Intro to the 2026 College Football Season
In this episode, we officially welcome ourselves back to college football with a full 2026 season primer. Before preview season begins in earnest, we reset the board with the biggest changes you need to know, from conference realignment, new teams, and bowl games to rule tweaks, the coaching carousel and a longer road to the national championship in Las Vegas. Consider this your intro course for the upcoming season.
We also run through the biggest names and roster moves shaping the season, including a huge crop of new head coaches, notable broadcast changes, the biggest transfer portal targets, and the quarterback storylines that could define the year. Plus, we look at early national title odds, conference favorites, Group of Six playoff contenders, and the broader themes we’ll be tracking all summer as our full preview series gets underway.
Also: the Ball-Sac rivalry, North Dakota State’s FBS arrival, the triumph of bike shorts, the return of the Poinsettia Bowl, and a joyous march in the Fleck Parade.
Transcript
Ty [00:18]
Dan Rubenstein, it has been many long cold, boring months of not talking about actual college football. But at long last, my good friend, we have arrived. It is time to start the engines, it is time to start talking about the 2026 college football season. Welcome back. How are you?
Dan [00:40]
I'm really good, Ty. I'm really, really good. This is our opening ceremonies, right? This is essentially our welcome to everything. And I have to sort of make an admission here, Ty. I was driving home today, carpooling kids to camp before recording this. And I was like, all right, what would be like a cool, like punny theme to think about the opening ceremonies, a welcome back. Well, you know, you got Welcome to the Jungle. You know, there's all that, all this Welcome Back, Kotter for all the really young people references that are looking for something fun. And then I thought to myself, okay, let's go, let's steer more into who we are and what is meaningful to us culturally. And I now have to admit that I'm completely useless because I've been writing lyrics to Welcome to the Fleck Parade, though I don't know if we're even going to mention Minnesota on this episode.
Ty [01:39]
I can't imagine. I don't know why we would, but okay, keep going. Please keep going. Don't let me stop you.
Dan [01:43]
By the way, sidebar, Minnesota people use that as fuel. Ty saying, I don't know why we would talk about Minnesota football on the welcome to the... no, I know.
Ty [01:49]
No, we'll talk about Minnesota, just not on this episode.
Dan [01:53]
And it completely derailed my efforts just thinking about lyrics to Welcome to the Fleck Parade of, like, when I rowed the boat with. Yeah, and it's just I apologize to you and to everybody for being so complete. Like, I went and looked at like fanfare audio tracks, and it's just like I just kept coming back to Welcome to the Fleck Parade. And so I apologize to everybody involved.
Ty [02:18]
Well, the expectation is going to be now that you finish.
Dan [02:20]
What? Oh, yeah.
Ty [02:21]
Before we get done with all of our previews, certainly by the time we get done with the Big Ten previews, the expectations among our Verballerhood is going to be that you have a fully working, I don't want to say like a music video, but you're going to need something to show your work here.
Dan [02:36]
Fully produced? Well, the working title of the band, obviously, is Ty Chemical Romance.
Ty [02:44]
Sure.
Dan [02:45]
Beyond that, I just, I don't have much to offer beyond the title and the few opening lines to Welcome to the Fleck Parade. That's it.
Ty [02:53]
Well, we are very excited to be recording this episode. I know I speak for you when I say that. For anybody new stopping on by, please hit follow or subscribe. We've got a bunch more preview episodes in the queue. We're excited about it. We're excited to be talking about some actual football and not a lot of the offseason stuff, which we will recap to some degree over the next hour or so. Of course, if you've been here for a while and want to help support the team, Verballers.com is where you can go. That's our Patreon. That goes directly to Dan and I. It helps us keep the lights on. And if you are ever so inclined, if you got a few minutes to kill, go on out, give us a five-star rating, write a review. All that stuff goes a long way. Speaking of sounds, Dan, I found this one in the vault. I don't know what it's from, but thought maybe we could get things off to a dramatic start here.
Dan [03:51]
Yeah, even though college football doesn't want Jimbo, he is still very real to us.
Ty [03:55]
He's still part, he's still canon, yeah.
Dan [03:57]
Yes, of course he is.
Ty [03:59]
So, look, we did this episode. For the first time, a couple years ago, we ran it back last year as well. The Verballerhood told us it was actually quite useful, more useful than I think you or I even envisioned when we put the idea down on paper. Today's episode is, in effect, the intro to the 2026 college football season. College football 2026 101. The purpose of this episode today is to go through the when, the where, the why, the how, the who. Whatever else we can come up with, just as a primer to get you started, because as is ever the case in this damn sport, so much changes throughout the course of an offseason. It seems useful to have some sort of starting point to get people back into the swing of things, to whet the beak, right, to slowly build towards the coming 2026 college football season. So that is the purpose of this episode. We're not going to get everything, I'm sure, but from a very high level, the purpose of this is to bring you back up to speed.
Dan [05:05]
Yeah, this is basically to help you in your backyard barbecue cookout grill sessions, by the way, when you are just trying to catch up with what has transpired the past six months or so and what has changed from last year to this year with regard to the way you've... This is, we're just nouns, right? The people, places, and things of the offseason and how that's going to sort of shape-shift as we head into the season. So I'm not going to lie. I think our audience is aging with us. So, this is helpful for us. Hopefully, it's helpful for you. There are times when I will give myself memory tests when I'm like sitting in the car in traffic or something like, all right, what was the name of this? Like, who did Bill Belichick hire to make his offense way better? With, I think... is Billy Edwards going to run North Carolina?
Ty [05:54]
Allegedly, that's what they tell us, yes.
Dan [05:57]
I was like, I remember it was a name. I remember it was somebody interesting. I remember it's an interesting duo. I was like, oh, Bobby Petrino. So I'm giving myself little bouts of Jeopardy to combat memory loss with college football and otherwise, just in life, I just quiz myself. So, this is again, I think our audience is aging with us. So, hopefully, we are all in the same, we are all rowing the same boat here, Ty, to close the loop.
