Big 12 Could Get 3 Playoff Autobids, But Finebaum is Right: A 24 Team Playoff is BAD

The Big 12 may have found its best path to expanded College Football Playoff access: a 24-team playoff with three automatic bids for each Power Four conference. Brett Yormark says the Big 12 supports a 24-team CFP, and the ACC is publicly on board too. But is this actually a win for the Big 12, or is it a dangerous gamble that could make college football’s regular season matter even less?

In this live show, we break down why Yormark wants 24 teams, whether the Big 12 could really get three automatic playoff bids, why ESPN and the SEC may be fighting to stop this from growing beyond 16 teams, and why Fox, the Big Ten, Notre Dame, the Big 12 and ACC may now be lined up on the other side of the College Football Playoff battle. We’ll also get into Paul Finebaum losing his mind over the 24-team playoff debate and why Big 12 fans should be careful before celebrating who their new allies are.

The 24-team playoff could give the Big 12 more access, more money and a stronger seat at the college football table. But it could also mean more road playoff games against SEC and Big Ten teams, awkward conference matchups, lost conference championship revenue and another major step toward turning college football into a pro sports model.

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Topics include: Big 12 football, Brett Yormark, 24-team College Football Playoff, CFP expansion, Big 12 playoff autobids, SEC, Big Ten, ACC, Notre Dame, ESPN, Fox, Paul Finebaum, Greg Sankey, Jim Phillips, college football playoff format, automatic bids and the future of college football.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, let me break some news to you. I hate to be the one to uh break this to you. I I take no pleasure in admitting this or saying this, but Paul Feinbaum is right. Paul Feinbaum is right. We are going to talk about it. It relates to the college football playoff, which once again is the topic of discussion in college football this week because the Big 12, Brett Yormark, the ACC, Jim Phillips, Notre Dame, Pete Bavakwa, they've all come out in public support of a 24-team playoff, which of course is the brainchild of the Big Ten, which means it's the brainchild of Fox. Now, we have talked about this over the last week or so here. I do think it's objectively a better thing for the Big 12 that there is a world with a 24-team playoff versus a 12-team playoff, but that does not mean I have to like it. And the more I think about it, the more I absorb everything. I really do not like it. Okay, I'm going to explain that to you. And I come at this in a place of like, I know that I need to just get on board and I will. I will. But for right now, I'm just frustrated with it, man. I'm just frustrated with where the sport is going in general. So we'll talk about it. Okay. Uh also the SEC, I don't know if you guys have noticed this. This is the other thing that's been controlling the narrative in college sports this week. Have you seen the SEC just completely melting down? Like not even not even about the playoff. And I mean, they don't like the 2014 playoff, quite obviously. But beyond that, there's infighting within the SEC. And I think it's indicative of a larger problem, a larger issue that is that is at play for that conference and where college sports is at right now. I appreciate all of you for being here. Of course, this is the Open for Business Big 12 podcast and live stream here on YouTube. Welcome in, those of you who are on YouTube, those of you listening on the audio platforms. I love you as well. No matter where you're at, make sure that you are subscribed. On YouTube, we are pushing toward 35k subs. Thank you to everybody who has helped get to the point that I am at right now. Make sure you like the video as well. It is totally free and totally easy just to do that. Those of you that are here in the chat, thank you for being here. Bracket Cat, Kyle, Michael, see all of you guys here. Thank you. Continue to fill up the chat. If you are so inclined, you can click the dollar sign below the chat box to submit a super chat and support the channel that way. I appreciate everybody who does that. I'm also on Venmo at John Kurtz-4. If you're not watching the show live, you can hit me with a super chat there. I'll kick off the next show with it. So you can stay plugged in, stay a part of the conversation, even if you are not watching live. Make sure you're signed up for the Open for Business Big 12 newsletter as well, OFBnews.com. To get signed up for that, there's also a link in the description of this video. If you are signed up for that, you got one in your inbox about an hour and a half ago. Uh so twice a week, totally free. 6,300 plus Big 12 fans who are subscribed. Okay. So there's a lot here. I didn't even mention in that open. One of the big things of this, if we have a 2014 playoff, Big 12 getting three auto bids? Big 12 getting three auto bids out of this thing? Maybe so. Let's talk about it all. Is the Big 12 getting three auto bids to the college football playoff? It could happen. It's been put out on the table. It's been floated. Uh, we do know the ACC and the Big 12 are publicly supporting a 2014 playoff. We do know Paul Feinbaum and the SEC hate it. And I'm here to tell you, I actually got to side with the SEC on this one for right now, even though I understand this is all better for the Big 12. Okay. I will explain as typical is it as it is typical with me. I have a lot of nuance to break down here. But the battle's officially set. There's no nuance needed for this. This is where we're at right now after this week. It is ESPN and the SEC in one corner. It is the Big Ten, Notre Dame, the Big 12, the ACC, and Fox in the other corner. So if we're doing the tail of the tape, mighty as the SEC may have been during the 2000s and the 2010s, they are severely outmatched by everybody that's in the opposite corner right now on this playoff debate. That's what's happened this week. Jim Phillips, ACC meetings, he came out and said that the ACC is in support of a 24-team playoff. Brett Yormark has told multiple reporters now, Big 12, he and the Big 12 in support of a 24-team playoff. Pete Bavakwa, AD at Notre Dame, unsurprisingly, also says he's in support of a 2014 team playoff. It probably helps that Notre Dame got left out last year when it felt like it was a national championship contending team. Now, there are a lot of interesting quotes that have come back around, so to speak, because of this. Let's start with Jim Phillips, the ACC commissioner. He said, quote, our desire with the coaches and the ADs is 24. When you're leaving national championship contending teams out of the playoff, you don't have the right number. We lived through it. We suffered through it with Florida State when the field was four. I know other schools have suffered for it. Notre Dame was a CFP worthy team last year, and you saw what happened to the last team that got invited with Miami. All right. So let's let's talk about this quote. Yeah, okay, it's one thing when