Bold Predictions For 2026: Surprise Teams, Contenders Set To FLOP & More! | College Football

Welcome back to the Cover 3 podcast with your hosts, Chip Patterson, Tom Fernelli, Danny Cannell and Bob 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. Welcome back to the Cover 3 podcast here on CBS Sports. That's Tom Fernelli. That's Bob Elliott. That's Danny Cannell. I'm Chip Patterson coming to you live at youtube.com. And everywhere you get your podcast on demand, thanks for hanging out. Smash that subscribe, smash that like and come and join us in the chat. AKA the Cover 3 tailgate where Jays, I mean the bold predictions are flying in the tailgate. They like today's show. They want to get involved. Before we got started with the show, Jason jumped in and said, bold prediction. Once DK hears that the big 10 is the conference that wants to outspend the SEC and every other conference, his quote, love for parody will turn him against that conference and buddy up with the SEC. Jason, that is bold. That is bold. And of course we are coming to you. Next time we have met since the Michigan Wolverines claimed the basketball championship and the big 10 now currently holds football men's basketball, women's basketball as UCLA got it done. Tom Fernelli wrote a piece for CBS Sports.com. If he wants to get into this in his rebuttal, but I do want to get to the prediction. DK, do you foresee an alliance with the Southeastern conference because of the way the big 10 is just lording over college sports? No, that would be a cold day in hell. That never happens. Now I will say this. If you did ever see a merger where you saw maybe the ACC get gobbled up by the SEC, then you potentially could have that happen. So that would be the only case I'm joining forces with the evil empire known as the SEC. There's no way. I'm getting on that bandwagon. Tom, you offered some words for CBS Sports.com. I believe John Talty and Chris Hummer also reached out to the football side. What do you make of this big 10 dominance? What's your thought here? Is there something to this that is big picture? Is this the pendulum? Is this kind of happenstance? What's there to take away from the big 10 success in those three sports during this school year? It's not just the three sports. That's kind of what I wrote about. It's men's basketball, women's basketball, football. Yeah, but it's also women's hockey. Men's hockey. Track and field, they've won national titles. Baseball, UCLA is currently the favorite to win the college world series. Penn State won the wrestling national title. They are dominating all the sports right now. I think money clearly now that everybody can fire the money cannon, that it's what has helped the big 10 kind of catch up in that area. But I also think this is more of an outlier. You're not going to see them dominating every single sport every single year. It's just not going to happen, but this is a great year for the big 10 in that regard. Bud, what are you seeing from sort of the, is it, do you agree? A little bit of just, this is kind of an outlier here? Yeah, I think it's like probably descriptive but not predictive, right? That's an accurate description of what's been going on. Does it mean it's going to hold? I think it's probably harder to hold on to certain edges in this era, right? Because of player movement and because of the ability to pay. I think you get the dynasty stuff going on because they just have an edge that nobody else can really copy. Especially if that edge creator like Saban just keeps innovating, which he did for so long, right? He was ahead of so many trends and that's largely what carried the SEC. People trying to catch Saban within the SEC would occasionally produce a champion that was not Saban, right? I think now you're probably going to see like more different teams winning it pretty regularly. I can't think about, I think about pace car. I think that what the big 10 has done is like speed up and my prediction is that other programs will find ways to be able to catch up and close the gap. It was very clearly a smart plan for someone who laid out, I said, okay, so we've got more alumni than any other conference, right? And if everybody gives a little, that can be a lot. And now we can pay these players and we can invest in these different ways. And I think that they have played their hand, but now there's going to be a fire under the ass of the SEC. There's going to be a fire under the ass of the top programs in basketball and football and everywhere else that if you want to compete, you're now trying to keep up. So do I think it will last forever? No, but I think that in this window, I do, I do feel like not just because, you know, not just because of the big 10 in general, but just, you know, you tip your hat. You recognized, you looked around, you said, all right, this is something we can do that other conferences do not have. How can we maximize it? That's my explanation for how we got here. But I don't know if it can hold forever because just like the pace car or any innovation everyone else is going to try to find a way to be able to close that gap. Well, part of it too is expansion. Like, oh, you add, you add, like just adding. Yeah, they add like a lot of these titles that they're winning are UCLA, Oregon, USC. Like they got four schools from the conference that was called the Conference of Champions because they dominated Olympic sports. And now those four schools are in the big 10. They're still doing the same thing they always have. And although, I mean, UCLA hadn't won a woman's basketball title in a long time. I don't think they did. They ever was this their first? I think it was their first. Yeah, but like when it comes to the track and field and all that other stuff, this is, you know, they're just kind of stealing that more than anything and saying now it's big 10. But I don't think this is too shocking because I mean, they've always had better TV contracts than the SEC. It's always been an arms race. And then when you saw it spread out and spread through, I think that's been extremely helpful. Like the bigger surprise would have been, and I don't think we ever do because they're going to be playing catch up. If we were talking about the ACC or Big 12, that would be the shocker. I don't think this was that hard to predict that the big 10 was going to be right here toe to toe and even taking over for the for the meantime, the college athletic world because they've got the most money. Yep. Coaching hires, staff hires, also another part of this as well. Just sort of the you lose certain coaches, you gain other ones and the big 10, you know, with the I mean, wouldn't that be crazy if like Dusty May went to your university and you had a chance to hire him and you could have had Kurt Stignetti and Dusty May at the same time. Man, that's a can't can't imagine that. I cannot imagine what that would say this to that. Would they have the money because Michigan has. Yeah, like everybody's paying people a lot of money. Like everybody that was in the final four