2026-04-30 Bill Connelly Post-Spring Conference Walk (raw)

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It's that whoop, whoop. Now, Dan and Ty.

Dan Rubinstein, welcome back to the podcast, my friend. How are you?

Good. I can't believe you agreed to do a live watch-along for the Madrid Open and Rafael Jodar, absolute local Spanish sensation, taking on Jannik Sinner. Established killer. But I think it's a step in the right direction for both you and for the show in general.

When you say it, Jodar or Hodor, because Hodor was a character in Game of Thrones?

I think it's Jodar. I think it's J-O-D-A-R.

Oh, that's not spelled at all the same as the character I'm thinking of from Game of Thrones.

No. This dude played a year at Virginia. We're talking about ACC pedigree on the ATP tour and looking like a top twenty player as a nineteen-year-old.

Is he better than Beau Pribula, though, I guess is the operative question. I mean, is Beau Pribula even the best quarterback on that roster? Don't know. I don't know. Are we being seen for Holstein? That's not that good. But I think if you were to call Rafael Jodar the Beau Pribula of recent Virginia athletics, that would be an insult. To the tennis player.

Okay. Okay. Well, we're talking tennis, and I guess, full disclosure, we should inform the audience about how today's interview came about because there is some, like, tennis chatter involved with that?

Oh, yeah. I was texting with our friend Bill Connelly, ESPN.com's Bill Connelly, about tennis. And he mentioned, he was like, "By the way, it's never too early. I have a MAC preview coming out soon, and preview season has started. So if you guys ever want to talk, let me know." And we didn't know what we were going to do for today's show. And I said, "How's tomorrow? 9:30 a.m. Central." And he said, "Great."

Yeah, for anyone interested in how the sausage gets made, this is how this show got made. Bill Connelly, our wonderful friend, a college football luminary, and that is putting it mildly, our good friend from ESPN.com, before that SB Nation, a hell of a guy, Bill Connelly, going to be stopping by here momentarily. A wide-ranging discussion about all things mid-major and G6 slash G5 to power conferences to transfer portals. We'll talk a little bit about, we have to talk about the Brendan Sorsby news and how that impacts how he is looking at the Big Twelve. We're going to talk about as much as we can muster up here with Bill Connelly in just a few moments.

Yeah. Can't wait. He just released his post-spring questions about both teams in the new-look Mountain West and major conferences like the SEC and Big Ten. I saw he wrote about, I think, both Notre Dame and Oregon, as some of his items in the 11 post-spring questions. So by all means, check that out because I think this episode is, you know, I'm planning on looking at it through the lens of, like, post-spring questions. He just wrote post-spring questions. And so this is where we are sitting now. I have a lot to ask, Ty.

Well, we shouldn't waste any time then. No. We appreciate the audience stopping on by here, supporting what we do. Obviously, the audience's time is valuable as well. If you like what you hear, hit follow, hit subscribe so that you don't miss any of the episodes. Right now, we're still in the twice-a-week mindset as we get a little bit closer to the year and we start doing previews. That's when we'll flip the switch and go to three a week, but not there. Not there quite yet. We'll let you know when we do arrive. Also, Verballers.com is where you can go if you want to further support what Dan and I do. That's the Patreon. If you sign up there, you get access to ad-free episodes, a whole bunch of bonus perks like early releases. You can get on our Discord. You can submit questions and such for various episodes. Verballers.com, check that out.

Yes. Dan Rubinstein, it is that time in the offseason where we start looking back a little bit at spring. I guess it's not fully over yet, but enough is in the books that we can sort of reflect on what we've seen. We start thinking about the dreaded P-word.

Previews. Be more specific.

Previews. Start talking about the season ahead. As I understand it, our guest of honor today just turned in 7,000 words to the editor on the MAC. Is that right, Bill Connelly from ESPN.com?

That's correct. And honestly, I felt kind of underwhelmed. Like, "Oh man, I thought I was going for at least eight here. Man, I haven't served the MAC community well enough with this thing," but there's a lot of information in there.

What is the longest preview you've ever written?

Well, the freaking Big Ten previews now are like, it's 18 teams. Like, I try to write at least like 350 or 400 about every team. And so then suddenly you have like a 14,000-word doc on your hands. Every year that goes by, there's more reason to dislike what huge conferences have done to college football. But really, I resent what it's done to me.

Shame.

It's a lot.

Because I know, just having followed your work over many years now, your previews have evolved, right? Because initially, at least when I first came to know of you and your work, it was very team-focused, but now it's sort of like bigger picture, more conference focus. It's all very rich content that I would advise everybody go out there and read if you're into college football. But how did that evolution take place? And was that at all driven by expansion or conference realignment, what have you?

Well, yeah, I mean, at SB Nation, when you could do whatever the hell you wanted to do and take up as much real estate as you wanted, obviously, writing 3,000 words about Louisiana Monroe on a Tuesday in February was something that could be done. And I loved doing it. And so, yeah, they used to be team by team at SB Nation. And it was one of those things where it's a labor of love. I like being the person who does it. And if there's ever a shift that causes me to not do it anymore, that's probably okay too. And that's how things played out. So I'll go to ESPN, and obviously, there's a lot more, you don't, the real estate is different on the website. And so now it became conference previews instead of team previews. And, you know, I was breaking everything out into two previews per conference when we had divisions, and then we didn't have divisions anymore, and it became really awkward little combinations of teams that just didn't make sense. And then I had to wait until May to start them because the May portal, you know, there was absolutely no point. I still remember, like, three years ago writing an AAC preview, and I had like my 10 favorite players. It went up in April, and in May, seven of them left. So then I started the whole preview series in late May. Now we don't have the portal. We don't exactly know how things are going to work here at the end of the semester because I assume still guys are still going to leave. But apparently, you know, there's going to be pretty onerous punishment for some of this stuff. So now we figured, okay, let's split the difference. We'll start it in April. This will get me mostly done before the World Cup starts. That's kind of a thing this year.

Yeah.

But we're going to try this out. And it's still conference by conference, one giant preview per conference.

I've been trying to get out ahead of it for the same reason. A, the World Cup. I'm going to be going to a game. I'm excited about watching that. And I don't necessarily want to be as distracted as I am normally come June, because a lot of times we're cramming and we're working off of the previews that you and many others put together. This year, I'm trying to get out in front of it. I would be interested in knowing what you feel is the hardest part of putting this stuff together outside of trying to get rosters that are accurate. Because it seems like that's the bedrock for all of this. And if you can't get it, or if teams are late putting them out there, it's almost like a non-starter.

Yeah, I think that's all certainly waiting until this point in the offseason has helped in that regard, too. I don't think we have all 138 rosters, but we're close at this point. But that has been, I mean, the prep has been the biggest change, because, you know, I started doing my little roster files and everything back in probably about 2014 or so. And maybe before that. But I had, you know, a spreadsheet I'd go in every offseason. I'd basically take last year's, I'd update last year's class information and go through and have the roster pulled up, and I could tell pretty quickly who's back. And there weren't many surprises because guys weren't transferring. It was a big deal if you lost, you know, eight or something. And so that process, updating the team spreadsheets, entering the recruiting class, that probably took 25 minutes per team a decade ago. It took an hour and 20 minutes per team this year. And there were more teams. The first year I did the previews, there was like 119 or 120 teams. Now there's 138. Which, no complaints whatsoever. I'm a more-the-merrier guy, but it just took so long to update rosters that I didn't even have, you know, previously I'd have, like, SP+ projections up in early February, and then, you know, we'd update them in May after the portal. I just did one this year. Say, I'll do it again in August. But it took so long, I didn't finish the rosters until into March. And so the original SP+ post didn't go up until late March. So every year, spring gets a little bit more vague in terms of what we can actually learn because of new players, new coaches, and obviously guys being held out of spring games, if there even is a spring game.