Ty [06:25]
Keep the Fleck Parade going. All right, so let's start with the basics then. What people need to know is this: the season starts on August 29th. When North Carolina and TCU do battle in Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland, Dan, 12 p.m. Eastern time. That is the first game of Week Zero. There are a couple other games. In Week Zero, there was supposed to be another international game between Virginia and NC State in Rio, which apparently took on a bit of a Fyre Fest feel to it. And they called that whole thing off. They're going to play it in Charlottesville. So, those are maybe two of the games of note, the most games of note in Week Zero. As I said, there are a couple others. The season runs all the way through now until January 25th.
Dan [07:16]
It's a long time.
Ty [07:18]
The season is longer. It is longer by at least a week now. The final game is going to be played, Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, your CFP National Championship game, January 25th. It is a Monday. You can count up those months if you want to. But yeah, the season is long. The season is growing. Certainly, there will be many storylines that pop up between then and now. They extended it by a week. Why not?
Dan [07:47]
So we're saying the name of this thought exercise is Welcome to the 2026 Season colon: From Aviva, to Allegiant. From Aviva to Allegiant.
Ty [08:01]
This is, I mean, your pun game is lacking a little bit. Maybe those are the tests you should do with yourself in the car.
Dan [08:08]
You think that's a lacking? Aviva to Allegiant?
Ty [08:10]
Say it again.
Dan [08:11]
Two A-words?
Ty [08:12]
It didn't roll off the tongue for me.
Dan [08:13]
Welcome to the 2026 season, colon, from Aviva to Allegiant.
Ty [08:19]
I don't know. Verballers, weigh in.
Dan [08:21]
Do you want to do subheader?
Ty [08:23]
solidverbal@gmail.com. Weigh in. It's not Ty quality.
Dan [08:26]
I thought that was absolutely a Gahulian effort, and you're going to deny me here.
Ty [08:29]
It's not Dukes of Hazzard/Allen Lazard caliber, but it's approaching there.
Dan [08:32]
Okay. It wasn't even supposed to be a pun. It's just Aviva to Allegiant.
Ty [08:38]
We do have some other notable neutral-site games while we're on the topic throughout the course of the first couple of weeks. Now, of course, we know there are games like the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party, whatever we call it now, between Florida and Georgia. That is played at a neutral site annually. Notre Dame plays Navy, I believe, up in Boston. Like, there are plenty throughout the course of the year.
Dan [08:59]
Red River, yeah.
Ty [09:00]
Red River, right? Like, the traditional ones that we see often, I haven't so much pulled those out, but just five other notable ones: Baylor and Auburn in Atlanta, week 1. Louisville-Ole Miss in Nashville, week 1. Wisconsin versus Notre Dame, Lambeau Field. It's a pretty cool venue in week 1. And then we've also got Virginia versus West Virginia in Charlotte. And Arizona State versus Kansas in week 3, also in London, as the Big 12 continues to build its global brand.
Dan [09:32]
That's also it's kind of like a John Denver matchup, right? Because there's the argument that Country Roads is about western Virginia, not West Virginia. You've probably seen the TikTok or whatever platform that went up on by now. I don't think it's officially settled, but it's probably West Virginia. And Judat, you're talking neutral-siters, right? Most UCLA games as well have that neutral-site feel.
Ty [09:56]
Well, maybe not now under the tutelage of Robert Edward Chesney, you know.
Dan [10:01]
Bobby Chez, yeah, I hope it changes.
Ty [10:02]
Yeah. So we got a long season. We got a couple neutral-site games. The season is set to get rolling on August the 29th. Now
Dan [10:11]
Yes.
Ty [10:12]
You can find that if you go on out to ESPN.com or a number of other websites. This is not news. Maybe it's news to the ears, but here are the notable changes, the things that I think the Verballerhood needs to sink its teeth into and understand as the season gets rolling. Number one, who would have guessed it, but more changes to the College Football Playoff, Dan. I want you to write this down. They're changing it again. Here is what they are changing this year. The four Power Four conference champions automatically get in. Also, the highest-ranked Group of Six team gets in. Plus the other seven highest-ranked at-large teams. That's going to comprise your field of 12. Now, what is different about that? What is different was that last season, it was the five highest-ranked conference champions who automatically earned the bid regardless of what conference they were in. TL;DR, that's how you get JMU, that's how you got Tulane in the same playoff field.
Dan [11:22]
Right, and that dumped Duke out because they were not one of the five highest-ranked conference champions.
Ty [11:29]
So, I interpret this as a net gain for the Power Four, and also something that probably decreases the risk of two G6 teams getting in again like we saw last year.
Dan [11:41]
Sure, which was the unstated goal of this adjustment.
Ty [11:45]
Practically speaking, that's what this means. I don't necessarily think it's a horrible change. I don't think we're fully disenfranchising the G6. But I would say, just again, practically speaking, it decreases the risk of that happening again.
Dan [11:59]
And of course, by the way, we should mention, last year's inclusion of both James Madison and Tulane was a crazy confluence of unrepeatable events of Duke losing five times and winning the ACC and not making the tournament. But yes, we have to do everything we can all of the time to adjust. Continue.
Ty [12:23]
The other thing worth mentioning is that this is going to be the first year, and we saw reporting about this. It sort of flew under the radar amid everything else going on in college football. Notre Dame will receive an automatic bid if they are ranked in the top 12 in the final rankings.
Dan [12:40]
Yes. Finally, Notre Dame catches a break. It again. If they get an automatic bid if they finish in the top 12, but they have to officially accept it, right? Which they don't always do.
Ty [12:55]
This is going to be a topic of conversation. I can just tell you right now, I don't know if it's so much going to be a big deal this year because Notre Dame, as we will get into over the course of this episode, figures to be one of the top five teams in the country. They've got a schedule that should keep them in the top five teams in the country. It is a loaded roster. Notre Dame will be very good. I don't think it's going to be a circumstance like we saw a year ago. Things change. I didn't think that would be the case for Penn State last year either.