had pretty much a $10 million roster, but Michigan had slightly more than $10 million roster. Like they spent more than everybody else. Yeah. I don't know if Indiana would be doing that. Yeah. No, no strays here. This is not targeted, but miss me on like the rags to riches. Yaxle Lindeburg story. That guy was the number one player in the portal and was paid as such. So I'm it's they knew what they were doing. That was no diamond in the rough right there. But enough of that college basketball is done. And now all eyes are ahead on the college football season. The tailgate, as I mentioned, has been dropping their own bold predictions. We have these sorted for hours. I'll pull up some tailgate suggestions as we start going conference by conference. On that note, we will begin in the big 10. So, but I'll let you get first crack at this one. Big 10, bold prediction. What do you got? Yeah, I mean, I guess part of this is like how bold we want to go, right? Like are we going to grade each other's boldness on this, by the way? I would say that on the what's it the scoville rating is that what it was for the wings? I'm all over the place. There are some that I feel very bold and some that I'm preparing to defend the boldness. And by the way, this show is what got me in trouble last year with every Miami Hurricane fan. And I tried to say it was bold and I said they were going to miss a bowl and then made the case for it. And then that's all I heard about the entire season. But I did flip around pretty quickly. But this is the show that can get you in trouble. So I actually had a different philosophy. Mine are all positive. I didn't go any negative this year, which I could still get a thrown in my face, but, you know, it won't be, it won't be the same. So, all right. Bryce Underwood wins the Heisman. Michigan wins the big 10. Whoa, that is bold. That's like, right? I mean, it, they're what 12 to one on FanDuel to win the conference. They're 35 to one for Bryce to win the Heisman. Now, granted, they probably wouldn't let you parlay those because they're kind of very related. Yeah. But in doing this, I tried to think about like, okay, like, you know, outcomes on the margins that like could happen. Like, could he make a huge leap freshman to sophomore year? You know, could we be underestimating how much the dysfunction under Sharon Moore held that team back? You know, so if you solve for both of those, right, he actually does make the jump massive upgrade and off its coordinator, really big upgrade in head coach, maybe the quarterback who we know is super talented takes a step forward. I, I just think it's maybe a little less crazy than people think. Thoughts? I love it. I hadn't as bold as we get. Way bolder than anyone I had. I love it. Start with a bang. It's a bold show. Come on. Let's be bold. The, the thing that is so exciting about that one is it is both bold and also would be super fun to watch. Yes. I am, I'm comfortable rooting for a world where Bryce Underwood does take that jump and where Michigan joins a tier at the top of the big 10 that I, I think is set and does not include Michigan. You know, like this, if Michigan joins that party too and all those teams are good, and that'd be, uh, that would be an awesome, awesome competition, which actually does, it actually does lead me right into mine because I already said it. So this one's easy for me, but I had to go back and do the research because I did say I do not think a single big 10 team is going to go undefeated in conference play, that every single big 10 team will take at least one loss in conference play. But I was going to audit myself. I said, how bold is this? Well, it's actually been since 2021 that we've, we've always had someone who is undefeated in conference play 22, 23, 24, 25, obviously Indiana. Before that, it was 2018. And look, some of these at 2016 was another year where nobody went undefeated in conference play. So it has not been since 2021 that everybody has taken at least one loss in conference play sometimes. But I know you are always our respecter of the big 10 West. Sometimes when I was doing my research, it was a Wisconsin going undefeated in conference play, right? This year as a respecter of the big 10 West, this year my bold prediction is, uh, no one, not a single team in the big 10 will be undefeated in conference play. I don't think that's that bold after we, after you said that a month ago, and then you started looking at the schedule. I think it's probably the smarter play. Like if you were going to make a statement. Not a historical anomaly, but not something that happens often in big 10. Right. I don't think it's that bold. Okay. What do you got, big guy? Sauce. What do you got, big 10 Tom? Mine. Wow. Just nobody, like if you look at the history of sports, nobody would ever see this coming. The defending champion, Indiana Hoosiers, will finish the regular season at nine and three and miss out on an at-large playoff birth due to the lack of a marquee win. So the defending champ will not make the college football playoff. You're welcome, Kirk Signetti. There's your bulletin board material right there. I was thought the champs were the champs until we got beat by the champs. I just, uh, I, so where are, what, the lack of the marquee win? So you have essentially Ohio State, Michigan and USC. Ohio State, Michigan and USC. So then your best win is like at Washington, at Nebraska. There might not be a top 25 win though. Or you might lose at Washington and beat USC. Right. But if you beat USC, I'm guessing USC is more in that nine and three, eight and four range. And I don't know if that'll be enough. Got grants of savage in the tailgate. He's already predicting that it's a Josh Hoover pick six against Washington. Just getting even more detailed with Hoover's turnover issues. Man, that's a great call. Oh, Oh, nine and three. Yeah. I mean, if they go nine and three, how many bowl teams do they beat? Two. But I think nine and three is bold enough. Yeah. No, right. That's what I'm saying. You add all the, like to miss the playoff to be able to get some detail to it. Like this schedule has some weight to it, but it's very heavily weighted at the top. Yeah. Like this drops off a cliff. I mean, it, for instance, Northwestern Rutgers, Nebraska, Minnesota, Washington, like if we define their top three as Ohio State, Michigan, USC, what, what is that next group? Like how many, how many bowl teams are there? Two, three, two or three? Yeah. I think two out of the five probably. Also part of the thought is like those Ohio State, Michigan games, they're coming after like seven straight weeks of a game. So like you haven't had a buy, you're going to be a little roughed up. You play those two games and then after that, you've still got to play Minnesota without a buy. So maybe you go into Minnesota, you're banged up. Maybe you're, you know, you're a little whatever there before you finally get the buy against USC. So I just, I could see them losing both Ohio State and Michigan and back to back weeks. And then it's