Kalani Sitake Sends BYU a Message; A&M Bails on Texas Tech

Texas Tech can’t find anyone willing to play them, Kalani Sitake is publicly pushing BYU for more resources, and the Big 12 has some massive opportunities to change the way college football views the conference in 2026.

Tonight on Open For Business, we break down why BYU cannot afford to let frustration build with Kalani Sitake, what the addition of Marc Hill could mean for the Cougars, and why Sitake’s comments about resources deserve attention.

Then we get into Texas Tech. Texas A&M reportedly turned down a neutral-site game with the Red Raiders, joining a growing list of programs that either canceled games or couldn’t reach a deal with Tech. Are teams actually scared to play Joey McGuire’s program? Or has Texas Tech simply become too dangerous to schedule in the current College Football Playoff system?

Plus, Joey McGuire says Texas Tech is the most hated team in college football. Is he right? We’ll explain why the Red Raiders may not literally be No. 1—but no program has become a college football villain faster.

Finally, what would a dream 2026 season look like for the Big 12? We discuss why Oklahoma State returning to relevance could matter so much for the conference, along with Texas Tech, BYU, Colorado, Kansas State, Utah, Iowa State and the Big 12’s chances of sending multiple teams to the College Football Playoff.

Subscribe to Open For Business for college football analysis, Big 12 football coverage, conference realignment, College Football Playoff discussion and a national perspective that doesn’t start and end with the SEC and Big Ten.

#CollegeFootball #Big12 #TexasTech #BYUFootball #OklahomaState

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Man, it's been a week in Provo. I tell you what, there's a lot going on with BYU football, Kalani Sataki sending a message to perhaps his AD, perhaps the athletic department as a whole. And I've got to tell you, I'm not loving this. I'm not loving the vibes on this thing right now with what's going on. Now, the good news is BYU has made a hire within its athletic department. We are going to talk about that. But this is something that should be of interest to everybody within the Big 12. Everybody within college football, really, because you have a job opening coming up next year. I think you'd want to pay attention to the comments Kalani Zataki was making over the last week. Texas Tech back in the news as well. No stranger to that. Brett McMurphy wrote an article that has a quote from Joey McGuire that's getting a ton of run. I think too much run, and more focus should be on what's happening with Texas Tech's schedule right now. Are the Red Raiders getting blackballed by the rest of college football? We'll dive into that. And I've got a best case scenario for the Big 12 this year. What's the best case scenario for the league as far as the playoff goes, as far as the entire season goes? I'm going to lay it out for you tonight on the show. Welcome in. This is Open for Business. I am your host, John Kurtz. Thank you everybody for joining. Please like and subscribe as you come in. That is very helpful. I can see the old barn cat. Yes, I am not running on cat time tonight. That is that was the Bill Snyder time, was cat time. Bill Snyder, though, at K-State practice today. If you follow the K-State socials, you did see that. So he was hanging out with Colin Klein. Cool stuff there. You guys can submit super chats by clicking the dollar sign below the chat box. If you do that, I will get to them at the end of the show. Thank you to everybody who does that. But otherwise, just keep them coming in the regular chat. Keep it lively tonight. I look forward to hearing from you guys and what you have to say. Is BYU letting Kalani Sataki slip away? Some comments this week you need to pay attention to. And really, this goes back a week before. Comments that were making the rounds this week came from Kalani Sataki on the radio with Ben Critdle. And he's talking about wanting more. He needs more. He needs more resources. I thought that problem was solved when Sataki flirted with Penn State. It appears that problem has not been solved. And now BYU is hiring a new deputy athletic director who presumably, not officially yet, but presumably would be the liaison with the football program. So is there trouble with the relationship between Brian Santiago, the AD, and Kalani Sataki, the football coach? Look, I'm going to tell you why. Even if you're not a BYU fan, you should pay attention to this. Like the Big 12 cannot afford for this relationship to go south. So let's talk about it. All right. The Penn State thing, I mentioned this already, but when it happened, when Sataki almost went to Happy Valley, I said, this may be the best thing that happens to BYU football. It's going to be an excruciating week, and it was. But if he decides to turn Penn State down, it's going to be because he gets a higher commitment to resources from everybody in Provo. And that will therefore elevate the BYU football program. Well, it happened. He stayed. And since then, he had been pretty open about the resources being a part of it, right? First of all, it was reported by On3 that they were going to get a big boost in NIL, but he came on and did an interview with me at Big 12 Media Days where he talked about the resources, the need for more, and trying to push the program further, and that there was an attitude that he thought of complacency once everybody got to the Big 12, where he felt like, well, the attitude was we got to the new conference, let's kick our feet up. And he's saying, No, no, no, no, no. I'm not here to do that. I'm especially not turning down Penn State to do that. What seems like on the precipice of this season, he is not real thrilled with the status of what is happening with the resources. This is me inserting my opinion, taking from what I hear in these clips. But let me play with you this first clip. And again, shout out to my guy Ben Critdle, who did the interview and got this great insight out of Sataki about where things are at resource wise.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

