Joey Aguilar Ruling Reaction + What Would A CFB Super League Look Like? | College Football

Welcome back to the Cover 3 Podcast with your hosts Chip Patterson, Tom Fernelli, Danny Cannell, and Bud Elliott. It's your call for the best college football coverage from National Signing Day to the National Championship and everything in between. CBS Sports presents the Cover 3 Podcast. And welcome back to the Cover 3 Podcast here on CBS Sports. That's Tom Finnelli. That's Bud Elliott. That's Danny Cannell. I'm Chip Patterson coming to you live at YouTube.com slash Cover 3. And everywhere to get your podcast on demand. Thanks for hanging out. Smash that subscribe. Smash that like and come and join us in the chat, a.k.a. the Cover 3 tailgate, where they are wondering, and we're about to get into this, whether you can go, whether you can just keep reappealing, you know, maybe you can find a judge somewhere who will give a four hour diatribe on the evils of the NCAA and why you should be getting into this. Okay. So coming up in a little bit, we are going to unpack a mailbag question that is too big for a mailbag episode because one thing while we talk about, you know, Oh, there will probably be a super league one day. Oh yeah. six, seven years down the line, there might be a Super League. Well, we're going to put some official predictions and petitions on the record. If we are going to have a Super League in college football, what does it look like? When does it happen? And also, if we have to be drug into a Super League era, what do we as college football fans want to see? So this is just kind of a chance for us to call our shot. You know, we can get old takes exposed, or we could be never wrong just early. You know, this is the next hour will determine a lot. But before we jump into that, yes, some of the headlines from over the weekend. Joey Aguilar denied eligibility for 2026. A big, big deep breath for Bud Elliott there. So are you furious about this? Do I think there's a obviously there's a Tennessee implication, right? We got to change our thoughts on Tennessee or adjust them. And then there's also is this a one off? Is this a pretty little snowflake, just a wildflower in the field? Or does this denial indicate a sea change in the player eligibility wars? I don't think it denotes a sea change, really. I think we can say that it's not guaranteed that if you try to push this issue in state court that you're going to get it. I would still expect your win rate in a friendly state court to be far higher than it is than you've been winning at the federal level, which is why they switched to doing this to try to get these state court injunctions in the first place. Look, clearly Tennessee logic says that they think that they would be better or at least have a higher floor with like a 25, 24-year-old Joey Aguilar running it back. Yeah, 25, right? He's got to be 25 years old, right? Or 24. The thing is, we all have the internet because we know because we're live, right? So how old is Joey? So he's 25, almost 26. So he's 2024 as of February 26. So he's born June 16, 2001. Yeah. So he'd be 25 by the season. No, I think he just turned 24. Is he old? In February. Oh, wait, hold on. No, yes, he will. Yeah, because I, correct. Yeah, he turned 25 in June. Yeah. Right, so we were right. a 25 year old quarterback, I think is inherently going to give you a, a high floor. I'm still not sure like how much better he can get. Although another year in the system, more comfortable, blah, blah, blah. But obviously he's turning a pro apparently in football. So we'll see how that goes. Yeah. He's that great. I'm glad you pointed that out for the purposes of our discussion. We do not see a reappeal path here. He's, he's just going to go ahead and he's going to take it to the professional ranks. So what do we think about the rest of that quarterback room? Well, you got McIntyre, right? Who kind of low floor, high ceiling guy. And you have obviously the five-star freshman they just signed. So, oh yeah, Chip, great jacket, by the way. That is, that is facts. Did y'all, did y'all see that the snowstorm? I was talking with Tom about this. the snowstorm had to reroute the, uh, the Olympic team's trip home. You know, they were supposed to down to South Florida, baby going to 11 tonight. They were supposed to go to New York and Oh no, we have to go let these new gold medalists go to Miami. Oh, I'm sure they're so sad about having to go to Miami with those gold medals on. They already announced the party tonight. It's at South beach. Oh yeah. They're going to be going off. It's only 58 degrees in Miami right now. Hey, it's better than the alternative. And in Cortina, they're hockey players. They don't care about the Colts. They're not soft like you boys down there. I think one of the key takeaways when I looked at this this morning is if you have Aguilar, you have a lot of games where you feel like, all right, we are decidedly the better team, and if we just play our game and don't screw it up, we should win. And I think playing a super young kid brings potential high variance. Maybe if one of these young five-stars hits, maybe you're able to go and rip off a 12-0 or an 11-1. But also some games like, is Auburn at home a slam dunk? Is that Arkansas with an 18- or 19-year-old a slam dunk? Is that South Carolina? That was not a slam dunk before, but I just think it brings in, like at Georgia Tech early in the season, And, you know, at South Carolina, at Vandy to end the year, they're probably playing a freshman as well. And Jared Curtis, you know, host Kentucky. I just think it brings like a wider band of variants, you know. Like if Tennessee is able to go like 11-1, I think that's within a realm of possibility. I think 7-5 is also potentially. But if you have Aguilar, I think probably like 8-4 is your floor, you know, because he's not great, but he's not awful. Right. Yeah, don't forget Martin Luther Staub is in this quarterback race also in Colorado. Thank you. Who did play a little bit. Does this – so I'm curious to know what Bud thinks about this one because I even talked – we talked about it on this show, the attorney for the NCAA who was great in the hearing. Like the reviews I were reading were like Tennessee felt pretty good about Joey Aguilar's status going forward, feeling like he would get approved. but after they heard the NCA attorney who was a Tennessee graduate saying like, we're better than this. Everyone's like, Ooh, he outshined the other attorney. Is that what we have to look at? Cause I'm, I'm confused at what makes this difference than Diego Pavia case, which is also still being heard. And look, I am glad no, no offense to Tennessee, but I'm kind of getting tired of these guys getting seven, eight years of eligibility. So I'm like, good. Maybe we can set a precedent, but is this the difference that the attorney just made a better argument or is it that much different where there is a different precedent where he did play you know multiple years he played two years juco three years of college football he did have covid like it's definitely a different argument right um in some ways the judge in tennessee seemed to to like put special consideration on like what are like the kind of the long tail ramifications of my decision