just the question of do you drop a third one somewhere else? And I don't think that's impossible. No, but the margin of victory for those first five games is probably going to be about 23 points per game. Yeah. Yeah. That's the other part of it too. Like you might not even be tested until mid-October. Yep. That little, uh, the Fernando Mendoza memorial spot on the bench that you sit in the fourth quarter because your team is up by a billion. Yeah, we could, we could see that for sure. All right, DK. Let's, uh, let's, let's round us out, which got big 10, bold prediction, positivity, number one. I'm going with the state college cyclones. Iowa State East, whatever you want to call them, the Penn State, and it knee lions with Matt Campbell go 10 and two and make the playoffs in his first year as the head coach at Penn State, Rocco, Becht stability, game manager, whatever you want to call them, all that experience, you get a locker room full of five star culture guys coming in there. It's going to work. The schedule also is incredibly helpful, but they go 10 and two with two road losses, get into the playoffs. It's probably the ceiling as far as bold as I'm going to go, but I think Penn State makes the playoffs in year one of Matt Campbell's era. I can see it. I mean, they're starting off six and oh, I mean, USC can't travel. I mean, they're going to watch another movie on the plane, but they're going to be jet lagged. They're going to be hurting. It's going to be a whiteout probably six and oh, then I did have them losing to Michigan and Washington on the road, but I can go bolder and say they knock off one of those too. I think it is just as bold that you've got Penn State make going 10 and two feels less bold, going 10 and two and making the playoff, you know, especially when we saw what Vanderbilt was 10 and two got left out. Who else they didn't get left out 10 and two at 10 and two. They ain't getting left out. Not that brandy. It depends who the it depends. Yeah. Yeah. Two losses road losses to Michigan and Washington, but then who's your win USC. USC. I mean, you'd probably get in, I think, but I don't think it'd be a lock. You'd definitely be playing a road game. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Okay. You know, there's it's not impossible that all four of our bold predictions come true. Michigan can win the big 10 while losing a game to Ohio State. Indiana can miss the playoff at nine and three and then maybe it's 10 and two Penn State taking their spot from them. Right. Oh, man. And if you lose to the team playing in the big 10 title, it's not that bad of a loss. It's close game. Close game. In that scenario, like, it's, I mean, I'm sure Indiana would be annoyed, but also like Penn State would have a much better win in USC than Indiana would. If the wins and losses rack up like we had them on the show. If it was, if it was the nine and three Indiana and we gave them the Washington loss or the Washington win, the, we had them losing to, I think they're three best opponents. Right. If they lose to USC and beat Washington. Yeah. Correct. What's man, what's what are the odds on that parlay, our big 10 bold prediction parlay? What can we get? We can do pretty good. Holler on that. Holler at us. No, no free ads. Like come, come to us. We'll do the big 10 bold predictions parlay. We would get some dark market. Some off the books. Reach out, reach out to Mikey and, uh, he'll fetch you. All right. Coming up on the other side, we turn our attention to the southeastern conference with more of our bold predictions and yours. Uh, back here on the cover three podcast as we continue with some of our bold predictions, having some fun looking ahead to the 2026 season. One last big 10 note coming from the tailgate. Yovie says bold prediction. My Wisconsin badgers have our starting quarterback for the entire season. Well, that is bold. That's good. Well, this one on here. Good luck. Good luck. I love that optimism, you know, bold and optimistic for our Wisconsin fans. Okay. Let's go to the SEC DK. Why don't you get us started? Okay. I said I was going to be positive. So there is positivity in here, but the SEC gets only two teams in the college football playoff, but one of them makes it to the national championship game for the first time in three years. And after in the aftermath, there is going to be more crying about playing nine conference games than we've seen in the history of college football. And there's going to be so much complaining about strength of schedule and how hard it is to play in our league. But you know what? That committee has been paying attention to the lack of results in the college football playoff. They don't get the benefit of the doubt this year. So only two teams from the SEC get in and you're going to see a bunch of nine and three teams get left out and the crying is going to be off the charts, but you do get a team to the national title game. So there's that. Hold on. Mr. Positivity here. I'm being super positive. You only get two teams in. One of you gets to the title game. I'm not going to say you win it. I'm just saying you get there for the first time in like a decade at this point and you're all going to whine and cry like, Oh, big time. Now, and then the interesting dynamic will be if they win it with just two teams in, do they claim they're the, of course they will, of course they'll claim they're the best conference in college football, but that'll be an interesting dynamic for them to unfold. You know, do you want to, all right, we've got it on record. It goes in lollipops. And it is Texas. I mean, I already have Texas, Oregon. Just book your tickets now, Longhorn fans. Texas. And who would you say is the second that you drop that like ticket? I thought Georgia just because of the Georgia, you know, two time reigning SEC champs. Yeah, exactly. Doing everything that you would, Georgia fans would ever hope that Georgia would do in the modern era. Right. I want to say Dia Bell leads them to the national title game, but we're going to hold off for those bold predictions for another year. We are going to know he has been lightened it up in practice. We are going to be insufferable with the appeal support. I'm just going to, that's not a bold prediction. That's a promise. Don't, yeah. March misses a throw. Dia Bell. Every time March misses a throw, we'll be like, Dia would have made that throw. Dia would have made it. Absolutely. But feel free to respond there or go ahead and jump in as we continue with our SEC bold predictions. I mean, two, only two teams in the playoff. Man, I don't know. You might get five from the big 10. They got to come from somewhere. Yeah. I think you could get pretty good odds on that, Danny. I think three is bold. Yeah. Probably. But like the SEC has talked about this. Like they had the closest margin of victory they've had like forever. So, you know, that's very like NFL like that. They all beat each other up, which like there's some truth to that in some ways. It doesn't mean they're all like championship level