Dan [13:22]
Yeah, it's not automatic. There's a lot of evaluations of Notre Dame's schedule that say that they're going to coast based on not having a ton of obviously formidable opponents. And it'll be, you're right, it'll be a topic of conversation. I will just remind people: Notre Dame has scheduled some of the best Canadian high schools who are willing to play against the Irish.
Ty [13:45]
Okay. All right.
Dan [13:47]
And you never say never.
Ty [13:48]
All right. All right.
Dan [13:49]
Continue.
Ty [13:50]
We now have 138 teams, Dan. Two new teams joining this year. As if we didn't have enough last year, let's add two more on to the growing list of FBS teams, starting with North Dakota State, man. I am fired up for North Dakota State to play at the FBS level. They are officially joining the Mountain West. As many who listen to this know, North Dakota State has been an absolute FCS powerhouse. They have 10 FCS national championships in the last 15 years, which is pretty good. Over the last decade or so, North Dakota State has acquitted itself quite well when they play FBS teams. They have played three Power Conference FBS teams over the last decade. They beat Iowa, if you want to go back ten years, back in 2016, by a 23 to 21 score. In 2022, four years ago, they lost to Arizona by a 31 to 28 score. And two years ago in 2024, they lost to Colorado by a 31 to 26 margin.
Dan [14:57]
Right, a back-and-forth game, yeah.
Ty [14:58]
Do the math. That's two losses by a combined eight points. All told, three games against powerful opponents decided by just 10 points. North Dakota State jumping now into the fray here.
Dan [15:11]
Yes. And by the way, they just, in all seriousness, they have, if you look at some of the advanced metrics that our friend Bill Connelly at ESPN does, they have acquitted themselves in a way that a top 50 or 60, no matter the division, type team would acquit themselves given opponents and such. So, they're joining the Mountain West. I'm sure this is an easy runway for you, but they're joining the Mountain West due to a number of teams shuffling conferences to accommodate the new look Pac-12.
Ty [15:45]
We will get into conference realignment here momentarily as sweet setup, Iceman.
Dan [15:49]
Thank you.
Ty [15:50]
The other team that is new is Sacramento State.
Dan [15:53]
Yes.
Ty [15:55]
Sacramento State returning to its traditional roots as apparently a MAC team. They're joining the MAC.
Dan [16:03]
Yes, they are.
Ty [16:05]
It is a different scenario altogether than what we are seeing with North Dakota State. I'm not going to pretend that I understand the math on this one, okay? I'm just not. But Sacramento State is joining the MAC on a five-year agreement. Under this agreement, Sacramento State takes no conference payout. They also, for the first year at least, are covering air travel for visiting MAC teams.
Dan [16:32]
What? I don't think I knew that detail.
Ty [16:34]
And in year one of this agreement, they are paying $6 million of a total $18 million entry fee.
Dan [16:34]
Thank you.
Ty [16:43]
So they will need to pay out the remaining, I guess, what, 13 million, 12 million, excuse me, over the remainder of their four-year stay. If it is only four years, but at least in year one, they're going to owe $6 million of that $18 million. There were questions when they made this announcement around the fact that they were doing it at all. A bunch of folks questioning the math behind it. There is some concern that this could be, financially speaking, an error in judgment. All that said, because they are joining the MAC, we do get to see them play Ball State, which means the Ball-Sac rivalry is on, and we're very excited about that.
Dan [17:21]
Also, potentially the wildest collection of notable alumni on a Wikipedia notable alumni page.
Ty [17:29]
Okay, go ahead.
Dan [17:30]
Sacramento State. Tom Hanks, the former chief of staff of the President of Iran. Those are two different people, by the way.
Ty [17:36]
Okay, two different
Dan [17:38]
Ryan Coogler, who's now like a legendary and acclaimed director. Creed from The Office, and a terrific musician way back when, a notorious serial killer, the Golden State Killer, and perhaps my favorite addition to this list. Legendary Toronto Blue Jay, Buck Martinez, former voice of Triple Play Baseball and EA Sports, are all at least on the Wikipedia page of Sacramento State.
Ty [17:58]
Really? Didn't Cam Skattebo go there for a little bit before ASU, right?
Dan [18:11]
I don't think he measures up to any of those names, but no, of course, yes, Cam Skattebo.
Ty [18:14]
I'm not saying he's an alum, but he was there for a moment in time, yeah.
Dan [18:16]
Right. Well, I don't know if any of those people actually graduated, but yes. I'm pretty sure he transferred from Sacramento State. I think you got that right. Hornets, I believe? Sacramento State Hornets. So we get Sac State UMass, if not this year, some year. So there's that.
Ty [18:35]
You mentioned conference realignment.
Dan [18:36]
Yes.
Ty [18:37]
The Pac-12 is back. Back like it never left. They're calling it the Pac-12, but it's only got eight teams. Continuing the long tradition in college football of naming a conference with a number, despite the fact that the conference itself does not have that number of teams.
Dan [18:51]
Correct. And also, it's back like it definitely did leave. The manner in which it is back is like, oh, it left. Okay, continue.
Ty [19:00]
Eight teams, all of which end with the state suffix. Which is a fact that I'm sure will amuse almost nobody other than me. But we've got Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Oregon State, San Diego State, Texas State, Utah State, and Washington State, Dan.
Dan [19:17]
Eight teams. Yep.
Ty [19:19]
The games are going to be broadcast across CBS, USA, and the C-Dub, back in the game.
Dan [19:23]
Great.
Ty [19:25]
So by virtue of Texas State leaving to join the Pac-12, the Sun Belt needed another team. They went out, they poached Louisiana Tech from Conference USA. So now the Sun Belt has 14 teams, even number.