you know is this going to impact everybody it's like a little state court decision here kind of all of a sudden blow up the entire system like what's the true hardship here um you know i'm saying yeah yeah this was so listen i've been giving lawyers and judges a lot of crap on this show last few weeks this was a huge weekend for judges putting the home team aside and doing what's best for everybody going all the way back to friday just huge weekend yeah yeah um so very interesting to look at that i mean what the the tennessee offense with joey aguilar best rated as like a a b plus last season i mean they won all the games they were supposed to like to bud's point Like the floor, like he was good when they ran the ball well against Florida, you know, early in the season, I thought the pass attack was a little bit more successful than it was coming down the stretch. Some of that is the opponents and the way that all that's going to unfold, but it was fine. You know, like that's a, that's a top 20 offense. Right. And now they just are dealing with the variants as we go ahead. We'll, we will see. Yes, Danny. I think the biggest difference in this is I do think Tennessee would have approached this differently if they thought they were going to lose. Like, I think they would have been in the market for some of the better quarterbacks. If they like, I don't, you don't think so, Tom. So I think they would have been in the market for better guys. How can you be in the market? Like who's going to want to come if there's a chance that Joey Aguilar is going to be your starter? Well, that's the problem. That's my point is kind of like, and they were probably in an awkward situation because they didn't want to tell him go kick rocks but they might have been better served to do that and just said look we're going to move on and good luck in the NFL but I do think this kind of hamstrung them by having this case and why we're talking about three relatively inexperienced quarterbacks taking the helm for the Vols they might also feel as though the yeah the young guys they might feel really good about it because what I'm thinking about the Ole Miss situation where if it didn't work out, it was going to be Deuce Knight. Deuce Knight is a lottery ticket, right? You know, if you feel like you put in the evaluation process, you've already had McIntyre at least around for a little bit. You know, you would, instead of bringing in another of what you've got, then, you know, might as well stick with all your sunk costs that you've got in the talent that is inexperienced 100%, but definitely young. You know, Tennessee's right there, right there on that cusp, right? You could argue for them as a top 25 team going into the season. Sure. You could also tell me that the 40th best team going into the season. Sure. I don't think there'll be bad talent levels too high, but this is, this is a big one for the Vols. Certainly as we continue to project ahead to 2026. Now, if Joey Aguilar had gotten his eligibility case appealed so that he would be in for 2026, then, then maybe we would have used this as a transition point to ranking the returning starters for 2026. No, that will be on Wednesday. So on Wednesday, a group that Joey Aguilar will not be a part of ranking the returning starters. All of us are going to come with a top 10. If you want to come with your list as well, come and join us, youtube.com slash cover three. He will be a part of the NFL process. Our week will end on Thursday with a little NFL Combine preview. But coming up on the other side, the big question. Okay, everyone likes to throw around the buzzword about Super League, but feet to the fire. What do you actually think this is going to look like? We'll get into all that and more. Next. Back here on the Cover 3 podcast. Yes, as we're going through the big old bag of mail, which you can obviously jump in and you can, and you can, you know, leave a five-star review. And in that review, put a mail bag question. We will throw it into the big old bag of mail. And so this was one that came in and it just, you know, it felt like one that needed a little bit more time and a little bit more breathing room because it was a question about what a super league would actually look like. And so figured we'd bring that here. to the guys and we'll be offering both predictions and petitions both what we think will happen and what we would like to see happen so let's start with some very very simple stuff that you can put hard numbers to how many teams do you think will be in the super league i i think it's probably in like the 60s i'm 48 i said 60 to 70 was my number yeah almost all the private equity proposals have used 70 i think there's like the way i got to like 60 is like i think there's probably 48 like guaranteed and then i think they would probably have to do it to avoid like antitrust where they can say, hey, if you are willing to commit to spend X over this amount of time and acknowledge that the revenue sharing is somewhat unequal, then you're in. It basically, like, so you're not excluding based on preference, you're excluding based on, like, market size, commitment, blah, blah, blah. Like, if you want to be in, if you want to kind of invest in us with this super league, you have to spend a certain amount. And I think they would get, you know, kind of 12 to 15 teams on top of that 48 that would be in. Like, I think Houston would find a way in. Yeah, so when you, where I get to 48 is tough decisions for Boston College, Wake Forest, UCF, Arizona, Houston, West Virginia, Cal, Stanford, Syracuse, Rutgers, Pitt even, Cincinnati, you know, Colorado. tough decisions about whether you're going to step, whether you are going to throw into whatever the buy-in is. I mean, the pot, the way that I think that this will be done will be mostly driven by television. And I think it will be done a lot based on television viewership. And those schools that I just named are at the bottom of the television viewership list among power conference teams for the 2025 season. And so are these schools as institutions either out of pride or out of the need to be at the big boy table, are they going to be making whatever kind of increased commitment can overcompensate for what will be viewed as not bringing value to the table? For example, SMU does not rate well, but SMU has shown us with their willingness to take zero media rights dollars for nine years from the ACC that they are willing to, pun unintended, pony up whatever it takes to offset what is like a value that based on television ratings and based on school size might not be that high so maybe we do get up to 60 if some of those schools that I just mentioned decide that they're going to up their buy-in but that's why I'm leaning more towards the 48 is I'm not sure if those decisions will be made that way how do you address like the regional issue if you go with 48 because I feel like it is so heavily Southeastern if you do that that like if I looking at as like an ESPN I have to see upside of this. And I don't like, there's only so much viewership you can, and I know people are moving to the Southeast like crazy, but like there's only so much viewership I can squeeze from like the Southeast and Texas. Right. Sure. I do need people in the mountain