and beating each other up. Shoot, two is, man, two is so tough. Like it's almost that's like a, that's like a, like, you know, kind of a perfect storm type event where I was like, you've got, you've got maybe Miami and Texas Tech both lose in their conference title games, which can propel stand by, just stand by, which could propel other teams in. So like there's a couple of bids, but man, yeah, you've you're really starting to talk about some heavy weight work from the big 10. But we don't know that, right? Because now, isn't it? The conference champions do auto get in now. I thought they had to be a certain level like to where Not for the four. Power for, right. Okay. Conference champs have to get in. Then for the group of six, it does not even have to be a conference champ. It's just the highest ranked right of those group of six teams. Notre Dame's got the auto if you're in the top 12. And oh my gosh, this has become the most overwrought, complicated playoff selection process ever. I mean, you have one and then we're guaranteed we go to 16 next year. If they only get two and they only get three in, we're guaranteed we're going. We've started to see coaches talk about how like the conference championship games kind of need to go. Right. Right. Okay. Conspiracy time. Yes. You're the power for leagues. You get to your title game. You've got Texas Tech undefeated. You got Miami's undefeated. You've got whoever big 10 and SE2C teams they're in no matter what, they're one loss or undefeated. You tell them to take a dive. You can get maybe get an extra team in. Oh my gosh. You get the call. You get the call from the commissioner. I'm saying, are you telling your teams to take a dive? Your favorites. So you don't tell the, no, you don't tell the teams to take a dive. You just, there's other ways to influence the game. Like there was a former ECU head football coach who used to always say the refs know who needs to win. You know, I don't know. I mean, they have five teams lined eight and a half or higher for the win total. They have two more that are like seven and a half with pretty serious juice. Man, this is probably the boldest thing we've had. There we go. Danny, this is we're stepping up the boldest level. Under one is super positive and bold prediction. That's right. Hey, congrats, Texas. All right, bud, where do you want to go? I'm going, LSU misses the playoff. Nice. Which is consistent with Danny's obviously. You saw the same Levit news yesterday. They said it was expected like a normal step in coming back from the list Frank surgery, but had to remove the screws. So not expected to play anymore in spring practice. I just feel like LSU is a team with a lot of variants because there's a lot of things that go wrong, could go right. You don't know exactly how well they're going to play. You know, first year under Lane Kiffin. I mean, Kiffin's kind of doing like, Hey, this takes time type thing. I don't know if that's just him. You know, that's just kind of lip service or if he's just trying to lay some of the groundwork. Like maybe they're not quite there yet. I don't know. But like that's not a really easy, like easy road to play off for them. If they're not like a pretty high level team. Foot injuries, man. Unpredictable. Exactly. I am not in defeat. As I've said before on the record, you, you've got a foot thing. I got, I'm, I'm, I have to give, give, give a little bit of space there. I thought a lot about LSU, but, and I'm with you that I've both talked to myself and within an hour to the instability is perfect for LSU. I mean, hell, Ed Oderon, right? It's just like the lightning in a bottle, crazy ride, fast and loose. Like it can go really well, but you, you can also end up just kind of curled up on the side of the road. You know, like I'm, I'm kind of, I see the vision in terms of trying to attack the widest possible range of outcomes because it could go poorly. I'm not, I'm not ready to, to step there quite yet. And I'm not going to overreact necessarily to Lane Kiffin's caution, but there's a small margin for error for them to be able to accomplish their goal. Oh, last thing, then I'll stop talking. LSU fans don't care. LSU fans don't care about, uh, L, about whether Sam Levitt is or is not ready. LSU fans don't care about patience or caution. LSU fans don't care. Even about like how much things cost, all they care about is that you win. If LSU misses the playoff, they are not happy with your run of Lane, Lane Kiffin era. The other one I was going to go with it was really, really bold was the Gators win the SCC. But we've already talked about that a lot. We already know they're favored in 15 out of 12 games. Right. Exactly. Yeah. All right, Tom. Uh, Texas begins the season nine and L. Whoa. Including, including that win over Ohio state, but then loses three of its last four games at LSU at A&M and against Georgia in Atlanta in the SCC championship again, because Texas will never, ever beat Georgia as it's written in the stars. And they barely squeak in to the college football playoff, but they're forced to play a first round road game. So you've got them beating Ohio state, winning in Knoxville against Tennessee. They knock out Oklahoma, Florida, and Ole Miss in that, uh, homestand against in that, in that three game run right there in October. And then it's just, is it the, the wheels fall off the wear and tear. You lose that on the road to LSU. You lose a tough rivalry game on the road against the Aggies. You get to Atlanta and you lose to the Georgia team. You always lose to arches. Heisman hopes go out the door. Darian Mensa steps up and wins it because Miami cruises through an easy season. And Texas is playing maybe Miami on the road in the first round of the college football playoff. Wow. Okay. I like this. This is, this is bold, but it's like we could see it happening. Mm hmm. I can't. The boldness is in the exact prediction. It's an especially for city. Yeah. Because then we're going to get all the same arguments about like last year, Hey, we hadn't played Ohio state, although this time they won it. So it's actually like in their favor, which is going to be hilarious. Yeah, exactly. Um, I've, so it's been since 2020 that Texas has averaged 40 points per game. And if you score 40 points per game in 2025, you are a top five offense. I think that with what they have done in the transfer portal, with the way that they are building this thing up, I think we finally see the archmaning Texas offense take hold and fly. I do not see this kind of late collapse. And I'm not quite sure whether to think that everything is going to go boom, pun intended, or bust with coach must champ taken over on the defense. Oh man, I think, I think this is going to be the real deal. I think this is one of the best offenses in the entire country. I've got a Texas averaging 40 points per game. Wow. First time since 2020, top five offense in the country. And it is what they've done to load up in the running back room. Some of their young talent coming in, young receivers taking a step