Dan [19:40]
That's quite a number of teams that are shifting things around. And by the way, I joke about the new look Pac-12 and how funny it is that they're just calling it the Pac-12, as it's just not. But those are all teams that have been of like varying impressive quality in the last decade or so. Like it looks to be a conference that has pretty solid depth of quality. And I've been a Mountain West fan for quite some time now. And so, with some of those Mountain West teams moving to a new conference together, the Mountain West seems like it perhaps has added some quality. Of course, with North Dakota State, hopefully, it means for even more watchable football out West, which is always meaningful to me.
Ty [20:25]
We should talk about the Mountain West because Northern Illinois is now in the Mountain West.
Dan [20:30]
Right. That's the other addition, yeah.
Ty [20:33]
Your Mountain West is now comprised of Air Force, Hawaii, Nevada, and New Mexico. Seen those before. You also got San Jose State, UNLV, UTEP, and Wyoming out there. But this year we now add, yes, North Dakota State and Northern Illinois.
Dan [20:48]
As a resident in the northern part of Illinois, seeing northern Illinois join the Mountain West. It seems funny to some, but when you think about mountainous regions of this country, the northern part of Illinois has to be one of your top 75,000 regions.
Ty [21:09]
We have so many people who email this show, solidverbal@gmail.com, speaking lovingly about the mountains of Northern Illinois.
Dan [21:16]
Okay, look, you have the Andes, right? You have the Sierra Nevadas. You got a lot to contend with, but there are a couple off-ramps in this part of the state that get pretty vertical, Ty.
Ty [21:28]
I'm envisioning that scene from Dumb and Dumber where they're like, Yeah, I expected the Mountain West to be a little bit more mountainous. That John Denver was full of...
Dan [21:38]
Yeah, yeah. No, that was not the mount... yeah, the Mountain West, the Rockies, yeah, I hear you.
Ty [21:44]
What else is new? Well, we've got a bunch here. Rule changes. There were some rule changes of note. I'm not going to go into all of them, but there are three that I pulled out that I thought were kind of interesting. The first is targeting. Ever the controversial topic, targeting. So the NCAA has approved the one-year trial, Dan. It's like a new medicine. They've approved the one-year trial whereby a player is not suspended. If they get hit with targeting a second time, then they miss the first half of the next game. If you get hit with targeting for a third time in one season, that means you are suspended for a full game. But it seems as if they are reducing the punishments associated with targeting.
Dan [22:25]
I think it's worthwhile just because we're never going to get to the point where an official on the field is going to feel 100% certain all of the time. There is a judgment element to this. There is like it's certainly a call that when you watch a play in super-duper slow-mo, it seems a lot more obvious than what the officials have to contend with. I know they replay it and stuff, but a play in super slow motion is not reality. These players are making bang-bang decisions, and unless you see somebody making a play defensively or offensively, where it's like, oh, it's so clearly them trying to injure somebody. I'm glad that we're not going over the top with punishment.
Ty [23:13]
I like this. I think this is the right move. We'll see how the one-year trial goes. Elsewhere, we've got offensive pass interference, I guess, standardizing on the NFL model as opposed to what we've had in college. It is now only 10 yards instead of 15. The NFL has done this for a while. College is now going to this as well, only 10 yards instead of 15. Jot that one down. Like I said, there are a bunch of other more nuanced rules. Fair catch rules, dropkick rule, like, not going to talk about that. The one that I found funny though, just because we made a lot of this last year. I'm calling this the Terry McAulay rule, or I guess the Terry McAulay proposal, even though Terry
Dan [23:57]
Oh, is this the uniform regulation?
Ty [23:59]
I don't think Terry McAulay had anything to do with this, but I mentioned Terry McAulay because this was like one of the only three things he tweeted about all last season. Terry McAulay, former NFL ref, doing rules analyst work for NBC. The Oversight Committee saw a proposal that would have required players to wear leg coverings from the tops of their shoes to the bottoms of their pants. Terry McAulay had an issue with what he called bike shorts being worn. The Oversight Committee did not approve that proposal. So we're still going to see some bike shorts out there, Mr.
Dan [24:33]
Sorry, Terry.
Ty [24:33]
McAulay. Sorry, apologize. What else? Well, we got some bowl situations. We got three bowls that are no longer, if you can believe it. Pour one out for the LA Bowl, the GameAbove Sports Bowl, and the Bahamas Bowl. Gone.
Dan [24:50]
The Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl, the LA Bowl presented by Gronk?
Ty [24:53]
Sayonara, no more.
Dan [24:55]
You said Bahamas Bowl?
Ty [24:56]
Bahamas Bowl.
Dan [24:57]
Which has not always been played in the Bahamas.
Ty [24:57]
Gone. Correct.
Dan [25:00]
What's the third one?
Ty [25:02]
The GameAbove Sports Bowl.
Dan [25:04]
The GameAbove Sports Bowl. The only other thing I remember about the Bahamas Bowl was Roger Sherman went and noticed that they served Popeyes, but there is not Popeyes on the island of the Bahamas or something like that.
Ty [25:17]
Correct, right.
Dan [25:20]
So, all right, pour one out. You know, I enjoyed the brief tenure of the LA Bowl and always enjoyed the Bahamas Bowl. Always early on in the process had some memorable plays.
Ty [25:29]
I enjoy the idea, the concept. Of maybe them flying a 747 of Popeyes chicken over to the island just for the bowl game.
Dan [25:38]
Yeah, I think it's great. Too bad.
Ty [25:42]
We do have new bowl games, though. I'm not going to play the sound.
Dan [25:45]
What do we have?
Ty [25:46]
We've got a new bowl game, the Puerto Rico Bowl. It will be played in December.
Dan [25:50]
Okay.
Ty [25:52]
I jotted down that it's got a sweet effing logo. Do you have this in front of you? Do you see this logo?
Dan [25:55]
I'm going to look it up right now. I love good, good branding.
Ty [25:58]
Look at this logo.
Dan [25:59]
Puerto Rico Bowl images.
Ty [26:01]
I have it in our document.
