're at the whim of the SEC and Big Ten. It's Florida State wants out. You know, you could say they're just at the mercy of Florida State. Florida State wants out. It's a matter of when Florida State would have a dancing partner and enough financial juice to actually leave the league. But for right now, the situation hinges on when would the Big Ten want to get into Florida? When would the SEC potentially want to prevent the Big Ten from getting into Florida? Now, before we get to the Big 12 piece of this connected to Miami, let's talk Florida State because I I don't think this got nearly enough run. All right. This even myself, I forgot about this for like six days. This guy, shout out to my guy Greg Flugar on Twitter, uh, for actually bringing this up. Okay. Make sure I share my screen correctly here. But this was to war chant, right? Obviously, Florida State fan site. But uh Michael Alford, Florida State Athletic Director, sounding like uh Minnesota AD to the importance of the next 24 months in regards to more movement within the industry. So here's a quote from the Florida State Athletic Director. Quote, the next 24 months are very important because we think there could potentially be more movement within the industry. So we need to make sure daily that we're preparing ourselves for that. How about that? The next 24 months are very important because we think there could potentially be more movement within the industry. So, yes, uh, I understand that's two years. The caution here is you got to be ready. Realignment can happen like that, right? We all remember where we were in July of 2021, right after Bob Bolsby had said he didn't think realignment was going to be keeping him up uh at all. Literally, like days later, realignment was his entire world. All right. So Florida State is still being very diligent about positioning itself to leave. They think there could be some movement. Don't sleep on there not being some movement here. It would certainly behoove the Big 12 and everybody else, obviously, to be ready for this. You pay attention to that. If Michael Alford is going to say to Florida State, obviously Florida State's positioning itself, that means you know North Carolina, Miami, Virginia, everybody else Clemson in the ACC that has a shot to get somewhere else, they are starting to pay attention to. So if the Big 12 is going to be ready, if the Big 12 is going to know what's going on in the ACC, wouldn't it be great to have some extra help from over an ACC country? Now, John, you might be asking, where does Miami come into play here? Well, let me connect all those dots for you. Uh, my friend, please do subscribe to the channel, by the way. Uh, it really helps. Pushing toward 35k subs. Many of you watch, but don't subscribe. It helps a lot if you click subscribe. Uh, Miami is going to be in the market for a new athletic director. All right, so at a time when Florida State's AD is sounding the alarm bell, like, hey, you need to be ready in the next two years because something could happen. Miami and some of the reporting on this, it sounds like is more or less pushing out its athletic director, kind of a forced retirement sort of situation, it would appear here, and looking for somebody more cut out for the modern college athletics world, which would seem smart. If you think something's gonna go down in the next two years, you might want to be ready. And look who the front runner is, according to Pete Thamel. All right, so I've used I've used the word your mark already here. It's not Brett Yormark, okay? Brett Yormark is not going to leave the Big 12 uh for Miami, but check this out. Pete Thamel. Yes, legit, Pete Thamel from ESPN. Pete Thamel with Dan Radokovich set to retire. The name to watch for Miami to Target in the AD search is Michael Yormark, the president and CEO of Rock Nation Sports International per ESPN sources. He has deep ties in South Florida and has drawn the interest of top school officials. First of all, excellent picture. I mean, look at this. Love that. Is that not giving you like some Brett Yormark uh sort of vibes there? Michael Yormark. Basically identical to Brett Yormark. Uh, and and Brett Yormark's twin brother here. All right. So what does that mean? Okay. Sounds too good to be true, right? Oh, everyone will immediately connect the dots. And I know people are rolling their eyes going, John, what the hell, man? You think because they're hiring Brett Yormark's brother, Miami's coming to the Big 12? No, no, no, no, no. That's not my main point here. That's not my main point here. It's not as simple as, oh, it's it's like a brother covert operation. Michael Yormark is going to bomb his career just to get Miami to the Big 12. I am not saying that. By the way, Michael Yormark, president and CEO of Rock Nation Sports International, he's basically at the same place Brett Yormark was before he came to the Big 12. This is, however, a good and important thing for the Big 12. And it's not all about some crazy off chance that somehow it would work out or make sense for Miami to ever come to the Big 12. Now, I will say too, while I'm not, I am not thinking that is going to happen here. There was a time where, remember, Ross Dellinger once told me on this very channel that he thought, and that was a distinction, he thought that Florida State had the Big 12 had at least conversed at one point a couple of years ago. That was two years ago, summer of 24, during all the lawsuit hubbub, that they'd at least chatted about, like, hey, is there something that could work out here? It would not have been the first choice, certainly of Florida State, but that's at least been within the realm of possibility, even if it's a small possibility, the realm of possibility. And so here is Miami. Probably not quite as coveted as Florida State, but maybe, maybe, I don't know. Some of that is tough, you know. The Big Ten academically might might prefer a Miami. Either way, they're a big brand. And the Big 12 has at one point been somewhat linked to a big brand from the ACC per Ross Dellinger at one point in time. The main thing I want to stress here, though, is not just about that off chance. It's about, hey, if bleep's about to go down in the ACC, if that's about to get crazy again, and your ultimate goal here is to be the best of the rest conference, make sure you're scooping up everybody else in the ACC. You know, the ACC has tried to like future-proof itself and build it up big enough with the Calford editions and SMU so that it could stay intact even if it lost its biggest brands. Well, if you're the Big 12, you're gonna be best suited if you stay a step ahead of the game. And what's the best way to stay a step ahead of the game? It might be to have your brother as an AD at one of those schools, right? Like, theoretically, that's a better path to get a little heads up on what might be going on there than it