The Ultimate Big 12 Season Preview: 5 Bold Predictions for 2026

The Ultimate Big 12 Season Preview is here with five bold predictions for the 2026 college football season. Can the Big 12 finally win a College Football Playoff game? Which contender has the best path to a breakthrough? Is Arizona the most overlooked team in the conference? And which team projected in the bottom half could shock everyone?

We’ll break down Texas Tech, BYU, Arizona State, Houston, Arizona, TCU, Kansas State, Utah, Oklahoma State, Iowa State, Colorado, Kansas, West Virginia, UCF, Baylor, Cincinnati and more as we preview the biggest storylines across the Big 12.

Plus, we’ll discuss the latest on Kalani Sitake and BYU, including a potential nightmare scenario Cougar fans should be watching; build the absolute best- and worst-case scenarios for the Big Ten in 2026; and explain why Ryan Day may once again be making Michigan too important for Ohio State.

Also: Arizona State’s new throwback uniforms honoring the 1986 Rose Bowl team.

**Topics include:**

* 5 bold Big 12 predictions for 2026
* Can the Big 12 win a CFP game?
* Texas Tech, BYU and Arizona State’s playoff paths
* The Big 12’s biggest nonconference opportunities
* Why Arizona may be the league’s most overlooked team
* Which new Big 12 head coach breaks through?
* The Big 12 sleeper nobody sees coming
* Latest Kalani Sitake/BYU situation
* Big Ten best-case and nightmare scenarios
* Oregon, Ohio State, Indiana, Michigan, Penn State and USC
* Ryan Day, Ohio State and the Michigan rivalry

Transcript

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I've got five bold predictions for the Big 12 for you this year, ladies and gentlemen. I think the Big 12 can take a step forward. I'm going to tell you exactly how today. I hope that Kalani Sataki does not continue to be a distraction. And if you're a BYU fan right now, I'm sure you're screaming at me, hey, it's not him that's the distraction. You are correct, kind of, but we'll talk about that. There's another update to the Sataki situation that's been brewing at BYU. And I want to get to it. Dick Harmon wrote a great column in the Deseret News. And we actually had a great user submission of a nightmare scenario for BYU. Speaking of nightmare scenarios, what's the nightmare scenario for the Big Ten this year? Continuing to trek through each conference, each power four league, that is. What's the best case, worst case scenario? I'll tell you what it is for the Big Ten. And Ryan Day, love him or hate him, has some very pointed thoughts about the Ohio State Michigan rivalry that I think are fascinating as it applies to rivalries across college sports. That's the rundown today. It is open for business. I am your host, John Kurtz. Thank you for joining me. Please do like and subscribe as you file in tonight. Or if you're listening on the audio platforms, we love you as well. Thank you for doing so on Spotify, Apple, wherever you get your podcasts, you can continue to listen there, rate and review. All that is very helpful. Those of you in the live chat tonight, keep it lively, keep it coming, try to keep it respectful. Uh Fongway and Bracket Cat, thank you for being here very early. You can submit a super chat, click the dollar sign below the chat box to do that, and I will get to those at the end of the show. And you can subscribe to the Open for Business Big 12 newsletter at OFBnews.com if you are a Big 12 fan. But I've got a ton to cover tonight. I'm not going to waste a whole lot of time. Let's just get right into it, folks. Look, I think the Big 12 takes a real step forward this year. And that means winning a playoff game. It means stealing one of the huge non-conference games that the league has coming up. And it means one team from the bottom half of the league crashing the top half of the league standings in typical Big 12 fashion. So here are my top five bold predictions for the Big 12 this year. Number one, it is the obvious, it is the most important. It is the Big 12 is going to win a playoff game this season. Nothing more important for this league to do than win a playoff game. That is the ultimate currency in college football these days, is winning in the playoff. The Big 12 has not done it in this new era. Came painstakingly close with Arizona State. Texas Tech got absolutely slapped around last year by Oregon. Now, for this to happen, the obvious path here, and this is where it's a bit of a caveat to the statement I'm making, but is it's a winning a 5'12 game, right? If you win a 5'12, you're likely playing a group of five opponent. This is the Oregon James Madison slot from last year, which could have easily been Texas Tech, but there was too much respect for the Red Raiders from the selection committee, which felt great at the time. Didn't work out so well in practice. A 5'12 spot could definitely still happen for the league. It will depend on how much the perception of the Big 12 has taken a hit because of Texas Tech's loss last year. But look, I think Tech is going to still win the league. They would be my pick to win the Big 12. I think Will Hammond is still a very good quarterback with a high ceiling. The floor will be lower than it was last year with Barron Morton. And I'm sure there will be some up and down performances. But I think his up is certainly good enough to win playoff games. And against the schedule that Tech has good enough to get them to the number five spot in the playoffs, right? In the final playoff rankings. But if they go unbeaten, which is very possible, they could definitely be number five there. BYU might actually have a better shot to be fifth in the playoff rankings when it comes to it with one loss. And that's because of the game that they have against Notre Dame. Right? If BYU were to slip up and lose to Arizona or TCU early in the year, which I think are a couple of tough games in the first half of the schedule, but they come back and beat Notre Dame, they beat unbeaten Texas Tech in a Big 12 championship game. Man, Notre Dame's going to be a top five win if that were to happen, then. That could provide BYU a real path to get there and host a G5 college football playoff game, which would be amazing. That atmosphere in Provo would be great. A wild card here for a team that could play its way into the number five spot. How about Arizona State? Now, I know that seems a bit crazy. There's not a ton of juice for the Sun Devils, at least in terms of being in the top 25 right now, but who has more upside on its schedule in the Big 12 than ASU? The answer is nobody. So, like if Arizona State rips off an unbeaten regular season, they would have wins against number eight, number 12, and number 15 right now in the coaches poll because they've got road trips to Texas AM in the non-con and then BYU and Texas Tech in uh the Big 12 slate. So if Arizona State pulls that off, I again I don't know that they're getting higher than number five, because if you start looking at SEC schedules or Big Ten schedules, you're gonna have some teams, you know, go look at like who Ohio State plays this year. Even if they have one loss, they're gonna have some big time wins on their resume too. And I still think the the league took enough of a perception hit last year that it's it would take some really extenuating circumstances for the league to jump into that top four. But number five, very doable. Houston, a team that I love. You guys know I'm high on Houston this year. Probably has to go undefeated to have any shot at this, I would imagine. Uh, you have a game at Texas Tech, could get tech again in the Big 12 championship game. That's probably what it would take, I would think, for Houston to get there. But that's why I'm I'm pushing the path as get to