Florida State gets left out, all right? And it's a four-team playoff, and Florida State went unbeaten in a power conference. It's a totally different thing when we're talking about you got a 12-team playoff, Notre Dame lost twice. We can't just be doubling the playoff size because of that. And the look, everyone is gonna run into some hypocrisy here. But Jim Phillips, Jim Phillips conference, the ACC was tweeting out graphics that made Notre Dame incredibly angry at the time the selection was going down last year because they were pushing Miami instead of Notre Dame. And now he turns around and says, Well, you know, hey, wait, Notre Dame shouldn't have been left out. This is crazy. That's the hot dog meme. We're all looking for the guy who did this. Um anyway. So like I just, it's hard to take all of this totally seriously because there's so much of this in any of these debates that come up. And look, the other thing I would say is if you're talking about like teams, okay, so Miami won Miami went to the national championship game and almost got left out of the entire field. This argument drives me nuts. Well, we can't, we got to expand the field so we include everybody who could possibly win it. Well, then why play a regular season? Then just start the season with the playoff. Everybody you think is talented enough or good enough to do it, and just throw them in there. The season has to matter. Like, I don't, this is what gets lost in all this. This is a preview of where I'm going with the rest of this. The season has to matter. Miami lost games to Louisville and SMU. Like, that I'm totally fine if that disqualifies them from playing for a national championship, even if they're capable of doing it if they get hot. I don't care. Like the regular season has to matter, full stop. Anyway, that's the ACC's role in this. I haven't even gotten to the Big 12 yet. I haven't even gotten to Paul Feinbaum yet. And uh, and what he said, which that's that's coming up later on in the show. But here's what Brett Yormark had to say. Oh, by the way, I haven't also gotten to Big 12 and three auto bits. Could that happen? Uh Brett Yormark said, quote, we like 24, we want 24. There are too many teams getting left out, and 24 teams provides the type of access that is warranted. That being said, we need to do work around the economics around a 24 team format and make sure we address any unintended consequences. All right, well, the economics, I'm I'm glad that he did mention the economics because that is a legitimate problem here. Can you actually make more money from this, which is what everybody says it will do, but with conference championship games going away, which is $250 million combined for the power conferences? I think that's a question. And they got to figure that out. But also, hey, we may we may need to look in at the unintended consequences. Yeah, I mean, I feel like that's what everybody who doesn't like the 2014 team playoff has been shouting from the rooftops. Like, guys, unintended consequences, some of your biggest regular season games and the best property and that you have in this sport the regular season will be an unintended casualty here if you do go to 24 teams. Anyway, look, for your mark himself, like I've said, it's way more access for the Big 12. Andy Staples did that exercise mapping out what a 24 team field would have looked like the last two years. The Big 12 had eight more playoff teams in than it did otherwise. Brett Yormark, of course, is going to be in favor of this. That is much better for the Big 12, even if you do run the risk of getting blasted in some of those games. You got to take more access. You got to take more access. Uh, it means more money coming in for the Big 12, more chances, more bites at the Apple, more opportunities for Arizona State, Texas type of results. Now, I will say it was pointed out by somebody on Twitter, and I'm I apologize that I'm messing up the attribution here. But it's it's not just that, hey, you have to win those games, which I already warned of. Like, hey, if you go one and seven with the eight extra opportunities, that could wind up actually being worse for you than if you had just not been invited at all to a 12-team playoff. But it was pointed out to me, I didn't even mention this the last time. Like, hey, those are also probably gonna be road games. A lot of them will be road games at SEC and Big Ten teams. Like, that's that's not gonna be easy, man. I mean, look, I believe in the Big 12. I know what happened with Arizona State and Texas, as I remind you guys, at least weekly of that game. I think you you deserve the opportunity to go have more of those games than Texas Tech Oregon. And I think it's certainly possible that the Big 12 would be on the right side of that. But it's also fair to say like those could be road games in really tough environments, and that's not gonna be easy. It it was at least Arizona State playing in a peach bowl. Like that was a neutral site, that was a neutral environment. I mean, if we look at some of those games that Andy Staples had mapped out, first of all, you had a couple games that were Big 12 V Big 12, which that would suck. You're not gonna gain anything from that nationally, and then a couple others, Houston at Miami. I mean, that's that's tough. Now, Miami, not the most difficult home field environment in the country, but Iowa State at Notre Dame. I mean, that's a really difficult draw, right? So you could have a really I mean that was a pretty good Iowa State team. That's a tough draw if you got to go on the road to uh to South Bend. So it won't be easy. It's definitely not gonna be perfect. There would be a lot of risk there. But if you're Bright Your Mark, I understand why you do this. Okay, I understand why you do this. You have to do this, especially if there's talk of three auto bids potentially for the Big 12 here, then of course, of course. Okay, and by the way, please do subscribe to the channel. Appreciate everybody who does totally free, just one click. Uh I would just say if you are somebody who's in the camp, and there are not many of these people, but I've seen plenty over the last five years in this channel, whose you know, general reaction and sentiment to all of this has been, well, if this is where it's going, we're going to Super League, we're going to AFC, NFC kind of thing with Big Ten, SEC. Just have the Big 12, ACC, whoever else, just break off, do your own thing. Let them go do their stupid Super League, and we'll, well, this would be the this is the time to put your foot down, right? If that's how you feel and you're an ACC fan or a Big 12 fan, this is the time to put your foot down because going to 24 is like you're fully supporting this what I'm calling the playoff industrial complex to just move it to semi-professional NFL type of football, just dramatically changing the structure of the sport and that you're trying to follow. And if you are, if that's what you want to do, which generally I think it is what we all want the Big 12 to try to do, then you you are you you pretty much have to do this. Like you