would be if you didn't have your brother as an AD at one of those schools. Okay? Now it has to actually happen, but I I certainly welcome the potential flow of information there because think back to the Pac-12 saga. One of the key things about the Pac-12 saga, when the Big 12 ultimately bested them, was that your mark got Colorado away first. Yormark started earlier conversations with Rick George and company at Colorado, and prying them away put a lot more pressure on everybody else involved there, including like your Oregon and Washington piece of the equation. And then the Pac-12 imploded. But you had to make that move first with some early insights and intel because Rick George and Brett Yormark had become friendly and started talking. Okay. I don't think this hurts the league at all. I think this is welcome news if you are a Big 12 fantasy, somebody with the last name of Yormark running the athletic department of one of the what are we at, like three or four legitimately big, big brands left in college sports that are not in the Big Ten or the SEC. I love having this being a connection there. All right. And I'm also just, don't say I didn't warn you, putting you on alert to watch out over the next two years. We've been lulled to sleep a bit by realignment. There hasn't been a ton of news on that front since a year ago when in last March, March of 25, things died down between Florida State and the ACC. As Greg Flugar would say, keep your head on a slibb uh swivel. Let me know what you think. If you think this is totally crazy, let me know what you think in the comments. Uh, hey, the only other thing that's mildly realignment related, that's been a crazy threat and something wild recently, that's the SEC leaving to do its own thing. They could pull away, only play games against each other, and say to hell with everybody else. How likely is it that that could happen? Click here to find out. That's for everybody watching the clipped version of this. Those of you hanging out with live hanging out with me live, just stick with it. Don't worry about it. Uh, we've got a lot more to talk about. NFL draft just happened this weekend. I've got a couple super chats to get to here in one moment. Please keep the chat lively. Appreciate everybody joining me here tonight. Like the video, subscribe to the channel. All of that is very helpful. It's totally free. So many of you watch but don't subscribe. It really truly does help me if you just click that one button to subscribe to the channel. And make sure you're signed up for the Open for Business Big 12 newsletter at OFBnews.com or click the link in the description of the video. Let's talk to uh Darius. All right, Darius, actually, I'm gonna reverse the order here because you'll lead me right into the draft segment. Okay, so give me one second here. Pacific Northwest Ute. Uh, but is Michael Yormark an evil twin? And can he do a Miami U, really a Utah U sign? Hashtag rocked you like a hurricane. This is a great question, Pacific Northwest Ute. Actually, if we're talking about this, because I'm assuming here that Michael Yormark would be willing to, you know, at least maybe tip off his brother if something crazy is going on there. But you're saying, what if he's an evil twin? Okay, what if he is an evil twin and he is secretly trying to thwart his brother? I although the question there, I have a lot of follow-up questions here, Pacific Northwest. At that point, is he being evil toward his brother, or would it be toward Miami? Or is he just trying to take over college football? Like who is who is the target of his evil? I think is the important question we would have to establish here if he is, in fact, an evil twin. But it's a good question. This is why I love that you are here, Pacific Northwest. You ask the tough questions. People often say, us reporters, I look, I don't consider myself a reporter, but anybody covering a team or conference or whatever, you guys don't ask the tough questions. Pacific Northwest Ute asks the tough questions. And that's that's why I love you, my friend. Thank you for being here. Darius, what's up, Darius? Okay, Darius is going to take us into the draft conversation. Darius says, if Texas Tech were in the power two, they would have had uh second most picks in the Big Ten and the third most picks in the SEC. Texas Tech is different relative to the rest of the Big 12. They sure are in 2026. They sure are right now, Darius. That's my only caveat here is keep it rolling. Keep it rolling year after year. But it was a hell of a, I mean, a hell of a day, slash three days, slash, okay, it was Thursday night. It was a great extended weekend for the Red Raiders with the nine draft picks. I was I was really happy to see a lot of that. I mean, look, Texas Tech, you knew it was gonna happen. I think the expectation was that nine tech players were gonna get drafted going into that. Um, but especially to see like Baron Morton get taken. I thought that was cool. Like, you know, I know we all took our shots at Baron. People think I like hate Baron Morton for what I said about him throughout the year. I mean, I think I was vindicated with what happened in the playoff game. Doesn't mean I don't like the guy. He was a program guy and took Texas Tech to new heights. And uh I was I was happy to see that he got drafted. So cool for all that to work out. I mean, Skyler Gil Howard after his injury gets drafted. Congratulations to Texas Tech, man. The John Lynch tweet was cool, right? GM of the 49ers specifically tweeted about how much fun he had watching Texas Tech on film. Uh, that they did a great job not just in purchasing the roster, but also in scouting, like basically saying, hey, there's more to it than just the money that everybody talks about with tech. So that fun milestone for the Red Raiders. It helped out the Big 12 a lot. And I'm about to talk about that right now. So thank you, Darius. Don't let the haters fool you. The Big 12 had a very nice NFL draft. And the last three days show exactly where the Big 12 is going, and there is market progress to be displayed here from the Big 12. Plus, the field is really leveled across college football in general. So I'll explain in this video how much of a step forward the Big 12 took, give you the proper context so you're not just getting the national numbers that'll be hating on the Big 12, and I'll tell you what it means long term for the Big 12, the ACC, and everybody else. Uh, listen, the draft numbers can be spun. I have seen them on social media spun every which way. You can take them and use them in whatever format or context you really want to try and support your league. And there are a lot of really drastic big picture things happening right now. It was the fewest amount of teams that had players drafted, I think, in the in NFL draft history. I'm gonna have to go run back through some of these tweets, my