forward, having some of the best receivers in the transfer portal added to the group as well. This, this kind of feels like the monster that we were waiting to click into place for a lot of last year. I mean, how often does that Texas offense frustrates you without the talent? Doesn't come together from paper to performance? I think that this is the year that it happens. I mean, that would be, I mean, just like suddenly remember that they got Cam Coleman. Yes, it was when I was doing this. That's what I was talking about. It's, it's like there's a party that keeps forgetting. It's like, oh wait, they got Cam Coleman now too. All right. Trivia here. Okay. Who are the three power five teams who averaged 40 or more last year? So North Texas was one of them. Three. Power. Power. Power. Power. Power. Power. I'm just sort of filling out the. Actually there's there's four because one, somebody had 39.8. So we should probably round that up. Notre Dame was one. Okay. I know that for a fact. The house day. Nope. No, no way. I know defense was sick. Yeah. And those games were all a little bit. Remember, you know, Ryan day plays the regular season. Yeah. Was Indiana one of them? Yeah. Okay. Notre Dame, Indiana. There's four. The other, the third you might get the fourth. I bet you give you 20 guesses. You wouldn't get it. Florida state. No. They had 77. And they were, they did paddling early. It does add up. Arkansas. Nope. Good guess though. Yeah. That's a good sneaky guess. Georgia. No. Tennessee. No. Yes. Oh. Tom's a genius. Okay. But I have no idea who the fourth is. Um, I'm going to go. Let's. It's a team that. Absolutely. No. Text tech narrowly missed. They were 39.4. So Tom, Tom is dialed today. This is, this is. I'm just thinking. Nobody else in the big 10 came close. Ohio state did not score near four. Oregon. No. This team dumped like dump truck people down the stretch. Utah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You, you, you, you taught down the stretch. They dropped. After, uh, since the week before Halloween, 53, 45, 55, 51, 31, 44. Yeah. Yes. I think this could be it. And I saw a comment in the tailgate. Steve Sarkeesian probably doesn't want to score 40 points per game. That's possible. You know, might not be. I just, there are too many good, it was already talented. The additions like Tom mentioned, make it even more impressive. The pieces seem to fit together. And I just think, I think we might have a monster team. So that's, it's a bold, that's my guess here. I think that's definitely within the range outcomes. Yeah. Okay. We'll see. All right. Um, let's see, Texas, Danny, but all right, we got him coming up on the other side. More of our bold predictions, including a look at the ACC and the big 12 and more. Back here on the cover three podcast, nine, oh, six a.m. Eastern time lane that jumped in and said, not sure if this is bold, but I predict no teams with new head coaches make the playoff. That means no LSU, no Michigan, no Florida, no Penn State. I, I would say that's kind of bold. I mean, that's pretty bold. Yeah. It's a pretty bold one because you've got so many potentials in that mix, but don't, don't hate your starting point, at least in terms of looking for a fun angle to talk about and think about. Like what does your playoff field even look like if no new coaches make it? Same as last year. Yeah. Basically, because no one made a USC, no one changed coaches who was in the playoff last year. Well, except Ole Miss. Ole Miss. Yeah. Okay. Although Pete, Pete did coach in the playoff. So would he count? I've always, I think we still call this his first year. Okay. First regular season year, but. His first season, but he's already coached two playoff games. Correct. I mean, technically Luke, Fitzgerald, he's already coached two playoff games. Correct. I mean, technically Luke Fickle had a headset on, even though he wasn't the coach for that bowl game. In Chip's mind, coaching two playoff games is the same thing as being the interim coach in a bowl game a year before. It doesn't really count. If they'd won it all, I would change my tune. No, no, no. If they wanted all, you'd really need to hammer down on it even harder. I give Trinidad Chamble as a great amount of credit for some of the playoff success. It's things that bewilder the mind. Okay. Let's turn. Oh, this was a fun one. SEC cleared out Garrett, but it's bold prediction. Marcel Reed completes building up as fast as. Oh my gosh. I do want him to do well. At this point, I, yeah, I want to be wrong about him. You don't, you don't want to be on the corner for like, what's, what's the one thing that Bud Elliott was the most right about? The Marcel Reed can't play. Yeah. Like all the draft guys, like finally getting around to watching the eight and receivers and they're like, what the hell is that? Yeah. It's, it's KC going to get drafted high. I don't, I've, I haven't gotten. He might be a first. Yeah. I haven't got. I still think second, but he might be a receiver. Interesting. And as we turn our attention to the ACC, actually, I want to hear from y'all first, then we'll get to some of the tailgate suggestions right here. Tom, you love the ACC. Let's, let's, let's you get us started. Um, let me see. Oh, uh, Miami will go nine and O. In conference play and nobody else in the league will finish with their conference record better than six and three. Cause league sucks outside of Miami is the overall chest. I need to put all of that like honey barbecue bold. I'm just like, no, I, I, I, I get, I, yeah. A bunch of teams at least went seven and two last year. Yeah. But this year, none of them will, they're all going to six and three. And that will be the fun tiebreaker is, you know, how many, I mean, Miami did not Miami lost to conference games last year. I mean, did not play in the ACC championship game, but. Ah, that, you know, Danny, when I was going through looking at my Miami, my Miami stuff, your, your conversation with Jason Taylor, he ain't blowing smoke. Right. Seems to really, really, really good. I, I agree wholeheartedly with that gap. Not, I don't know, it would be a lot though. That, you know, there's, there are games that they are, that they have been double digit favorites in before that have gotten a little bit hairy. So what's, how about this one, Tom? I'll, I'll let you follow up. What is the most likely loss for the Miami? Overdain. In conference play. Oh, um, at Stanford, because it's the first week of the season and that's when crazy stuff happens. But that's what we're kind of like having to resort to is like, but hey, because college football goes college football sometimes. The reality is the most likely losses are either at Clemson, maybe Florida state, or maybe at North Carolina, because it's the week before Notre Dame and you get caught looking. What do you, how many other games would you have to pick as like a, you know, a parlay before you decided, all right, no, like what's more likely they lose at Notre Dame or they lose at like this combo of four games or three Notre Dame. They