Dan [26:03]
Oh.
Ty [26:04]
Look at that logo, man.
Dan [26:06]
What? It's in our Google Doc?
Ty [26:08]
Yeah, the doc, yeah, you got the document open. I can see you're in there.
Dan [26:11]
I am in here, but I don't see it. I'm scrolling..
Ty [26:12]
Scroll down.
Dan [26:14]
Oh, that is nice.
Ty [26:15]
That's pretty dope, isn't it? Look at that.
Dan [26:17]
That is nice. We've got a palm tree in there, and we've got some kind of horned skull situation for the O in Puerto.
Ty [26:26]
Like a little el Día de los Muertos going on there.
Dan [26:28]
There is something. Yeah. And it's got the Puerto Rican flag painted into it.
Ty [26:32]
Beautiful.
Dan [26:32]
Yeah, it's great.
Ty [26:34]
We've also got a new/old bowl game in that the Poinsettia Bowl is coming back.
Dan [26:38]
It's back, baby.
Ty [26:40]
Been 10 years without the Poinsettia Bowl.
Dan [26:42]
Is the San Diego County Credit Union involved or have they washed their hands?
Ty [26:47]
I don't know. I don't know what the status is of the San Diego County Credit Union right now.
Dan [26:51]
I have basically one memory of the Poinsettia Bowl. And I think we had a couple of interesting matchups. It was an early bowl game. Like, we had. Maybe like a TCU-Boise or something in that range of those kinds of quality teams. I remember Navy played in it one year, which makes sense.
Ty [27:05]
When they got flooded out, right with Navy.
Dan [27:07]
Flooded Poinsettia Bowl with Navy, who, by the way, strong naval presence in San Diego County, right?
Ty [27:15]
Very strong. Didn't they play Michigan State played a college basketball game on the carrier?
Dan [27:19]
On an aircraft carrier, yes.
Ty [27:20]
Yeah.
Dan [27:21]
So yeah. I welcome back the Poinsettia Bowl, a beautiful flower, plant, whatever it is.
Ty [27:25]
I'm glad that we get this back. This is like a weird thing, and I know bowls aren't what they used to, but it's still weird to me, or it's been weird for me when we go through and we talk about bowl games and who's playing and what. And we haven't been able to talk about this one, so it's back.
Dan [27:39]
I mean, going down to that stadium was always very fun for me from Southern California, the LA area, just because it would be like a dilapidated Chargers/old Padres stadium. You're like, all right, let's go see Oklahoma State-Oregon. Let's see what happens.
Ty [27:52]
Yeah, let's see where it goes.
Dan [27:52]
That's great.
Ty [27:53]
Speaking of stadiums, another setup there, man. We're ready in mid-season form here.
Dan [27:58]
Okay.
Ty [27:59]
We do have a new stadium situation this year in college football, Ryan Field, within walking distance of you.
Dan [28:07]
So is it Ryan Stadium or Ryan Field? What are they calling it? I think it's just Ryan Field.
Ty [28:12]
Well, I jotted down Ryan Field. You know what I mean. Northwestern's got a new Ryan Field that's opening on Friday, October the 2nd, against my beloved Penn State Nittany Lions. I think I might try to come out for that one, though we haven't drawn up official plans yet.
Dan [28:26]
Yeah, it's a long walk to be clear. I'm not in the shadow of Ryan Field. It's bikeable.
Ty [28:31]
You live in the concourse with the family.
Dan [28:34]
Yeah. It looks beautiful. I walk by it all the time when I'm around there. There's a good bakery around there, so I find myself on Central Street a good amount of time. If it does open as planned in early October, because I think originally they wanted it open for the start of the season. So it's never great when you're like, well, what about early October? It's a Friday night game against Penn State, so you have a big name opponent, big fan base coming in. It looks terrific. I think it only seats about 35,000.
Ty [29:01]
Yeah, it's smaller. It's a little bit smaller.
Dan [29:04]
Sight lines look great. I think they're going to have great concessions, and it looks like it's going to be excellent. So I hope it all works out for the cats.
Ty [29:12]
Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited they're opening back up. I'm going to miss the old portable stadium, though. That was kind of fun. Just the sheer logistics of that were pretty crazy.
Dan [29:19]
That was fun. I went to two games there. You and I went and saw Duke play future ACC champion Duke.
Ty [29:30]
In the driving wind and rain off Lake Michigan.
Dan [29:32]
Yeah, and I went with our friend Jeff to the Oregon game last season, a game in which I learned the Oregon team changed on the nearby indoor tennis courts as their locker room. So a different experience.
Ty [29:45]
Yeah, this is also supposedly the final year of South Florida, USF, playing at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa because they're also building their own stadium. I think they've had some delays with that, but at least at time of recording, it seems like they're on track to jump on over to their own thing starting in 2027. So we'll keep tabs on that. But when we do this episode a year from now, we might have another new stadium to discuss.
Dan [30:12]
Yeah.
Ty [30:14]
Looks pretty cool. I don't know.
Dan [30:15]
Can't wait.
Ty [30:17]
Let's get into the people, the who.
Dan [30:19]
The who.
Ty [30:21]
There's a lot of who going on here. I counted 29 new head coaches.
Dan [30:26]
Did you not license any of the music from the band The Who for this specific segment?
Ty [30:29]
I did not. We do not have that in the budget, no?
Dan [30:30]
We don't have that in our budget. All right.
Ty [30:35]
I jotted down 29 new coaches. Like we knew at the start of last year that the coaching carousel was going to go crazy. We even built our own version of a game for it. I don't expect that this coming offseason is going to be nearly as active as we saw this past cycle, but who knows? Things break all the time. Just a small sampling of names. LSU, Lane Kiffin, Virginia Tech, James Franklin. Penn State, Matt Campbell. Florida, Jon Sumrall. Michigan, Kyle Whittingham. UCLA, Bobby Chez. Ole Miss, Pete Golding. Auburn, Alex Golesh. Arkansas, Ryan Silverfield. Kentucky, Will Stein. Oklahoma State, Eric Morris. Michigan State, Pat Fitzgerald, Cal Tosh Lupoi, Stanford, Tavita Pritchard, South Florida, Brian Hartline, and James Madison, Billy Napier. What did I say?