apologies here, but at least in a long, long time. It was also uh, so David Hale shows that from 2007 to 2009, the SEC only had about six players per year more than the ACC drafted. Now that number is up to 35. Um, and during that time span in 2007 to 2009, the ACC was right on track with the Big Ten in terms of players drafted. Obviously, that is way, way, way different now. Yeah, here you go. 2026, only 75 different teams had picks in the NFL draft. Lowest number since 1938. There you go. So since the 30s, fewest number of teams that had a player drafted. Obviously, we're seeing the results of the NIL and transfer portal era. Guys that are good at FCS, guys that are good in G5, they're transferring up. All the talent is getting more condensed, more spread out among the power conferences, but more condensed up into the power conferences, is what you are having there. There was not an FCS player drafted. The first couple of rounds, it was a while before the North Dakota State kid finally went. Trey Lance's brother, right? That was that like the third round, um, which that had not happened in a while either. Here are some facts. Okay, regardless of what any of the haters want to tell you about the Big 12, here's some facts. It was a record year for the Big 12. 38 draft picks for the league is the most ever. Period. End of sentence. Even when Texas and Oklahoma were in the league. Now, yes, the Big 12 does have four more teams in the conference right now than it did for a while there when Texas and Oklahoma were in the league. Six more teams than the one true champion era of the Big 12. It is still a record number of picks for the league. All right, the SEC had 87, the Big Ten had 68, the ACC had 38, and the Big 12 had 38 per school. The Big 12 is actually third. The SEC had 5.4 draft picks per school, the Big Ten had 3.8, the Big 12 had 2.4, and the ACC had 2.2. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Kirk Herb Street. Or ESPN production assistant who gave him a card or put it in a teleprompter and left the Big 12 out there when they had the same amount of first round picks as the ACC. Check my last video if you are wondering what that is all about. Last year, the Big 12. Here's a key thing. Well, let me save that. Let's save that. Three top 10 picks for the Big 12 was the most since 2012. And that was three times as many top 10 picks as the SEC. So up there at the very tip top, objectively very good for the Big 12. Not just relative to the Big 12 history, but relative to everybody. Texas Tech had nine draft picks. Only Ohio State, Alabama, and Texas AM had more. Only Ohio State, Bama, and AM had more. And Arizona, Arizona State, and Cincinnati each had four draft picks tied for second in the Big 12. Okay. Now, like I said, you'll you'll see that raw number get thrown out as a slam against the Big 12. And the SEC, one of the national narratives here has been this played out just like the Big Ten and SEC does nationally right now on the field. Uh the Big Ten had way more juice at the top, and the SEC was deeper. The SEC had 87 picks overall, the Big Ten 68. So even after the Big Ten dominated the first round, the SEC. Comes back around. There it is. They're deeper. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. ACC and Big 12 tie to 38. But let's get to the important context in here. You need some context here to understand the trajectory of the Big 12 with all this. And do subscribe to the channel, please. Uh, a lot of you watch, don't subscribe. Really helps if you do. I'm pushing to 35k. Thank you very much. It's all about context. This was a step in the right direction. Last year, the Big 12 trailed the ACC by 11 picks. Okay, this is a pretty significant change. Last year, the ACC had 42, and the Big 12 had 31. Now, Texas Tech is responsible for a ton of that. Making up the ground that the Red Raiders did with nine draft picks this year, that is a big part of it. But Texas Tech is a huge part of the Big 12 right now, right? That's a real tentpole attraction of the league right now, is what the Red Raiders are doing. Big step in the right direction. I mean, keep in mind, this is an ACC that this year played for the national championship, was not that far away from winning the national championship with Miami, and you were still right on par with them in terms of NFL draft picks. Florida State and Clemson also still exists. And they are out there too. Clemson had a ton of draft picks, actually. And yet, here the Big 12 sits, right on par with the ACC. I would also make the point that just how some of that happened, we know about the Texas Tech trend, right? Skyrocketing up, top portal class once again. They're recruiting the high school ranks like crazy. Talent is going to continue to churn through Lubbock. They will keep putting out lots of draft picks. But Arizona State, I take note of here because they won eight games last year, had a lot of injuries, and yet Arizona State is a great example here. Not just the four draft picks, but two in the first round. Kenny Dillingham, man, he's going to be able to take guys that are not ultra-elite five-star recruits coming out of high school and turn them into draft picks. Okay. Jordan Tyson, moderately productive at Colorado as a freshman. Kenny Dillingham turns him into a top 10 pick, even in spite of a bunch of injuries, right? He got him into a player that was good enough that despite a ton of injuries, was still considered a top 10 pick and turned into a top 10 pick. Max Ihanachore, the offensive tackle, modest three-star recruit. Kenny Dillingham turns him into a first-round pick. Right? That's what you're going to have to do for the most part at places like Arizona State, and Kenny Dillingham is doing it. And plus, throw on top of that. Like, those may not even be the best examples. Jordan Tyson certainly is hard to beat. But Cam Scattaboo, like, what did the guy do with Cam Scataboo? Cam Scattaboo is like a household name now because of what his half season with the Giants was. That all happened taking a no-name kid from Sacramento State and turning him into one of the best players in college football. You guys have heard of Sam Levitt, right? Uh Sam Levitt was, you know, I saw the discussions about the quarterback class next year, which is going to be loaded. You know, people are talking about Sam Levitt being a first-round draft pick next year. Well, guess who developed him? And he was not highly thought of when he transferred to Arizona State. So there's some good things happening in the Big 12. We'll see about Oklahoma State next year. How high can Drew Mestimaker climb? Oklahoma State has upped its NIL game big time. Those of you who watch or read Open for Business, you know I talked about Oklahoma State this week and the climb that the Cowboys are making with the resources that they're pumping into the football program right