Post-spring-ish, as we record this, which conference, as you look at the landscape, is the most up in the air? Not in terms of, like, who wins or necessarily who's good and who's not good, but just like the most difficult to make sense of, for whatever reason, interests you the most. And also, we have a, what, a new old conference in the Pac-12. We've got new Mountain West teams, new Sun Belt. Like, there's a lot new as well. So, who's scratching you where you itch?

Yeah, I mean, if we're talking about purely hard to grasp, but yeah, the Pac-12, who's in the Pac-12 and who's in the Mountain West is going to screw me up 148 times.

Yep.

Just before the season starts, even. So that's, you know, there's that. I don't know. I mean, I think as a whole, the SEC's might still be pretty hard to figure out. I mean, Big 12 and ACC, there's a bunch of teams that could make runs to the title game, but we have clear heavyweights in both conferences now. Even with this week's Brendan Sorsby news, Texas Tech still has the best roster in the conference, unless BYU does, but I'm pretty sure it's still Texas Tech. And so there it is. Like, they're kind of the North Star, so to speak. And Miami, obviously, in the ACC, has more pieces coming back than anybody else. So that makes those conferences at least a little less interesting, even if there are like nine other teams that can make title game runs.

SEC, though, is in a really weird place. The Twitter experience of acknowledging anything good about the SEC is not very fun right now because Big Ten fans are chesty. It's pure, like, vanity fans chanting "SEC, SEC" now for like two-thirds of the Big Ten, but it's a weird place. But in terms of average SP+ rating, SEC was still comfortably the best conference last year. They had, their worst team was better than seven Big Ten teams in SP+, even if the Big Ten also had the top three. So, but it is in a weird place. I mean, in terms of SP+, they have the numbers 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 19, and 20 teams in the country. But the Big Ten has the top three. And it's just like a vertical conference and a horizontal conference. And to me, half the games of the SEC, were in SEC play, were decided by one score last year. It was dynamite to follow. It's just they might not have the best team in the country. Again, they might not have a team capable of winning three or four playoff games.

It's also an interesting year for however we want to qualify G6 or mid-major, just because of the coaches gone, the coaches entering. Post-spring, who is that school, be it in the Sun Belt, be it in the American, be it in whatever the Mountain West and Pac-12 are comprised of team-wise? Who is that new coach or new situation where you're like, "I can't wait"? I know you highlighted, like, North Dakota State and USF in your 11 questions. I assume that's up there for you. Who is that team where you're just like, "Man, there's a lot new about this situation, and it's going to be supreme"?

I don't know. Well, I think, yeah, I mean, North Dakota State is fascinating to me for very obvious reasons. Even though they did, I wish they would have come up last year. I think their team last year was better than this one will be. But still super interesting there for all the obvious reasons. I guess I'm really curious about this, isn't a new coach, but UNLV is really interesting to me. You know, they do have more, you know, former blue-chippers than a lot of power conference rosters do. I think if anybody is going to coax potential out of Jackson Arnold, it's going to be Dan Mullen. So they're a team that I think has a particular amount of upside. And honestly, we're very biased by recency, biased by the last thing we see. And so Billy Napier or James Madison is kind of underwhelming, I think. It's very easy to be underwhelmed by that, especially when they were one of the schools that always hired the next guy, the up-and-coming FCS guy, Cignetti. I think Chesney's going to do well at UCLA. So kind of falling back on a fallen SEC coach instead doesn't quite feel right. But also Billy Napier built a Louisiana team that was way more talented than the rest of the Sun Belt and way bigger in the trenches than the rest of the Sun Belt. And I think he can do that at James Madison, too. And if they have the line play, then they're going to be well-positioned for quite a while to make runs towards playoff berths. So those are super interesting. Those are kind of boring picks. Those teams have been good. So, of course, they might be good. I guess if we're looking for a little bit more of a wild card, you know, I love my guy AK at New Mexico.

Yeah.

They have a lot back this season from last year's fun team. So let's see what they can do. They had a bunch of freshmen and sophomores on the offensive line. They still had a pretty good offensive line. So, you know, four of those guys are back. The defense is going to be pretty experienced, at least by G5, G6 standards. So they are a team I'm really curious what they're capable of as well. So, you know, I guess that means I'm interested in the Mountain West, is what we're hearing.

So, yeah, it is what we're hearing. When you look at the coaching changes, because you did bring up Bob Chesney briefly, it was a very clear exodus year of those very successful coaches from the American, from the Sun Belt, whatever, to bigger places. Bob Chesney, James Madison, UCLA. Auburn hiring USF coach Alex Golesh, Ryan Silverfield from Memphis to Arkansas, and so forth. I'm sure I'm forgetting some names as well. What was your big reaction to, like, when you saw school A hired Coach A, "I love this for them, I love this for him"?

Well, I thought Chesney, I was a little concerned with Chesney, basically being one of those, he's a Northeast guy, suddenly he's in Southern California. Is there, like, does he know the recruiting terrain? Is that an actual problem in 2026? Or is he just going to bring half his roster, and that's all that matters? So I was curious about that move. But then when I saw what they actually spent money on in the portal, it's been really fun to watch from afar. I didn't see that coming. All I've ever heard is that UCLA is kind of broke. But they went out and not only brought in the customary huge load of JMU guys, which made a lot of sense because JMU was way better than them last year. But then he got creative. He brought in some power conference guys. But he got, like, I'm trying to think, some defense, especially, he brought in some really fun defensive backs. Johnson from Utah was a fun one. And just you look at the roster, you look at the additions, he got all the right JMU guys, and they just added some really fun other pieces, some young former blue-chippers who might stay for a couple of years. And so I, that was way more impressive than I expected from Chesney right out of the gate.

I think, I mean, in terms of who I love, you know, "I love this for," the list has to start with Oklahoma State.

Oh, yeah.

Like, that was my, every year there's a team that I kind of had to step back and like, "How am I going to project this team?" Or "How am I going to alter a projection system so that it can handle a team that just basically brought in the number one offense in the country to a team that was absolutely destitute in every possible way last year?" I don't know if OSU is going to have nearly the defense to be a good team, but clearly their lot in life changed dramatically from last season. So, looking at how transfers impact things previously, I do think I'm pretty happy with where the projections are. OSU is like borderline top 40, if I remember right. That feels right to me. If they have, you know, a top 10 offense and a top 80 defense, then that puts them in that neighborhood. But they were the team that just, love, you know, I hate it for North Texas, but, you know, I love the pieces they added. And I think they'll be, we'll call them dark horses right now. They're one of 17 dark horses in the Big 12.