Dan [31:30]
Yes, listen, maybe that'll stick.
Ty [31:31]
Billy Napier? I said Billy Napier because underneath him on my list is Will Hall at Tulane. There are a bunch others, a bunch others on this list.
Dan [31:40]
Do you want to rapid fire anything interesting about any of these coaches? Just talking points over Bratwurst or something?
Ty [31:46]
I mean, where do you start with Lane Kiffin? The whole Lane Kiffin thing is a talking point.
Dan [31:50]
Okay, Lane Kiffin wanted to keep coaching at his last school even after he accepted the job at this school for the duration of the playoffs and was told no, we're good. James Franklin was fired midseason after leading a team to the top four, the final four of the playoff, fired midseason after disappointing losses in big and not-so-big games, accepted this job in the middle of the season, or near the end of the season.
Ty [32:14]
Yes, and I should add, there has been a windfall of new money coming into Virginia Tech. Maybe not exclusively because of James Franklin, but it has definitely been coordinated around James Franklin and the rebuild of this Virginia Tech program. So that's been exciting.
Dan [32:30]
Virginia Tech, I think, is maybe putting together its best recruiting class ever. Like he's always been able to recruit. Obviously, when you see that proof of concept, you're going to keep spending money because money and recruiting are one and the same in this moment. Jon Sumrall comes over from Tulane to Florida after leading them to the playoff and to a good amount of success. Kyle Whittingham was a late-in-the-process thing after Sherrone Moore was fired for inappropriate conduct within the athletic department, and Kyle Whittingham was at Utah forever. An older guy, but very successful at Utah. Bob Chesney from across the country, also a playoff coach. Pete Golding was already at Ole Miss and was the interim and had the interim tag taken off of him. Will Stein was the offensive coordinator at Oregon. Oklahoma State and Eric Morris bring a bunch of superstar-looking offensive players with them from North Texas. Billy Napier was fired from Florida. He's now at JMU, which has been the cradle of successful coaches recently, notably Curt Cignetti going from JMU to Indiana. Kirby Moore is a really good coach in his own right, coming over from Mizzou. Also, Kellen Moore's brother, legendary Boise State.
Ty [33:32]
Yep, go into Wazzu. Go into Wazzu. I didn't mention him when I initially did the run through.
Dan [33:35]
Going to Wazzu.
Ty [33:37]
Yeah.
Dan [33:37]
Jason Candle was at Toledo forever and had a ton of success. He's now at UConn taking over Jim Mora. Jim Mora is at Colorado State. Alex Mortensen at UAB is the son of Chris Mortensen, but has been a college football coach for some time now. JaMarcus Shephard, a really, really well-regarded receivers coach. He's been at big places. If you remember those Purdue receivers, JaMarcus Shephard was there. The great Washington receivers from a couple years ago, he had a hand in that. He was at Alabama recently.
Ty [34:04]
He's going to Oregon State.
Dan [34:05]
And yes, he's going to Oregon State, JaMarcus Shephard taking over there. Ryan Beard was at Missouri State and helped shepherd them to their FBS status and had a good season last year. He does not have a beard, has had a beard. You can call him Coach Beard, like the Ted Lasso character, but of the pictures I've seen him in at Coastal Carolina, he has kept a close shave.
Ty [34:31]
Do you think we need a rule on this? Like if you've got beard in the last name, you need to be now the counterpoint would be it may be harder for some people to grow beards.
Dan [34:40]
Too obvious.
Ty [34:44]
Right.
Dan [34:45]
But he can.
Ty [34:45]
It's easy.
Dan [34:45]
I've seen him with a beard.
Ty [34:46]
It's easy for guys to grow a beard, but it takes more effort if you're a woman.
Dan [34:50]
Right, sure.
Ty [34:51]
And if you're Mrs. Beard.
Dan [34:53]
Yeah.
Ty [34:53]
I think maybe just men named Beard need to at least dabble with growing the beard is where I'm at.
Dan [35:01]
He has dabbled. He has a good beard.
Ty [35:03]
So he's okay, but I'm saying moving forward, is there a beard rule we can institute here as part of the like Verballer lore?
Dan [35:03]
Should he choose. That's a good question. Right, that he shouldn't shave until they win? Sort of like Nebraska fans with the balloons.
Ty [35:14]
Exactly, exactly.
Dan [35:14]
There's the college basketball fans who don't cheer until the first basket. Okay. Or what's his name? At Syracuse, who refuses to shower if they don't win?
Ty [35:22]
Yeah, no, totally cool.
Dan [35:23]
What's his name?
Ty [35:24]
Fran Brown.
Dan [35:24]
That's what I'm good with, Fran Brown. Yeah. So, yeah, a lot of it. I mean, there's a ton of movement here. Pat Fitzgerald back as a college football head coach after being fired by Northwestern, speaking of Ryan Field a few years ago now. He's at Michigan State. Yeah, I mean, you'll learn all of these if you haven't been paying close attention, but yeah, a lot of new names and faces, some of whom do or don't have beards.
Ty [35:49]
Some other new names. Charles Davis is stepping in for Gary Danielson as the lead analyst for CBS.
Dan [35:57]
Yes, that's true.
Ty [35:58]
This was like telegraphed. Everybody kind of knew about it last season that this was going to occur. But it is a little bit of a different change in the media landscape. At the time of recording, I haven't seen if ESPN is going to jumble any of its announcer teams. My hunch is they probably will by the time this drops, or certainly by the time this season gets here, but this is one notable name, one notable addition that we can report now at time of recording. The other one, and it's not perfectly a fit for what we're doing here, but it is tangentially related. And that is Kirk Herbstreit is going to be replaced by Joel Klatt as the main analyst in the college football video game. We're trying to be comprehensive here on this show. So, it warrants mentioning that Klatt's going to be in the game now.