now. Look, the Big 12 is not going to be the SEC when it comes to producing draft picks, but things are moving in the right direction. This conference is moving forward. You should take some comfort in that. Don't let the haters get you down on that front. Good job, Texas Tech. Good job, Big 12. Arizona State, Arizona, Cincinnati. Everybody there. The Arizona secondary, man. I feel like the entire Arizona secondary and a member of the Arizona secondary the year before all got drafted. So a lot of good things happening there in Tucson as well. Please do like the video. Subscribe to the channel. Everybody here, that would help a lot. You can fill up the chat and hit the dollar sign below the chat box if you want to submit a super chat. Appreciate everybody who does that. It is much appreciated. Make sure you sign up for the Open for Business Big 12 newsletter at OFBnews.com. That's OFBnews.com, or you can click the link in the description of this video. Let's talk to my friend Alan here, real quick. What's up, Alan? Alan, thank you for joining me. Alan says, John, if the ACC implodes, what happens to Duke, the defending ACC football champion? Thank you, Alan, for remembering that Duke won the ACC in football this year. Easy to forget. I spoke with you spoke with Manny Diaz in Durham yesterday. Wow. Impressive leader. Would be great to see them join the Big 12, Rockchalk, Jayhawk, Allen. Look, I think Brett Yourmark would love nothing more than that. The guy wants to add UConn to the league. Duke has, you know, basically an equal, I don't know. That's an interesting argument. Duke or Yukon right now, better basketball program. Duke certainly has more juice from a brand standpoint, I think, inarguably. And then obviously they have a good football program right now, or one that is showing that it can compete consistently much better than Yukon. Your mark would love it. I just Duke seems like Duke is a thumb your nose up at you know, truck stop country, truck stop conference type of place. I don't know that they have any desire to do that unless absolutely forced. But what I would say in response to that, just arguing with myself here playing devil's advocate, is anybody in the country hate the truck stop conference more than Utah? And guess who's in it? It's Utah because they didn't have another choice. Uh, so there probably is a scenario where that happens, but I think Duke would maybe fight and scrap to keep some small version of the ACC together. I don't know. Maybe they go join the Big East or something. I have no idea. Big East for basketball. I don't know what they would do. There probably is a scenario where that would make the most sense for them, but I think Duke would come kicking and screaming. I don't think they would want to do that at all. Uh, that's cool that you got got to chat with Manny Diaz, Alan. That's that's awesome. Um, Alan, I spoke at a uh University of Kansas journalism class on Thursday. Uh shout out to my guy Matt for the the invite there, who is uh a professor at KU. Had a blast doing that. That was really fun. Uh so just want to, Alan. I figured you would appreciate that more than uh than anybody else who listens to this channel. So uh they asked really good questions, and uh hopefully, hopefully I was able to impart uh a little bit of wisdom there. So thank you for that, Alan. Uh okay, let's see. Ah, yes. Cody Campbell scored another big win in the battle for the future of college sports. Easy to miss this week, also. And uh no, this time it does not involve taking shots at Brett Yormark on Twitter. All right, we're we're past that. We're not talking about that. In this video, I'll tell you who validated Cody Campbell's biggest talking point right now when it comes to saving college sports and the future of college sports and why it's even better than what Campbell himself has been predicting. What does it all mean for the Big 12? We're gonna answer all that here in this video, okay? So Cody Campbell's a busy guy. Busy, busy guy. He is the chairman of the board for Texas Tech. He is a multi-billionaire. He is also running saving college sports. He did have a recent feud with the Big 12 commissioner, at least in public. They say behind closed doors, not that bad. Uh, all about Texas Tech having to play Houston on a Friday. He's also a father of a kid that's playing high-level high school football that's a power five, power conference recruit. Uh, he's got a meeting. He was at the meeting in Washington with the president. Like it's there's a lot going on for Cody Campbell these days. But saving college sports is certainly what I am paying most attention to. It is what gives him the biggest national platform when it comes to college sports. And as a part of his group there and his mission to save college sports, which would be mostly uh, at least in what he is projecting publicly, about saving women's sports and Olympic sports from being casualties in a world where there's a total arms race for men's men's hoops and uh and football. The biggest push lately from Cody Campbell has been to amend the Sports Broadcasting Act, which is what allows professional sports leagues to pool their media rights together and sell them together. Right now you have the conferences all selling them each on their own. And you need antitrust exemption here, is what it comes down to. Campbell argues that it would add an extra$7 billion. Yes,$7 billion with a B. An extra$7 billion in annual revenue to the college sports pot if everyone got on board, which is a massive if. You'd be talking about the SEC Big Ten pulling their rights together with everybody, and it would be like the NFL, right? That's how things would get distributed and how the networks would be involved, and you'd probably have a bunch of the streamers in, all of that. More on how it would work in just a moment. But remember, I just said Cody Campbell said, hey, it'll add an extra$7 billion in annual revenue. Keep that number in mind. Seven. Seven. That would protect in many ways women's and Olympic sports who just have more money in the athletic departments. Uh, it would objectively be better for the viewers of college football. I mean, imagine cross-promotion across all the different networks, right? There would be more incentive for everything to get promoted more. You could probably have like a college football red zone at that point. I mean, like this would be undoubtedly a good thing for the average viewer. But of course, one of the things that would happen with this is well, everyone would make more money. It would probably reduce the amount of power that the Big Ten and SEC have relative to the rest of the college football world a bit. And so that is one of the huge kickers here. But Cody Campbell got a huge win. Cody Campbell and anybody supporting what he is trying to do here with the Sports Broadcasting Act got a huge win. Please do subscribe