and West Coast time zones to, like Pacific time zones, excuse me, to watch this thing. I do need the big population centers in the Northeast to watch this thing. Like, I don't need Syracuse, Boston College, West Virginia, and Pitt, but I probably need like one or two of those, right? Like, I don't need Cal and Stanford unless they both want to invest in, but I probably need some presence in the Bay Area, right? you know like does that make sense 48 48 i think as an investor you look at this and you say okay we are so saturated in the southeast uh this makes it tough i i also think 48 is too small for a lot of the reasons that you were saying chip that maybe 48 makes more sense like tv is going to want 64 to 72 teams in there just for the inventory right like you don't have to be big ratings draw but we're they're going to want the extra games and if you're the leagues or the league at this point it's like you know but take the losses you don't need the teams to invest as much to be in as much as having them gives you more games to sell which therefore makes your television package larger which means you can split it up more and there are more bidders and you're getting more money so therefore you've got a bigger piece of the pie going and if there is an uneven distribution of revenue you don't really care if that one school is only putting in 75 percent of what the other schools are because they're only getting 75 of their paycheck compared to everybody else so yeah i think 64 to 72 is what we're gonna end up at when this does happen yeah like i i eight divisions of eight gives you you know seven like divisional opponents every year and also gives you quite a lot of of like leeway to play other rivals that are outside of of your annual pod. I had it as four, four conferences of 12 that may even allow for the power for conferences to run it and be able to carry over. Like there had to be some switching, some swapping, but I, I thought because if there's going to be some seating of power, which ultimately it is conference commissioners will become less powerful with the creation of one super league, with the exception of whatever commissioner maybe gets to become Supreme Chancellor of college football. But like almighty. Yeah. Are we doing only football? I kind of think that the Super League is only football. I think so too. Yeah. Because basketball looks a lot different. And if I'm running a basketball Super League, I need some of those schools in the Big East. The power of college basketball from the monetary standpoint is the NCAA tournament, which is what keeps all of those schools and conferences kind of bound together with that. This would be in my eyes only sort of through the engine of the college football playoff. And I mean, I don't know if we want to go ahead and push it, but I was even wondering, is that how they become employees that they're not employees of the school, but they are employees of the college football playoff? Yes. Well, I had it definitely not employees of the school either employees of the conferences the super league or the playoff yeah I'm imagining that the college football playoff is yeah whatever he's called at the point yeah that it is that um I thought it was interesting what you because I was wondering about that too so because I do think whatever it looks like is going to look entirely different but for branding purposes you do think they'll still be an sec big 10 acc big 12 like and maybe they look completely different maybe retooled but just for college football branding purposes we'll keep those names intact yes i think that makes it easier for fans to swallow that you you're not trying to force the southeast division you know right you can still get kirby up there, guys, the SEC is hard, even if it's, you know, like an SEC that doesn't have Missouri anymore, or, you know, that maybe is off some of the Texas schools that end up, you know, sort of reorganizing. But I think for the selling this to college football fans, sort of grafting in the branding, even of those four power conferences, I think would be something that I could definitely see happening. so that's how many teams because i think i think we will evolve into something where there is a bigger split between the current power schools and the current group of six schools i do think that's where the split i think that's where the line is kind of easiest to draw and say all right we're going to see a further separation because it's already there when you can't keep the players, you can't do it. And I mean, I know they still have access to the playoffs. How does that look too, I think is a big question. But I think that's the easiest line of demarcation. And that would get... 64, 72, somewhere in there. 64, 72, yeah. Hey, listen, we're just throwing predictions down, guys. I'm on the low end here. That's okay. I'll go ahead and take that with my 48. All right, what about the win? Everyone always says 2032. Could it be sooner? Could it be later? And I understand, like, before you parse me on this, the when is it, when do we find out about it? When does it become official? When does it get put in place? I understand those are all different dates. But when do you think we would see the creation of a Super League? 2032. That's kind of why I think so as well. Like the next college football playoff contract, about within two years of the sec and the big 10 deals coming up and still five years before the acc don't worry the acc won't exist at that point florida state will pull the pin that'll be done pretty quick um what is that do you see it 2032 yeah i mean it might not be exactly 2032 but i definitely think in that 2031 to 2035 timeframe is when this is all really going to start happening. Would you take, if it was 2031, would you take, if you had to bet on one over or under or before or after, would you lean towards after 2031? Or do you think there's any chance this could get done? Like there's been a lot of complaining about finances. You know, do they need the money faster from the TV monies? I bet under, I'd bet sooner. Yeah, I wouldn't be shocked if – now, you're not going to believe this because college football would never do anything like this. I wouldn't be shocked if they just jumped into it and then changed things on the fly. Like maybe they came up with a playoff for 12 teams in the format and then after one year they just changed the format to something else and keep changing every year. What? College football never does this, Tom. That's crazy. What do you think, bud? Are you going 2032? Yeah, I think so. I don't think you're going to get a whole lot of movement from Congress that enables you to move faster than this. It's pretty clear this is not an issue on which people get elected or rejected. And it is an issue you can just keep stacking those lobbying dollars and hold hearings every year. So it's a nice little cash cow for the politicians. They seem really far apart on all this stuff. Like they couldn't even bring it to a vote this year. So, yeah, I think 2032 is probably the most likely. there's so many issues to solve here. I could see it being sooner because I think that there are a lot of college football administrators that are in the move fast and break things era. Remember like they