It'll be annoying and competitive.

Yeah.

Yes, at the very least.

Yeah, I was just checking earlier. I think you've got them like 38th or something in your preseason SP+, bringing over like 54 players via the transfer portal. And I'm glad you mentioned it with Oklahoma State. You also talked about it a little bit with UCLA. I could go further. We could talk about Matt Campbell at Penn State. It's very much a trend now. It's not just getting the coach, it's getting the coaches' old players. And so I'm curious from your standpoint how you factor that in. I know we've talked about this before, but my hunch is that since the rules keep changing, it's an evolution of sorts on your end when you're trying to figure out, all right, how exactly do I project out an Oklahoma State team that has basically gotten a full offensive transfusion? Like, what does that math look like on your end to figure out, "Okay, this will work, this won't work"?

Right. Yeah, I think that's going to be after this year, especially, we'll definitely have enough data to start playing with the idea of, "Okay, he brought in X number of transfers, but also as a first-year coach, who brought in X number of transfers of his guys. What does that mean?" I have brought in coaching effects, so to speak, over the last couple of years into the preseason projections, from the standpoint of, if you underachieved dramatically last year and changed coaches, you're probably going to quickly gravitate towards the mean again, like Oklahoma State. And on the flip side, if you had your best team in the history of your program, like North Texas, and then lost your head coach, that probably means horrible things for you. And you're probably going to go a long way down. That doesn't specifically talk about, "This guy brought this many transfers," but it kind of brings the concept into play.

Right.

And obviously, it doesn't do nice things to mid-major projections at the moment. You know, it's hard to be a mid-major at the moment, but it does. I do think that that concept kind of helps me with projections a little bit. You just assume UCLA, Oklahoma State, those guys now brought in a new coach and a successful batch of players from a new team. That's going to help them gravitate upward.

Yeah, and even going, like, a step deeper with it. And of course, this is, like, the $64 million question. You're talking on it right now from a team perspective. But if we zoom in on a player, take Drew Mestemaker, just as an example, if we want to keep it with Oklahoma State, how do you project, at least, what is your process for trying to project whether any of these guys are going to hit? Like, everyone's trying to figure that out, and I don't think there is a hard and fast formula for it. But other than the eye test and other than knowing that there was some production at the previous stop, like, how the hell do you figure that out?

Yeah, right now, it is hard with the G5 to power conference translation because we know there have been guys who moved up and kind of disappeared to a certain degree, but there have been loads of successes too. And right now I haven't figured out, basically, I'm looking for a multiplier. Like, for when you bring in an FCS guy, you get half credit for his production in the return and production formula. That's easy enough. That seems to work pretty well. You get whole credit for bringing a guy up from G5 to P4 right now. Maybe that should be like 0.9 or something like that. But I've been happy with projections doing it that way still. If you're a 3,000-yard passer, or whatever Mestemaker was, 4,000-yard passer, Oklahoma State now gets credit for your 4,000 yards. Maybe it should be like 3,700 or something, but that's not going to really make a difference at the end of the day.

So every D2 quarterback to the SEC now is automatically projected as excellent, right? After last year's sample size of one.

Yeah. That's how math works. I love all the things I don't love about Lane Kiffin. I love that even at LSU now, he brought in Elon's quarterback, just in case. Just in case he's got a Tom Petty in it. That's fine. That's great. But then he got Landon Clark from Elon, too, who was like a 2,600 or 2,000 passing yards, like 5, 600 rushing yards guy. Brought him in too, just in case there's magic there to be found.

So, okay, let's pull this string, let's pull this thread, whatever, a little bit more. Something that's interesting, and you wrote about the MAC, you will write about the American and Mountain West and Sun Belt and so forth. A lot of the teams, a lot of these mid-major teams, G6, whatever, they have the interesting ability of scouting guys not working out in MAC, et cetera.

That's correct. And honestly, I often felt kind of agree. Oh, man, I thought it was a good idea. And they have the ability to. I haven't served the MAC community well enough with this. Is there a team recently? Is there a team this year that has gone in both directions successfully and can't necessarily complain, or is the answer to the coaches who are complaining that they're losing everybody, we're like, "You can go from, you can take Oklahoma transfers, you can take Ferris State transfers"? Is there somebody that has gone both directions successfully in your mind? Or the answer is no, or the answer is "I don't know"?

That's a very specific question. Well, I do think it's hard when you bring guys down, it is hard to know, are those guys duds, or were they just backups to good players? And maybe those are really hard for me to figure out. And so basically, like with the MAC preview, I was just kind of, with each team, since it's with the MAC especially, you're saying the same, like, 80% the same thing about most of the teams. It was kind of, you're looking at, who'd they bring up from smaller schools? Everybody got like an ace pass rusher from D2 or something in the MAC. And then they brought in a few sophomore high three-star guys as well, just in case for athleticism purposes. But it's hard to know what to make of those higher-profile guys.

I, when I was doing my favorite transfer classes thing a few weeks ago, Florida Atlantic stood out.

Okay.

Like, really, really disruptive defenders. Now you had to go down to, like, Livingstone to find this guy, Kenyon Garner, Livingstone at D2 school. Kenyon Garner had 28 tackles for loss last season. And so, and he's not, like, you know, a 165-pound linebacker. His size is good. So, you think, okay, well, that's, you know, watch a little film, but I'm pretty sure that guy is going to be good. Like, he's just, if you can do that in D2, you can make nine tackles for loss in the American Conference. That probably translates pretty well. So he had a few of those guys, a good San Diego linebacker, a couple of, like, a good Ferris State cornerback, stuff like that. That really, he seemed to seek disruption in a really, really nice way. So I liked what Florida Atlantic did a lot, and they bring back like their entire offense. So it's one of those where by the time the offseason's over, I'm going to have talked myself into FAU as like a playoff contender or something. And I gotta...

Let's go.

That's right. I like what Washington State did. I think they did a pretty good job, I think, of kind of balancing moving guys up and maybe grabbing the right guys on the way down. Obviously, Moore was in the SEC last year, so he got a little exposure to some of those guys. But yeah, it is interesting to try to figure out. You know, the, well, and honestly, like, I hate all the inequality of the day. It sucks. But also, it's really fun to follow all the different ways that guys are trying to find edges with their roster management. Whether it's a G6 guy going all the way down to D2 or NAIA or something and bringing up super disruptive guys or whatever, it has been, everybody has a slightly different approach, and that's really fun.

So one of the other things with a lot of these programs in the MAC, whatever, any of these G6 mid-majors, is, we and we alluded to this already, we're looking at a landscape in which a lot of the schools who have been very successful recently lost longtime coaches or semi-longtime coaches to bigger jobs. I don't know if you feel like there's now, like, you know, a wide-open environment of teams that could potentially make it to the playoff or win conferences or whatever. But when you look at potential new teams to occupy spaces abandoned by Jon Sumrall or Ryan Silverfield or Eric Morris, who are those new programs who now have that continuity and stability that those types of programs now don't?

Well, I'm going to start with this scrappy underdog named Boise State.

Right. Sure, of course. Of course.