the number five seed so that you can host a G five team, win a playoff game that way. That's some currency. That's some currency. Okay. I know it's not everything, and you would need to win the next game for it to really truly matter for this league, but a nice step would at least be winning a playoff game against a G five opponent by getting to host that game and getting to the number five spot. Uh bold prediction number two. The Big 12 will win one of its three huge non-conference games. And I would actually frame it as steal, one of its three huge non-conference games, because no one is going to be expecting this. And this is of all the stuff I'm about to tell you tonight, this is definitely the boldest. Even then the Big 12 wins, more so than the Big 12 wins a playoff game because 5'12, you could see that happening. Three huge non-conference games for the Big 12 this year. Arizona State's at Texas AM. We already talked about that. Number eight, Texas A.M. That's week two. It's at 11 a.m. AM's a 14 and a half point favorite. Number two, Oregon is at Oklahoma State, 11 a.m. week two. Oregon, 18.5 point favorite in that one. And then October 17th, later into the year, number five, Notre Dame at BYU. Notre Dame, a 10-point favorite. There is already a line on that game, which tells you how big it is. Significant game, being that deep into the season. We've already got a betting line on that. Notre Dame minus 10. Big 12 does not get chances against opponents like this very often. I'm sure many of you who watch the show are tired of hearing me say that, but it's been a very obvious pattern to pick up on with Alabama dropping Oklahoma State, with LSU dropping Arizona State, with USC backing out of talks with a series against Texas Tech. It's really difficult for the league to get non-con games like this. The opportunities are going to get less unless the playoff expands to 24. So you need to take advantage. And I'm pushing my chips into the middle of the table here. And you can see I include the lines here, so you can see how bold of a prediction this is. You're talking about two teams that are over two touchdown underdogs and another one that's a 10-point home dog right now in BYU. The importance of this is not, you will get some level of respect for winning the game in the regular season, no matter who it is in one of these three games. It will help. It's not going to help as much as winning a playoff game. But what it can do is build you some capital for the playoff, right? You can take this and cash it in for the playoff. Remember, I talked about BYU earlier. If you slip up early, lose a tricky game to Arizona, but you come back and beat Notre Dame, suddenly you've got way more chips that you can play to get yourself into the playoff. And that's ultimately what the league needs. So these are really important. Now, which game is the most important of the three? I would still lean toward BYU because I think it's the best combo of a team that could win and then actually use that to help it vault into the playoff. But you could argue for Oklahoma State beating Oregon because what does it say if Oregon, who is a trendy national championship pick this year, and many people would tell you has the most talented roster in the country, what does it say if they come and lose to Oklahoma State, who has gone back-to-back years without winning a single Big 12 conference game? That would turn some heads, my friends. And Drew Mestamaker and Oklahoma State have been a popular trendy pick to be in the top 25 to potentially push for a Big 12 championship game appearance. That would propel that narrative forward with a giant rocket on its back. Arizona State, I would say, is third, and a lot of that is just because it's tougher to see with ASU breaking in a new quarterback, even if they spring the upset there, that they're gonna be able to handle the schedule that they have. They're going to London, right? You have to handle that. You also have the road trips to Tech and BYU. It just seems less likely that they would be there standing at the end of the year to cash it in for a playoff appearance. But if Cutter Bully is that guy at quarterback, if he's a dude, Marcus Arroyo and Kenny Dillingham have been great working with QBs. If he's that guy, he's got great receivers to throw to. I've been hearing a lot of great things about what Arizona State feels about its roster and how talented they look in fall camp right now. So maybe I'm underestimating them. Speaking of underestimating, bold prediction number three, Arizona's the most overlooked team in the league right now. And I say this to myself because I've been pretty stern on the top tier of the league is Texas Tech, BYU, and Houston. And I have not given Arizona a lot of consideration there. And then it's like, I'm sitting here like, dude, nobody seems to be. Utah is the other team out of that three I mentioned that gets top 25 love right now. Arizona, I've not seen in very many there, and it's the team bringing back the best quarterback with the same coach and the entire same coaching staff, and yet nobody is really considering them for the top four. After winning nine games last year, by the way. I feel like that deserves more respect than it is getting. Okay. I think some of this is happening because we just don't trust Brent Brennan yet. That first year was uh so disastrous. I think last year they were four and three midseason, so they were not on anybody's radar and had just a late season surge, somewhat reminiscent of like what Arizona State did a couple of years ago, where nobody was talking about them at all because they lost a couple games early, and then they just ripped off win after win at the end of the year and burst onto the scene there. The other thing is the obvious if you study their roster is like they lost four studs in the secondary who got drafted. They're gonna be relying heavily on some transfers, especially like Malcolm Hartzog, the kid from Nebraska. And I think the defense will still determine the team's ceiling. And that would be my question mark and why I haven't really plugged them into the top tier of the league. But uh that's one that I worry could make me and everybody else look silly by the end of the year. TCU, honorable mention here, okay? Sneaky, sneaky, intriguing storyline to watch this year is UConn offensive coordinator Gordon Samus being added to uh to TCU's coaching staff. He's gonna try and run the ball. They're gonna try and run the ball, finally making concerted effort to do that. They have Jaden Craig from Harvard. We'll see. Is he is he gonna channel Ryan Fitzpatrick and be a great QB out of Harvard? I don't know. We'll see how it translates to the Big 12, but they're at least making an attempt to be a more balanced team, which I think could help a ton. All right, so there's three of the five bold predictions. Please do make sure and subscribe if you have not to the channel. It's one click, it's very easy. Ton of you watch, but don't subscribe. Very helpful if you do subscribe. Uh, number four, bold prediction number four. One of the new coaches this year will have a breakout debut. And this is another thing that I think the league really needs. We're talking Eric Morris at Oklahoma State, Colin Klein at K-State, Morgan Scalley at Utah, or Jimmy Rogers at Iowa State. And before I tell you the odds of each of these guys having that breakthrough, I do want to set the bar because I think the bar is different for each coach here. Morgan Scalley and Colin Klein, you're seeing the Vegas over-under right now for both of those teams at eight and a half. And based on where those programs have been, I think it's fair to say if it's a breakout debut season, 10 plus wins for one of those