most likely lose at Notre Dame. Oh, okay. Yeah. So all right, more likely to lose Notre Dame or more likely to lose any other like a game. Or like Clemson FSU in North Carolina and VT. Notre Dame. Once you get to four, I would throw them all in there. Once you had, once you had, like, once you pick four, I think that's probably where it is. Yeah. Also, you know, and we mentioned during the ACC, if Vegas is right, Wintotals, look, getting, getting your Bay Area trip and not every ACC team has to make one, but getting it out of the way early and then having the fame you as your opponent when you get back. That's, you know, that's nice. That's nice. A lot of ACC teams do not have that kind of bounce in terms of what you have before, nothing, fall camp and what you have after your FCS game. Dig it. Who else would finish with six and three? I also need to put in my mind, by the way, which teams are playing eight games and which, so that I've got that as my, my qualifier. Because I was doing such a pain. It's such a pain. So unnecessary. I've got one. All right. You want my bold prediction? Yeah, let's do it. Yeah. Ethan Grunkemeier finishes as the breakout star of the ACC. Now I didn't want to go ACC player of the year because that's probably going to go to Darian Mensa, right? He's going to be the highly touted guy. He's going to have more opportunities, but James Franklin squad finishes nine and three on the season, but misses out of the ACC title game due to tiebreakers with somebody else. There's going to be a way where somebody gets screwed again. I don't even know. Do we know the formula? They still haven't announced it yet. It's just like, right? Oh, they haven't announced it yet? I don't think it was officially. Jim Phillips indicated that they are going to, before the football season starts, review the tiebreaker process. So I would expect that we get a little bit of clarity there. But if you look at, if you look at Grunkemeier, the way he finished the season, because he started off a little bumpy, first start was on the road against Iowa, struggled, had a few turnovers, then he played Ohio State and he played Indiana. But four wins in a row to finish the season clean in the turnover sheet. He's got just the right amount of experience to come in, feel comfortable. It's the perfect guy for James Franklin. James Franklin's fired up. I think they have a really strong first year. Like that. So that would be finishing top four, basically. Like if we were to, you know, set some, you know, finish somewhere up inside, up inside the top four, Grunkemeier is your breakout star. Maybe he gets that second team all ACC honor behind Mensa. Is, is Grunkemeier more likely to be available for the newcomer of the year? Like is Mensa out from being a newcomer if he's not new to the conference? He has to be. He can't be eligible for that. He can't be. He can't be a newcomer. You've been here. Oh my gosh, that was hilarious. But what's, what you got? It kind of plays off, Danny's. Hokies win the ACC. It feels really bull. I, I looked at this and it was like, you need a lot of things to happen. So you, you need Miami to regress significantly, right? Or just, you know, have an off game in the AC title game, but you look at this like a pit SMU, Louisville, Virginia, Clemson and the Hokies, I think are kind of like your, I mean, there's a lot who could, if Miami really regresses, then this is very, like very just, you know, kind of ACC wheel of destiny, which is a throwback for, you know, people who are our age. I think it's possible. Like the schedule is not easy, right? No. At all. But again, I'm saying that with like kind of light conviction, because I don't know that I really know what these teams are going to be. You know, like at Cal's probably not easy. Pit is not an easy out. I'm pretty sure like Maryland, I think we'll play good defense. We'll see about the offense, you know, Clemson, SMU, Miami, Georgia Tech at home is probably not an easy out. But like if we're going bold, I think there's something that could happen. Super bold. I don't, I think that that's probably the boldest one I've had. Well, I know I'm glad we, for those watching on youtube.com slash cover three, we've got the schedule pulled up in the final eight games of the season. Hit at Cal, Georgia Tech at Clemson at SMU, Stanford at Miami, Virginia. Of those eight games, we are talking about winning the right side of small margins in six of them, even if Virginia Tech is as good as, you know, we hope they could be in terms of, you know, talent and production. Right. Do you know what I would see that? That'd be one of the stories of the year, but because I see them like winning a bunch of close games, lightning in a bottle, like good vibes and confidence builds through the season. It would be something not totally out of the realm of possibility, but to navigate that schedule would be incredibly impressive. Yeah, like very. Let's see. So we got Grunkamire. We got Bud. I'm going to keep this one super local. Did you guys know that both North Carolina and NC state are playing out of the country in week zero? What could go wrong? The biggest week zero storylines are the Wolfpack and the Tar Heels taking their passports abroad. Well, I say they win them both. They're both underdogs. NC state short underdogs to the Virginia Cavaliers as they play down in Brazil, North Carolina, a little bit longer underdogs as they play against TCU in Dublin. We have a change at offensive coordinator as at North Carolina upgraded, my opinion, at the quarterback position, but it is the stability of CJ Bailey who, I mean, you want to talk about warming the hearts of some Wolfpack fans. It was like the next day after Will Wade bolts. CJ Bailey has his media availability talking about how you never dream of, you know, trying to transfer somewhere else or leaving it. And y'all committed to me first. I'm going to stay committed to you for the rest of my time. I think that CJ Bailey and it leads the Wolfpack to a victory against the Wahoos at the same time as a reworked offensive staff shows a more offensive spark against Sunny Dyches and TCU. But TCU's quarterback is who? I don't know. I do. Just one scholarship quarterback remaining from last year. We're still kind of putting things together for the Frogs. I'll go North Carolina with the bigger upset. NC state wins as a small dog. Call it the Week Zero triangle parlay. I say UNC and NC state both win out of the country in late August. Mike Malone and Justin Ganey make the trips. I bet Michael Malone does. It's like you guys are all twins. These you're both going to be a broad and weak one. You've both got new basketball coaches. It's like you guys just can't be like, you know, one does it, you get the other ass to. I have heard though I have not confirmed myself. So I want to be very clear about this to uphold the journalistic standard to the cover three podcast. But there is a Twitter account that I believe is like Will Wade LSU coach that is currently being parked on by a Carolina fan. He grabbed it