Yeah. I think they might be pretty good this year. Yeah, they were strange last year. Like, they're good. They're clearly good and talented, and then just randomly just no-showed for a half. And it held them back. But out of the teams that haven't necessarily been close to a playoff bid yet, I do think UNLV and New Mexico, whoever kind of comes out of the Mountain West, is in really good shape. I'm struggling to talk myself out of UTSA. If we're looking for a genuine wild card.

Okay.

They're a team that has had a good offense every single year under Jeff Traylor. It's kind of shocking that Jeff Traylor is still there. He might be, what was that, Gary Darnell, was that the Western Michigan coach who basically waited too long and then fell apart and never got to move up? The fact that Jeff Traylor is still there is kind of odd, but also they have Owen McCown back. They've got most of their receivers, or a good number of their receivers, back. Defense took a hit because something's always going to take a hit, but they don't need a good defense necessarily. They don't usually have a good defense. But so they have a lot of the things that UTSA normally has, and they're more experienced than last season. So, you know, if they, you know, they play Texas, they're not going to beat Texas. They're not going to be able to have one of those huge marquee wins, because that is one of the first things I do in the offseason is write this piece of, like, you know, basically projecting the playoff basically based on rules. And my rule for the G6 is, do you, did you happen to schedule two power conference teams a decade ago? Because only you're eligible for a playoff bid, with the way the committee works. So UTSA is not eligible. Hawaii is eligible. So that's the other dark horse I've got going here, is a nice Hawaii run late at night on Saturdays.

So, okay, so post-spring, is there a team that is usually being spoken of as a top five, top twelve, top whatever team nationally? Your more known powers that people are penciling in to be like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, they'll be in that conversation." But you've looked at their roster, you've looked at what is and what isn't returning, you've looked at coaching questions, and you're just like, I'm not sure I'm buying it the way that other people are buying Oregon, Texas, Notre Dame, Ohio State, whatever. Is there that team where you're just like, I can see the upside, but, like, I don't know? By the way, we had this conversation a year ago when I was all in on Clemson, and Bill was like, "Cool. Like, I'm kind of not. Good luck with that. You do you. It's okay." Who is this year's Clemson for you, Bill?

Yeah, I love that. When we're talking in these terms, it's all about closest to the pin, because I still thought Clemson was a top 15 team. I got a lot of credit for being a Clemson doubter, even though they were so much worse than I thought they were going to be. So that's cool. I like that. Of those teams, of those teams that we know are going to get a lot of top five consideration, this is a broken record because I'm pretty sure I said them last year too, but I'm not as sold on Texas as I think some, and I mean, whatever. They, it's Texas. They, I know who they got. The skill core for Arch Manning is going to be 4,000 times better this year, or at least the starting skill core. I don't like that he basically pushed out, like, 15 running backs and receivers to sign, like, four proven guys. And you're, like, two injuries away from having a whole bunch of freshmen out there and having all the same. I feel like Sark kind of fought last year's war. Last year, he needed new receivers and new offensive linemen, and he didn't get them, and Arch didn't have what he needed for a while. But then he developed these guys, and they were much, much better at the end of the year. Then he pushed them out for new guys. I don't love that. And I don't love that he fired his defensive coordinator instead of firing himself as offensive coordinator, because the offense has been worse than the defense for a few years now. So I don't trust all that, but I also know in terms of raw talent, if they don't have a bunch of injuries, Arch was really good at the end of last season, even though he shockingly still can't throw on the run at all. Just great, fantastic athlete who cannot throw accurately on the run. Raleek Brown and Hollywood Smothers are awesome. Cam Coleman's awesome. Like, I understand everything I'm supposed to see there. I don't necessarily, the defense, we'll see. Of the transfers he brought in, Bowles from Pitt's awesome. But the linemen, I don't really know about the secondary, we'll see if they have enough there. They lost their two starting corners and only brought in one. So, you know, sophomores are going to have to pick it up, and all that. So I get it. Like, if they're really, really good, I won't be surprised at all. But I still don't trust them as much as I trust Ohio State and Oregon. I don't trust them as much as I trust Georgia. Notre Dame, for sure, I trust more. So, I don't know. We'll see. Obviously, having Ohio State right off the start of the season is going to help, be interesting quite a lot.

Yeah. What about the other way, Bill? Are there any teams that are sort of like Bill C's pet teams, maybe, that are being undervalued or a bit off the radar right now? Still early. Still early in the process. Still in the preview process. Absolutely. That's right. We're not holding you to this or anything like that. I know we just talked it through a little bit on the G6 mid-major level, but are there any Power Four teams that sort of are on your radar right now in the periphery that you're really interested in that you haven't heard enough about?

Well, I was annoyed when everybody picked up on Notre Dame because I was hoping, because I realized real quickly, "Oh man, I'm going to be so high on Notre Dame next year. My national champ." Yeah. And then they also lost their running backs. So therefore, I thought, maybe, you know, that would scare people off. And that could be my team. No, they're clearly going to be like a top three or four team. So that's, that's disappointing. You know, we haven't talked about the defending national champions yet. I do think people are really struggling to figure out where to place Indiana this season. Because obviously, you can't go up any further from one, but, you know, how far are they going to fall? Are they going to fall to third or sixth or tenth or something? I kind of feel like that's still a top five roster. Well, roster plus coaching staff. So I'm still feeling pretty good about them. And maybe that puts me at odds with some people.

I've seen them in the way-too-early, is they're all over the place, and understandably so. How the hell do you, we didn't see them coming the first time. How the hell do you predict what happens now?

I think with the SEC, talking about just this giant middle class that the SEC has, where they have maybe no top three teams and everybody's a potential top 15 team. I don't know if I've seen quite as much about A&M or quite as much positive about LSU as I think they're capable of. I'm really curious where they end up in the preseason polls. That could be anywhere between about 7 and 20, I guess. But I see them as borderline top 10. A&M, for sure, we know what they're capable of. We know what Marcel Reed's capable of, in the negative sometimes, and maybe that's always him, and he's never going to get away from kind of that one crippling mistake in the biggest game of the year or whatever. But they have a lot to offer. And LSU is not hard to figure out. I mean, we all know the hazards of adopting LSU in the preseason. But Blake Baker's defense was awesome last year. A lot of it comes back, and Lane Kiffin always has a good offense. So not to say that that's going to be a perfect marriage. Plenty of inherited defensive coordinators have found themselves struggling under a new coach, especially an offense-friendly coach. So maybe that doesn't work out. But just fundamentally, Blake Baker defense plus Lane Kiffin offense equals top 10 team. So I could see them having a pretty high ceiling despite the 70 transfers or whatever.

We mentioned the Brendan Sorsby news in passing, and I think you're right to point out that Texas Tech still probably has the best roster in the Big Twelve by a considerable margin. But if he is out for any extended period of time, Dan, you know this. We had this conversation in our Slack yesterday. What does this do, more broadly speaking, to how you look at the Big Twelve? Does it bring other teams into consideration that maybe you hadn't considered before as being on the periphery of some sort of title chase or title consideration? How has the Sorsby news reframed how you look at that conference?