gotta go try and chase this down and stay in the fight as much as you can. Now, as far as the auto bids go, we know that 4-4-2-2 is dead. That was initially a 16-team playoff that the Big Ten pitched, where the Big 12 and ACC would only get half as many auto bids. It would require you codifying essentially that you are half the worth of the ace or of the Big Ten and the SEC. Um, is it going to be something like that? Is it gonna be all 24 at-larges? How about this? Mike Norvell threw this out, Florida State head coach. Mike Norvell said he would favor three automatic qualifiers for each Power 4 conference, an automatic group of six bid, and the remaining 11 teams filled with at-larges, regardless of conference. So if that's the world we're living in, I do think it is fair to take a step back and like react to where the Big 12 has come from, where again, it was this 4-4-2-2 thing. Now you have flipped it around, and it's you might be getting three auto bids. It's a 24-team field. So, you know, you can stand to get another one or two in a good year of those at-large bids potentially. That is a pretty crazy turnaround in terms of access to the field. Okay, in terms of access to the field. And I I look, would would I support that? Sure. Sure, I'm fine with that. I'm fine with that. I'm fine if you want to make it just the top 24. I think that would still get plenty of Big 12 and ACC teams in. But if you want to lock down and say, hey man, when it was a 14 playoff, you had TCU and Baylor getting left out at like 5'6. When it's a 12-team playoff, BYU is always right out there at like 13-14. They'll just keep moving the goalposts. I want three auto bits. I get it. That's fine. I would take the security there. Um, but I think 24 at larges would would also be fine. And I get the talking point. There's a talking point I will discuss further later when we get into the fine bond piece of this. This is the only way to have a truly fair and equitable playoff because like every major league is going to get legitimate access to this thing. Like everybody will be in there. You can't complain that you're not in there. You can complain about your draw, your seed, whatever, but you're in there, you got a fight and chance. Okay. I mean, if if again, the goal is to create a playoff and have that be the thing and the thing that everybody should be thinking about, then yes, you are correct in that. I do also want to point out here that part of the reason I'm leery on this, it's just this is all about this is all about what TV wants. Okay, this is all about what TV wants. And even that, you gotta be a little careful with because as Brett Yormark said, we need to make sure the finances work. Well, the conference championship games right now are worth a combined $250 million to the power conferences. Yes, you would be adding 10 more playoff games in a 2014 playoff, but these are not like Ohio State, Texas. So are you going to make as much money on that as you would a conference championship game, which is gonna be a guaranteed like Alabama, Georgia, right? I mean, Texas Tech BYU, which was the highest attended Big 12 championship game in history last year, the caliber of game probably will not be that. Like Alab or uh Army at Indiana would have been one of these games, for instance, right? Like, is that gonna generate enough money? Do you then, if the regular season means a little bit less, the stakes aren't as high, there's less interest there, do you make as much money on your regular season package the next time that that comes around that those rights come up when you're gonna be competing with the NFL, which is trying to raise its rights by like 50%? These are all there are a lot of economic things I think to really question about this, and it just seems a little rushed right now. The reporting says that the diving into the numbers on this financially and what it would actually be worth is like just starting. So it all feels a bit rushed. I'm very skeptical of what this will do to college football as a whole. Going to get into that more in a second, but hey, one other thing that could dramatically change the sport in addition to a 2014 playoff, a legitimate salary cap for coaches and players. Coaches, yes, coaches. Uh, click here to find out how that could actually happen. That's for everybody watching the clip version. Those of you that are here live, just continue hanging out. I appreciate all of you. If you want to submit a super chat, click the dollar sign below the chat box in order to do that. Appreciate everybody who does. If you are able, that's great. You can also submit a super chat on Venmo at John-Kurtz-4. If you're not watching live, I will kick off the next show with it. If you do that, appreciate everybody uh who does that. You can sign up for the Open for Business Big 12 newsletter at OFBnews.com. All right, everybody's favorite, Paul Feinbaum. Here it is. Paul Feinbaum is losing his mind uh over the 2014 playoff, and so are a ton of media members. I mean, Stuart Mandel, Josh Pate. It's a who's who of people that I think Big 12 fans have have generally disagreed with or disliked. So that means Big 12 fans, ACC fans, you should love the 2014 playoff, right? Because these this crowd is all melting down. Buyer beware. I actually mean to tell you, like, I would say be very careful with that logic. I would say be very careful with that logic, my friends. And I will tell you, I will tell you why. The SEC at this point is basically on an island. Of those guys that I just mentioned, Stuart Mandel is not really SEC based, but Josh Pate, Paul Feinbaum certainly are. They're speaking out vehemently against a 24-team playoff. Uh, SEC country does not like this. The SEC's official stance right now with Greg Sankey is that they, I mean, look, they support a 16-team playoff. If it's going to expand, they want 16, not 12. The Big 12 ACC, Notre Dame, Fox, all against that. And man, I mean, just fans. It seems like a lot of fans uh are actually against the Big 12 ACC, Notre Dame and Fox 2. I've seen some polls out there that are like 90-10. But I mean, listen to some of this pushback. Like, I'm it puts me in a weird spot because as a Big 12 fan, as I said, I look at this and say, hey, more access for the Big 12, eight more teams over the last two years. Had it been an expanded 2014 field? It's hard for me to hate that. But I start reading some of this stuff and I'm like, yeah, I mean like I agree. Like Stuart Mandel, I've definitely had frustrations with. Obviously, that I will never forget the July 2021 piece about the Big 12's TV value after Texas and Oklahoma left. But Stuart Mandel wrote this about where things are going with the 2014 playoff. He said, Who here saw the 2021 disaster satire? Don't look up. A comet is heading toward Earth that will surely wipe out civilization. Meryl Streep's dim-witted president comes up with a plan to send a nuclear weapon into space to destroy it, but calls it off when a billionaire donor convinces her cabinet they'll all get rich by mining it for minerals instead. Spoiler alert, civilization gets washed, wiped