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This college football offseason seemed blessedly devoid of drama, compared to last season's months of speculation, backdoor wrangling and botched response by Big Ten leaders to the COVID-19 pandemic. Things seemed to be pretty much back to normal, with fans looking forward to full stadiums and a full slate of games.
And then, Texas and Oklahoma decided to take their kickball and go join the Southeastern Conference. That's right, soon three of the founding members of the former Southwest Conference could be SEC members as soon as 2025, according to reports.
The news sent shockwaves throughout the college sporting universe, with questions arising as to how the Big Ten would respond. Spoiler alert? Based on Kevin Warren's handling of COVID last season, of the NIL movement, and pretty generally of anything even remotely important from a strategy standpoint, the response will probably be pretty terrible.
In this episode we'll talk about the situation, what it means for the next round of conference expansion and realignment, and how any of that affects Ohio State and its friends and rivals in the Big Ten.
We'll also discuss the news that the Big Ten Championship Game will start rotating away from LucasOil Stadium in Indianapolis, and what Ryan Day had to say during his appearance at Big Ten Media Days, including his comments about the expansion of the College Football Playoff.
...And as always we'll tackle your questions in Ask Us Anything (which you should totally do, by emailing your questions to dubcast@elevenwarriors.com).
RUN OF SHOW
0:00 The Olympics are underway in Tokyo. Our hosts are big fans of The Games, and reminisce about favorite sports and what they've watched so far this Olympiad.
6:50 Top of the page this week: Texas and Oklahoma have told their current conference to bugger off, and batted their big debutante eyelashes at the Southeastern Conference. What does this portend for the future of college football as we know it?!?
20:17 Is a four SuperConference structure the future of the FBS, or is there a tipping point where a conference is simply too big to make sense?
25:20 Whatever the next round of conference realignment and expansion looks like, odds are the current Big Ten commissioner will screw it up based on his track record thus far. Save us Big Jim Delaney, you're our only hope!
33:37 Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren announced last week that the Big Ten Championship Game will rotate among additional venues in the future, and our hosts discuss if that's a good idea or not, and where future games should be held.
36:57 Ryan Day said his team is close to 100% vaccinated, which raises the question of what havoc COVID may or may not wreak on the college football world this season.
40:20 Coach Day is a big fan of the expanded playoff... Dabo Swinney is not. This is really all you need to know to decide if expansion is a good idea or not.
44:35 Ask Us Anything! Questions this week elicit our advice for a parent of an aspiring NFL star, and Johnny's observations about Japanese culture.
60:00 Quick Cals: P.J. Fleck compares playing Ohio State to running the Kentucky Derby, Ohio State dominates the preseason All-Big Ten east selections, and NCAA Champion wrestler Nick Suriano is considering Tom Ryan's Buckeyes... and NIL is a factor.
Thanks as always to Travis for the logo, thank you for listening and if you're thinking about what t-shirt you'd like tattooed on your carcass, check out the Dry Goods Store. We'll see you next week!