I I still want more resources for these guys because uh and for me the frustrating part is like, yeah, we've been able to do so much, and everyone's like, okay, they keep doing but um we can do way more at a at a faster rate. Yeah. And and um when I when I sit in this situation and I I actually see that um yeah, uh I I'm not gonna be the one that's making high demands, this is very simple demands of people that that our our our opponents have in the conference and not even Texas Tech, the others. Right? So if we can get an even playing field with that stuff, then um I should be able to do more.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Okay. I mean that's Kalani being like, hey, these demands are not unreasonable. I'm not asking to be Texas Tech, I'm not asking to be Miami, I'm just asking for resources competitive with the middle of the pack of the conference, is what that sounds like to me. And it's just distressing for me to hear that foreshadowing what could happen. I'm not saying anything will. There's obviously plenty of time to fix it. There's a season to play, and so many different things that can happen. But I've seen plenty of relationships like this before between coach and athletic director, where you start to see signs and splinters of things being a bit icy. We already know that Sataki's a hot commodity because he damn near got hired at Penn State last offseason. It it gives me, when I say I've seen this before, it gives me Frank Martin John Curry vibes. Now, this is me pulling on my K-State knowledge, but K-State men's basketball coach, beloved coach, was a really good fit with the program in terms of the attitude that he brought, but you could start to see cracks and little splinters and comments or reading between the lines on comments that came up, and you know, within about a year and a half, he was gone to South Carolina, a worse job. So I don't want that to happen. I don't want that to happen. Now, those comments happened a couple weeks ago, I believe, at the BYU media golf tournament or shortly thereafter. Then you have rumors popping up uh earlier this week about Brian Santiago's job security at BYU, specifically uh message board rumors that he was not going to have a job anymore. And it got to the point where BYU came and responded on the message board and said, no, hey, he's still employed, guys. Calm down. But that happened right on the heels of those comments. And always rumors that the relationship between football and Santiago had not been as strong as basketball and Brian Santiago, who's got a documented history being the basketball liaison. Well, I think we see where some of the rumors came from because then within the last 48 hours, BYU announces that they have hired Mark Hill as deputy athletic director. He comes from Kentucky, long time admin there, 27 years, the last seven as the deputy athletic director, and he's been a sports admin for football at Kentucky since 2012. I think if you talk to some folks, they would tell you he was in the mix to replace Tom Holmo as well. He is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So he has strong ties, obviously, in that regard to BYU. And there's kind of a changing of the guard going on at Kentucky. A lot of people thought he would have gotten the AD job there. He didn't. So he's finding new life here. But from the BYU standpoint, you're like, wait, hold up. Okay, so the rumor was the AD was getting run out of town. Kalani's talking about not so subtly that he needs more resources. And now they go hire a guy who's going to be has a background anyway, is a football liaison. Like, what's going on here? Now, the good news I would tell you on this is that something is happening here, right? Like this, you didn't let the relationship deteriorate to the point where it got too late before you did something. This is a something. This is a pretty big something. So I commend, you know, whoever was calling the shots on this for BYU to do this. I I think this makes a lot of sense. And I think you can ignore some of the Kentucky sentiment. I was looking at online, like fans were like, oh yeah, get him out of here, get rid of this guy. I he had been at Kentucky for a long time. Kentucky's had frustrations with their athletic department. He played a role in bringing Mark Pope to Kentucky, and obviously, you know, I mean, that's Kentucky fans with their expectations, that's not working out incredibly well right now. But I think trying something to get a better liaison with the football program to hopefully get the football program what it needs is important here. Now, there's one way I will stick up for Brian Santiago in one aspect of this, but I do want to make clear this should not just be the concern of BYU. This should be the concern of the Big 12 and Big 12 fans. For BYU, it's obvious, right? Sataki's a perfect cultural fit. I mean, just perfect. A beloved figure, not only within BYU, but across the league. Like, how do you not like the guy? And his attitude and demeanor fits perfectly the culture of what BYU is. He's obviously an incredible coach, has won 23 games the last two years. This is not a good time to be losing somebody like that with an uncertain future in college athletics. What's this all going to look like? We may be going to self-governance for the SEC in Big Ten. Like, where is this all headed? And BYU is a program that has the potential and right now is delivering enough that you might think, hey, depending on what this morphs into, like, we've got a shot here. This is not a time to be losing, to be losing the football coach who's doing all the winning right now. And if he were to leave over something like this, you do also worry about like, does it become tougher to make a banger higher to replace him? If the concern is going to be like, will I ever get the resources that I need there? So for the Big 12, that's that's for BYU. For the Big 12, it's like, hey, people complained about this conference a year, two years ago, up to a year ago, about like, hey, it's the zany wild Big 12. There are