out. I don't know, guys. That sure seems to be that sure seems to be fairly in line with how I feel about all this, right? Like something's just hurtling toward existential threat hurtling towards you, and everyone's just kind of like, well, let's just make some money here. Okay. I said the poll. All right, Mandel hates it. I mentioned the the polls that I've seen. Why is my Twitter poll gone? I swear, StreamYard, I swear. There's a poll, there's a poll that says 91% of college football fans on On3 were not in favor of expanding to 24. So there are a lot of people that really don't like this. You can count Paul Feinbaum uh among those. Paul Feinbaum really hates this, and I have to admit, I kind of agree with him. I kind of agree with him. All right, well, let's let's let's get to the audio. Subscribe to the channel, by the way. It's totally free. I appreciate everybody who does. Just one click. We're pushing to 35k subs. Thank you to everybody uh who does that. All right, what did Feinbaum say about the playoff? Here you go. Still not gonna do it for me. All right, give me one second. Paul Feinbaum clip here.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

There's probably four, but we have 12 and we're going to 16 or 24. 24 is the worst possibility, I think, in the history of this game. Why, Greeny? Because it is going to devalue, dilute, and perhaps destroy the greatest football season of them all. And that's the regular season in college football. The big games at the end of the season are going to be meaningless. This is not the NFL where you try to position for a wild card or a home field. There just simply aren't good aren't enough good teams. And I respect uh just a few or fifty to him Grady a couple years ago, and he's become a very good friend. But the fact that the ACC campaigned against Notre Dame by pushing Miami is just laughable that now he's talking about Notre Dame being a championship worthy team. They weren't a championship worthy team. They lost two games and they really didn't have that much of an argument. But the point is that television and all these other forces are driving it. This is about the Big Ten, and they're getting a lot of help. And the SEC is right to say no, we don't want that. And by the way, the most important thing Jim Phillips said, if I can say this on ESPN, is that ESPN doesn't want it either. And right now they control the CFP.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

All right. Thoughts everybody. Thoughts, everybody. Uh my thought was that I've got to refer to what I think is maybe the greatest meme that's that's ever been created, uh, which of course I'm gonna have to go load for you here, even though I had it preloaded before the show. But you you guys all remember this, right?

unknown 21:59

Hard.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Heartbreaking. Absolutely heartbreaking. The worst person you know just made a great point. Paul Feinbaum just made some great points there. Look, it's more access for the Big 12. I get it, but it's going to devalue the regular season. I destroy might be too strong. Okay. I've had some people, I had somebody email me. Hey man, people are still going to watch Ohio State, Michigan. Like it people watch rivalry games in the NFL. It's not like it totally killed. Okay. Yes, it's not going to destroy it, but it's it's whittling away at what made college football unique. This is a big step in that direction, too. I wouldn't even just say whittle. Like this is taking a chunk out. It really does devalue a lot of huge regular season games at the end of the year. And even if you say, well, there will be better games in September, like, okay, yes, but the reason that like Texas Ohio State is great, okay, you have the logos on the side of the helmet, they're playing each other, but it's because you know, like, this is a huge game. You made 15 years ago when Texas and Ohio State were playing, it was like, man, whoever loses this game might be out of the national championship race, right? Like, you don't have that anymore. Feinbaum's right that the ACC totally did flip-flop on its stance on Notre Dame here. You know, I mean, Jim Phillips, very much hypocritical in what the ACC was doing and projecting about Notre Dame to now, all of a sudden they're saying, well, we gotta have the playoff because we left out Notre Dame last year, and that's crazy. They could have won the national championship. Notre Dame didn't deserve to get in. There are teams that don't deserve to get in even if they're capable of winning the title. And I will say, even those, some of those right now who seem to be pushing for no 24 team playoff in the past have been like, we need to like this team should be in the playoff because they're capable of winning it all, even though they had multiple losses. So they're everybody's got conflicting logic here. But Mike Greenberg finished off that fine bomb clip, by the way, by saying exactly that. Hey, it's a good thing that teams that are talented enough to win the thing didn't get in because it means the regular season's doing its job and it means something. So I agree with all that. I do. I do. And I would also point out that you got to be careful about who you're getting into bed with if you're the Big 12 here, and that this is, once again, quite a change from where the Big 12 has found its allies in the past. Because remember, the Big 12 and the ACC, it was not that long ago. They were aligned with the SEC against the Big Ten. We were talking about, hey, did Brett Yormark set a poison pill to get the SEC to push back on the 4-4-2-2-16 team playoff proposal from the Big Ten? Right? I mean, it you can't trust the Big Ten. It's like all of a sudden now everybody's running to the side of the Big Ten, like, hey, we'll take their side on this. I'd be careful about that, man. I was literally just listening before I hopped on here to do the live show. Uh, I think it was Cam Newton actually, on his podcast talking about Drake dropping lyrics on his album cut that just leaked about LeBron switching sides, right? He's taking the shots at LeBron switching sides. You're switching sides here, and it wasn't that long ago. You can't trust the Big Ten, man. You can't trust the Big Ten. Um, did we not forget? Not only was the Big Ten trying to get you a sign on the dotted line that you're only half, half as good as they are as a league forever. You're codifying that you're 50% of them as a league. They were trying to just push that through, like ram it through before you could even blink. The Big Ten also formed an alliance with the ACC and the Pac-12 before then turning right around and taking USC and UCLA and then later killing the Pac-12 by taking Oregon and Washington. Like the Big Ten can't be trusted. Let's not act like this is some virtuous side that the Big 12 is taking here. The Big Ten's led by Tony Petiti, who is completely speaking of being in bed with people, being in bed with he is in bed with Fox. I mean, these the that is two massive, like just pro sports merchants, man. They want this to be another version of pro