guys. Eric Morris, I'm going to say eight plus wins. Eight plus wins. Now, depending on where you look, I've even seen Oklahoma State like as low as like five and a half on the over-under. So maybe that's a bit. Maybe I'm putting the number a little bit too high at eight, but I think if we're talking about breakthrough, like you really you need to make a statement, eight eight wins would do it for Morris. And Jimmy Rogers, I'm going to knock it down to seven at Iowa State just because that roster got so gutted, man. Not that Oklahoma States didn't, but Iowa State didn't replace everything that it lost with one of the top portal quarterbacks, running backs, and wide receivers. More firepower in tow on paper anyway, in Stillwater. The Big 12 needs one of these to hit to prove that you can start the next wave of stud coaches because say what you will about these guys, and you know, Mike Gundy certainly had just sort of checked out on the NIL era. But Kyle Whittingham, Mike Gundy, Chris Klein, and Matt Campbell, that's that's a hell of a loss to absorb in terms of head coaching prowess in one season. I think the the most popular pick here from people would be that it would be Eric Morris to have the breakthrough. I've seen some with Colin Klein, but the Eric Morris stuff is obvious. Drew Mestamaker was a headliner in the portal. Caleb Hawkins, Wyatt Young. That whole offense, the continuity with the staff coming up from North Texas, and the easy parallels to draw to James Madison and what happened at Indiana when Kurt Signetti brought so much of what he did in year one. I will point out, Oklahoma State does have a pretty tough schedule. They've got Texas Tech at home. They go to Houston, two Arizona State, two K-State. They have that Oregon game. So when you're talking about eight plus wins there for a breakthrough, that that schedule will be a hill to climb. K-State and Colin Klein, man, I to me, uh I'm a broken record on this, but it all comes down to can Colin elevate Avery Johnson? It's it's going to be QB1. If Colin's the guy to tap into that and make him much better, and he becomes a force multiplier this year, which I don't think he really has been to this point in his college career, then K-State absolutely could do it because that schedule is incredibly manageable on paper. They miss BYU and Texas Tech, and the non-con is extremely manageable. Tulane and Washington State, basically, is what you need to know about the non-con. I think the defense has enough holes that the offense needs to be really good. So it's it's gonna be on it's gonna be on Avery. You've got Colin Klein calling plays this year and being the CEO as a head coach. New experience could be some growing pains with that. Uh Morgan Scalley, I mean, it would not shock me if Utah won 10 games and was in about the same position that it was in last year. Now they lost a lot. Seven coaches, some of the best talent that they had on that squad. Like I'm not gonna lie, they did lose a lot, and that is enough to give me some pause. But with the two quarterbacks, and you would think, you would think Scalley's gonna figure out a defense. Got to get that run defense better than it was last year, but you would think he could figure that out. Uh Jimmy Rogers, I just don't really know what to think. You know, I mean, there were some key injuries, especially on the defensive side of the ball that Iowa State's had to absorb. The schedule, I mean, they're at Iowa, they're at BYU, they're at Arizona, they play Utah, K-State, Oklahoma State at home. I don't think it's a particularly easy schedule. Um hey, if Jalen Rayner is a stud, if Jalen Rayner is that guy, that could make a world of difference at quarterback. And I'll be honest, I really like a lot of what I've heard from Jimmy Rogers. I think he seems like he could be a real stud at coach, but it may take a couple of years just with how gutted that roster was. So we'll see. But I my prediction would be that one of those guys is going to have the big breakthrough year. And then finally, fifth bold prediction is just someone from the bottom half is going to shock everyone. This is a conference that doesn't really have, I don't think, just a total dreadful team. I think everybody is capable enough. And there are enough teams that are pouring a lot into what they're doing right now and have enough intriguing pieces, whether it's coaches or players, that someone will pop. And this group that I'm talking about in the bottom half is what the perceived bottom half of the conference is. I'm listing off seven teams here. I'm taking Oklahoma State out of this. Obviously, they were in the bottom half last year. I think we can all understand why they would be considered in a different category this year. So somebody out of Colorado, Iowa State, Kansas, UCF, West Virginia, Baylor, Cincinnati. Colorado, a lot of people like their portal class. It seems like they went a little more substance over Flash in that portal class. If that combined with Julian Lewis, former five-star quarterback, is really going to mix together well. Colorado could jump up and uh surprise, especially in a year where the expectations aren't as high. Nobody's talking about them. It's quieter. A lot of times fans love that. You know, chip on your shoulder, no one's talking about us. Maybe playing that card works for Dion and company this year. Kansas, I do think, is intriguing. Was Andy Koldonicki really the secret sauce? Was he what made it work as the offensive coordinator the first couple of years of the Lance Lightpool there? Went to Penn State for two years, now he's back. Can he unlock Dylan Edwards? I'll be the first to tell you he's got a world of talent if you can unlock it. Best of luck doing that, based on what I've seen in his career, but the potential is certainly there. And Cole Ballard is not a sexy name at quarterback, but I have also seen Kotlinicki work magic with him a couple of years ago. He almost beat K-State in 23 with Ballard as a freshman when the top two quarterbacks for Kansas were hurt. So there are enough ingredients to be interesting. The defense, I don't know, but if they can get back to outscoring people, maybe it's Kansas. West Virginia would be a candidate I would really have an eye on here. Year two for Richrod, I think he does still have it as a head coach. I think the rosters become more talented. I think Cam Cook is a butting star and somebody we're not talking about enough right now. And then a lot of this will come down to have they figured out quarterback. Whether it's going to be Scotty Fox or it's going to be Michael Hawkins, like if Michael Hawkins, he seems to fit what Rich Rod wants to do. If that turns into a good fit, that could be there. Alonze Barnett, speaking of fit at quarterback, does that become a force multiplying huge asset for uh for UCF? I think the back end of their defense is really good too. Brutal start to the league schedule, but if they can win a couple of those games, TCU at Houston, at Oklahoma State, BYU, UCF could take a meaningful step forward. Uh, you know, Baylor and Cincinnati, I have a harder time seeing it, but DJ Lagway is a tantalizing talent. And you're hearing a pattern here. Hey, if this quarterback, if this new quarterback, who seems to have a lot of talent or potential, becomes a total dude, then this team, all bets are off for what the ceiling is here. That's that's Lagway at Baylor. I mean, he's last year, sorry to do this to Josh Pate, but last year Josh Pate had him ranked as the number one quarterback in the SEC going into the season. Like that's how highly he was thought of just 365 days ago. So Baylor unlocks the best version of him. I think they will raise the floor of the defense with Joe Klanderman, who's