Dan [36:46]
This is the olive branch in the demilitarized zone between the Fox and ESPN.
Ty [36:54]
Bringing Fowler and Klatt together. I think Holly Rowe in the game now, which is kind of cool.
Dan [36:58]
Bringing them together.
Ty [37:00]
The Cold War.
Dan [37:01]
Yeah, that Joel Klatt is, he's bringing people together. Charles Davis, I want to say Charles Davis was on the Boise-Oklahoma call with Thom Brennaman
Ty [37:09]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. Charles Davis has called plenty of college games in the past, but he's been doing NFL for a while. And now he's coming back on under the CBS umbrella on the college side.
Dan [37:19]
So I think a lot of us have used Gary Danielson broadcasts on CBS over the years to make sure our eye muscles are stretched. with all the rolling we do. So we're going to have to find new ways. I looked it up: extraocular muscles are what make sure your eyes continue to move.
Ty [37:36]
Well, Brando, I think, Brando, I think, is still calling games, so we could like watch repeats of those broadcasts, you know
Dan [37:41]
Right, so if you feel those muscles stagnating, atrophying a little bit, just flip on a Brando joint, you'll get your work.
Ty [37:48]
Yeah, or you'll be asleep one way or the other.
Dan [37:50]
This is true.
Ty [37:50]
Because a lot of times they put them on like those later games because I don't think they want people to hear him either.
Dan [37:53]
The later ones. Yeah. I in all seriousness. I know people criticize announcers all the time, and I have not been the biggest fan of that booth recently. So that would be the Brad Nessler Gary Danielson booth. I've always enjoyed having Gary Danielson in my life, that voice, but yeah, I don't want to just kind of plainly feel everybody's fine.
Ty [38:12]
Oh, yeah, a hundred percent. Hundred percent.
Dan [38:20]
I want to. Feel like I have opinions of announcers that sort of change like a Richter scale. So, yeah, happy trails to Gary Danielson, who did a ton of work for CBS. And I hope he has fun as a fan of the sport on his couch.
Ty [38:33]
We are not affiliated with anybody. We are very much our own show here. And so if we want to be honest, with the Verballerhood, we got to give our opinions of some of these broadcasting booths, right?
Dan [38:46]
I agree.
Ty [38:47]
Like we're not living in a vacuum until we bring some of these folks on and have definitely heard from people in the past. We just got to be honest with the people.
Dan [38:55]
By the way, speaking of announcing changes, I know you didn't omit this name because I'm not sure we should fully omit this name. But Jason Benetti is not at Fox anymore, right?
Ty [39:08]
Correct.
Dan [39:09]
He's calling baseball at NBC, and I think will dabble in other sports. So I haven't seen anything official with How it relates to, you know, maybe doing like Netflix or whatever NFL stuff for NBC and, you know, other networks that are not TV networks in that same way. But hopefully, we have some Benetti in our life moving forward with NBC's college football deal.
Ty [39:34]
Love Benetti.
Dan [39:34]
Yeah.
Ty [39:35]
Good dude. Great dude.
Dan [39:35]
So he's not, he was with Brock Huard a couple years ago, and I thought they were a very, very good booth. He was with RG3 last year, and I'm always going to like Benetti, and the best of RG3 is fun. So, yeah, I think college football announcing gets worse without weekly Benetti.
Ty [39:53]
All right, let's talk transfers. Where do we want to start with transfers? So, full disclosure, we're working off a shared Google Doc right here. And I went through all of the transfer portal listings and I went to 247Sports for this. The way that they set up the top transfers for each position was they gave you like a preview. Like the top 12, let's say. And then you could click on the button that says view more. And you view more, and then you get like 12 more. And you click view more, and you get 12 more. I kept going with quarterbacks. I was like, man, where do I cut this off? I'm interested in all of these names, but my hunch is that the Verballerhood probably has a cutoff, especially for a 101 episode. We don't necessarily need to go all the way down to like Walker Eget going from San Jose State to Duke. That might be a bit overkill for a bigger picture episode like this.
Dan [40:48]
Well, guess what? You just did.
Ty [40:50]
I just did anyway.
Dan [40:51]
You just did.
Ty [40:52]
I just did anyway.
Dan [40:52]
Yeah, it's okay.
Ty [40:53]
I'm sorry, right? You want to talk some Cutter Boley? I don't know if that rises to the 101 level here that we're going for.
Dan [40:58]
Yes.
Ty [40:59]
I've got a long list of candidates on this thing at quarterback, running back, wide receiver. I didn't do tight end, probably should have done tight end, but a bunch of defensive linemen, linebackers, defensive backs, you name it. I didn't do. Offensive lineman, Jordan Seaton's the big name there. But where do we start here? Where do we want to start?
Dan [41:19]
Okay.
Ty [41:19]
I guess with quarterbacks, right?
Dan [41:21]
Yeah, quarterback was interesting this year. Obviously, there's a number of notable names. Sam Leavitt is the final quarterback that LSU was able. They tripped a couple different quarterbacks, but Sam Leavitt, who is a playoff quarterback, coming off of a pretty significant foot injury. For ASU obviously took them to the playoff a couple of years ago. He is going to be Lane Kiffin's presumed starting quarterback pending health recovery. So he'll be at LSU. But basically, like, look, if you root for or know of teams who have been to the playoff, have playoff aspirations, or are spending like they'd like to be a playoff team, they likely landed what they hope is a game-changing offensive weapon, quarterback, running back, receiver. So, like ASU, Miami has Duke's quarterback, and that was a sort of contractual dispute near the end of the process as Miami very much in the market for a quarterback who is of playoff caliber because around him is a lot on both sides of the ball roster-wise to once again go to the College Football Playoff. We mentioned the North Texas situation with Eric Morris going from North Texas to Oklahoma State. Drew Mestemaker was very much in demand as a huge breakthrough quarterback last season, throwing for a ton, helped to develop receivers in the running game around him. A lot of that is going to Oklahoma State, who is investing in its program in a way that they haven't necessarily these past few years. Dylan Raiola was a big five-star name for Nebraska. He's going to be Oregon's backup quarterback.