just like that early Silicon Valley boom, which obviously sometimes leads to reckless decision-making and so on and so forth. But I heard Ohio state athletic director, Ross Bjork. he just has an offhanded comment mentioned next two to five years we're going to be you know doing a making a lot of moves and coming up with big pivots and danny you're nodding so i guess you heard that same interview too oh yeah what'd you think i thought i thought the exact same thing i think he was pretty open about what the future of college football could look like and when he's offering his suggestions it sounds like he's been sitting in a lot of no bad idea boardrooms and he's just throwing out stuff the in the next two to five years we're going to keep making changes kind of has me at the place where i think it could be earlier and even if we have to wait i think that we're just going to continue to see the power structure get tested by those on the inside who definitely think that nothing that we have right now is sustainable and nothing that we have right now is still going to be around in 10 years and so how they get there i'm not so sure but But yeah, among the many data points that I considered for this discussion, hearing those sorts of sentiments led me to believe that, yeah, maybe by 2028 or 2029, we already have an idea of what this looks like, who's involved, and we're already starting to get the preparation for it. I mean, we certainly see plenty of schools that are kind of preparing for it. I mean, like Sacramento State, obviously, we've talked about North Dakota State's making the jump. we're seeing a lot of the lower level schools who feel like they would have a shot taking their shot but you're also seeing like a school like northwestern build a football stadium and the reason they're doing it is they're trying to showcase that well a they needed a new stadium because their other one was kind of just not great but also they're trying to showcase that hey we are willing to invest in this we want to be a part of this going forward we understand what kind of money we can make going you know in the sport for the school and for our program so you're certainly seeing schools making that effort it wouldn't shock me like maybe the reason and i've talked about it like jokingly but maybe the reason they have like all these different meetings between thank you and petiti where they're discussing the playoff format but gee gosh we keep having the same thing we can't agree maybe they're discussing something else maybe everybody's getting together and laying the groundwork for other things like the thing that you can't talk about, but you just continue to slowly push it down the line. We're going to hit a break and talk a little bit more about what we would want in a little bit. So if you were to make predictions on structure, do you agree with the conferences or do you think it would be eight, eight teams divisions? How do you see all that playing out? So, I mean, this is really complicated because you're going to have to find a way to sell this to certain teams like Texas. like one of the things we heard from texas one of the justifications for their move was we don't want to play tcu and texas tech and oklahoma state and seu we want to play the big brands and i think if you go back to eight of eight then you're probably going to try to make that somewhat regional you know just to cut down on travel costs and to to keep the regionality of a sport a little bit that we've lost or return some regionality to the sport. So if you pull that off, how do you sell that to Texas fans? Hey, you're going to play seven games against SMU, TCU, Baylor, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State. That's probably your division, right? You don't think they'd get A&M? Sorry, A&M, yes. So cut one of those out, right? I guess. Maybe, I don't know, maybe Baylor gets cut out or something like that So, like, how do you balance, like, getting the big, big teams to say yes to this When they, the reason why they left the Big 12 ostensibly Was because they were tired of playing these teams That don't have the same kind of cachet of, like, an LSU or a Bama or something like that You could maybe take, like, an MLB approach MLB has two East divisions, two West divisions two central divisions and two south divisions so maybe you take the southeast or whatever the hell you want to call it and instead of just making it the sec you just split it into two different 18 divisions where yeah you're going to split up some schools who are maybe together now but maybe you base it more on atlantic and you know gulf instead of southeast so maybe like the miamis and the floridas and the florida states are in one division but the alabamas auburns are in another division with texas and the oklahomas i don't i think that there are multiple ways you can go about it to where you try to balance it but at the same time i i think that the selling point would have to be if you're texas or you're one of those schools that was like we want to play bigger brands it's like this is literally the super league everybody's a brand now so really the goal isn't playing brands and selling tickets it's about making money through tv which is our ultimate goal here and getting to the playoffs and winning games and being you know the dallas cowboys of like the dallas cowboys aren't crying about playing the tennessee titans like that's what they're trying to get to one of the things that the nfl did like 40 or 50 years ago was like they they took equal revenue sharing on like on a lot of of the revenue right and like they had to convince jerry jones and the guys who owned the the giants and you know at the washington and you know san francisco and all those dudes and and they said hey like we we are stronger with an actually competitive league. I think that's harder to do in college because the gap in resources is way bigger than it was in the NFL. Like I don't think you had NFL teams spending, you know, three X what other NFL teams were spending. Maybe I'm wrong on that, but maybe some was like 50% more, but not double or triple. Isn't that the only way that you get some of those teams like 49, 50, 52, 53 to agree to this is if they're going to see their revenue payments going up. If it is a Super League. No, I think it's FOMO. I think you get them to agree to it. Join or die, pretty much. Hey, how do you get UCF to say yes to this? Do you think that the Super League operates as a Super League that has negotiated one media rights deal with multiple partners? That's a huge part of this that has to happen. And that makes it way more attractive to everybody. And that's where I think you could see some of these schools like a UCF and some of the ones that may or may not be able to afford it would be able to, with some of this new money, that would be found. I think there would be way more money in flux to the sport would be coming to it with a major media rights deal with multiple tv partners and expanded playoff but there would not be equal revenue sharing among the schools see yeah well you have it you have it now in you have it now among the conferences you have unequal revenue sharing among the conferences that is correct yeah some conferences the ones that are done