sports. I that's the TV part of this concerns me too, like where all of this is coming from, man. Where all of this is coming from is that Fox wants college football playoff inventory. They don't have any right now because ESPN has all of the rights through the 2030s. What is the only way? The only way that Fox is getting its hands on any of this, if it expands beyond where it's at now, that inventory is up for grabs suddenly. If you expand to 24, 10 games are up for grabs. Fox can then bid on those games. What has Fox done that's in the best interest of college football? What, I mean, same for ESPN, by the way, but any of these TV networks, what have they done that's in the best interest of college football at any point? Just think you got to be careful about what the motives are that are at work from everybody involved here. Fox wants more inventory to get back at ESPN and get more into the college football game. So they are using Tony Petiti, who is perfectly fine, being that guy is the chess piece, because he views this all with a pro sports background as like, well, yeah, let's just make it professional sports. Um look, I know a lot of you disagree with me. Ryan uh emailed me after the last newsletter and said, I disagree that regular season games wouldn't matter. Rivalry games always matter. Do people quit watching the NFL because some teams play each other multiple times and lose more games? I don't think so. More playoff teams is a plus when the media is going to be biased against our teams. And to your point, we need the game settled on the field, not in some imaginary hypothetical matchup where we always lose. Unless you're a national power, more access is better for us and always will be. Well, like I said, I don't think it's like people will completely stop watching Ohio State, Michigan, but it will lose something of the edge if you got teams out there that are going to be resting players. Because look at it, if they're if they're like 10 and 1 and they're staring down like, hey, we may have five playoff games coming up to win the title, and we're at we have to gear up for that. And it doesn't matter whether we win or lose, if we're gonna be in maybe it's like a couple of spots in the in the rankings. If it's not determining a buy or something, like you absolutely could have that scenario where the game that used to mean everything suddenly is just like, eh. I mean, that sucks. Like that takes away the unique value prop that college football had. And then, yeah, it might turn out to be like the NFL, but it's gonna be a it's it's a watered down NFL. Now you're trying to do the same thing the NFL's doing. You're not gonna be better at it than the NFL is. It will be a watered down product instead of what it used to be, which was just totally, totally unique. I view this, I heard Josh Pate drop this analogy, and I think it's so true. It's a it's a frog in the boiling water situation, right? Like if a frog jumps into a pot of boiling water, it's gonna know right away, like, oh, I gotta get out of here and just like leap out. But if to me, this is college football is the frog that jumped into some lukewarm water, and then someone on the stove has just been cranking up the temperature, just cranking it up. This would be one hell of a yank. And eventually you're gonna yank it too many times, the water's gonna be boiling, and then you, the frog, like you're stuck in there. It's too late. You you didn't see it happening as it was happening, and that's that's really that's really where where I feel like this is at right now. Um, you know, some of the other pushback I've seen, I know her bros, um, who's a big G5 advocate on Twitter, he tweeted if the SEC joins in support of the 2014 playoffs, say hello to a more meaningful regular season for every college football program. Teams will no longer be eliminated from the playoff before kickoff in week one because of the logo on their chest. There is some truth to that. There is some truth to that. I would also say there will be teams that will know from week one that they are in the college football playoff because of the logo on their chest. Like Notre Dame in a 2014 playoff, of course Notre Dame is supporting this. Because Notre Dame in a 2014 playoff, they're in. I mean, they kick it off week one, they're in, barring a disastrous season. They they gotta go, what, seven and five to not be in a 2014 playoff? Like Notre Dame's in every year. So of course they're supporting this, but I don't think that's like what we should ultimately want or be valuing as a sport. So, yeah, this does open up the season with more teams in the Big 12 feeling like, hey, we've got a legitimate chance to get into the dance and get into the playoff in this thing. I just don't like that the sport is geared around that. That's our fundamental disagreement here. I would rather the sport be about regional rivalries and winning your conference and like just having a good season where it's a nice reward to go to a cool bowl game at the end of the year. And it's not just all driven by making the playoff and playoff, playoff, playoff, and eventually getting to these games that you play in sterile NFL domes. And I, you know, that's just not that's not why I love the sport. That's not why I grew up loving it. And so I don't I don't like the the playoff industrial complex that's just taken over everybody. But what I what I also just have to reckon with is like it's here, whether I like it or not, because yes, just some of the pushback I've gotten has been, well, John, realignment already got us here. The Pac-12 dying already got us here. Like we've already been pushed to this point already by these leagues. We're already at a 12-team playoff. Damage is already done, bro. Just get on board with a move here now that will be better for your league. And that's, I think, begrudgingly true. Like I begrudgingly have to admit that. Um, but it doesn't mean that I have to like it. You know, I mean, here in the moment, I don't I don't like it. It is still an adjustment for me to get behind that idea and and really in full throat support. Um, get behind it. Now, once we get in the season, you know, if we're obviously we have a 12-team playoff again this year, if we're sitting there, it's May 14th now, if we're sitting there on November 14th, and I'm looking at, you know, like nine and one BYU still being put at like 14 in the rankings or something, yeah. I'm sure someone will pop in the comments and be like, hey man, how you feeling about that 2014 playoff now? And I'll be like, all right, you know, fair enough. Fair enough. Um, but I do think it's it's fair to say. I like I don't like what this will do to the regular season. I don't think anybody should really like what it's gonna do to the regular season. And that just is what it is. Hey, Paul Feinbaum isn't the only national voice Big 12 fans love to hate. Check out uh Kirk Herbstreet's latest slam of the Big 12 here. That's for everybody watching the clip version. Those of you that are watching live, thank you for being here. I appreciate you. Uh let me check into Antoine, who's