no big brands, there's nobody that stands out. Anybody can win it every year, and that's fun, that's cute, but that's not what you need. You need big brands. Well, Texas Tech and BYU have taken big strides in the last two years towards that. And the Cougars are at the forefront. Like they started that, they got there before tech, and they already have a built-in bigger infrastructure being more of a national brand because of the LDS connections there, right? Like, and they've won a national championship in their history. Like this has a lot of potential for the league to help out a bunch along with tech to produce two teams, two programs that can go to playoffs regularly and be national brands. If I'm your mark, I'm on the phone with Brian Santiago and everybody in Provo. Like, yo, hey, don't screw this up, guys. Like, don't don't let this turn into something. But this is where, in regard to that, I will step in and and at least make this point. I'm gonna say, like, defend the powers that be in charge at BYU, but also just point out the reality of the situation. Like, this is, I think it's easy to forget because there are no BYU is one of one in the Big 12 in terms of what its mission is as a school, as a university, the ties to the church. So it's easy to forget that that they they have a higher purpose. Now, I know everyone will say, well, education is the higher purpose at most schools. BYU's got a higher purpose even than that, with what it is trying to do here. And in college athletics, especially in the day and age we're in now, a lot of times that athletic stuff just flies out the window anyway. But that means I don't are they like will BYU want to keep up with the Joneses? And that's coming from beyond just the athletic department, right? Like, that's the point that I'm raising here. So maybe there's only so much you can do. I don't have intimate knowledge about what's going on between Santiago and Sataki. But there are certain constraints that BYU will run into, I would think, that other schools are not going to. What I can tell you is with that in mind, I did listen to what Kalani Sataki said when he was asked. Uh, I believe this was today, Jackson Payne had this out on Twitter, who also does a great job. He was just asked straight up about his relationship with Brian Santiago, and uh, I'll just let this do the talking.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Relationship with Brian Santiago, right? Yeah, I'm guys, I'm easy to either how's my relationship with everybody? I'm easy to get along with as long as you just take care of our football team and then and uh take care of the boys. The focus has got to be on the players. So the focus shouldn't be on my relationship with anybody, uh other than my relationship with these players and being their leader.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Okay, so the reason that I play that is like, I mean, the question's like, hey, what's your relationship with the guy like? And that that can be a pretty easy answer of like, hey, we have a great relationship, nothing to see here, we're fine, he's great, and just move right along. But it wasn't, it was, hey guys, you know me, I'm easy to get along with. It was you know, there's a little bit of avoidance there. There was a little bit of avoidance there. I don't I pay attention to this. Pay attention to this. That's all I'm gonna say about it. I'm not I don't think it's like a five-alarm fire yet, but Kalani made a big decision this offseason to stay with BYU, presumably and reportedly, with some expectations of what was going to happen from a resource standpoint. And here we are before the season has even kicked off, right? Before the next season has even kicked off. That was December. We're in August, it's eight months later, and we're getting quotes like this coming out while BYU is making uh a fairly drastic move there to go hire a deputy athletic director. Maybe that was the plan the whole time, but it it certainly comes across that way to me right now. So uh hold on to your butts, I suppose. Um, Kim now Kim asked the question. Kim, I wanted to pick this out because I saw this. Kim says, didn't BYU have the biggest payroll in basketball NIL in the Big 12 and one of the biggest in the country? Well, but look, they had AJ DeBonsta playing hoops for him last year, but this has been a part of the narrative surrounding Santiago and BYU. Brian Santiago has been the basketball liaison for a long time. Within the athletic department, like you'll have certain sports admins. I keep saying liaison, admin. He's been the basketball admin for a while, acts basically as a liaison between that program and the athletic department. He's been a basketball guy. And that's been the, I guess if you want to say like the rumor, is that he's been way more into funding basketball and making sure they are happy than football for whatever reason. Now, again, I'm stressing rumors. I have no knowledge of that, but because that is his background, that's been one of the rumor narratives about the situation. So I will at least point that out. Uh BYU fans, if you want something a little more comforting here, let's how about how about Bear Bachmeyer? Getting brutally honest about his true freshman season at BYU. Click here to watch that. That's for everybody watching the clip version. Those of you who are hanging out live, just continue to hang out. We got a fun show. I'm excited for this one. Fired up. We've got good stuff to get to. I've got the Big 12 best case scenario for the season, and um a couple of things that Joey McGuire said that really caught some flack and attention. I don't think it deserved as much flack, and one of the quotes deserved more attention. So that's what we are going to talk about. Add Texas AM to the list of schools that will not play Texas Tech. Why won't anyone schedule the Red Raiders? Is this is Texas Tech getting blackballed right now by college football that nobody will play them? Critics will tell you it's because of the Brendan Soresby saga or like Tech's general attitude. I don't actually think it's either of those