to the channel, push into 35k subs. Many of you watch, but don't subscribe. It helps a lot if you just click subscribe. Let's talk about this big win. Okay, so Ed Desser, John Cosner, they are two former sports media execs. They run big consulting firms. They released some projections. All right. They say if everybody in college sports pooled their rights together, media rights could reach$14.8 billion by 2034-35. So within a decade, you could get it up to$14.8 billion. Right now it's at$3.9 billion. So Cody Campbell predicted an increase of$7 billion. This$3.9 to$14.8 from these consultants would be an increase of$11 billion. All right. That is$7% more, at least according to my state school communications degree math. Let me know in the comments. Let me have it if I'm wrong there. But 57% more than what Cody Campbell was even saying there. And even if you want to come back and be like, well, John, hold on. They also said it would jump anyway to$8.4 billion with no consolidation the next time all these get renegotiated. Well, okay, the difference, then if we just subtract the difference, that's a$7 million increase, basically, with centralizing it all and pulling it together. So it's at worst right on target with what Cody Campbell was saying. And at best, 57% more than what Cody Campbell had predicted. So what does that mean? Yeah, that's great, John. How is this tangibly a huge win? I will tell you. It puts more pressure. It puts more pressure on everybody involved. And in case you're wondering how all of this would actually happen, that's another question you could fairly ask here. Okay, the consultants say this. Do they have a plan as to how exactly this would work? They do. So first of all, they say there would be a more limited set of national media packages for people to bid on. Like there would be less packages to bid on, where right now there are 12, one for each conference that exists. So the thought there is, hey, if there's only then like three packages to bid on for national media, they're going to be much more aggressive in their bids because if you lose out, you're not going to be able to fall back to like a secondary option there. It's just your SOL and you're missing out on the second most popular sport in America. Have fun. This also would get Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, like platforms like that likely involved in the bidding here. All of that would drive up the price. Right? This is not Texas Tech fans, I'm not taking a shot here. I understand that some things have happened. But you look at like Texas Tech's non-conference schedule this year, you probably wouldn't have much of that anymore, right? You get more P5, VP5 games. And with the idea being that, especially if, I mean, it looks like we're going to a 2014 playoff, which we haven't talked about a lot here, but if you do that, you're probably going to have way more, way more good P5, VP5 games in the non-conference schedule, which again drives up the TV value. Uh, they talk about using flex scheduling late in the season, much like the NFL. Uh, cross promotion on different networks, which I already mentioned, and then man, Sunday ticket or red zone. How awesome would that be? Guys, we are being withheld college football red zone because the SEC and Big Ten don't want to centralize and pull everybody's meteorites together. Okay. That's how. What does it mean? Well, there's no denying, I think, at this point. Like, we've seen enough reports and consultants and people that it's quite obvious everybody would make way more money. Like, that is being beaten into the ground at this point now. It would make way more money. The question will always be will the SEC and Big Ten acquiesce on anything? Will they give up any level of power in this? Power andor money relative, money advantage, right? Money relative to the rest of the sport. Because obviously they would be making way, way more money here. But the more things like this come out, the more justification there is for what is being pushed for here, the more pressure is going to get ratcheted up. There will be more pressure from Washington, there will be more pressure from everybody within the sport. Anyone who cares and has a vested interest is now going to continue to beat this drum more and more. And we've just seen this pick up over the last four or five months quite a bit. Quite a bit. There's a lot more interest in this than there was before. It has become now an actual part of the conversation, whereas before it was not. So the SEC and Big Ten certainly have made, you know, no public indications that they are starting to budge, but you know what has happened? Arkansas had to cut men's and women's tennis this week. So that is one thing that has happened. Now it's not some of the claims by Cody Campbell, I think, were a bit exaggerated at first about sports having to be cut, women's sports and Olympic sports. But we have now seen it start. Arkansas cuts men's and women's tennis. The more that happens, the more pressure will get ratcheted up here. And this is this is happening within the SEC's own house, right? This was not an ACC or a Big 12 school having to cut sports. That's an SEC uh school that did. So the more public pressure you can apply, we have seen things similar to this happen. It sure seemed like a formality that the 4422 college football playoff auto bid thing was going to get jammed through, and it didn't, in large part because there was enough public pressure about it. So the more public pressure can come in on this, more people could say, hey, this really is silly that you guys aren't doing this, the more it helps. The more it helps get you a better outcome. Let's hope. Let's hope in the end the right decisions and uh and moves are made. Now, Cody Campbell did not exactly come out on top against Bright Your Mark. Uh, click here to find out how that battle went. That's for everybody watching the clipped version of the video. Those of you that are hanging out live, I've got another 10 or 15 minutes uh for you. So please continue to enjoy yourselves. I hope the chat is quite lively tonight. If you would like to submit a super chat by clicking the dollar sign below the chat box, you will make it onto the show tonight. Guaranteed. You can also hit me up on Venmo at John-Kurtz-4. If uh you are so inclined, if you want to leave a super chat that way, I will kick off the next show with it. Liking the video and subscribing to the channel is totally free. That costs you nothing, and it does help me a lot, especially those of you who watch but don't subscribe. Don't be a lurker. Subscribe to the channel, would be great. And make sure you're signed up for the Open for Business Big 12 newsletter. Join the 6,200 Big 12 fans who are at OFBnews.com. That is totally free as well. Hello, Kim. Thank you, Kim. Kim says, Great show, brother. I appreciate it, my