left me a super chat. If you want to submit a super chat, click the dollar sign below the chat box. In order to do so, those of you who are able to support that way, it's a great way to make sure that your question or comment gets on the show tonight. And Antoine says, Are you saying an 11-win K-State team doesn't deserve to be in the playoffs when 9-3 South Carolina gets in because 12 teams are enough? I'm saying I want to live in a world where 11-win K-State and 9-3 South Carolina are talking about, hey, we had an awesome season because like South Carolina, like, hey, we beat Clemson. We had some sick wins over regional rivals in the SEC, and we get a cool bowl game as a reward for that. And K-State may, you know, going playing in the Fiesta Bowl back in the day in the Big Eight, it would have been like playing in the Orange Bowl. Like, I want to live in that world. If it's an 11-win K-State team and you're sitting there talking about even if it's the BCS or a 14-team playoff, like, hey, we should really get our shot. Like, okay, let's do that, let's have that debate. That's that's the world I want to live in. I don't want to live in the world where it's we're talking about a 2014 playoff with this. So that that's that's what I'm saying. Like, look, I agree with you in that scenario. I would want the 11-win Big 12 team to be in, and a 2014 playoff is going to technically accomplish that, but that's not, I don't want to be having those debates really anyway, is is my point because I think we're just, you know, we're we we have jumped the shark too much where we're caring about at this point games between eight and three, eight, well, eight and four Nebraska, eight and four Iowa, you know, battling it out for a spot at the back end of the playoff, and we're valuing that more than a couple of 10 and 1 teams playing in the in the last week of the regular season. So look, I look, Antoine, I get it, man. Don't get not even hung up on the bull thing. The bull is the least important part of what I just said. I want the sport to be about beating your rivals, playing teams in your conference, enjoying the the life and death of the regular season. I mean, I can just remember growing up, like it was even in years when K-State was not as good, it was just like it was life or death beating Nebraska or Missouri or Kansas. Like, I I wanted so badly to beat them, and it really mattered. And it just feels like we've lost that because now it would just be like, well, you're not making the playoffs, so who cares? You know, um, and that there were tons of years. I mean, Bill Snyder won 11 games six out of seven years from the late 90s to the early 2000s, and in those years, it was like every game was just I it was I mean, it was great. It was also very stressful, but I can remember I wouldn't eat before games because as a very overweight child, by the way, I would not eat before games because I was too damn nervous because it was like, hey, this team's got a shot, man. If we lose, like it's all over. And we've just we've gone so far away from that, we've lost that. I yearn for that. I missed that because it's it's just it's not there anymore. It's not it's not the same. So that's that's what I'm saying. In this scenario, in this real world that we live in, yes, like sure, yes, I want I want K-State to be able to be in and not get squeezed out because of a nine and three South Carolina. That would obviously be very frustrating. I wouldn't like it, and I would be sitting here doing content about, hey, here's the breakdown, here's why I would want this to to be different. But that's I just want I'm trying to emphasize like that's that's not the point that I'm making. I'm not saying, hey, you're wrong on that, that that's not an issue. I'm just I'm talking about something else. So anyway, Antoine, I'm I this is honestly, it's a it's pretty boomer of me, but I do feel like I have generally a lot of support uh from from a lot of a lot of college football fans. And I did see Bracket Cat said, hey, that 9010 poll that was out there from on three was mostly SEC fans. Okay, I'll like I'm I'm sure I would buy that. I would buy that it's SEC country that feels the most strongly about this, okay? But I still think there are a lot of people that really don't like the idea of the 2014 playoff because of where they they feel like it's going. Uh Alan, let's talk to Alan. So Alan says, John, the best part of college football is watching conference rivals play every year. Series like Colorado, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, KU, Mizzou, K-State, Iowa State, KU, KSU, Baylor or BYU, Utah. Much more appealing than half a season of playoffs. I mean, like Alan, you just chef's kiss, my friend, preaching to the choir. Like, that's it. It it wasn't to me, it wasn't even it wasn't even just watching K-State playing those games and wanting those so badly. It was, yes, dude, Colorado, Nebraska, man. Like I missed that game being at the end of the, like on Black Friday at the end of the year. Like Bedlam, end of the year, amazing. KU Mazoo, like all these you just you cared so deeply about the rivalries that existed there, and they were so awesome to watch and have that be the focal point instead of, and again, I know realignment has changed a lot of this, but now you're playing a lot of teams that you don't have that history with, and it's all about all right, are we winning enough to make the playoff? It's just so much more the NFL model, and there's a reason that I gravitated toward college football and not the NFL. There's a reason that we all chose college football as our primary sport that we follow and not the NFL. Otherwise, we'd all be sitting in an NFL chat. Now, maybe some of you are doing that also. Um, but you know, I mean, I like the NFL, I like the Chiefs, but I don't I I give up all my Sundays to focus on college football so I can do the show for you because I love college football, not the NFL. And so my my I just obviously I'm not gonna like it when things continue to get nudged in the NFL direction. Uh so that's where I'm at. That's where I'm at. I appreciate it, Alan. I appreciate it, Antoine. Um, you you are correct here, Antoine. You are correct. Oh, sorry. Uh Antoine said, unfortunately, times have changed and the old way is never coming back. Um I do, Ron, I do appreciate the uh husky jeans comment. That is funny. Um but yes, you are correct. You are correct, Antoine. I need it is a it is a I need to just get with the times situation. I will eventually, but right now, here in the moment, I just I don't I don't really like it. I don't really like it. Okay, so one quick thing here. We are gonna go. I'm gonna talk about the SEC a little bit here because the other wild thing this week has just been like what's going on in that conference right now, which is crazy. Uh, but I want to mention this. I put this was a community post I put up a while back. So if you do hear this, I mean obviously leave a message in the comments, leave a comment on the video if you're watching after the fact. But you can also just go to the community