things. All right. And I will tell you exactly what I think is going on here. As is typical, it's not as black and white as most would make it out to be. But Texas Tech has had some bad luck. Look, AM's the latest on here to come up because Joey Maguire gave that in a story to uh to Brett McMurphy. But man, there's been some rough luck for Texas Tech here. Like it, regardless of what you think about tech, Mississippi State dropped to 28 and 29, 2028, 2029 home and home within the last year. NC State bailed on a game in 2027. So that leaves Texas Tech without a Power 4 game on its non-conference schedule for the next four years. They have a three-game series scheduled with Arkansas way off in the future. They do have a game scheduled with Oregon coming up in the future. So it's not totally devoid, but the next four years, like tech is over. That's including this year. This year and the next three, tech does not have a P4 opponent. They're taking a bunch of heat for their schedule. That is not tech's fault. You see, teams are bailing. Nobody wants to play them. Of course, if you've been following along here, there's been a lot going on with Texas Tech's schedule this summer. Joey Maguire and Tech got called out by Steve Sarkeesian, thinking that his twos and threes uh could win the league with Joey Maguire's schedule. So Joey fired back and said, well, they can come to Lubbock in week one and figure out if their twos and threes can win this conference. He did the anytime, anywhere, spot the ball. Come play us. Come play us. The gauntlet was thrown down. Of course, Texas did not bite on that. Somewhat understandably, they have Ohio State. Yes, we get it. Then came USC. So then Texas Tech's working on getting USC, working on a two-game series there. And Joey McGuire told Brett McMurphy in the article that came out this week. They talked about neutral sight games with USC, doing a neutral, neutral. But then the Trojans wanted an extra return trip to LA. So they wanted to try and one up Texas Tech and say, yeah, we'll play you, but we're doing neutral, neutral, you come to us, which I guess USC is probably looking at it like we've got more leverage. It will be easier for us to find a game if we need one than it will be for them because of their schedule conundrum. But like, I mean, dog, you can't Texas Tech, I understand why you wouldn't agree to that. I totally understand why you wouldn't agree to that. Tech certainly is going to fancy itself not at a level where it needs to subvert to do that, right? Like, that's even more so than the logistics of playing the games, that's almost a respect thing more than anything else. Easiest way to describe that. Now Texas AM is added to the list too. Uh apparently a neutral site game, according to Joey Maguire, a neutral site game was discussed between Texas Tech and Texas AM. Could have been played in Houston, could have been played next year. And can you freaking imagine? Can you imagine that game? That would do a massive number on TV. I'm sure, look, ESPN's a TV partner of both the Big 12 and the SEC. I bet ESPN would salivate over a game like that, especially after the offseason that Tech had and the interest that that generated. Man, I'm sure they desperately would want tech and AM to play. They're not going to get it. Texas AM, in the end, did not want to do that, according to Joey McGuire. But I guess at least they talked. That sure seems like it got further than anything with Texas ever has, if you're just judging by the way it was reported in Brett McMurphy's story. So is everyone just scared of the Texas Tech smoke? Like, what is going on here? Is this truly a black ball situation? Please do subscribe to the channel if you watch, but don't subscribe. Helps me a lot if you do, and plenty of you are in that boat. I I do think Brendan Soresby, Texas Tech, the general attitude of the program may be sprinkled in there, but that is not the reason that these games are not getting scheduled right now. Okay. Lots of these things are a teeny little part of the equation. A teeny little part of the equation. But Texas Tech really is in a tweener spot right now that I think it makes it tough to schedule. Because look, games like Mississippi State and NC State, it's pretty easy to see why they would drop those because when those were scheduled, they viewed Texas Tech as a peer program. And at the time, tech was a peer program to an NC state or a Mississippi State. But tech has ascended quickly. This is an era of college football. Where you can ascend really quickly. And tech has. And so now if you're Mississippi State, you're looking at this game like, wait, whoa, wait, hold up, hold up. Well, that's not fun. We don't want to deal with that anymore. That's we don't need to be adding another college football playoff team to our schedule. Yes, of course, the SEC's gone to a nine-game conference schedule, and that's going to be a part of this. But it's also like, man, we play in the SEC. We're going to see enough playoff caliber teams. We don't need another one in our non-con in Texas Tech. We thought this was going to be, you know, a 7-5 Big 12 program. That's not what we're getting anymore. NC State, like, they don't have the excuse of uh an SEC nine-game conference schedule, anyway, to play to be their excuse for that. Looks much more like, hey, like we just, that's that's not what we were counting on. Now, NC State in 2027 also does have K-State on its schedule. So they do have another Power 4 game, and this could have been a matter of, hey, when the K-State thing first got scheduled, like, ah, we're fine with playing a couple P4s that year if it's K-State and Texas Tech. But now that Texas Tech is Texas Tech, you're like, wait, wait, wait, hold up. Hold up, hold up. We don't want this. Texas Tech is in between being when I called them a tweener earlier. They are in between being not a power and a power. And so if you're like established power, there's value in a lot of programs playing you because, hey, if we lose, we were supposed to lose. It's okay. We get to go take our shot. We know it'll help our strength of