I guess it hasn't really. Number one, I like Sorsby. I was struggling to get all the way to the top of the trust scale with Sorsby. So, but I figured he was going to be an upgrade over Morton. You know, now we don't know if they have an upgrade over Morton. That hurts them in the playoff for sure. But I don't know. I mean, I think that offensive line is going to be dynamite. Those running backs are dynamite. We know already. We know their defense is going to be good again. Like, obviously, it'll probably come down with what they lost, but it's still going to be really good. Adam Trick, some of the new guys they brought in, awesome. Like, I trust them completely with the transfers they bring in. So I still think they're easily the surest bet in the Big Twelve. But I mean, if you're just thinking about, like, if they had an 80 to 90% chance to make the title game before, you do have to bump it to like 70% or 80%. And that opens at least the door for one of the other dark horses. And the race for the other spot was already going to be super, super interesting. I think the only thing I don't trust about BYU is that I'm always wrong about BYU. Every single year, I'm a year behind, and I think they're going to fall and they rise, and I think they're going to rise and they fall. I think they're going to be awesome. Therefore, they're screwed. But assume to me that's not a thing. They do have a ton to offer. They were the three most physical teams in the conference by far were Tech, BYU, and Utah. Utah has obviously got some change to deal with, but they're still going to have a lot of upside. BYU has a ton of upside, and they kind of lead the pack. But, man, I mean, it's still the Big 12. Like, Texas Tech made it a little more boring by being so good, but it's not going to surprise me at all if Kansas State makes a run. Arizona could make a run. Houston, kind of dark horse, awesome in the trenches now as well, and really putting together some nice recruiting wins, transfer and, you know, old-school freshman route. TCU, you know, Jaden Craig, I love that he brought in an FCS guy. I love my FCS guys, but that's still, like, new coordinator and FCS quarterback. That could go in a lot of different ways, but if it clicks, defense should be good. So there you go. Oklahoma State just talked about. Arizona State, when they're healthy, are still going to be good. They might never be healthy again, apparently, but they have a lot to offer. So this was already a case where a lot of teams could talk themselves into making title game runs. I guess just the Tech news makes those other teams slightly more likely to be able to win the title game or something.

I find myself a little bit more interested in the ACC this year, because as I look across the seventeen teams, and I'm still not used to saying that, in the conference, I'm looking at Cal, Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville, North Carolina, Pitt. We'll put Stanford in there. We'll put Virginia in there. I don't think we need to put Stanford in there. I don't think we need to put Stanford. And, wait, we'll, no, I know. That's 11 teams. And the reason that I mention all of them is I almost have no idea what to expect from any of them. Okay, okay. Because, like, I know the players, I know what each of them has done in the transfer portal, and I can make a case for and against improvement. I have no idea what to expect. The variance when Dan and I do our previews in July for the ACC is going to be wide for all 11 of those teams because I genuinely don't know what to expect. And I'm wondering if you feel the same when you look out at the ACC.

First of all, the number 17 makes me angrier every single year.

Yes.

It's just so, because among other things, so I have this piece coming out in a couple of weeks about, like, my thoughts on a 2014 playoff and getting rid of conference title games and all that. And I have this idea for a flex week where, like, kind of what the Big Ten wanted to do in 2020, before all the positive tests at the end of the year kind of screwed up the idea. But basically, like what the Pac-12's doing the week before the conference title game this year, having basically pairings for the last week where you can have a conference title game and everybody else plays a game, and it's the twelfth game for everybody. So we've gotten rid of the thirteenth game. I think that's a really fun approach. And I kind of simmed out what the SEC would look like, like a championship flex week would look like. Can't do it for the ACC because somebody's not playing. Like, that's, odd numbers are infuriating. But to your point, you could really, yeah, anybody could be the second-best team in the ACC. We know who's going to start off in first. Although they managed to fall from first the last two years, so they're certainly not sure things. But from an SP+ standpoint, it starts with Clemson, which I don't love. SP+ is now Clemson's biggest supporter a year after being its biggest detractor. But Louisville, if Keon Holtz is the quarterback, Louisville is going to be really good. SMU, I hate that he lost both coordinators. That was kind of his superpower these last few years. And we'll see. If there's any sort of, he basically replaced each coordinator with, like, four co-coordinators.

I didn't even list SMU in my little list of teams there, but, yeah, sure, you can include as well.

Deion Sanders, offensive co-coordinator at Sam last year. Wow. Sorry. Sorry for that. But they're going to be, they weren't really all that far away from their form last year. I mean, hell, if they didn't get upset late by Cal, they're in the title game, right? So they're not that far off. Virginia Tech is a complete and total wild card. Like, with James Franklin, you know you're going to get a high floor. But ceiling, it's a whole bunch of unknown guys who are going to provide the ceiling. So we'll see. Florida State, can't really talk myself into that, I don't think. But Ashton Daniels is an upgrade at quarterback. I really like Ashton Daniels, at least compared to the guys Florida State's been using the last couple of years. September Tommy Castellanos is great, but after that, obviously, never really worked out for him. I do like Virginia's class. Like, that was my biggest concern for them, as he threw this giant transfer portal Hail Mary last year, and it connected. But then he loses those guys and has to bring in another brand new set of 30 guys or whatever. But I at least like the guys he brought in. Might be hard for them to hit double digits again, but I do, I was a little reassured by that. And, yeah, on we go. Georgia Tech, I love Mendoza at Georgia Tech. I think that's a great match. And I think he was as good as he could possibly be in the tiny sample he had at Indiana. Duke is going to regress offensively, but probably isn't going to stink defensively again. So, I mean, you're right, Cal, you know, JKS will have receivers. I don't know if he'll have a defense, but I do like what Tosh Lupoi did in the portal. So, it is fun. It really is. The ACC and Big 12 are very similar now in terms of, we have one known heavyweight. We got a whole bunch of satellites just orbiting around, and we don't know how that's going to work out.

So, one of the more interesting teams, if not, maybe the most interesting team in terms of variance, we sort of talked about this earlier, Michigan. Michigan has their obviously off-field situation with Sherrone Moore, the late hire of Kyle Whittingham. They're piecing together in, like, a Frankenstein's monster kind of way some of the best returning pieces that they could have brought back, you know, if Kyle Whittingham convinces to come back. And then a lot of the upside that we would have assumed out of Utah if Kyle Whittingham were still in Salt Lake City. Including the offensive coordinator and now an edge rusher, Smith Snowden, I think at safety, nickel, JJ Buchanan, like a big upside, sort of hybrid tight end receiver type. What do you make of a Michigan team that is sort of attaching double program upside at the same time with, like, Kyle Whittingham's first true blue-chip quarterback opportunity?

I change my mind about Michigan every time I think about them because, I mean, on one hand, like, the hard-ass coaching blue-chippers doesn't always work. Frequently does not work, in fact. When you go to the successful program that you built by hand, I guess he inherited stuff from Urban, but after 20 years, you get credit. I mean, that was his program in every possible way. And now you go to a much bigger program that certainly has the same kind of physical expectations, but is just different in every way. And so many more blue-chippers and guys making X million dollars a year. And that's just going to be different. And there's no guarantee he passes that test. He's an old dude. And going from sort of under the radar and succeeding all the time at Utah to the radar, that's what Michigan is. It is the exposed program.

Yeah.