a rock solid coordinator coming in this year to help out. That would be the equation to me for Baylor. Cincinnati, I mean, JC French has upside. They've got a new defensive coordinator coming in from Army who put the clamps down on K-State last year and upset the Wildcats in Manhattan. I don't know. They've started hot each of the last two years. If that can be sustained more, you know, I suppose there's a plausible path there for Cincinnati as well. But uh that's that's where I'm at on the Big 12 right now. I think those five predictions, I think some of those aren't even really that bold. I think someone coming from the bottom half of the league, that group and shocking everybody, I don't think that's that bold with what the Big 12 is uh right now. Frankly, I don't even think it's that bold to say that the league is going to uh to win a playoff game because you could get to the 512. Uh you've got four shots at one of those new coaches having a breakout debut. Uh, I guess the Arizona. I don't even know if that's really a bold prediction. I'm basically calling my shot that Arizona will make me look silly. Uh we'll see. The boldest one is the Big 12 winning one of those three non-con games. For sure. For sure. Uh, one of those is Notre Dame BYU. And it sounds like that series may continue more in the future. Click here to find out more about that. That's for everybody watching the clipped version of it. If you're hanging out here live, just uh ignore that and keep on keeping on, my friends. I appreciate you uh being here tonight. We've got a lot more ground to cover. Do like and subscribe. And uh, if you are new to the channel, you can either watch here on YouTube if you're new to the audio platforms. It's a YouTube live show. I'm live Sunday evenings around seven or eight o'clock, and then either Wednesday or Thursday during the week as well. Did you guys see the Arizona State uniforms? Man, I gotta give a shout out to the Sun Devils here because these are great, these are honoring the 1986 Rose Bowl team that beat Michigan. Uh in the Rose Bowl, it's the 40th anniversary, which is crazy. I look at 1986 and think, oh yeah, it's been like 20 years. No, 40 years. 40th anniversary, but these are well done. These are incredibly sharp from Arizona State. They I have not how often do you see something universally praised on social media these days? Particularly universally praised in the sports sphere on social media. Particularly universally praised on twitter.com. It is extremely rare, but these I've seen get nothing but praise. That means you did something well, Arizona State. I'm trying to bring some positivity to the uniform discussion because I know a lot of it right now is centering on the monster logos, the Big 12 monster logos, which have come out, which a lot of people have some feelings about. Okay. So let's let's point out some positives here. Arizona State did a nice job. Nice job with these. Can't wait to see the Sun Devils in these things. And I'm I'm a bit of a uniform guy. A little bit of a uniform snob. So shout out to uh to the Sun Devils on that. All right. The latest update on Kalani Sataki at BYU makes this situation even more uncomfortable. This isn't this isn't so much about like whether or not BYU is going to lose a coach eventually anymore. It's just to me becoming more and more of a distraction. Every day that goes by, something else comes up with this. It's a distraction heading into what could be an all-time season for the program. And I do want to point out one nightmare scenario that a viewer of this channel actually laid out that seems plausible. It's a nightmare scenario for BYU and its fan base, okay? The latest update on this here today comes from uh Dick Harmon, who's a great columnist and a longtime columnist at the uh Deseret News. He has a I would highly encourage you to read the column. I I will pop it as soon as I'm done with the show. I will pop that in the description here on the live show. I forgot to do that before we started, but you should definitely go read it. If you just search Dick Harmon Deseret News, uh you'll find it there. But it it really outlines the things that Kalani Sataki has had to do to lift up the level of resources that BYU has since he came to Provo long ago and what kind of a battle that has been. And then, of course, the back half of it gets into what you might expect here. Sataki's been very open lately about wanting more resources at BYU, feeling like he's not getting the resources that were promised to him after the Penn State flirtation last year. He's done it multiple times. He was pretty non-committal when being asked about his relationship with A.D. Brian Santiago amidst a bunch of rumors that their relationship is rocky and that that may play a role in not getting the resources BYU football needs. You've got the recipe for an unhappy coach. And what you have is a coach that was unhappy enough like a month before the season to go on radio and basically say, hey, give me what you promised me in his own much nicer, more measured way, but it was also measured enough that that was what he said. There was no mistaking. That was the message. So here is here's what Dick Harmon had to say that adds to this. He says when Penn State came calling last November, Kalani stayed after receiving assurances that the program would have the resources needed simply to stay competitive, not to match the Blue Bloods or oil money programs. He's never asked to be a leader on the college football yellow brick road. He only wants enough fuel to stay on the path and keep within striking distance of college football leaders. Sataki's agent David Dunn has spent years pressing for the contractual commitments signed last December. The university's shortfalls are real, the product of a campus culture in which individual fiefdoms are guarded passionately. And that's probably the line that I've seen get the most run here. The university's shortfalls are real, the product of a campus culture in which individual fiefdoms are guarded passionately. As one observer noted recently, quote, control is the wrong thing to optimize for. Output is. The people worth empowering are the ones trying to give power away, not collect it. I like that quote a lot because it's like, dude, if there is one person you should empower in BYU athletics, like Kalani Sataki's top of the list for a number of reasons, but he is in it for all the right reasons, doing all the right things, finding lots of other BYU guys to elevate on the staff and empower. Like, yeah, I mean, this, it just feels like you want to be like, preach, preach, dick. It also obviously the first part of that confirms like, hey, he was promised stuff during the negotiations with Penn State coming after him, does not feel like he is getting that. And part of it may be because of just the way things are being done on campus or within the athletic department. I guess you can read what you want into that statement, but I would think that certainly doesn't shut down the idea that, like, hey, basketball may be getting more relative to football, and that that's been a hard code to crack here. One more thing from Harman's column. He says the current drama is an unnecessary distraction on the eve of a promising season. It in no way erases the works that hockey has already done, building a staff, a culture, a healthier roster, and a returning core that has delivered success. The drama part of it is what I want to focus on here because I do think that's one of the, as this continues, you know, I mean, we're we're going on like a full week plus of this being a distraction, a drama, whatever you want to phrase it as. And it's, I mean, it's August 16th, dude. We're just a couple weeks away from the season. We're inside two weeks of Big 12 football games starting with TCU and North Carolina in week zero. Now, I understand if you want to push back and say, well, Kalani Sataki did in some ways bring this on himself because he was the one that first brought up these comments to Ben Critdle on the radio. He had to know that those are going to be heard. Like you're doing that intentionally, clearly. And I would say, yeah, that's that's true. He obviously valued that it was more important to say that, get it done, and his culture can hold strong enough that if it is somewhat of a distraction, it's okay. That the risk is worth the reward in that. But I do think it's a risk. Like this is turned into a pretty big storyline. And it's not going away as more columns like this come out. Calculated risk by Kalani Sataki, but I'm sitting here like, man, this team could be great. Like, just let it be about this team. Let it be about this team. On the other hand, I would point out Kalani Sataki would probably say, well, John, it already resulted in them hiring an SEC deputy AD who is going to be likely a football liaison. So it's already resulted in some action. Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. It has resulted in some action. I hope it doesn't turn into a distraction for the team. And I also hope it doesn't come to a total nightmare scenario here. Because wait till you see this nightmare scenario laid out uh by a viewer of the show. And by the way, please do subscribe to the channel if you have not. It's very easy, just one click. A ton of you watch, but don't subscribe. It would help if you do that. Let's let's look at what uh Ma La514 pitched here in the comments of a video recently. If Lincoln Riley and USC struggle this year, next offseason, Sataki will be at the top of the list. Sataki will be gone. Okay, now when I started talking about this, obviously a big part of it was you don't want Kalani to feel like he needs to take the next big job that comes after him. Because if BYU keeps winning, he will continue to be pursued. There's a lot of coaching churn these days. Contracts don't seem to mean as much because even if you have an $80 plus million dollar buyout like Lincoln Riley does or Jimbo Fisher, right? His massive buyout, like teams are just paying it. I mean, they're they're figuring out ways to get it done. Someone will come after him. So you don't want to have him feeling like, well, I need to do it because I'm not going to get enough support here. Well, USC would be a really interesting one. And this is a pretty plausible scenario that Lincoln Riley would get fired. Again, he's got an insane buyout. The reports are USC is a private school, so I don't think the numbers like actually out there, but reportedly it's somewhere around $80 million. Let's look at who USC plays this year. Okay, USC plays Oregon, Ohio State, and Washington at home. They are at Indiana. They are at Penn State. They are at Wisconsin. I mean, you don't have to squint to see a seven and five or an eight and four in there. Like, I know some people really love USC this year. I know they had the number one recruiting class in the country, but I feel like we hear this every year about Lincoln at USC in the last uh three seasons. It's been eight wins, seven wins, and nine wins. If you throw another seven on top of that, USC is going to be like, dude, we're paying this guy $11 million a year. I mean, this is not like we're watching the Big Ten win national championships every year, and we're not even a part of the playoff. So there's definitely a world where Lincoln Riley gets fired, and then Kalani Sataki's a natural fit. To me, uh, he's been a West Coast guy. You know, his coaching stops have been at Eastern Arizona, BYU, Southern Utah, Utah, Oregon State. He was all over the old Pac-12, right? Like those are those are his stomping grounds. I think it's a much more natural fit at USC than it was at Penn State, where it was like, hey, Penn State, I understand why he's listening. That job, you know, commands uh the respect and the attention that he would give to it. But USC would be a more dangerous one, I would think. If you go back to this was really interesting, I I dug up the 2021 USC coaching search when Lincoln Riley was ultimately hired. Uh, there was an article in the LA Times that was like a primer for candidates, and they were talking about Kalani Sataki in there. So he was even getting and 2021. I mean, you think about Sataki's stock at that time compared to what it is right now, it's much higher. It's much higher. So it this is concerning to me. I I just I hope BYU gets it figured out. I don't know if it's possible to do that before football season. Will this drag on throughout the season? Can Mark Hill make an immediate impact? I don't know, but I really hope for the sake of the league and for the sake of the Cougars that this gets figured out. If you want more insight into where Kalani Sataki is on this, I would highly suggest that you click here to watch his interview with me from Big 12 Meaty Days because he didn't hold back there either. That's for everybody watching the clip version. Uh, those of you hanging out live, thank you very much for being here. Uh, I appreciate you. Just keep keep cruising, my friends. I have to wet blanket. I'm gonna I'm trying to hold off on some of the comments until the end of the show, but I did have to see this from wet blanket. Brian Kelly to USC. Boy, I don't know, man. That seems like a disaster. That seems like you're doing the exact same thing that you just did with Lincoln Riley, where it's like missing the boat a bit on that coach's peak. If you're going to get, man, you're going to get Brian Kelly to follow up Lincoln Riley. I would not feel good about that. That seems like USC doing the exact wrong thing when they should go get a guy like Kalani Sataki, who's a real substantive ball coach. And like, look, Brian Kelly did a lot of good stuff at Notre Dame, but I I don't know. You could not be more opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of like demeanor and what kind of a guy they appear to be between Brian Kelly and uh Kalani Sataki, there anyway. Uh that's that's a funny one. I appreciate you guys with the uh with the super chats. I will get to those later on in the show. Thank you so much for being here and your support. Uh let's talk, let's talk some Big Ten. All right. I've been giving you the best and worst case scenarios for each conference. Best and worst case scenarios for each conference this year. Well, the Big Ten has a chance to do something that uh even the SEC at its peak was not doing all the time, prove that its dominance isn't carried by just one program. Big Ten's already done that with three titles in three years, but what about four titles in four years of four different teams for the Big Ten? There is a version of this season where the SEC, uh, where the Big Ten rather wins a four straight national championship with a fourth different team. There's also a version of this season where the SEC takes the trophy back and Indiana comes crashing down to earth, and Kurt Signetti's quotes are thrown back in his face. Yeah, we're talking best case, worst case scenarios here. So, best case scenario for the Big Ten this year is Oregon winning the national championship. Four different titles with four different teams. That's much stronger for the health of your league than it is to have just one team dominating. And I think uh so much of the SEC's run was about Bama and Nick Saban winning the majority of those titles, and then you sprinkle in a historic season from LSU every now and then, but the rest of it was mostly Saban. And there's nothing wrong with that. Obviously, the SEC is