schedule. If it's not a power, then you're like, well, okay, we can go play the game. We should be able to win it. It will be okay for our strength of schedule. It's not going to kill us. Let's go do that. But if it's in between, like you're in the process of becoming that power, there's still this idea that like you shouldn't lose the game, particularly for the end states, right? Texas and Texas AM. It's like, I do get it. I get where they're coming from. It's it's a no-win, man. You elevated above Texas Tech in terms of conference structure. If you lose that game, there will be hell to pay. You'll take all sorts of crap from your fan base and all that. And if you win, everyone will be like, well, yeah, you should win. You're in the SEC. But even this tweener area applies to others where it's like, yeah, we'll go play Texas Tech, but lots of people are going to view this like you probably still should win this. They're a Big 12 team. They're new to the, they've just had this one conference championship. It's not enough value there as like a brand that's been there for decades, like these other teams we're talking about, Notre Dame, USC, Texas. That'd be a different deal if you went and played them. So the real problem is that and just the logistics of the sport right now that tech is dealing with. Let's call it like it is. Yeah, the SEC has gone to a nine-game conference schedule. The SEC is also like deathly afraid of the college football playoff selection committee. For some baffling reason, after the SEC has received more playoff bids than any other league in the 12-team era, they are still bafflingly terrified of the selection committee. So they're just not going to go schedule a game against Texas Tech right now. And many teams already have their P5 locked in, the P4 rather, locked in. And if you go down and look at some of these teams, like Texas AM already has at Arizona State next year. Now, I would imagine if they were to play Tech, that Arizona State game might have gotten kicked to the curb. And that's what they would have done is replace that. Texas has Ohio State this year. I mentioned that, so it was unlikely that they would ever play tech. Not that they would have anyway. And then NC State has K-State. So like that's a part of it. Nine game schedule is a part of it. Tech being a tweener is a part of it. Maybe Brendan Soresby is just like a little the sprinkles on top, right? But we know that Texas Tech was pretty deep into discussions with USC. I mean, that's been well established and reported by this point. And we know that there are at least some level of conversations going on with Texas AM. Like, I don't think if your idea is that everybody is blackballing them because they tried to play Brendan Soresby or were supporting him for a little while, you would have had these schools like in conversations with them. So I would, I don't think, you know, I'm sure it doesn't like help, but we're long past that. That was months ago. I don't think that that truly had anything to do here. So what does tech do? What are you to do? No power four games on the schedule for the next four years. When you scheduled Oregon State at one point when they were a power four, and now they're not, and then Mississippi State and NC State bailed on three games that you had on the schedule. Now they're gone. You're trying to get a big boy when you're taking a bunch, a bunch of smack from everybody across the country for not having tough enough schedule, and you can't be a team that belongs in the playoff if you're not playing it. You tried USC, you tried Notre Dame, you're trying Texas. Like, what do we do? Well, Notre Dame is possible. Okay, that was reported by Brett McMurphy. If Notre Dame winds up having its series with Texas canceled in 2028 and 2029, which could happen. That could happen, then that's an option. Notre Dame is another school that's in a similar spot to Texas Tech, always taking heat for its schedule. And they're an independent, so like they need to go find games. They don't have as much luxury to be passing on stuff like this. So that would actually make a lot of sense if Tech were to go play Notre Dame. Virginia was reported as a possibility in the article. I did go look up Virginia's future schedules. It certainly looks like they need games, but Virginia may be eyeing that. Like, is that the game we need? Do we need to go that hard? I mean, Virginia won 11 games last year. Like, respect. Respect, Tony Elliott. That's not meant as disrespect. But it's it's enough, I'm sure, for them to consider. Like, is this this what we really want to do? Uh, the other thing, playoff expansion would help a lot. And I mean, this was discussion point yesterday because there was all the powers that be met about the playoff format this week. And ESPN's 20-team playoff got shot down, but they're still talking about 16 or 24. If you did get to a 24 team playoff, I think that would help tech a lot. I think it would help tech a lot. I would hope people would be schools would be much more open to scheduling tougher non-conference games. Uh, so that's I guess what you should be pulling for if you're really, really wanting to see it. Uh, this has been tough for tech. They're trying to hustle their way into some games, but there is one way that tech is out hustling the rest of college football. Click here to find out what it is. That's for everybody watching the clipped version. If you're hanging out live, just continue to hang out. I appreciate you all. Thank you for being here tonight. I'm not done yet with this Brent McMurphy article because there was one other thing that Joey McGuire said that really piqued many people's interest, not as much mine, and I was frankly surprised to see the reaction. I do want to give a quick shout-out, by the way, to everybody listening on the audio platforms, Spotify, Apple. You can get this as a podcast, wherever it is that you do listen to your podcast. So thank you, everybody, there. If you leave a review, like, subscribe, all of those good things. It is very helpful. Is Texas Tech the most hated team in college football? Because