friend. Uh, thanks a lot. Thanks for being here, and thank you for uh the kind words, my friend, as always. Uh sorry, just taking a quick peek at the chat, seeing what the uh what the conversation has been like. Here, here's something I'll respond to. CJ, I think this is a good comment. Tech is not killing it in the draft recruiting and facilities to stay in the Big 12. Sorry to burst your bubble. Hey, tech is uh operating at a very aspirational level right now, and as many schools can get on board as they can should. Like, I I I mean, I don't think anybody really disagrees with that. Like, nobody that's not in the SEC or the Big Ten right now is sitting here being like everybody would like to be in the SEC or Big Ten right now if they could. Texas Tech has the resources to give it as good a shot as they possibly could, and they are doing it. Like, I think everybody understands that. And any school that has the resources to do that would basically be positioning themselves for that or whatever the next iteration is going to be. If it's a super league, where's the cutoff? Right? You are trying to best position yourself for whatever's coming next, which could be AFC NFC with Big Ten SEC, or it could be something more broad. So I think every Big 12 school should aspirationally be trying to operate like that. I don't think anybody is judging tech for that. I just CJ, the other thing I would say is you got to get the invite. It doesn't exist right now. So you got to get the invite. We'll see if that happens. Um, but I don't think it's a bad thing that that's tech's aspiration right now at all. I I would suggest you go listen to my con uh conversation with Rob Brough on the channel that I posted, was that last week, early last week, to get more on that. Uh so I agree, but I would also be a little cautious with puffing out the chest too much after, again, one year. It's been one year, tech fans. Like a year ago, I was still repeating that line over and over again about not having won more than what was it, nine regular season games since the Mike Leach era, decade and a half, all that. You guys rightfully so got tired of me saying that. That was that was, you know, it was 300, well, about 300 days ago, I would have still been saying that, right? So love what you're doing, appreciate what you're doing, deserve a ton of credit for it. It's been less than a year. So just keep it up. Just keep it up. All right, so we've had a lot of big time movement in and out of the conference, both transfers in and out, head coaches in and out. I want to start analyzing here what's gonna happen in the aftermath of all of this. So we're we're starting with Kyle Whittingham at Michigan. You know this one has been filled with drama, all right? Here's my question. Will Kyle Whittingham fail at Michigan? Is the system he built in Salt Lake City actually replicable at the Big Ten level? And could Morgan Scalley back at Utah actually have the better next three seasons? Let's tackle that here in this video. I'll answer all those questions, including telling you if I think he will ultimately fall on his face in Ann Arbor. All right. Coaching changes, Matt Campbell left to Penn State. I certainly want to analyze that further at some point. Sam Levitt was arguably the most coveted player in the transfer portal who left Arizona State and winds up at LSU. A ton of movement. Coaches retire. Chris Kleiman retires, right? We so many of these elder statesmen in the Big 12 and the head coaching fraternity are now gone. This one, though, was by far the juiciest from a drama standpoint. Here's the quick recap of the story, right? We now know this from great reporting after the fact. Kyle Whittingham's agent told Utah he did not intend on retiring after the 10 2 season. And he wanted, oh, by the way, a monster report. Raise up to 9 million a year and 20 million in NIL, 2 million more for the staff. A lot of demands there from his agent. Now, Utah's AD Mark Harlan basically said, Well, only if you relinquish a ton of control to Morgan Scaly, basically make him the acting head coach on anything that involves the program beyond 2026. That didn't work. Instead, they agreed to pay Kyle Whittingham 13.5 million to not be the head coach. And then two weeks later, he's the head coach at Michigan because of the Sharon Moore situation that just totally uh blew up. So here's how I think about this. Asking the question, will Kyle Whittingham fail at Michigan? What constitutes success versus failure? I'm going to use a three-year window because Kyle Whittingham is 66. All right. Maybe he will coach longer than that. But I think in the volatile age of college sports that we're in, combined with a job as big as Michigan and a coach in his late 60s, let's go with a three-year window. I would say to be successful at Michigan, to be considered a success, I would say make the playoff two of three years. And I would say one deep playoff run in those three years, which I'm going to qualify that as making the final four of the playoff. So that's the first thing we need to establish. I think we also need to establish how equipped is the program to meet the expectations of the fan base, and how equipped is the coach to win in this era. That's how I'm going to determine if he will succeed or not in this. All right. So again, I said it's 66. I think a three-year chunk is the appropriate way to do this. And it would be easy to say, well, John, it's Michigan. If he doesn't win a national title, it's a failure. Michigan just won the national title in 2023. Like it's a failure if he doesn't win it. I don't think that's fair. I don't think that's fair. If you look back at the history of Michigan, and much respect to the Wolverines, but they only have one other national title since the 1940s. So holding Whittingham up to that standard, I don't think is totally fair. Like, are we calling Bo Schembeckler a failure because he never won a national title? I don't think anyone around Michigan is saying that. So to me, again, over three years, make a deep run in the playoff to the final four, make the playoff two or three years. If it goes to 24, maybe that changes where it's like, all right, yeah, if it's 24, you should be making it every single year. Basically, you need to be like a top 20 program. Yeah, okay, fine. There was some talk about this being a bridge hire for Michigan, right? I think this should suffice. If you're talking about it being a bridge hire and the guy makes the playoff two or three years, including a deep run, yeah, I think you're fine. Remember, uh, Jim Harbaugh only won 12 plus games 25% of the time as a head coach. It took him six years to do it. All right. So we've got that established. Now, is Michigan a good enough program after eight losses combined the last two years to actually facilitate this for Whittingham? And is Morgan Scally actually more equipped to make