when the rumors started and there and somebody's trying to wrestle it away and it hadn't happened yet. So, you know, the rivalry lives strong in this one. So I've got a, I mean, I'm excited about our Week Zero, Week Zero focus on the teams right here in my backyard. I say they both win. How bold? Love it. Pretty bold. It's a pick two AC 60 bold. Yeah. I mean, you can parlay them right now. It's they, the odds are probably plus 20,000. No, not that much, but you know, it's a, it's a pretty decent, pretty decent payout for both of them to be able to get it done. Second, second prediction that is less bold is there will be some scenes from NC State fans and North Carolina fans who make the trip for both of those, whether it's Tar Heels in Dublin or Wolfpack in Brazil, all range of outcomes, boys. You want to talk about the variance of what we could have anything, anything could happen there. I mean, you've got to think Jordan would rather be in Brazil than Dublin, right? Yeah, I think so. I'm not going to get myself in trouble. One's going to be cold and rainy and the other one's going to be Brazil. How's it? Where would the accommodations be nicer? Depends what you want out of account. I'm going to say Jordan will feel like the accommodations in Brazil will be much better than the ones in Ireland, where they're going to have you in a cold damp castle with moss on the walls. It's August. It's lovely. But I mean, didn't the, it is never lovely in Ireland chip. It is always cloudy and rainy and 52 degrees. Did not, didn't the men's basketball team and the Olympics just stay on a houseboat? Do y'all remember that? They were like, Hey, do you want to stay in the Olympic Village? LeBron said, No, I'm going to call up my friend. We're getting a yacht. I am not staying in town. You guys can come get a dingy. Come get me off the boat and take me to the games. All right. Big 12. Let's see. Tom, why don't you get it started? Cameron was, let me go look it up. Texas Tech will finish the regular season undefeated and win their nine big 12 games by an average of 17 points per game. They will decimate the league. It will, it, it'll be, it'll be like PSG and league one or Bayern Munich and the Bundesliga. That's what this is going to look like. Oof. Hmm. I have a, man, it's not that crazy. I have a counter to that. Let's go. I mean, because my bold prediction is that Houston wins the big 12 title game. Now they will have gone and lost. So they don't, they don't play Texas Tech. I don't know. Oh no. You didn't do it. It's a Tech schedule. Yeah. So they will have lost that game on the road at Lubbock, but Connor Wegman quietly had a really nice season for Willie Fritz. 25 touchdown passes. Another 11 rushing touchdowns. Pretty good with the turnovers and brings back two of his favorite targets. And remember, Mackay Hughes, somebody we loved in the portal that was going to Oregon, didn't work out there. Don't know what was going on there, but sometimes you got to find your level where you fit in. And that's where Mackay Hughes is going to be a big addition to this rushing attack. I think Texas Tech, or excuse me, Willie Fritz, Houston, I think they end up getting to the college football playoff by beating Texas Tech in the big 12 championship game. Because Texas Tech took a dive. To be able to get the extra unit. So your mark, we definitely would all agree. Like he might tell me he's got wrestling in his blade. Background, he's definitely for the belt. And Texas Tech in Tom's bold prediction is only that they finished the regular season undefeated. He did not say anything about yes or no taking a dive in the, in the final. So good to see. All right, DK, you got to run. Yeah, I'm getting kicked out of my conference room. Okay. All right. See y'all. Glad you got to go. Glad you got it out on the record with your love for Houston. I'm sure that I've been traveling a lot in the last two weeks. So I haven't been able to stay locked into Dusty and Danny. But if Willie Fritz was on the show like two days ago, would not surprise me. You know, that's some classic Danny bump right there. Talk to Willie Fritz on a Monday, come in on Wednesday, like, you know, I guys, I feel like Houston's going to win the big 12. I see the vision right there. All right, bud. Why don't you, why don't you take us for you and get a bold in the big 12. I didn't go so bold as to say they would win it, but West Virginia makes the big 12 title game. That's God, man. You win. All right. I'm just Tom, if you push back, if you want to, I think, I think bud went to the spicy scale. Yeah. That's okay. That's awesome. Year two of rich rod, they recruit to a system. I think they know what they're doing. You know, you get Oklahoma State early when all those new pieces are still jelling in September, you know, at Iowa State, it's not an easy place to play, but again, like, they lost, they have a team, but they lost almost all of last year's team. Get Arizona at home, Cincinnati at home, like at TCU, not easy. Typically we'd like to play TCU late, right? So October 24th is later than it is earlier. I like they play Texas Tech on the road because that's probably a loss. If you play it at home, wherever you play it, right? So get that loss out of the way is one of your road games. Get Kansas at home, you get Houston at home, and then you're at Utah in the year. And that is certainly hard. Yes. New coach. We don't really know exactly what Utah's going to look like. I think they'll be pretty good. But, you know, like, is it that crazy? You think they could go seven and two or like six and three with tiebreakers and actually make it to the big 12 championship game? They've got four, you know, we always talk about the five home games, four road games, or vice versa. They do get five home games, four road games. And being in Morgantown is obviously even a plus value. But I would argue road trips to Ames, Fort Worth, Lubbock, and Salt Lake City is kind of like a four and a half. Those are four. It's a lot of travel for if you live in Morgantown. Yeah, for sure. For difficult trips to be able to make. Also, I like what you talked about recruiting to a system. As I try to envision all of these bold predictions on the fly, Michael Hawkins is not short of athleticism. Right. You know, we're not, we're not as, we know what we're asking you to do. I could see the former Oklahoma quarterback being able to be successful in a new offense there with Rich Rod. I mean, their GM there was like what, the assistant GM at Oklahoma? Or maybe they're actually the actual GM for, for Negi. So he's seen Hawkins in person. He would, he should know if he's a fit or not. Well, you know, it's the, the big 12 because Bud says West Virginia is going to make the big 12 title game, but he's not going to promise anymore. Danny did say Houston wins the big 12 title game. I've got Kansas State. Let's go. You want to talk about playing the hits. You're going to give me Avery Johnson and Colin Klein and a bounce back year after a frustrating season that, you know, we have seen year after