that's what Joey McGuire said to Brett McMurphy, and it's it's generated a lot of pushback. And like, I get why he says it. I mean, he is right in one way at the very least. Okay. Now, to me, the scheduling stuff was way more interesting that he talked about there with Notre Dame and Virginia, and particularly Texas AM, and thinking about the possibility of a game with Texas AM that unfortunately is not going to happen. That's way more interesting to me than Joey Maguire saying this. But this is the quote that's been everywhere from McMurphy's article is quote, We're the most hated team in college football, Maguire told the Red Raiders in a team meeting this spring, and I absolutely love it. Now, this quote is realize in the middle of this, I said Maguire told the Red Raiders in a team meeting this spring. That's when he said we're the most hated team in college football, and I absolutely love it. Do we all remember what was happening this spring? Can we just let's establish this as the ground rule of the discussion before we get there? Yeah, in May and June, Texas Tech was the most hated team in college football for like two months. Now, I understand the argument if you're gonna say not right now, not in perpetuity, but in May and June, when the Brendan Source Besaga was happening and Texas Tech was sticking up for them or for him and his ability to play, and there was look, sticking up for him is not really the problem. It was advocating through your actions for him to be able to play or only miss two games. That's what was catching all the heat, combined with some ill-advised comments by not even just Joey Maguire, but Cody Campbell. The 20-minute video, right? We all remember that whole thing. I mean, how could you not feel like that? That was a reasonable thing to say in the spring, and it's a reasonable thing to say in a team meeting, okay? If you're firing up your team, that's a good way to do it. Coaches manufacture that one all the time. And that is something. Shout out to my guy Ty Hildenbrandt from the Solid Verbal College Football Podcast, which you absolutely should be listening to if you're not. He did preface his tweet about this with that, but uh Ty said, Well, let me let me pull it up for you. I was supposed to have this all ready to go, and I I did not. I apologize. But Ty had a tweet about this where he prefaced it by saying, Look, I know coaches try to do this. Like, I know this is something that you gotta say for the boys in the locker room, but here is what Ty had to say. Coaches say what they gotta say to fire up the boys, but tech might not be in the top 25 of hateable FBS teams. Now, that's too strong for me. I understand what he's getting at here because there are LSU, Lane Kiffin, Notre Dame, Texas, Ohio State, there are a lot of schools that have been hated for a long time. Alabama, by the way, a lot of schools have been hated for a long time, more than Texas Tech, right? So if we are doing this from uh the standpoint of like who is who's been the most hated in perpetuity, even if you want to say who's the most right now, but you gotta remember when those comments were made. They were made in the spring. They were made in the spring, and in the spring, that made a lot of sense. I think if you were doing a power ranking right now, most hated teams like Lane Kiffin and LSU has to be number one. And then you just have like Notre Dame and Texas, probably to me, even above Ohio State. It's like Notre Dame and Texas. I would think universally the two most hated after that in college football. Notre Dame, maybe that's being too old school of me, but certainly growing up, it felt like that. I also understand pushback being like, how can Texas Tech be the most hated team in college football if their head coach is Joey McGuire, who's the nicest guy that you will ever meet? Incredibly nice guy. He's loved across the college football world. Dion loves him, Kalani loves him, Eric Morris loves him. Like I'm just being Sark and his Sark and he made up, right? Like they took shots at each other and then Kiston made up, right? It seems like Sark likes Joey Maguire. Like he's a he's a pretty likable guy. So it's hard to be the most hated team when like the face of the program as the the head coach is like that. Though here's a part of the problem. If I wanted to push back on that and argue against myself and Ty, perhaps there again, too. It's is Joey Maguire the face of the program? Because the face of the program is really Cody Campbell. I think to a lot of people, it's Cody Campbell. And he's a much more polarizing figure for a whole host of reasons that I think are very obvious. But I will just reiterate, it was not unreasonable in the spring to say tech is the most hated team in college football. And if Brendan Soresby were actually playing still for the Red Raiders, I think that statement would definitely be true. I mean, I think that's like slam dunk home run, of course. Yeah, most hated in college football. I mean, we're playing the guy that bet on his own team 40 times. So they were headed smack dab toward that. And I don't remember, I don't know specifically when that comment was made. It could have been when Soresby was still with the team. And if that's the case, hey man, it's a really unique situation. Like honestly, the situation Tech was in in May and June, I would say that only Lane Kiffin and LSU, of any of those teams on that list, only Lane Kiffin and LSU have really experienced something like that. Because I would call it like an unprecedented situation with Soresby, but the only thing I've seen as far as like media attention and just a circus that was like that is Lane Kiffin leaving Ole Miss in the playoff to go to LSU and the will he won't he and all of that, right? Like that, it's the only thing I can think of that was similar. So if LSU wants to say, hey, yeah, we we were right there too, okay, fine. They'll be the most hated team in college football. Like the biggest, the biggest regular season buildup and hype for a game this year is going to be LSU will miss. Uh, I think that's all that's all very clear. They