a big run at Utah than Whittingham is at Michigan? Let's get to those questions. Please do subscribe to the channel, though. If you watch but don't subscribe, it helps a ton if you click that one button. Pushing toward 35k subs. Thank you, all of those who do that. All right, so how equipped is Michigan to facilitate all this? It's a huge program, but there is one really big problem that Michigan has with this. All right. Michigan is certainly not too big to fail. I'm speaking to many Big 12 fans here in this audience. You guys, you guys know about this. Rich Rod was 15 and 22 at Michigan. Yikes. Okay. Uh it's not too big to fail. Brady Hoke, his last three years, only two games over 500. That was crazy to me how much better Brady Hoke actually was compared to Rich Rod at Michigan. But even Harbaugh considered disappointing after six years. Here's the problem, though. Much more so than that. It's that Michigan is dealing with what Michigan is dealing with in the Big Ten right now. Look at what Kyle Whittingham is going to have to deal with in the Big Ten right now. Ohio State, Indiana, and Oregon. The last two national champions, maybe the greatest coach we've ever seen in college football history in Kurt Signetti. And then the third out of that is Dan Lanning, who's like an excellent, excellent young head coach who's in the playoff every single year. Those are three really elite programs. And then I haven't done this video yet, but if you're a Matt Campbell believer, then you've got Matt Campbell at Penn State. So, like, I don't, that's a that's a brutal top of the conference to be contending with every single year. The good news for Whittingham is that he's going to have all the resources he could possibly need, right? Reportedly, the Bryce Underwood deal, and this was a year ago, so think about how much the market has shifted since then, but a year ago,$10.5 million deal over four years to get Bryce Underwood from LSU to Michigan. And uh maybe that's increased even more now, too. I have not followed that closely, just because yesterday's price is not today's price, right? Larry Ellison was involved in that. He has a net worth of, at least according to what I saw today, 189 billion. Okay. So I mean, look, we're to we talk about the Matador Club and Cody Campbell. Like, I don't I don't think anyone there is worth 189 billion. So, like, Michigan should be just fine when it comes to the finances. And you got a lot of latitude there. If you're gonna lose games, you can lose two to three games and be totally fine. It's Michigan. You're in the Big Ten. Everybody knows how good it is up at the top. And you might need some of that latitude because look at Michigan's schedule this year. Oklahoma, Indiana, Penn State, at Oregon, at Ohio State. Have fun, Kyle. Have fun in year one. So it's more than possible to fail at Michigan, but you really don't have any excuses. Like that, I will say that. Kyle Whittingham does not have any excuses. The resources will be there, the program prestige is there. You've seen them win a national championship in this era. It can definitely be done. So is Kyle Whittingham himself equipped to do it this big? And is Scaly more well positioned? Look, after 2024, I think it was fair to wonder if Kyle Whittingham not only had lost step, or even if, like, hey, is he just not quite cut out for this era? Easy to say, hey, quarterback injuries, the camerasing thing, that was a lot of this. But anytime a coach slows down right now, you have to start questioning. If he's an older coach and slowing down right now, it's like, ah, I don't know about this era for this guy, right? Look how quick Mike Gundy fell off. But last year, Kyle Whittingham turned that all around. I love the flexibility that he showed to go say, well, screw it. I'm gonna go pull a young up-and-coming offensive coordinator, bring his quarterback along with him, and let's ride. Let's do it that way. I think that's a positive sign that he was like willing to change the way that he was. So that gives me, if I'm thinking about will he succeed at Michigan, that gives me a lot of uh optimism that he's gonna be able to make the changes necessary. I also, I mean, frankly, I liked seeing what he's done with like the financial and roster management of things, utilizing Michigan's resources here. He hired Burge Najerian, longtime Patriots director of football uh under Bill Belichick. You might have heard of him. He's now the assistant GM uh slash strategy guy at uh Michigan. So he's pulling in a lot of help there. I would seemingly have to think so. Like, hey, Whittingham, let me be the ball coach. You guys handle the roster management stuff. That seems to be a positive sign to me. And Whittingham should be able to get a running start, which is what he was able to do, bringing the four to five impact players over from Utah. He brought the seven staffers. I think everything's in place there for him to take off here in year one. Kept Bryce Underwood, that's another huge thing, too. But can he recruit well enough? We're talking about a three-year period over here. You can flip the roster over a lot in the transfer portal one year over to another. And frankly, you look at Michigan and Utah, it's not been the most impressive, at least in terms of the rankings for either transfer portal class year in and year out on either side of that equation. The only four-star portal prospects, according to on three, this year, are the Utah guys. John Henry Daly, uh Salse Moa, Smith Snowden, JJ Buchanan. Like those are the highest profile guys in the portal. Obviously, he had quite an in there. So jury may still be out on the recruiting, but I will again point back to like if he wins this year and they still have the type of resources that they have at Michigan, I think he will largely be fine. And he's a good enough coach. His chops are good enough that if they're not quite recruiting at an elite elite level, he should theoretically be able to coach those guys up enough to still be a real contender. Now, if you're comparing this to Morgan Scalley, right, before I get to the final verdict here, do I think Kyle Whittingham will fail or succeed at Michigan? Morgan Scalley actually had a portal class that was very similar to what Michigan's wound up being, even while losing all those guys. Uh, it was 66 versus 64, at least according to the on-three rankings. Morgan Scalley is in a much less daunting conference at the top, right? I mean, think about if you had like four different Texas Techs instead of just the one Texas Tech. Uh, so theoretically, the path would be easier there for Morgan Scalley. He did keep his quarterback and has maybe a better quarterback waiting in the wings in Bird Ficklin. And I think the thing Utah fans really like here, he's just younger and perhaps more in tune with the dynamics of the sport uh at this point in time with where things