And Utah was at least worried enough about him being a little too old for the job that they let him go. So, like, that's not, this could all backfire. It could very clearly backfire in those kind of broad terms, but then you get specific and you're like, "Oh, there's a lot to like here, too." I mean, he did bring all the right Utah guys, except one, that I'll mention in a second. But I love Smith Snowden. I hope they continue to randomly experiment with him on offense. John Henry Daley was the most Utah story ever. He was nothing as a redshirt freshman, and then whatever he ended up with, eleven and a half sacks as a sophomore. So he brought in some key Utah dudes. So, yeah, I mean, you can certainly, there's a lot to like. The defensive line obviously got hit pretty hard by attrition, but you got a couple of guys back. You got Trey Pierce back. You're going to have size. The offensive line had to survive a whole bunch of freshmen and sophomores last year. They're not freshmen and sophomores anymore. So there's plenty that, I will say though, Jason Beck is one of my favorite offensive coordinators, but he has to have a dual-threat guy to be one of my favorite offensive coordinators. He really gets creative in how he runs the quarterback around. We know Bryce Underwood can run. He had some nice longer runs last season. But it's, I'm here's where I just stereotype the blue-chip five-star future pro guy. Is he going to want to run 10 to 12 times a game? Because that's kind of what it takes. And I don't know. Like, that's, I would almost feel better about this specific Michigan team if he had brought Dampier Pierce with him from Utah, because we know what he can do in that system, and that would have been a nice bridge. Underwood's going to be interesting. I know better than to ever even pretend to look at spring game stats anymore. Underwood's were so bad that it became a little bit of a storyline, and that didn't exactly, that, at the very least, didn't reassure me. So we'll see.

Other stray thoughts where spring did nothing to answer any of your questions, or spring went a long way to answer a very specific question or confirm some thoughts or completely change how you are thinking about a program specific to spring?

So, well, I do, Finnebaum, like, once a month, and he kind of knows now to ask me about Alabama because he knows I'll say pretty negative things about Alabama. Got to get those calls coming in, right? That's right. They have been, I hated what they did in the offseason, just in terms of general, like, he brought in linemen like he needed to, but, like, one guy who was actually an FBS starter, like, that, he's basically coaching like he knows he's going to have a job in 2027, which I guess, I mean, he just signed an extension, which shocked the crap out of me too. And he's still a good coach. So, whatever. Like, he's, you know, he'll have a chance here. But I really, the Keelon Russell was amazing in the spring game storyline was vital because, like, that'll, all the cracks are, like, if you have a genuine Heisman-level redshirt freshman quarterback, and plenty of redshirt freshmen have been Heisman-level guys, if he's really, really, really good, then I'm less worried about the running back position and the absolute black hole that was the Alabama run game last year before they lost all five of their starting offensive linemen. You know, Ryan Coleman, if he just remembers, or Coleman Williams, sorry, Ryan Coleman-Williams, if he just starts catching balls again, he had by far the worst drop rate of anybody with his number, with, like, 70 or more targets last year. If he just gets the yips out of his system and starts doing Ryan Coleman-Williams things again, that's great. But if he doesn't, I don't know, like, he didn't bring in any transfers that blew me away. So you've got to have dynamite quarterback play for any of this to work. And they might have it. So I guess I'm 1% more confident. I didn't like that they were like 11th in SP+. I thought they were going to be more like 15th, which would have been a little better to me. But obviously, if they have a new Bryce Young at quarterback, then they're going to be pretty good.

So, okay. Let me play devil's advocate then. Speaking of Alabama, we all knew at the end of last year that if this was going to get better in 2026, there needed to be much more of a running game that we can speak of, right? Because it just, as you said, was non-existent. I know you wrote about this all last year. Is there not a case to be made for what Bama did this offseason? Granted, lost a lot along the line, but I've heard you say many times in the past, just because you have guys back from the previous team doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be better. It just means they're a little bit older. So there was clearly a focus on the offensive line. They are rebooting in terms of offensive line coach. They bring in Adrian Klemm. So they're trying, actively trying, to get better in the trenches. Is there at least not a case to be made that even if it doesn't work, at least the attention is being placed on the right things?

Here's one of the things where, since we don't know the numbers involved in how much you spent on which NIL, or how much NIL you spent on which guy and everything, like, if I just look at what they brought in, number one, I feel like I'm saying what I said about Lincoln Riley a year ago, where it feels like he's building for two years from now.

Right.

Because he brought in, like, Mississippi State's starting left tackle. He's a junior. That's fine. Like, a sophomore from Texas, a redshirt freshman from Michigan, two redshirt freshmen from Michigan, a junior FCS guy from Cal Poly, who, you know, good size, might be good, but might need a year. In that sense, especially when you add him to a new offensive line coach, like, if you told me he's just building to have a top five team in 2027, then all of this starts to make sense to me. Right down to probably having a redshirt freshman quarterback. So, in that sense, sure, like, focusing on this, the way he went about it. And if he landed those guys because he wanted to, not because he got outspent for all the good guys.

Right.

That's the part I would love to know.

Well, he probably got outspent for Hollywood Smothers, who was there for about an hour and a half. Right. Yeah, Texas is good at jumping in and outspending you at the last second, it appears. No, I, if we just know that he's not going to get fired this year, no matter what, which, again, when you sign an extension in April, then that certainly appears to be the case, then fine. Like, let him build for '27, and maybe they really are going to be phenomenal. Then, I just don't see it this year. I don't know how, even with last year's problems, losing all six of your top seven guys and replacing them with other people's redshirt freshmen and sophomores, that does not sound like a plan to get quickly better.

This is just for Ty. This is just for Bill. I don't know that you're going to be on the show before the 2026 North American World Cup, North American-hosted World Cup. Let's go. I don't know. Maybe you will be. Maybe we will do a Bill C-specific World Cup preview and stash it on our Patreon and give the regular listeners just a slight hint at the end of a show. By the way, we will do it. No, we'll do it. And by the way, we just did a fantasy football show. We did a draft preview show. We can spread our wings. It's not going to submarine the whole operation if we go a little bit off topic in advance of a very big tournament. Yes. So at the risk of asking too broad a question, dot dot dot, thoughts? When you look at this World Cup for people who are interested and will be watching, i.e., me, but are just like, "Hey, I'm rooting for the U.S. men's national team, and I'm excited to see, who are the players, the footballers who pop elsewhere, and, you know, may not be a household name to just general sports fans like myself?" So when you look at this World Cup, first with the U.S. team, and then with just like, here's where the flash is, what are your thoughts?

Well, okay, so my first thought is that for anybody who watched the friendlies in March and came away with all the good feelings from the fall removed from their system and back to "we stink," I went back and looked at basically every March before every World Cup. The U.S. stinks against some European team. Of course. So no predictive capability. And then they went on to do well sometimes in the World Cup, sometimes went on to do terribly in the World Cup. No predictive value in what we saw in March, especially combined with the fact that when their starters were in, they were pretty good. Basically, when the subs started happening, they were losing both matches 1-0. Pulisic whiffed on chances in both matches that he could have easily, so it wasn't that bad. It really wasn't. I got to go to the Atlanta match and write a little bit about it. It was fine. Like, there, it did not make me more encouraged, didn't make me any less either. The thing that's most interesting, I think, about the U.S. group is that when the draw happened, I think a lot of people are like, "Well, this is a pretty easy situation. No Spain, no whoever." It's like four teams that are exactly the same from a quality standpoint. Turkey might be a little bit better, but it's probably the most, from top to bottom, it's probably the most evenly matched group of any in the World Cup.