also have, I mean, the teams that everybody would put above them on the most hated list, these are these are programs that have had decades and decades and decades of hatred built up against them. For Texas Tech, it's been hot and fast. Tech is new money in many ways, but they are new money in terms of being hated. This has all really come up in the last like 365 days. How many people were hating on Texas Tech 365 days ago? Not very many. I guess the portal stuff with that number one portal class has maybe cropped up some of that, but not very many hating that much on tech. Two years ago, right? Take it, what, 720, whatever it is. Two years ago, no one's hating on tech. No one's no one's hating on Texas Tech. This has all come very, very quickly. So yeah, just I would say cut Joey Maguire some slack on that comment. Texas Tech is really hated within its conference. They were very hated in May and June by everybody, and those comments came in the spring. And had Brendan Soresby actually played Joey Maguire might still be right if he said it today. Thankfully, for all of us, that that did not happen. That did not happen, okay? Now, why won't anybody play Texas Tech? Click here to find out. That's for everybody watching the clip version. Those of you hanging out live, just keep on keeping on. Uh, I will get to some comments at the end of the show. If you want to leave a super chat, you can click the dollar sign below the chat box to do that, and I will get to it at the end of this show. I want to focus in on the college football playoff for a moment. And let's talk best case scenarios. I want to start going through over the next couple of weeks the best case scenarios for each conference across college football. So when I say playoff, it's not even just playoff, it's everything. Everything that can happen throughout the season. And being that this is a a channel with Big 12 roots, we are going to start with the Big 12 for this. So can the Big 12 legitimately get two teams into the college football playoff? We'll start with that question because if you're talking about a best case scenario for the Big 12 this year, that's where the conversation has to start. Absolutely 100%. And that is what we're breaking down in this video is what is the best case scenario season for the league? Now, a couple of things to outline here. When I say best case scenario, I'm thinking in a halfway realistic world, right? Like this list that I'm gonna give you, everything happening on it, would be pretty unrealistic, but it's not completely, completely wild. Like, I'm not gonna sit here and say, hey, best case scenario for the Big 12 would be to get five teams in the playoff and you know, match what the SEC has done in the playoff. I don't think that that is a realistic thing to discuss, right? But these are all plausible things that can happen. It would just be tough to have everything happen in succession like this. First and foremost, two playoff teams. Flirted with it, certainly with BYU each of the last two years. Didn't quite happen, unfortunately. Get two playoff teams in. Is it Texas Tech BYU? Is it Houston making a real charge? Is it Utah blowing up with Morgan Scalley and a huge leap from Devin Dampier in year two? And Utah finally finding its run defense again, which escaped it last year. Whatever combination you want to put together. Is it K-State rolling through an easy schedule and Cullen Klein unlocking Avery Johnson? Like whatever your combination is, two playoff teams would be what needs to happen. And then on top of that, bullet point number two that I have jotted down here is I have it as tech or BYU need to go deeper than Miami in the playoff. Now, that is because as I view it right now, those would be the only two teams I think have the legitimate opportunity to do it from the league, but would be happy to be proven wrong. Remember Arizona State two years ago. I certainly would not have said that they would be damn near into the semifinal of the playoff. But the ACC comp is a natural one, and there have been some articles written about that over the last year, comparing the Big 12 unfavorably to the ACC. And a lot of that is because like Miami's run last year made a run to the national championship game combined with no more lawsuits in the ACC. So it had settled down and it was like, hey, all right, I guess the ACC is not going to immediately lose all of its big brands. Now, yes, we have this uh Senate bill amendment. I'm not even gonna go down that road. It's nice to not talk Senate bill for a nice night. Yes, if the amendment happened, maybe that all changes. But for right now, it's like settled into well, the ACC is gonna keep Miami, Florida State, Clemson, et cetera, for now. So they're a better league, they've got the better brands, and Miami went deep in the playoff, and Texas Tech got smacked and shut out. Big 12 would like somebody to advance deeper into the playoff than Miami. To help that, I would say wish list number three here for your best case scenario. Will Hammond is the real deal. Will Hammond's got to be the real deal. Everything out of Lubbock right now sounds like he's going to play week one. I mean, it really seems like he's healthy and rearing and ready to go. And that's a great thing. We've seen the high high from him. We've seen that Utah game. Lord knows I saw it. You guys are aware of that. If you followed the channel last year, we know that the upside is there. If he can hit it consistently, that should absolutely play into the best case scenario for the Big 12. And related, BYU's question mark is not at quarterback. It's who's going to catch the ball being thrown by said quarterback Bear Bachmeyer. And so I've actually got on my wish list here. I put BYU's Kyler Casper is the real deal. It could be JoJo Phillips. Like somebody needs to step up at receiver and become a go-to target because I don't think you can understate losing your top three pass catchers, especially, I mean, man, Chase Roberts and Parker Kingston were just so damn reliable for a long time in their careers. That is not an easy thing to absorb that