posts on the channel and find this and leave me a comment there too. Uh, but being that it's the off season here, uh, I am trying to look for some sponsors, okay? And I want to, the sponsors will help right keep content free here for all of you guys. So I want to know like what what are some products, what are things that can help you guys? Okay. What do you want to hear about? Who do you want to hear from? Like, what are I don't want to put just totally like worthless things in front of you, and I've turned down plenty of things before that I didn't think were really up my alley, or just I didn't want to be just throwing ads at you to be throwing ads at you. So let me know. Uh let me know what you think could be helpful and uh have some value to you. You can also email me at ofbnews at gmail.com. That's another way to do that. Ofbnews at gmail.com. So putting that out there, looking for some thoughts uh from all you guys, especially like those of you that are here right now and a live stream in May, like you're the real ones, man. You're the ones who really, really care about this channel deeply, and uh I care about you. So let me know what you think on that front. All right. This one's gonna be fun. Um the SEC has suddenly turned into real housewives of the bayou. That's how it's going this week, everybody. Um, why is the SEC freaking out and fighting with each other? Why is there so much infighting? Is it because they've lost all the power and control over the sport? I'm not the only one saying that this week. Okay. Uh let's dive into it here in this video. Have you paid attention to what has happened here? I mean, obviously, if there's drama in the SEC, you all know who started this. You all know where the genesis of this is. That's our good friend Lane Kiffin. Yes, Lane Kiffen. He did an interview with Vanity Fair, which uh is again the most Lane Kiffin thing ever. And there was a great picture that surfaced this week of him doing the interview. Well, actually, LSU tweeted it out a while back. I didn't see it until this week of him doing the interview where he's got like a white t-shirt and jeans trying to look all cool in the in the stands. Hey, look, if Vanity Fair wanted to interview me, I'd do the interview too, Lane. All right. So no, no hate in that respect. But you do have to admit it's very on-brand. And Lane Kiffin went out of his way to say this about Ole Miss. And we know that he went out of his way to say it because the guy who did the interview went on Feinbaum this week and said, Yeah, I didn't even, I asked no direct question about this. He just volunteered this info. Kiffin told Vanity Fair when he was coaching at Ole Miss, top recruits would tell him, quote, We really like you, but my grandparents aren't letting me move to Oxford, Mississippi. That doesn't come up when you say Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Parents were sitting here this weekend saying the campus's diversity feels so great. It feels like there's no segregation, and we want that for our kids because that's the real world. That is one heck of a thing to say about Ole Miss when they already hate your guts, and you've got to go play in Oxford in September, right? Like, not even, I mean, early in the season. Crazy to me that Lane would would bring that up, but that is who he is. It's a little infighting. Apparently, Steve Sarkeesian felt the momentum here. He felt the call to arms to go after Ole Miss because he did an interview with Matt Hayes from USA Today, which I want to talk a lot about because he went like scorched earth on everyone and everything. Uh, but Steve Sarkeesian said at Texas, we will only take 50% of a player's academic credit hours. You may be you may be a semester from graduating, but you're going all the way back to 50% if you play here and want a degree. But at Ole Miss, they can take you. All you have to do is take basket weaving, and you can get an old miss degree. Boy, Steve Sarkeesian went all the way back to the basket weaving degree. I mean, that is like an old school, old, old school college diss that I mean, that's like the most generic college school disc ever, right? You say, Oh, you just go in there to take the basket weaving class. Like, Sark, you didn't have to hit him with that, man. Like, calm down, dog. That's Oh, Ole Miss taking strays all over the place. Sark went after Miami, went after Mario Crystalball. He said Mario Crystal Ball is a friend of mine and they had a tremendous season. But Miami lost to two unranked teams last year. What would their record have been if they played our schedule? What would our record have been if we played theirs? But their scheduling inequity. Of course, that's the old-fashioned SEC play of, well, just have them come play our schedule. But this is grumpy, man. I mean, this is it just felt like this week was like the cracks are starting to show in the SEC for what's really going on here. It feels like to me, by the way, subscribe to the channel, please. Uh pushing toward 35k subs, getting very close. Many of you watch, but don't subscribe. One click helps. What's really going on here is I mean, the SEC's lost some control here. I'm not even done with Sark's comments, by the way. He's got one more that I think really drives home this point, that they're feeling the sports slip out of their grip and it's creating a lot of tension and frustration. And now that is bubbling over. I mean, those are some sour grapes from Sark, obviously, to Miami, but perhaps will miss, right? A team that made it further in the playoff than Texas did because Texas did not make the playoff last year, right? Um, this is the type of thing. I feel like this when you're frustrated with the outside world, you take it out on those that you're closest to. And the SEC is generally a pretty damn tight knit. Like they're pretty good at putting on a unified front. I think better than anybody else in college football. Like, we're talking about the SEC, the league that doesn't have an exit fee because, well, why would we need it? Uh, the league that had its, remember the SEC belt that was going around? There's an SEC belt that you can buy because you can show your conference pride. I know you can all hear the SEC chant in your head right now that you would get all the time when an SEC team is winning somewhere. I know you've seen a million of the hypothetical victories for the SEC tweets that are coming from Mississippi State fans when somebody is talking about Alabama, right? They are so good at banding together and sticking up for themselves. But now they're turning on each other here in the offseason, and it's an off-season that just happens to coincide with three straight Big Ten national championships, a Big Ten basketball national championship, the report that the Big Ten generated $500 million more in revenue this past year. And uh, oh, by the way, now everybody is supporting the Big Ten's college football playoff plan to get to 24 teams. You know, when you've had a rough day at work, when stuff is getting to you in the outside world, a lot of times you can pop off to your husband, your