It's the middle of the ACC. A little upside, and a lot of crap, yeah, with each team.

So, from that perspective, like, there's a non-zero chance to finish fourth out of four, but there is still a chance that even if they're still figuring things out, if you get a result against Paraguay, they should be able to beat Australia. I think Australia is probably the weakest team in that group. Then you're good. You're going to make the knockout rounds. Since we brought back the whole "some third-place teams make it" thing with the giant grid of "if it's these teams, then it's hard to," you can't make any sort of projection as to who they might play if they finished third. But, you know, there's nothing between failure to advance and quarterfinals is going to surprise me all that much. The draw is going to be extremely important, but I do think the odds are in favor of them making the knockout round.

So, are they playing in a manner that makes sense for who they have? Like, are they coached properly, and are they utilizing their dudes properly?

Yeah, I mean, I think, again, if Pulisic makes, in each game, he had a chance that he's converted millions of times in his life. If he converts those, and the subs start coming on, both matches are 1-1. Like, they were better than Belgium early. They were as good or better than Portugal early. And that's really all you can take away from friendlies, is that that's the only time game plan and starters had a role. Then all the subs come in, and of course, Portugal had better depth. Like, if that's all you worry about, then I think they're being deployed all right. He's still, I know when you go down the formation talk, it can really, we can overdo formation talk a lot. Back four, back three, double pivot. Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot, because then when you see them on the pitch, first of all, we talk about a formation, when everybody has two formations. What do you do in possession? What do you do out of possession? Almost everybody's the same out of possession. You have a four back there, whether it's a three-man, whatever. So, that alone makes it kind of tenuous. I did think it was interesting that he put the three in the back thing in his pocket. You know, there have been times like, you read, I've read every World Cup book in history. There was a really good one by Jonathan Wilson last year. There was a really good one by Simon Kuper last year. You know, there's been millions of them. I think it was England in '66, where he kind of fiddled with the formation, found something, and then went and put it away and played the rest of the friendlies running up to it in this other formation. And then when it mattered in the World Cup, like halfway through, he introduces this tweak, and it works beautifully. Kind of still almost thinking that Pochettino comes out with three at the back in the World Cup. It was a, the personality put out there, worked really well for it in the fall. And then he suddenly didn't do it against two really good teams in the spring. By the way, Belgium, who they might end up playing in the knockout if they end up winning the group.

That is one of, like, the Florida teams that they could, yeah, I'm with you. I'll tell you what I've been struck by, and Dan knows this, like, I have been fully on board since the year of our Lord 1994 with the World Cup coming back to the United States. And in part, I had been very discouraged by a lot of the storm surrounding the World Cup. It's kind of hard to see past that. I think if you're a rational human being, because there's just a lot there with obscene ticket prices and parking and transportation, and just, like, there's a million things that can cloud your view of it from that perspective. Secondly, there's an added layer of the online U.S. soccer fandom, which is just horrible. It is. And I mean, we've been in this business now forever. All three of us have. The state of online soccer discourse in the United States, which maybe is not a proper, air quotes, soccer country, is abysmal.

I mean, first of all, I think that makes us a proper soccer country.

It might. That's true. And so maybe I'm just used to, like, dipping my toe into what goes on in SEC country. And that's kind of what I'm used to, but it's, like, a completely different animal with respect to how it is covered and how it is talked about online. All of that being said, I could not agree more with my reaction to at least the last two games, because my group chats are filled with friends who are wondering the same thing. Like, "Hmm, is he just not showing cards here?" Because it felt like so much of the momentum that we saw at the end of last year was completely gone after the friendlies. And I understand that this is, like, an important build-up to the tournament. And there will be more friendlies before they actually put this team in official action with the World Cup. I do wonder if there was a little bit of gamesmanship there, not so much trying to figure out who should be on the team, but almost wanting to experiment, see if you can find something new, knowing that you have something else in the back pocket. That might be the most optimistic look at what we saw against these two teams, Belgium and Portugal, as he said, but that was sort of my read as well.

Every time I go back, whether it's for stats or whatever, and I look back at the U.S. performance in 2014 at that World Cup in Brazil, I'm like, the stats were good in that World Cup. They got dramatically outshot by Belgium. Obviously, Tim Howard had to make a kajillion saves. But in the group stage, that might have been their best overall group stage performance in a World Cup since they started making it again in 1990. When they played that game in Manaus in the middle of the rainforest, and everybody was, like, sucking wind, right? So my memory of experiencing those matches in real time, because that was peak Twitter, was the U.S. was horrible in that tournament. Because that was, like, peak Twitter misery with the U.S. I started to realize by, like, the third game, like, I can't be online. I just have to close the laptop and watch, because this is not, like, the impressions were so completely dramatically different. It was a dismal experience online, and it was a really pretty decent performance. And right down to the toxicity towards Wondo for missing that shot at the end of the Belgium regulation, even though we had no business winning that game. Like, that's always been my consolation that would have been just absolute theft. We should have gone to jail if we had won that game. So, that is my learned lesson on that one. I know better than to look online now. Not that it, not that social's nearly as fun anyway, or useful anyway, as it used to be.

I do, I think I'm going to have a piece coming out before the World Cup about, since we have stats going back to '66 for the World Cups, Opta went back and charted all the World Cup games going back to '66, and it was a really fun resource for the last tournament. I'm going to walk through, started in '90, walk through all the U.S. matches and just the stats that went along with those games, because it's hilarious. Like, '94, ridiculously lucky. Shouldn't have made the knockout rounds at all. But that became a thing where we proved we're a player in world soccer. We had no business being in the knockout rounds. '98, severely unlucky. Horrible, toxic narratives and underperforming team, and they really probably should have won two of those three group stage games. '02, lucky again. '06, unlucky. Like, it's been, we create such dramatic narratives off of every single World Cup, and the stats have never really matched up with the actual performance. So, that's been really interesting, and that'll be an extremely anti-social piece that I write before, I'm going to the game in Seattle against Australia.

Are you able to go to any games?

I, yes. I do not know which ones yet. We're still apparently the credentialing and trying to, I haven't seen my official schedule yet. I don't know if I'll be at U.S. matches, but I will be at quite a few matches.

All right. We'll keep in touch. We will have to do something as we get closer.

We will. And by the way, this goes for anybody else out there who's going to any of the games. Hit us up on the email, ifsolidverbal at gmail, if you're going to be going to any of these games, we'd love to hear from you. Why don't we leave it there? Bill Connelly, ESPN.com. Keep up the good work. I look forward to reading all 7,000 words on the MAC and every other conference and team that you write about. As ever, the essential reading for the college football fan out there, certainly the Verballers out there. We'll talk soon, all right?

Sounds good.

All right, there you go. Dan Rubinstein, Bill Connelly from ESPN.com, our good friend, thank you for indulging me there with a little bit of World Cup talk. I appreciate that.