not going to trade that. It was great for the league, but I if you have four teams that are capable of winning national championships in a four-year span and you're just doing that with a different program every year, every year, I don't I don't know that there's a way to be more healthy as a league. Forget how much crap may be down at the bottom of your ballooned conference, which is still there for the Big Ten. That's a huge thing, and it would be a monster step for the dominance of this league. The only argument I suppose I would accept here is if you want to come at me and say, hey, John, if Kurt Signetti wins back-to-back titles and it looks like he is Saban, like he's gonna be the next Saban, would you maybe trade that or take that? I guess maybe. But I think the four and four years with four different programs, and now you've got Oregon winning its first and landing winning his first, being such a young coach, I think you'd take that every time. Uh, number two in building the best case scenario for the Big Ten here would be that the title game is Big Ten versus Big Ten. Again, not that hard to see. Between Oregon, Ohio State, and Indiana, that's not that hard to see. They've they've got two of the top three. Uh, they have the top two rather, and three of the top six in the coach's poll between Oregon, Ohio State, and Indiana. So that's a plausible scenario where you have an all Big Ten uh national championship. Another part of a dream season, I I would say it includes Michigan or Penn State becoming a playoff program in year one under its new coach. Penn State proving that Matt Campbell can be another guy that gets them at least to the playoff level, which would set the stage for breaking through. Even though, I mean, I don't know. It's like you can honestly, you can argue that James Franklin broke through the year before he got fired, and Penn State was just a little crazy there. We shall see. But I think that would be advantageous for the for the Big Ten. And Michigan, if Kyle Whittingham provides enough stability, you could just be like that could put to bed any thought that, like, hey, that was that was a Jim Harbaugh thing. Maybe a fluky everything came together for Jim Harbaugh, maybe with a little bit of cheating. Um that could put that to bed if Kyle Whittingham puts them back in the playoff already this year and figures out Bryce Underwood. And I think there's a real path to that because it seems like Bryce Underwood did not have a whole lot of help from the coaching staff last year. Whittingham is uh very much an adult in the room. I think Jason Beck's a great offensive coordinator. There's absolutely a world where that can happen. Speaking of USC, I think a dream season for the Big Ten includes USC breaking through and making the playoff. Like USC has just been sitting there as a sleeping, underperforming giant for a long time. They have one double-digit win season in the last eight. Had we had a 12-team playoff for the last eight years, USC would have made it exactly once. Huge waste of potential. And Lincoln Riley's getting paid like a guy who should be in the playoff every single year. And this is a program that should be in the playoff mix every single year. You also don't want to have to pay the buyout if you're USC of Lincoln Riley being 80 plus million dollars. So you don't want to see him underperform anymore. I think that's uh another part of a Big Ten season that would be their best case scenario. So those are the four components of the best case to me. USC's in, Michigan or Penn State's in, Big Ten versus Big Ten title game with Oregon winning the Natty. I thought about, you know, I mean, you might say, well, John, the weakness of the Big Ten is at the bottom, there's not enough depth in that league. That's where the SEC will still argue against it. We could talk about that too, but I know if someone has to lose games, I don't know that everything I just rattled off can happen well, the bottom of the league gets better and deeper. I was I look through the non-con games for like the bottom half of the Big Ten, either. There's just not enough of them. The Big Ten only plays 10 power forward non-conference games. I think there's two against Notre Dame. So you could say like 12. Um little bit weak there, boys, but I don't think you can have both of those at the same time. And it's much more important to be winning titles and having the big programs deliver than just having depth. Ask the SEC right now. Meanwhile, on the other side, by the way, subscribe to the channel. Really appreciate it if you do. One click, very easy to. Which would end, of course, the opportunity for uh for the Big Ten to wear these t-shirts. I thought of these again today. I just had to bring this back up. Remember the Big Ten trifecta t-shirts? They only have smalls left online. I almost bought one just because I was like, what a what a hilarious college football artifact. But if the SEC wins, the Big Ten can't print another t-shirt and you can't have those t-shirts anymore. Uh, it would be for the SEC if they win a title, proof of concept that in the NIL era where everybody is saying the Big Ten's winning now because everybody can pay players, and the Big Ten's got deeper pockets and more wealthy alums, and it would be some pushback on that narrative if the SEC were to win a title this year. Uh, number two would be Indiana gets humbled in the worst case scenario for the Big Ten this year. Uh Kurt Signetti getting humbled. A lot of SEC fans want to see that right now. Now, my initial thought off the cuff was like, all right, if Kurt Signetti throws up like an eight and four this year, SEC fans will be loud. But then I was like, man, go and look at Indiana's schedule and find me four losses. It's hard. It's hard to find four losses on that Indiana schedule, even if they are going to get humbled. So maybe you've got to raise the bar to humbled being 9-3 and out of the playoff. Because I got news for you. With that, with that schedule, Indiana's not making the playoff at 9-3, no matter how many games they won last year. But this would be more, this is more for the emotional element of this, just emotional satisfaction of SEC fans and how that might dig at Big Ten country, because Kurt Signetti, he's a made man after what he did last year, right? Um, the worst case scenario for the Big Ten, I think, includes USC going like eight and four or nine and three, because then you're still stuck in Lee and Riley Purgatory. Massively cost prohibitive buyout. Do you really want to suck it up and do that if he if he goes nine and three and misses the playoff, finishes like 14th in the playoff rankings? I don't know. You're still stuck in that place. If if he goes five and seven or something, you're like, okay, fine. Well, we got to do what we got to do. We'll cut bait. We take another shot. We're USC. We'll get a great coaching candidate. But you might get stuck in purgatory if Lincoln goes eight and four or nine and three. Uh finally, of course, we can't go an entire show without talking a little bit about this, right? The Big Ten's expansion and playoff ambitions get blocked, which would mean that uh the SEC successfully stands up against the Big Ten's push for a 2014 playoff. The bad news for Tony Petiti, leaving him pretty frustrated. And then the Protect College Sports Act passes and limits conferences to 19 teams, which means no getting into the South, no getting into Florida for the Big Ten. Because at 19, you would think they're gonna sit there and wait for Notre Dame to potentially be that last team. So I'd throw that in. The worst case scenario uh for the Big Ten right now. But there you have it. There's best case and worst case this year uh for the Big Ten. Now, an