loss. And if BYU is going to come close to hitting its potential, you're going to need a pass catcher or two to really, really step up. I would continue on here, and this is where let me do this one first. Best case scenario for the Big 12. You probably have forgotten about him. There's very little talk nationwide or conference-wide, probably more so conference-wide. Very little talk about this guy. Do you guys remember who coaches the Colorado Buffalo? His name is Deion Sanders or Coach Prime. I'm saying Colorado has a resurgence and wins eight plus games. That would be on the Big 12's wish list because, man, the Colorado talk has died down. Like there is not nearly as much of that as there was just a short couple of years ago when Travis Hunter was winning the Heisman and Shador Sanders was leading the team to nine wins. Much better team, a lot more discussion, falling off a cliff in terms of the media attention. And so Dion's good for business. Okay, right? This is open for business. You're more open for business as a conference if Deion Sanders is winning games and people are going to pay attention more. And there's a draw and a national built in audience for him because of that. Them being a good and relevant program is good for the league. I know a lot of people wouldn't necessarily like that, but it is good for the league. I think that much is. Is very, very clear. Now I'll stop here and I'm gonna say like two of these next four things that I'm going to list off need to happen. And that's where I would cap the best case scenario list at because I don't think all of these things could happen, right? If I'm saying two playoff teams, tech is really good, BYU's really good, Colorado's really good, and now I'm about to give you Oklahoma State, Utah, K State, and Iowa State all meet or exceed expectations. I don't think like all of those teams can do. I don't the math doesn't math on that. The math ain't mathing. I don't think everybody can do that there. But I would say two of these need to happen. Oklahoma State wins nine games because to me, that I mean, that's a program that should be one of the tent poles of the league. And we thought it was going to be when the new Big 12 formed. Oklahoma State played Texas in that last Big 12 championship game before Texas left. They had turned it around. They still had a legendary coach. Two winless Big 12 seasons later. You can't have Oklahoma State wallowing like that. You can't, you can't have that. Eric Morris needs to lift this program back up from the dead. I think he will. Will it be to the tune of nine games? That's where I'm setting the bar on like highest realistic possibility to me for the Pokes. The K-State, Utah, and Iowa State distinction comes from those are three new coaches this year, replacing three very good legendary coaches at their schools. Although, I I'll I will give Chris Kleiman that. He deserves that. Following up Bill Snyder, doing the job that he did, winning a Big 12 championship. You combine that with Matt Campbell leaving Iowa State, undoubtedly a legend there. Kyle Whittingham leaving Utah, undoubtedly a legend there. Guys that have just been stalwarts. And even though some of that for Whittingham was not in the Big 12, like those were grade A, great coaches that are now gone. So you want to see that these programs can continue on without them. That's got to be on the wish list of best case scenario this year. Is that as many of those schools as possible can regroup and regroup in a big way. Now, Iowa State exceeding expectations. Maybe that does just mean like seven and five versus K-State and Utah. If they're going to do that, that's probably taking 10 wins. So if we're just using the, I think K-State and Utah are both at eight and a half on the Vegas overunder. So nine at the very, very least. Iowa State could maybe happen and you get three of these and still hit because if they're just winning, it just have less games to win for that to happen to exceed expectations. But that's the wish list to me if you're looking for a best case scenario for the Big 12, if that's what you're hoping for. We'll get to some of the other conferences uh later on this week in the show. But thank you all for being here. Let's see. Uh what's here in the chat? Just just you guys just talking about Texas and beating dead horses. Uh okay, man. It looks, I see. Red already yet, Joey is dubbed a villain by the haters. It is interesting. I feel like anybody that hates Joey Maguire has not met Joey Maguire. And I'm not claiming to like know him deeply at all, but I have interviewed him a few times. Just sincerely a very nice guy. He maybe just like watch how he acts and how he is respected and revered by others. I yeah, it's it's not weird because I know it's college football and I know how fan bases act and operate. I know, I know how the game goes. Okay, so I know how somebody really nice and sincere could be could be hated because people get you know really irrational and you're thinking about stuff that happens on the field and all that, yada yada. But yeah, it is interesting because I I he is not the villainous figure. I think even if you're somebody that doesn't like Texas Tech and what's happening at Texas Tech, Joey's not your villainous figure there. Okay. Um, so I'm with you on that, Rederator. Uh let's see. Anybody else? Anybody else before me? Nope. Okay. All right. Well, uh, I'm gonna go ahead and uh wind it down. Thank you all for being here tonight. Thank you for those of you listening on the audio platforms. If you want to check out the YouTube live shows Sunday nights for sure, around eight o'clock, you get a Wednesday or Thursday for the midweek show as well. If you want to tune in on YouTube, if you subscribe to the channel and click the bell, you'll get a notification when I go live so you won't miss anything. You'll be able to uh to hang out with everybody in the live chat. Kim says, thanks. You're welcome, Kim. Thank you for being here. I appreciate your support as always. Uh, okay. Thank you all. I will talk to you very soon. We'll see you on Sunday. Enjoy the rest of your week.