and even inside the conferences right i mean but i but i think you do hear the the big boys in the big 10 and the sec also kind of saber rattle about this a little bit like ohio state in particular you know they've been pretty public hey like we we make as much money like for the league as like the bottom five teams combined type thing they are free to go independent i yeah like if they sold that like if they sold their game against like Michigan. It's at a hundred million dollars. That was the value from just Michigan game. They would for the whole big 10 deal. Right. But you can't make the whole plane out of the black box. You can't build a whole season. Ohio state Michigan game. It's the one game. You know, I got, I got a couple of buddies who, who played minor league baseball and they're like, look, most of us are there. So the real prospects have somebody to play against, you know, that's not really a perfect analogy because there are real fans for, for like the teams that won't ever probably win, you know, big stuff, which is harder to say now after Indiana won the whole damn thing, right. It gives everybody more hope. Like it's so easy for us to pick the teams and sort them in divisions and, and try to tell you they're going to play nine, nine conference games or everybody in their division and this many rotations, but to unfurl the conference television rights deals, and then get all of the schools that had to fight over the television rights deals to agree to a new television rights deal that they now have to agree to with 65, 70 or 69 other schools. I, that is the part that truly fascinates me. And I don't have a good answer for how that happens because the only way I see it happening is for Ohio state and Texas to agree to a deal where they're going to be getting more and for schools jumping onto the very edge of this, that because of FOMO or pride or whatever else are going to be signing up to take less, which by the way, already happens in the college football playoff with the ACC and the big 12, having a step down position behind the big 10 and the SEC or the big, big 12 and the ACC, excuse me. So I, I think it has to be unequal revenue sharing. If you are going to push this thing through and that is going to be extremely uncomfortable. I think for some schools that are kind of caught in the middle and maybe not having the same view of their worth. So what it would be to the person actually organizing the league, you would have some tremendous battles in States too, as to who gets in, right? Like I don't think USF and UCF get in. No, you know, but like one of the, one of those schools will organize their, their alumni better and, and, and commit to spending what it takes. What if we just like fight, you know, Like, do you think Purdue and Northwestern both get in? I think you are like from a TV perspective, you already have Notre Dame in this. I know, but you have Indiana, which just recently won a national title. Purdue actually gets decent television ratings. I mean, they don't make any of the top 20 graphics, but if we're doing cutoffs at 40 or 48, Purdue's going to get in that a lot more often than you realize compared to the on-field success. Yeah. If it's only retrospective, I, I, I agree, but like, I don't know. I was looking at the last five years, which includes some bad years. I honestly, I would expect that every single school in the Big Ten or SEC will be in this because they have enough of a financial advantage over everybody else right now that they could foot the bill. If it's 48, I don't think there's a chance that you get full SEC and full Big Ten. No offense to Chip. If it's 70, yeah. No offense to Chip. I don't think there's any chance in hell it's only going to be 48. Right. Yeah. Hey, but if it's 48, then it's nothing but bangers. Bangers only. You know? I mean, just. Yeah, but then too many. Then too many banger programs are losing too many games. I know. Gosh. But what? No, I was just thinking if it's only 48, you're going to have some pissed off programs and some pissed off fan bases. Yeah. And that's the other part like Bud was talking about. then you're kind of alienating a large portion of your viewership. Right. That's why I think if I was running it, I would propose 48, and I would use FOMO to get them to agree to certain things, and I would agree to expand it to like 60 or 64. What if you had a 48-team Premier League and a 24-team Second League? Championship? Yeah. And then you had like a relegation promotion kind of thing to it. so the players you could sell you could sell like the promotion playoffs as a separate playoff and that would do very good tv numbers like games playing for the right to move up how does um how does the super league handle transfers it'd be your opportunity to start from scratch well yeah then you'd have actual contracts yeah there'd probably be free agency right and there might be trades or it could be like you have to if you want to take a player who's got a contract you buy them right like soccer you're we're gonna give you five million for this kid and if school agrees to do it they do it i mean we saw that with duke right miami we're already kind of seeing it but i think it would be more above above board and people would realize hey you know maybe you could restrug maybe you could have renegotiated more money for dairy member i think it'd be more like professional contracts what about a draft i was gonna say Would there be a different way that they would do recruiting? Or would it still just be the same general? I think that's a bridge too far. So do I. I mean, are we about to eliminate the NBA draft? I mean, there's no way we can support this full unrestricted free agency. I don't know. So the thing is, like the teams, you're going to have a lot of teams that would want the draft. Draft keeps things cost controlled, right? So they're all going to, like from that standpoint, they would all love a draft. There are certain teams where like regionality, especially like in a salary cap era, you would really want to keep the regionality of the recruiting piece, right? Because there are certain states that have all the talent. So, like, if you actually get a true salary cap in this, where the spending is, like, actually controlled, the teams that have good regionality really have an advantage. Like, you know, think Miami, right? Okay. Best, like, best city in the nation for talent, maybe Atlanta, depending on, take your pick. Also, no state tax. Like, that's a huge advantage for the Hurricanes in a Super League setup where everybody has the exact same amount of money to spend. you know um so i think a lot of the teams that don't have talent rich backyards would probably outvote the teams that do to implement a draft i don't think we'll have a hard salary cap i do you do is that the way you get the top teams to vote yes on this yeah yeah okay no i was saying i don't think we will have a salary cap so that the top teams vote yes and it will create a much more major league baseball environment where there's going to be a school that is the Pittsburgh Pirates and not spending, but still getting pretty good revenue checks and developing players for them to go be stars elsewhere. So like, would you have a salary floor? Yeah, maybe. See, I