wife, kids, your loved ones, right? They can bear the brunt of that sometimes. I mean, it feels like this is this is a bit of what's going on with with the SEC uh right now, to be completely honest. And I I get why they would be frustrated by this. You know, Colin Coward did a great segment, and I would play you some of the audio, but I think it would get me dinged and uh not be able to uh to monetize or get a strike or whatever. But Colin Coward did an excellent segment. You can go find it on my Twitter at JL Kurtz, where he said he did call them the real housewives. I did kind of steal that from him. Thank you, Colin. He was like, they have turned into like the real housewives who are not like the real deep pockets money. They're kind of like, you know, they're rich, they're not wealthy. They're the they're trying to flaunt the money, show the money. Whereas the Big Ten's got like the real deep pockets, and he compared them to the guy that runs the waste management company that doesn't go out in public much and just chills and makes way more money and is way more wealthy than all of them. And that's what the Big Ten's doing right now, where the SEC has turned into the real housewives situation where they're all fighting because they're more shallow with their their rich money as opposed to their wealth. And I thought that's a pretty damn good comparison, man. That's why Colin's the GOAT of sports talk radio, at least uh right now, I think the best that is that is doing it at the moment. It's a really it's a really good comp. It's a really good comp. If you need more confirmation that that's really what's going on here, I mean this was another Sark went off on just like the current status or state of college sports. Says, quote, everyone knows the rules, right? We go to our attorney general and say we don't like that rule. Let's just sue. Right now, no one is afraid of the consequences. And he closed this with there's a lot of sentiment for breaking away and having your own rules. That's realistic. You're gonna sign up or you don't, but if you do, here's our rules. Here's how this thing is going to work. So he's talking about look, no one's following the rules. We're gonna break away. I mean, that's the SEC breakaway threat, right? We're going back to that now. We're playing the hits, we're getting to that hit. It's just like, dude, the SEC doesn't like the way it's set up right now. It ruined their monopoly. They had a monopoly on this thing. They were the power, and it's been broken up. It's been broken up with the unpredictability of what goes on with all these different factors you've introduced. The transfer portal, NIL, yes, the lawsuits, yes, different state laws, the College Sports Commission, the White House trying to get involved, Congress trying to get involved, and now the playoff expanding. Like, there are so many variables that got introduced that it just screwed up a good thing for the SEC, and they are they are melting down. And this is not like this is not even me. I would really just say this is observational. This is not me trying to take huge shots at the SEC because, like, I understand it. Look, here are the facts, man. The SEC did dominate the sport for like two decades, and now that has changed. And now you're seeing a lot of complaining, infighting, and just tension and drama playing out in the SEC. And I think all of it is somewhat related here. They have gone from being in the total pole position to now emphatically not being. I mean, they're definitely number two, but they are number two to the Big Ten right now. The Big Ten has more money, power, and seemingly influence, apparently now influence. Because look at the influence. The 2014 playoff discussion has swung. So the SEC is very clearly, they have changed in terms of the pecking order of the hierarchy. And I just felt like this week you're seeing the symptoms of what is going on there with all of this. And it's okay, if I'm gonna say one thing here, SEC, that's not just purely observational, that will be a little bit of my salty opinion, you know, after you've been bullied for a while, you've seen the bully on the playground for a while, and you're like, God, I hate this guy, like he's always picking on me. If a bigger bully, you know, you're in third grade, the big third grade bully is always killing you, and then you see a fifth grader come along and just nudge him out of the way, start bullying him, push him around a little bit. It's kind of nice to watch, right? I mean, it's you know, that's that's not the greatest human instinct in the world, but we all have it. It's kind of nice to watch the bully get bullied a little bit. Having said that, be careful about the Big Ten. Big 12 saddling up with the Big Ten over the playoff, and now we've all come full circle uh here on the show. Uh, all right. Let's let's close it down with that. Let's close it down with that. Fun show. I uh bracket cat, I get it. I I knew that that my take on the playoff is probably not going to be super popular because more people have like fully moved on. And I'm even the guy that they have fully moved on to what the sport is and embracing it and like, hey, for the Big 12's sake, get a 24 teamer going, let's do it. I understand it. I've been the guy that's saying, hey, there's opportunity and chaos. I'm trying to change my attitude to that. And in general, I have, but this is one that still I'm just like, oof. That's more change than I was ready for. It's more change than I was ready for. It wasn't that long ago. How long ago was that that Eli Drinkwitz pitched like a 20? Was it 24? Maybe he was even like into the 30s or something. Eli Drinkwitz pitched, I thought it maybe was 24 at first, that number, and we all were like, Well, that's ridiculous. We can't do, I mean, that's crazy. Why would we do that? And now here we are. I mean, it's just we've we've normalized that all of a sudden. We've normalized that very, very quickly. Uh, bracket cat, thank you. Uh, one of the true real ones here is uh here. Uh, thank you to everybody who has hung out tonight. Please do like the video. Please do subscribe to the channel on your way out the door, spread the word. Sign up for the Open for Business Big 12 newsletter at OFBnews.com or click the link in the description of the video. Um, thanks for accommodating an earlier time tonight. I'm seeing by the numbers, like people used to the typical time coming in. Yeah, I did start a little bit earlier trying to be more organized here, as you can see. I've already got a live stream set up for Sunday just to give you more of an advanced notice, and then I'll tweak it with the specific topic as we get there closer. But trying to be a professional here, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for uh bearing with me through the non professional years. Hey, if you're a K State fan, I did an interview with Casey Alexander today on the ThreeMob podcast. You can go check that out uh as well. Make sure you do if you haven't yet. Thank you all for being here. I appreciate you immensely. Uh take care, and I will talk to you soon.