are at. So that's kind of the case for Morgan Scalley. I gotta be honest, though, I mean, I like Morgan Scalley well enough, but that seems like a tough case to make that he'll have more success over the next two to three years than what uh what Kyle Whittingham will. Definitely possible. Like if you're telling me, hey, Whittingham will make one playoff in the next three years and Scaly makes two, I don't think that's like out of the realm of possibility, but I'd I'd still go with Whittingham here. And ultimately, this question, will Kyle Whittingham fail after leaving Utah in the Big 12 after all these years? The real obstacle here to me is not anything about Whittingham at all himself. Like, I think he is a very good coach. I think he has shown a willingness to be flexible and adapt to what you need to do at this point in time. And the resources available at Michigan have helped him mitigate some of the risks there by the hires that he has made. But the biggest obstacle here is simply the competition. It's who he's going up against. Like Kurt Signetti running it back after like the greatest college football season we've ever seen. Ryan Day, who won the national championship before that and just had 11 players drafted, like is just at the top of his game from talent acquisition to winning on the field. Dan Lanning, who is just an unbelievable young coach that I think is going to be a national champion, and then Matt Campbell taking over a school with comparable resources and prestige in Penn State. That's going to make life very difficult. And you see the type of schedule that Michigan is going to play. Throw in all those schools plus Oklahoma, and there is your year one schedule for Kyle Whittingham. Ultimately, I do think he will succeed in those parameters. I'll take Whittingham to make the playoff two or three years. The tougher one is making the run to the final four. I I think Whittingham can do it. I actually would probably bet on Kyle. Take out the probably. I would bet on Kyle Whittingham to do that. I'd lean no on him winning a national championship, but I think Kyle Whittingham is going to have a lot of success at Michigan. I know that will twist the knife more at Utah, but if Morgan Scaly is successful as well, that that will not sting as much anyway. Let me know in the comments where you think I'm off. If you think I'm totally crazy on that, let me know. And if you want to know exactly how Utah showed Whittingham the door, we got the juicy details on that. Uh, click here to find out all about it. That's for those who are watching the clipped version of it. Everyone who's been hanging out live, thank you so much. I know that I've got another super chat or two uh to get to here before I do depart. We got Kim Reese. What's up, Reese? Uh Reese, are we not going to talk about the George Strait concert for 133 uh,000 people at the Jones last weekend? Well, we are now, Reese. We are now. Uh that's a cool thing. I love when uh schools do something like that, like bring in a cool concert. I am a huge, I mean, some of you have probably picked up over the years. I wear a lot of band shirts and stuff. Like I'm a I love live music. I go to a ton of concerts. The last time I was gone from the show, I was in Chicago going to a concert. So I'm all for live music. Country music is not really my jam, but I have warmed to it more in my later years. Honestly, after I moved away from Manhattan, like I think it's like a nostalgia thing where it's like everybody around me there was listening to country music, even though I didn't like it all that much. It kind of reminds me of those days. Um, it's very cool. I I'm all for it. I hope everybody had a blast. And uh I I hope look, there's nothing better than being at a concert where something you love that much and are that passionate about, you're surrounded by people who also love it and are that passionate about it too. And you are singing the songs together, right? And you are talking about how much you love it. That shared experience is one of the best things in life, which is why I go pursue it a lot. Uh, so I'm 1,000% here for it. You, if you are listening closely to that, you understand that's also a part of why you love sports the way that you do, right? Shared experience, something you all really love. I would say, though, the great thing about a concert is tough to lose. Tough to take an L at a concert. Hey, maybe your guy, your band or whatever is washed up and it's a bad performance. It's probably gonna be much more rare than just like losing a football game. So it's gonna be more joyful, less stressful, uh, but the same shared experience of uh people who love something like you do. So maybe a deeper response than you wanted there, Reese. But even if George Strait is not a concert, I would well, I, you know, if George Strait were coming to my college town, I might go attend. Manhattan used to host Country Stampede every year. Rest in peace, I think, right? Is it done? Manhattan people let me know. Is it still in Topeka? Um, but that was like an every year thing, and I finally uh gave in and went, and I was like, okay, actually, this is really fun. Even if, again, I don't really know what this guy is talking about way down yonder on the Chattahoochee. Never have felt more out of place in my life than when I was at an Alan Jackson concert, but it was really fun.

SPEAKER_01 58:58

Uh, so maybe I would. Maybe I would go to a George Strait concert if uh if he came to my uh my college town.

SPEAKER_00 59:04

Uh speaking of concerts, what we should be talking about, Reese, is the fact that uh Soldier Boy just played Manhattan uh last weekend, not this weekend, but last weekend. I had to miss it, which is very unfortunate. But Soldier Boy did play uh in Manhattan. That is that is a real that is a real sentence. That's a real sentence. Um oh Stampede Stampede got sold to a group in KC, I think.

SPEAKER_01 59:34

Damn.

SPEAKER_00 59:35

Those are the good old days, man. You head out to the campgrounds at Country Stampede in Manhattan back in the day. There are some wild things happening in the campgrounds. Um, you'd have to talk to me, you have to talk to me off air about some of those stories. But uh it was a good time. It was a good time. Okay, uh, thank you all. Look, I will if you guys want to talk about music, you bring up music anytime on this show. I will talk about music all day with you. All right. So uh so please do like and subscribe. Thank you to everybody who's here. It really does make a difference if you subscribe. If you are somebody who watches, um sign up for the Open for Business Big Twelve newsletter at OFBnews.com. That is OFBnews.com. Hit me up on Twitter at JL Kurtz. Spread the word. Thank you. Best live show, I feel like we've had in a while tonight. Fun crowd. Uh, enjoy the start of your week, and I will talk to you all very soon. Take care.