think that if you were to do that, if you had a salary cap, I think that with, you could keep recruiting the way it is and get the draft because then maybe the top team wouldn't have enough room under the cap to sign that five-star this year. So the, you know, the Georgia tech or the other team that's towards the bottom maybe has a chance to bring in the five-star because they've got more salary space. Man, it feels tough to enforce a salary cap though with college. It's not tough for, it's not tough for the professional leagues, which is exactly what we're doing. We're professionalizing the league. If there's legitimate financial consequences for breaching the cap, you can enforce it. God knows what's going to happen to the Clippers here in the next few years. Because of their, I mean, the Clippers example is like college sports looks at the Clippers story and is like, ha, ha, no show jobs, businesses that don't exist. Come on. Come on. We've been on that. let's go it's far easier to skirt the rules when you aren't all in concert with one another and have agreed to you know like contractual things when everybody's kind of signed in and in it together if you're not enforcing the rules you're gonna get ratted on and you're gonna get punished what do you think salary cap danny you think that it would have it yeah but it's it's so hard to envision college football without somebody trying to gain an edge like i wonder if there would be sweeteners as i think one time greg sankey even referred to him when we were coming into the rev share you know collectives aren't going away they're just going to provide sweeteners which we've seen so like but if you actually had a system where they would get punished for those sweeteners and then you actually had true marketing deals which is what you have in the nfl like you know you get patrick mahomes has a campaign with whatever headphones whatever shoe deals or that Jackson dart has more value being the New York Giants quarterback than he does being the Tennessee Titans quarterback totally and they make more which is totally fine and that's the way it works I'd love to see that but I do think it would make the playing field even we're getting a little bit of parity but we still have those teams that can spend more but I think you actually would but then like it goes back to Bud's question do they really want parody or not because 30 getting 30 31 32 team owners all on the same page is difficult and yet easier than it will be to get 65 68 72 schools you know to all be on the same page where unlike owners and ownerships which yes owners can change franchises are bought and sold everybody at these schools are just a steward and many of them might be moving on from their job as a university president or as an athletic director five years from now, or if not less, the motivations for these decision makers at the schools, like there is no one person who is overseeing what is best for the school quite like you have at the ownership level. It's just another place where I think we say professionalizing college sports. There's some disconnects there that I think it's going to make it really tough to just get everything to go as neatly and as cleanly as it could go because of all the competing conflicts of interest that you've got. Among them include the individuals that are making these decisions at the president and athletic director level. Yeah, that I agree with. Man, I keep coming back to this idea of how do the schools balance the factor of the business factor versus being competitive edge factor for winning, And then how do you project out like, okay, salary cap clearly helps our business model, but also like continuing to max our resource edge keeps us winning, which keeps eyeballs on us. Right. So maybe they go salary. I don't know. Maybe it's like, maybe the salary cap's like a percentage of your rev share. Right. Isn't that kind of what it is now or what it's supposed to be right now? Well, I guess my thought is like, hey, we will have a sliding scale of revenue to teams, whereas the people who get the most eyeballs, because it's a TV product, not wins, eyeballs, because they know that's what it's about. And also, that's how you get the big brands to sign on, because you can suck and you'll still get ratings for a long time after you suck. What's up, Wisconsin? I see you, Wisconsin. Keep crushing it, baby. What's up, Cowboys? Yeah, right. So maybe it's that. It's like, okay, like, hey, you can spend 50% of your revenue generated on payroll, and each team's revenue generated number is different based on how many eyeballs they get. Maybe that's how you have a cap, a hard cap off of a percentage. possibly i i also wonder though like we're we're still looking at it as a college football mindset like this is not going to be college football as it is it's the nfl you have to look at how it has worked for the nfl and if you're trying to model what you have done after that league your brand doesn't matter as much as the nfl brand does like as long as you're a part of this yeah and like we mentioned it like why would these schools join it's like because again join or die So if you're Texas, the Super League can just look at you. If you're like saying, well, we want special treatment, they'll be like, we'll just get somebody else, and then you can go form your other league. Those are your options. But I think if you're Texas, you know you want to be a part of that league. For sure. And that's why they're going to – I think at the end of the day, it's going to be more important to be in this league than it will be to be getting special treatment. Like everybody's going to make money. And I think that the more complicated aspect of this to me is how it impacts buy-in in the long term because like a big reason why college football is what it is and some teams have more money than others is because of like boosters who are literally bought into the program like they are putting their money in and they were doing it because they feel like this way they are contributing to their team's possible success once you go to this super league i don't think boosters are going to be all that relevant anymore if they're relevant at all they might just cease to exist because you're not going to need that money because your players are being paid from the revenue that you're generating that everybody's agreed to that you're getting from these television deals and you're still making a profit over the top of it i'm sure so it'll be interesting to see how that impacts it long term but i do think that it won't be easy but i i believe you'll be able to convince these schools to get in and to do the equal revenue sharing because it's going to be better for them in the long run because at some point if you keep going along the path we're going now like the television deals you're getting in the SEC and the Big Ten is currently constructed, they're not going to be there. Like the NBA signed that huge TV deal last time And now they were when they came back to the open market for the new one they were like crap are we even going to be able to get the same amount of money Because like a lot of networks are like whoa whoa whoa whoa we really overbid for this last time to get it And we are not willing to