year after year that some teams do come back cursed after they go and they play the out there in that game in Dublin, Ireland. And I think that for Kansas State, even within the season, there were individual games and stretches of games where you could see the group that many people thought would be competing for the big 12 title, but the consistency, both in terms of Johnson, but the team as a whole, the consistency just was not there. The injury issues to key offensive players really started to pile up. And I think that Kansas State very much so is poised to be able to make the big 12 title game. I was not bold enough to say that they would win it, but I do think that this is a schedule and a team that in year one under Colin Klein could be set to be playing for that WWE belt. I enjoy that all three of your bold predictions were a different team making the title game. And mine is just Texas Tech is going to beat the piss out of everybody in this league. It's I mean, it is something that feels less certain. Yeah. We whole grab back a teams BYU absent from any of our bold predictions. Is that because it's not bold? Yeah, that's not full. I threw Utah and BYU out from unless I was ready to say they were going to straight up win the conference. I eliminated them from even sort of consideration. Now, if you wanted to say like Bear Bachmeyer wins the Heisman. Whoa. Whoa. That would be bold. That would be bold. Let's let's hit some some tailgate. Oh, Eddie, let's go big picture. Wild cards. That's why I included this couple minutes that we've got left. What do you want to throw on record for bold prediction? Then we'll hit some tailgate stuff. Bud's got a heart out. You go first. I went a non-boisy team from from the group makes the playoff. That's because it feels like you were so bold on the other four. I know. I okay. The other one was Notre Dame wins the national title, which gives them more leverage going forward when as we talk about like the new playoff format restructuring all that kind of stuff like that. That would be a pretty big event. Mine is also Notre Dame related. Okay. Yeah. The reason I got off it was I was trying to anticipate like somebody's going to go Irish here in this category. Okay. What is mine? Is something I've kind of discussed on the show before. During the season, Notre Dame announces it is moving its Olympic sports to the big east, canceling its scheduling agreement with the ACC. It also announces a new scheduling agreement with the big 10, which is another broadcast partner of NBC. This helps Notre Dame's overall strength of schedule argument now that the ACC is kind of cratering and there's also so much uncertainty about the future of the league, while also adding more inventory to both of the Notre Dame and big 10 television schedules, making sure even though NBC's got Notre Dame, Fox and CBS are happy that they will be getting Notre Dame games to add to their scheduling when they're on the road once in a while. Does NBC get more Notre Dame at that point? NBC will have every Notre Dame game. Pretty much, we'll still have all their home games, but they will lose a couple of road games a year. One to Fox, one to CBS. I'm curious how the trade-off works here. In the last discussions that we saw, isn't Notre Dame getting more of the brand name ACC teams more regularly? I wonder if they pair it down to just that. We will play you guys regularly for the games that will get ratings, like the name teams. Basically, the three teams that get ratings. Or maybe if the Hokies start really rolling. But my thought is NBC would rather have Notre Dame versus Ohio State than Notre Dame versus Miami. Agreed, but you also get Rutgers Northwestern, Minnesota, the teams that don't rate. So I'm curious if it's modified. Like they pair it down. I can see that happening. Notre Dame announces a scheduling agreement exclusively with Michigan, Michigan State, USC. Just pick their favorites. Yeah. Like we want the tops from both conferences, basically. I just, I think that Michigan would be more, I think not Michigan, I think Notre Dame would be more focused on arranging what happens with the future scheduling. Because if I remember correctly, while one of the takeaways from the lawsuit settlements was a clear cut exit path, expensive, but a clear cut path for, you know, your career. In Florida States to be able to leave the ACC. All of those are fractions of what it would cost Notre Dame to do the same thing. Notre Dame cancelling its scheduling agreement with the ACC. Feels like a step that now they know they could do, but they won't do it until they have 100% finalized all the other stuff. And that's what I've got no clue of, you know, what they would, what they would be interested in. So yeah, that makes sense. Like they got step, they got little domino figured out. They got to figure out the bigger dominoes later. All right. Real quick through bold prediction from Brad at 7.56 AM Eastern time. SMU goes to the playoff, which they did do two years ago. And here we go with the bold. Kevin Jennings is a Heisman candidate. Tell you what, full health, not rolling around on a leg and a half would be helpful. Let's see, bold prediction. Danny and Bud started to cover three fundraiser to pay Mike Norvell's buyout. Is that bold? Can we do that? Yes. Hell yes, it's bold. Yeah, we could do it. And we probably could do it. No, both of you have enough self-respect to put those funds elsewhere. That's that you didn't hire Mike Norvell. Yeah. That's your mess. You're right. You still get paid whether Florida State sucks or wins, you know? That is a fact. So let's start thinking about boys college fund. If we're thinking, you know, we're not going to fund Mike Norvell's buyout. Man's made millions off Florida State University already. He's good. He's a, don't forget that is former Alabama coaching candidate Mike Norvell to you. I love it. All right. We will be back on Thursday where in addition to going through your mailbag question, in addition to going through your mailbag questions, the big old bag of mail, we are going to take a look ahead at what should be an interesting weekend of spring football. Alabama, I know it's going to be having their A day among some other headliners, but it is a Thursday. It is this time of year. You drive the show. So come in early. YouTube.com slash Cover 3. Jump in the tailgate. Drop your questions. We'll be sure to grab a bunch of those. We also have ones from the big old bag of mail where listeners have left a five star review and in that review put a question including, then I'll go ahead and leave this with you to, you know, rattle around your brain for the next 23 hours. Who are some of the worst quarterbacks to win a national championship in the modern era? Well, you know, cuts both ways. So we'll be sure to dive into that and so much more. And you can follow him on Twitter at Tom Fadeli. You can follow him at Badeli3. You can follow me at chip underscore Patterson. Gentlemen, thank you very much. Friends hold hands all the time. Find a new slant.