Yeah, well, thank you for indulging me with up-and-coming Spanish and Brazilian tennis player talk. I don't think, I always forget this come the springtime. I don't think I recognize how many things are happening at once in the sports world. April and October are the, I think, the two biggies, if memory serves. Obviously, we're in a World Cup year. But just in April and springtime in general, having Major League Baseball start, having spring games, having the NFL Draft, having both the NBA and NHL playoffs, the WNBA is starting. I know they just had their draft. You have the Masters, obviously, in April. The tennis clay court swing. The College World Series is not yet, but the college baseball season is in full swing. There's a ton happening in April, and kids are into, like, the NBA and NHL Stanley Cup playoffs. Like, I really, really do respect this time of year from a, like, every night there's something on. I know we celebrate when we go to MACtion on Tuesday and you get like the Tuesday through Sunday, or I guess, every-day sports. I was saying Tuesday through Sunday. Then you get Monday Night Football and Tuesday Night MACtion. But there's something to be said about the variety, the buffet, the smorgasbord. Board, smorgasbord? Smorgas, yeah. There used to be a food thing in Brooklyn called Smorgasburg in Williamsburg, and I always get confused. Smorgasbord. There's a lot going on. There's a lot on my plate. I love it.

Yeah, well, and it was, sorry, Mets fans. There's no Mets baseball, apparently.

No, no, no.

Well, they did win. I saw they won last night.

They finally did something? Yeah, they won like 8-0 last night.

But yeah, to the point, it's great to bring Bill on now before things really start going haywire in terms of preview season. Obviously, he mentioned the World Cup. He's invested in that as well. But we try to catch up with Bill as often as we can just to get his insight on things. I know he released returning production a few weeks ago, as you mentioned, spring questions or whatnot. So hopefully, we gave some clarity to the college football fans out there who are trying to figure out their team's place in the college football universe. That is ever the question this time of year. Still, after spring, you've got a ton of questions. In many cases, we've answered some of them, but a lot remains to be seen. Just as a Notre Dame fan, as a Penn State fan, I can speak to that. I mean, though we know a lot, there's still plenty that we don't. And that's part of what makes this time of year so interesting.

So, did you watch the Notre Dame spring game?

I didn't have a chance to watch it yet. I have read probably 70,000 words on it.

No highlights?

The only thing I saw with CJ Carr was, like, errant, I don't know if that was the right term. I think he, I don't know if he had picks or was just off and trying new things and having new responsibilities, but it wasn't wall-to-wall CJ Carr highlights.

No. Well, and CJ Carr at this point is assumed.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

It's assumed he's going to be very good. I mean, I've read plenty of practice reports here about scrimmages that they did in advance of the spring game, where people were like Pete Sampson, our friend, and many others were like, "Yeah, it's, like, it's like he stole the playbook from Chris Ash and knows exactly what's coming." So that's reassuring that there's not a whole lot they can throw at him that he hasn't seen. I've really been encouraged by what I've read about the left side of the line, Will Black now stepping in as their left tackle. He has gotten rave reviews. I've really been encouraged by what I've seen about their defensive line, the likes of, like, Rodney Dunham and some of these new players that could factor in here as well. I mean, they've already got a ton of returning production along the line, but there was something of a question about, like, all right, what about the interior line? They added a transfer or two. What about, you know, some of these guys that are coming in, Keon Keeley, Rodney Dunham, the freshman? What is that line going to look like? So my concerns on that front have definitely been alleviated a bit. And just with what they've got coming back in the secondary, I think this is going to be a really, really good team.

Like, it gives me the Steves a little bit when you say, "Oh, I, everybody's high on Notre Dame," and Bill was high on Notre Dame, and you might, I hope you don't pick them as a national champion.

Well, it's just that they're a pretty stable place. A very stable place. They've got a ton coming back. There's really not a whole lot in terms of, like, genuine holes that I think you worry about. Now, if a quarterback goes down or something, you know, that's a different conversation. But to what end are you encouraged, discouraged, keeping your head down with respect to Oregon?

Well, they had their spring game. I'm very encouraged. Receivers should be stacked. The defensive line looks absolutely stacked. They're deep with killers on the edge. Secondary looks great, and they brought in a good amount of depth there to hopefully, and the youth coming in looks really good. The takeaways, it seemed, from people who went more granular with it was, or the big takeaway was, like, Oregon has a bunch of monsters on this defensive line, and they, like, completely overwhelmed the Oregon offensive line combinations. So then on the flip side, you're just like, what's this offensive line going to look like? Like, they might have the best center in the country in Poncho. But the tackle position is very much, like, wait and see. We'll see if Fox Crater works out at left tackle. I think there's a lot of promising thoughts about him at left tackle. And he came in and spelled Isaiah World last year when he went down injured a couple of games. But right tackle is an open question. One of the guard spots is an open question. They've got, like, two blue-chip freshmen coming in, one of whom was there for the spring, who, I guess, looks very positive, and Tommy Tofi. And they're, like, the five-star tackle coming in in the summer. I assume will compete on a certain level for playing time. But if the offensive line is fine, they're stacked at running back. Tight end should be a very good place. Receivers, like, Evan Stewart was exploding in this game. It was nice to see him out there. Can he play a full year?

Well, can he play a full year? But that's sort of the secondary question to, can he reboot his career? He's going to need this year if he wants to go totally anywhere significant on the next level.

Yeah. And so it's, you know, he's had injury issues. It's good to see him out there. Dylan Raiola had a couple nice throws. Did I read something about him looking like he put on a few LBs?

I don't know, man. You take a picture of any of us from the wrong angle at the wrong time.

All right. Just wondering. I'm not, I'm not...

I know, I'm not looking for a defamation suit here. I just registered online.

Look, the big question about Oregon is not one that can be answered in spring, and that is, for my money, you mentioned the line, that's important, the internal promotions. Offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator. How does that hold up under the pressure of a Big Ten season, a full college football season with this much talent? That, for me, is the big question about Oregon.

Yeah, they claimed it was apparently a thing where they didn't run any new plays on offense, and they didn't play a ton of the guys up front on defense that will be starting. And so the defense seemed to dominate with backups, which is not the worst thing to hear going into the summer, I guess. But, yeah, Oregon is an open January question at this point, and we'll see how they get there, if they get there, and what they look like once they're there, because they've only lost to national champions the last couple years, Indiana twice and Ohio State once, and they beat Ohio State the first time they played them.

Yeah, that's the sort of missing piece because we assume they are of semifinal quality. And what do they look like if they are indeed that?

All right. Well, why don't we leave it there? Solidverbal at gmail.com. If you have any thoughts, you can, of course, reach out to us across all of the social platforms. We do that as well. Everybody has to if you are in this line of work. Big thanks to our guest of honor today, Bill Connelly. Make sure you go on out to ESPN.com and read all of his fine work on both football and the World Cup, and, I guess, tennis. He does tennis coverage too, covers a little bit of everything. ESPN.com. Go and check out Bill Connelly. Follow him on all of your social platforms as well. We will be back next week. Much more to discuss here in the world of college football, as Dan said. A lot going on right now. We'll do our best to keep you up to speed for that guy over there, Dan. For myself, over here, Ty, you know the drill. Enjoy your weekend. Stay solid. Peace.