come back in. And you just look at the way the media works, where all of these networks and streaming services are kind of streamlining and coming to be one, where you've got like one company buying another. I don't know how many outlets are going to be out they're looking to buy it so i i just think if you think in the next 5 10 years okay argue for why you should deserve more than the other but if you're thinking 50 years down the road you should probably get in what you can't i'll tell you what there ain't nobody in college sports who's got a 50-year view i have seen nobody no i know that is a huge problem that but that's a huge problem with everybody very few people are thinking 50 years down the road right well those are some of our predictions some of our thoughts a complex conversation for sure but how about a parting shot just from the heart coming up on the other side what do we as college football fans want to see from college football's future if you're going to drag us into a super league well here's what we want to make sure college football holds on to all that and more next back here on the cover three podcast Danny as a college football fan as someone who loves the sport and has dedicated his life uh to playing and and celebrating the game what what do you think is important if you are talking to the the man behind the curtain who is orchestrating all of this for college football what do you think is important that college football carries into the future? Gosh, this is a little depressing because I think I don't know how many, how much of this is realistic. Right. We were talking about the draft. I would not want to see a draft. I think we might have to, I think it might be what's down the road, but I would, I want to keep the players that want to play for their school because they dreamed of playing at Ohio state or Florida state or Alabama or Georgia, whatever school it is. So I hope we keep that. I would love players to love playing for those schools, even if they were recruited to go there and they signed there. I would love to bring back some stability where maybe it's, you have to sign two year deals where you can't go to four different schools in one year, but I almost feel like, can we get that back in? Like the college football to me was always special for two reasons. the fans were passionate, way more passionate about their teams and the experience and the game day, the home field advantage, getting crazy. And they haven't lost that yet. I haven't noticed that. I do have a lot of fans saying, oh, I'm getting tired of this. I'm done. I'm done. But they're still there. But on the other side, I noticed players, like players that I played with and played against. You played for a lot of pride in your university. And I think we're losing some of that. And what's kind of depressing is I don't know how we get that back. I think that's part of where the regionality of this matters. Like you're playing, well, two things. One, if you actually are willing to pay up and pay the long-term disability and pay the guys, I don't want to use a word like what they're worth, like in a vacuum, but like relative to what the other leagues pay them as a percentage of comp, right? then you can get some teeth in these deals that basically don't allow them to transfer or don't transfer near as often, which brings more roster familiarity, which means you're going to be a little bit more familiar with the guys you're working with. And also you're going to have more familiarity with the guys on the other teams, like because you played them last year. Right. And I think that's that's the one thing that I think, like to Tom's point about nobody's thinking like the future. yeah like the whole reason we have the transfer portal is because they're not willing to actually pay up what it would actually take to put these guys on contracts and so like yeah we'll deal with all this transfer stuff which i think hurts fan connection with these teams because the rosters are completely transient year to year but if they're willing to pay up and do that which they they might be and might have to to form this thing then i think like you get more roster continuity year to year and and you might have that regionality standpoint to danny's point imagine if you push a player out the door and you have to still pay him whoo man betsy coaches wouldn't be in such a rush to turn the bottom of that roster um yeah it's i mean but overall to your your other point there danny like this is really this is the situation like this is not college football anymore it's just not it is a professional league and how everybody will adapt to it and how everybody will take to it will be very interesting to see i would imagine that in the short term people our age and older maybe a little younger will have very much those same kind of feelings like well this isn't blah blah you know this isn't whatever but those who kind of grow up in this might not even care like it might just be the reality for them and it'll always be the same thing and they'll just turn it on on saturdays and enjoy it and they'll keep watching it forever and this will just be the way it was I have a thought that is Pollyanna, naive, head in the sand, and also hypocritical. I did not have great attendance at the University of North Carolina. But I do hope that in the future, the college football players are members of the college community. I think that there's just something about, even if the, I understand they're all online classes, and I understand you're keeping them holed up in the facility, but there is something to reasons why alumni come back and continue to give and continue to have the connection, and it's because they remember when they were walking in the quad and, oh, my God, there he goes, right? Or you're out and all the football players show up and they're at a place in the student union, or you're out on the town. Again, I'm not going to say you have to literally be in class, but I do hope, because this is the hope part, I hope that college football players in this professionalized future are still members of the college campus community because I think that strengthens the fan connection of their peers, and I'm using big air quotes for those of you listening to audio, their peers in the campus community. I think it keeps that connection strong in a way that would be very tough if it's like 100% disconnected. So let's expand on that real quick. Are you saying go back to what it was like 10, 12 years ago? Because right now, I don't think a lot of these guys are seen around campus a whole lot, right? Like, I think most of your big schools have these guys on majority, if not exclusively, online courses. Correct. Right. Right. And they're around the football facility and they're around their, their, you know, apartments or condos or wherever the players are staying. There's a, there's another Notre Dame. You saw that clip over the weekend, right? The kid who transferred from Ohio state Notre Dame was up. Yeah. The class that like going to class things, but at the risk of getting myself in trouble, there's another subset of the campus community that the football players will follow. Okay. And wherever they are flocking, that's where the football players will