ACC coach took a really crazy shot at the Big Ten recently. Was he actually right? And just to hear it for yourself, you can click here to hear that. That's for those who are watching the clipped version of this. If you're hanging out here live, don't worry about it. You can't click on anything right now. But if you go watch the uh clipped version later, you certainly can. Appreciate everybody listening on audio, Spotify, Apple, etc. And thanks to everybody who's here in the live show. I will get to some super chats here in just a couple of minutes. So hang tight, those of you that have contributed during the show. I appreciate all of you. Uh, one final thing here. College football rivalries. Very interesting in this NIL era in 2026, the way that the sport has developed. Ryan Day and this whole Michigan-Ohio State back and forth this offseason, I think, provides some really fascinating insight into what a rivalry looks like in 2026. All right. Ryan Day is doing the right thing for college football and the worst thing for Ohio State. I love what Ryan Day is doing with the Michigan rivalry, but I think it's probably the wrong approach for him at Ohio State. Uh, I love that we have a coach that's treating a rivalry like it matters more than anything in the world because we're getting so much of that sucked away from the sport. But I think it's not where his head should be if he's trying to do the best thing possible for Ohio State. Okay, so stick with me here. It's been a busy offseason for the game, Ohio State, Michigan. For my money, the best rivalry in college football. But some of the busyness here have been elements of it that fans are not liking. Okay. Kyle Whittingham, right? BYU, Utah fans who have seen him in a Really, really intense rivalry, the Holy War, for two decades of his career. Well, more than that if you go back to his playing days, right? I mean, it's been a lifetime of being involved in that rivalry for Whittingham. He took some heat this offseason for saying that he doesn't hate Ryan Day in Ohio State. He was trying to downplay the hate there. And he's like, look, I'd be lying if I said that I hate Ryan Day. And a lot of fans are like, wait, no, hold on. This is Ohio State, Michigan. You got to hate that guy. Like, I hate them. You've got to hate them. Not Kyle Whittingham's style, at least stepping into this rivalry. And then his quarterback at Michigan, Bryce Underwood, he had a quote this past week that went viral where he said about Ohio State, quote, it's just another game, just with guys in a different color. That's how I see it. Man, if you are a Michigan fan, I can see how you would be like, no, man, I want my guys to absolutely hate the other side of this thing. I think some of what's going on here is that Kyle Whittingham, one, is on the back nine of his career. And two, he's in a situation where like this Michigan job is gravy. You know, he was done at Utah. It was basically going to be a retirement or getting into some coaching role, but maybe not a head coaching job. Certainly not head coach at Michigan job after what happened at Utah at the end last year. This is gravy. He doesn't have to go in bowing down to anybody or capitulating to what anybody else wants. Okay. And then obviously that attitude's rubbing off on his quarterback, Bryce Underwood. And I look, I think that's the way to handle this rivalry if you want the best chance of winning and being successful. Whittingham also knows if he wins, people will love him. If he loses, it doesn't matter how much he hates Ohio State. They'll run you out of town because look at the other side of the rivalry. Ryan Day has spent more time worrying about Michigan and hating Michigan than I think anybody on planet Earth. And he lost four straight to Michigan and he was about to get run out of town. So it just, you just got to go win the game. And here's the latest news on this Ryan Day's taking the complete opposite approach. So the headline this week is Ohio State announced it will move its senior day pregame celebration from the final regular season home game, which would be against Michigan, to the week one game against Ball State. Okay. They are moving senior day from the Michigan game to the ball state game, and it's because uh Ryan Day said it's an opportunity to remove any potential unnecessary distractions ahead of the rivalry game. Uh Day also added that he received unwavering support from the team season uh senior class before making it official. So I do want to provide some context here. He's not this is not the only program in the country that's doing this. Georgia, South Carolina, they've also done this. They have rivalry games at the end of the year. They've moved senior day up to the beginning of the year. Things get a little wonky these days with seniors and who's coming back, and COVID eligibility and transfers and all that. But this certainly when this certainly feels like it's a little more, a little more loaded, right? There's some extra, there are some extra layers to this with Day because of what his relationship with Michigan has been and how much extra emphasis he's put on it, and clearly tried to beat them after losing a couple of times in 23, 24 with his national championship team, tried to beat them at their own game and be too physical and wound up losing in epic fashion instead of just throwing the ball, playing to his strengths. Like Ohio State has lost games because Michigan's just been in Ryan Day's head. And this feels like another extension of Michigan being in his head. Now, I love Day for this because rivalries are what drives college football. And we're getting further and further away from them with the playoffs of college football, with the conference realignment of college football. We're losing rivalries with the transform portal location of college football. Like where guys don't stay in one place long enough to care as much about these rivalries. It's one of the things that concerns me about the long-term health of the sport here. And rivalries are about doing goofy things, like removing all the Ms at Ohio State, removing all the M's on any of those buildings to not have anything that reflects Michigan, to call them the team up north instead of saying Michigan. Little disrespectful barbs you can throw at your rival are very good things. That's what college football is built on. So from that standpoint, I'm like, Ryan Day, I can definitely support and get behind this move. But man, I just Ohio State feels to me like it should be the bigger dog in this fight. And I know Michigan leads the all-time series. Michigan fans, if you want to let me hear it in the comments, that's fine. But in my lifetime, I'm a 36-year-old male. In my lifetime, it has definitely felt like Ohio State's been the better program. They've won two-thirds of the games in the last 20 years post-Great Depression national championships. They lead nine to four. Like they they just seem like they've been a step above where Michigan's been at for most of my lifetime. So, like, act like it. Act like it. Don't make this like this huge deal, like they're in your head. And that's that's what it feels like this is from Ryan Day once again, where he's just allowed Michigan to get into his head. I get it. The team approved this, they're fine with it. I'm sure there is some logic to it. But I can't evaluate this in a vacuum. If this were a different coach doing it, like Georgia doing it for a Georgia Tech rivalry, like, okay, I mean, that's one thing. I know that Georgia Tech is not in Kirby Smart's head. There's a history here, there's context here, and I have to take that into account when I am evaluating this. So I don't know. I wouldn't, I wouldn't love this, to be honest, if I