be. That's it. You know, it's just like, if, if that's, if that's on the quad, if that's on the brickyard, if that, it just, there is a subset of the campus community that I think football players will still find themselves drawn to. And so, I mean, wherever they are, you saw, well, I'm not going to say this on the air. Gone are the days where you're starting middle linebacker shows up at your friend's party on crutches with a cast on his foot. And you look at your friends and be like, I don't think he's playing Saturday. We better bet each other team. Those days are gone. Yeah. But I mean, I guess you could say like it is 10 to 12 years ago, but to me, it just still having some connection to the campus community, I think is something that I would still like to see as a part of college football. That's sort of any other wishes before we get out of here. I know this is depressing, Jerry, but it's, it's a conversation, right? Preseason against the G against the G6. Ooh, like don't play any G6 non-Super League teams. Yeah, I think if you're CBS, Fox, ESPN, you are not bidding on games where the result is almost certainly a blowout. I think you're going to get probably 11 P5 on P5 games. It allows you to start the playoff earlier. So under my thing, you play your seven annual opponents from your division of eight, and then you play four, let's say, maybe one rotating or two rotating and then two outside of your pot rivals type thing? I would be in favor of promotion relegation. Yeah. And I think that's like when Bud was saying the 48 and then you use the negotiation, could that be a part of it as well? Hey, you want to be a part of this, but you've got to earn it every single year. But then if you're a school like Texas and you're one of those 48, you're subject to it as well. Like that puts you at great risk, which we could never imagine, you know, a Texas or Ohio State or Florida State being relegated. But I think that would be talking about the regular season, adding a lot of interest to the end of November. I could be. I appreciate you sneaking Florida State in there at the end, because I feel like I could see a world given the last few seasons where Florida State gets relegated. Right, agreed. And like how – and then like you saw – it was embarrassing, but imagine the tense nature of that fan base, which no one really cared about the last couple games. If all of a sudden, if you're playing, just survive. I was talking about this with my wife the other day. Or she was talking about it. Been sports fans our entire life. One of the greatest moments as a sports fan. I mean, I grew up watching the 90s Bulls. You know, like I've seen my teams win lots of championships, given who I root for. That might shock some of you. But like one of the greatest moments of my life was after Aston Villa, who I started following in the Premier League, they got relegated and they were down there for a few years before they got back up. Then they finally get back up and it came down in their first season back in Premier League. It came down to their last match of the season. They had to get a tie or else they were going to get relegated again. And them holding on to get that tie and staying up for another year was one of the happiest moments of my life as a sports fan. I don't think most American sports fans truly understand the kind of stakes that the relegation promotion really adds to being a fan. Because it gives the season more like we talk about regular seasons losing meaning. Your regular season never loses meaning if there are teams that can literally be kicked out of the league at the end of it if they don't win enough games. Every single game truly then matters. You don't have teams tanking like the NBA is thinking of getting rid of the draft or coming up with all these rules to keep teams from tanking. I can think of a way that would get rid of it immediately. So the Premier League officially got started in 1992. Tom, I'm guessing, knows this. 20 teams in the league every single year. Hands up, no Googling. Danny or Bud, do you know how many teams have never gone down? Out of how many? Close. Out of 20. So there's 20 teams in every year. Three up, three down. Bottom three automatically go down. So how many of the 20 have never? In 1992, so small sample size, because one of these teams has not been relegated since 1913. No matter what you called it, they've been in the top division of English soccer. Come on, don't Gemini this. I said flood. Yeah, that's my answer. All right, go ahead. Six. Six. Six. Manchester United. No, wrong league. Manchester United, Liverpool, Tottenham, Arsenal, Chelsea, and Everton. Yeah. so everybody else can get it right you know like that that's out of 20 it's a one year it's a one year relegation so every no you have to earn your way back up right right down for one year and you could win it right back the next year if you were right or you could be down there for right for a long time like here's there's i'm looking back at the original premier league right now i'm going to read some nobody in america was paying soccer paying attention to soccer these days so i'm going to name some teams that you probably have never heard of that were once in the premier league oldham athletic sheffield wednesday um ipswich town hey ipswich you better watch out ipswich will be out there on that ass i'm just saying like these are teams that were once in the premier league and right now they're basically in like the third or fourth tier yeah i think that'd be cool how about danny but danny yearning for promotion and relegation yeah it's a fool and it's it'll make incredible content for us too and i think that's a way to keep the group of six group of whatever we call that level engaged. And I think that would be an incredible playoff for them. You know, like if your top four teams got promoted, you know, your final four teams and like your number one got promoted to the SEC or whatever it was, you know, that'd be insane. It would, it would undoubtedly create a whole other economy at the end of a season watching those competitions to see what the stakes would be. a lot of fun a lot of fun to sort of imagine it a little bit hard to get through the nuts and bolts boys we ate our vegetables today but at least now we can point to this anytime anybody's saying what is the Super League going to look like here are all of our thoughts we've worked through it as best we can we appreciate all of y'all for rocking along with us Wednesday once again we'll be getting back to the nuts and bolts ranking our top 10 returning starting quarterbacks for 2026. I'll just say, what do we want to do? We need to set a limit on starts. I don't have a quarterback in mind, but if you've started four games, five games that counts as a returning starter, more or less. Okay. Everybody come with your list, ranking the top 10 returning starting quarterbacks in college football. That'll be on Wednesday, 11 a.m. Eastern time. Thursday, we'll get you set with an NFL combine preview that lots of fun. Thanks for everybody for hanging out. and you can follow him on Twitter at Tom Fidel. You can follow him at BudElliott3. You can follow him at Danny Cannell. Follow me at Chip underscore Patterson. Gentlemen, thank you very much. Thank you. See you.