were an Ohio State fan. I would not love this. It feels like Kyle Whittingham's coming in just like cool, calm, collected, doing his thing. And look, Ryan Day's a great coach. He won a national championship. He's they're going to contend for a national title this year. It's not like a disaster, everything's falling apart. But it makes me, if I'm an Ohio State fan, sneaky worried about that game at the end of the year. I'd and and it makes me worried that my coach still hasn't let Michigan fully get out of there. It still hasn't quite come out of the ear hole, stuck in that head somewhere, even after they beat them last year. Uh we'll see. We'll see. Look, it's it's August 16th. Maybe we're just making too much out of this, my friends. But that's what we do. It's college football. All right, let's get to uh let's get to the super chats here to close down the show. Thank you all for being here. Mando Frog. Mando Frog says TCU will have a top three defense in the Big 12. There were some key contributors lost last year, right? Um at all three levels, if I'm not mistaken. Bud Clark, I know, is a big part of that. It seemed like he was there forever for TCU. But I will say this, Mando Frog, it seems like TCU always has as much talent as basically anybody in the league on defense. That I guess probably short of Texas Tech. But you're saying a top three defense. That's not out of the realm of possibility. TCU has enough of a um track record there for me to to buy that. Uh Michael. Michael says, anyone that Michael's uh one of our BYU fans around here, he says, anyone that gets Kalani is lucky. Hope he stays forever. If they don't fulfill their promises, he won't believe them a second time. Hashtag go kooks. I heart Kalani. Yeah, I get it. I get it, Michael. Um, you certainly wouldn't be able to blame Kalani Sataki if he were to leave after not getting what he has promised, right? Um I I I said this the other day. I think he loves BYU as much as anybody, and that's going to give you ample time, ample rope, ample slack here to get it done, even after it's not been done as quickly as it probably should have been. But everybody's got their limit, and especially when you have options and you're in a profession as hyper-competitive as Sataki is in, you may need to leave at some point to accomplish what you believe you can truly accomplish there. Uh thank you for being here, Michael. I appreciate you. Uh Pacific Northwest Ute. Pacific Northwest Ute says Kalani should be upset at uh XBYU hoopster, now AD Brian Santiago. After all, football won as many playoff games as the DeBonsta-led basketball squad. Hashtag broken promises. Hmm. Yeah, Pacific Northwest Ute. Yeah, you you're digging at the issue there that people feel like is there that Brian Santiago, being the basketball administrator for a long time at BYU, gives more resources, relatively speaking, to the basketball program than the football program, and that that has been a cause of a lot of friction. And yeah, I mean it's fair criticism about the basketball team last year. Now, they had a lot of injuries, okay? We don't need to go relitigate that whole thing. I tried to defend BYU quite a bit last year, the Richie Saunders injury, chief among them, but there were more than that. That roster took some tough blows that it couldn't withstand. But even with all that money spent, yeah, they did not win an NCAA tournament game. So fair enough. Fair enough, Pacific Northwest U. Uh, let's see. Kim, what's going on? Kim, thank you. Kim just supporting for the hell of it. It says just because it's you. Thank you, Kim. Thank you for being here tonight. Uh, and Alan. Alan says, John, KU beats number 25 Mazoo and goes eight and four. All right. There's there's Alan's bold prediction. Uh KUQB will be a positive surprise. Now, Alan, it's interesting to me that you just said K UQB. Does that mean that you're not sold on it being Cole Ballard? Are you thinking it could still be Isaiah Marshall? That's interesting to me. And maybe Andy Kolinicki finds a way to use both of them. I mean, remember, he was having to juggle back and forth between Jason Bean and Jalen Daniels. His first stint in uh in Lawrence. And then even that 1K state game, I mentioned Cole Ballard, too. So he can he can figure it out. I've got no doubt. Uh Allen's also got BYU winning the Big 12 at 11 and 1. Okay. Alan looking forward to those details uh about the wheel and KU Mizou. You let me know if you got the hookup on a ticket, my friend. Uh they're expensive. Expensive. Uh, all right, and then let's let's close off. This another comment I got flagged here from Bracket Cat. Uh Bracket Cat says, good news, John. I just got out of uh peek around the corner. All right, so uh Greg Flugar's channel. Should all go check it out. And it's sounding more and more like Miami and Notre Dame to the Big Ten. Florida State Clems and UNC Duke to the SEC. That's the best possible outcome. We get to keep KU and Utah. Hmm. Yeah, I guess uh I've got a lot of questions on this. I got a lot of questions on this. But yeah, I if you are, I'll just take this at face value. If you're talking about it from a Big 12 standpoint, if it's Miami and Notre Dame to the Big Ten, that means Utah is not going to the Big Ten. That is that is a win for sure. Uh Florida State Clems in North Carolina, Duke to the SEC. Yeah, if you got FSU Clems in North Carolina, that makes a lot of sense. And then there has been talk of like Duke for the rivalry there being tacked on. Yeah, I can see that. That's that's certainly not a bad outcome. Certainly not a bad outcome for the Big 12. And then at that point, you're missing FSU Clems in North Carolina from the ACC. Do other pieces start to splinter off there? They've protected themselves with strength in numbers, but now that conference being weaker in the bigger brands, uh, what what does happen? Bracket Cat, I appreciate you. Shout out to Greg Flugar. Tell everybody at PATC uh that I love them. Love those guys. Thank you. Uh and finally, J Rod, what's up, J-Rod? J-Rod says Dave Aranda gets fired midseason. You know, I don't even know that that's that bold. I don't know that that's that bold. It's pretty obvious to look at that situation and realize that because Baylor had the Mac Rhodes situation where he had to leave as the AD very suddenly, that's probably the only reason that Dave Aranda is still the head coach at Baylor right now. So it'd be very easy to see them getting off to a slow start and him being on the chopping block. We gave you a chance. You brought in a new defensive coordinator, you got the high profile quarterback. If it's going awry mid-season, if we have another victory cigar situation where you're losing on a Hail Mary at Colorado, I don't think that's that bold. We're seeing more and more of it in college football, too. Every year, like coaches are getting fired quicker and quicker into the season. So uh yeah, it's a it's a good prediction, J-Rod. I don't know that it's that bold because I could definitely see it happening. All right, we're at about an hour. Uh, I'm gonna cut it off here, everybody, but thank you. Keep chopping Brian Kelly to Baylor. We're really trying to force Brian Kelly somewhere in the show, aren't we? Brian Kelly's going to USC, then Brian Kelly's going to Baylor. I don't know that I'd suggest that one. I don't know that I'd suggest that one if I were if I were the Bears. Uh thank you guys. Lively chat tonight. Make sure that you tell your friends. Subscribe if you are not subscribed. If you want the newsletter, go to OFBnews.com. And uh hey, have a great week. I will talk to you soon. We are inside of two weeks from uh week zero in college football season kicking off. Thank you, everybody. I will talk to you soon.