Ty [42:49]
Yeah, this was a really interesting one, right? So the Leavitt move we saw coming. Obviously, the Mestemaker thing makes a ton of sense. He's following his coach. The Darian Mensah thing, you mentioned it briefly, but Duke to Miami, there were some contractual hiccups, let's say, with regard to that. But the Raiola move, the Raiola transfer, I think caught a lot of people by surprise. When he announced intentions to go into the transfer portal, there were a lot of potential suitors out there that were mentioned. But him ultimately going to Oregon, kind of following the Dante Moore model before him.
Dan [43:25]
Sitting a year, yeah.
Ty [43:26]
Yeah, how Dante Moore went to Oregon, transferred up, sat for a year behind
Dan [43:32]
Dillon Gabriel.
Ty [43:33]
Dillon Gabriel. And now, here we got another Dylan going to Oregon who's going to sit behind Dante Moore for a year. So listen, in a year. In a day and age in college football where having any kind of quarterback depth is very much at a premium because no one has it.
Dan [43:44]
In a year.
Ty [43:52]
Oregon now has a bit of a war chest at the quarterback position. God forbid something happens to Dante. They can go to Dylan Raiola, who's coming off injury, but also has a ton of game experience.
Dan [44:03]
He played in the spring. He looks like he's healed. Fernando Mendoza is being replaced by Josh Hoover, who put up a number of big stats at TCU and a very pass-happy offense. There was a little back and forth about his turnovers. But certainly, when you see what Indiana's done with regard to quarterback development, Josh Hoover is expected to have a big season. for the defending national champions. DJ Lagway, former five-star, was a big deal for Billy Napier at Florida when he was able to secure that commitment. He's now headed back to his home state and will play for Baylor. Rocco Becht follows the coaching staff and a number of Iowa State players going from Iowa State, Matt Campbell, to Penn State. And so he's expected to take that next step, whatever that is for him. Byrum Brown does the same thing with Alex Golesh, moving from USF to Auburn. Grunk is following James Franklin. Yeah, I can call him Grunk.
Ty [44:55]
You call Grunk, sure, sure.
Dan [44:56]
Ethan Grunkemeyer. James Franklin to Virginia Tech from Penn State. There's some like backup situations and other names that will be starters that are not household names at the moment, but that leaves us with Brendan Sorsby.
Ty [45:10]
Sorsby was one of the big gets in the transfer portal. If you believe this list I've got in front of me, he was the second best quarterback in the portal. So Texas Tech wanted an upgrade there. They believe they've got the best roster in the Big 12, and I happen to agree. But they needed the quarterback. They needed the upgrade at quarterback. It came out that Brendan Sorsby had been gambling on college football. More broadly speaking, he had bet on all sorts of stuff, from balls and strikes to how his team was doing at Indiana when he was there.
Dan [45:38]
His own team, yes, to be clear, his own team. He was wagering on his own team, which has been a sort of an uncrossable red line in sports of all levels.
Ty [45:48]
Initially, initially, Brendan Sorsby was out. Brendan Sorsby was out, done for the year, in effect, done for his college career, going to go into the NFL Supplemental Draft. But through the court system, Brendan Sorsby won a temporary injunction. So for a moment in time, it looked like Sorsby would only have to sit out two games, but would be able to play out the rest of the season afterwards. Then all hell broke loose. We had legal threats coming from far and wide. Someone had the wherewithal to realize that this situation was simply not tenable. Which is the point at which both Tech and Sorsby mutually parted ways. Sorsby then said he wanted to go into the supplemental draft, but the NFL said no. TL;DR, your starting quarterback, at least for the moment at Texas Tech in 2026, will be Will Hammond and not Brendan Sorsby. I will give you three other quarterback names that I am very interested in. We cannot run through this whole list. It would take us, you know, an eternity. But three names that are very interested in seeing how they perform at their new locations. In addition to the ones you already mentioned, Austin Simmons has already been named the starting quarterback at Mizzou. He comes over from Ole Miss. Obviously, Trinidad Chambliss is still at Ole Miss. But Trinidad Chambliss's success meant that Austin Simmons needed to go somewhere else if he wanted to play. Missouri is going to be that place. Curious to see how he translates.
Dan [47:15]
Also sued for eligibility in the offseason.
Ty [47:17]
Also, yes, Trinidad Chambliss.
Dan [47:18]
because he was a D2 transfer dealing with injuries at his previous place that cost him time playing. And so he sued and was able to get an injunction to continue playing for Ole Miss and Pete Golding.
Ty [47:33]
Right. Trinidad Chambliss.
Dan [47:34]
Trinidad Chambliss, that is, not Austin Simmons.
Ty [47:37]
The other name here for me is Aaron Philo. I don't know if Aaron Philo at time of recording is going to be QB1 at Florida, but Aaron Philo follows from Georgia Tech, Buster Faulkner, the offensive coordinator who is going to be coordinating things under the new regime at Florida. Curious to see if Philo gets on the field and what that could mean. I happen to like Florida more than seemingly most people. We'll get to that when we talk about our SEC preview stuff. Okay.
Dan [48:05]
Yes.
Ty [48:06]
And the final name on my list, maybe a little bit of home cooking here, but Kenny Minchey. Kenny Minchey, as no surprise to anyone, wanted to get some playing time. Initially committed to Nebraska, shortly thereafter, decided he wanted to follow Will Stein.
Dan [48:22]
Do you want to mention who Kenny Minchey is because he's a quarterback who has never thrown a meaningful college football pass?
Ty [48:28]
I'm getting there. The reason I say home cooking, Kenny Minchey was the guy who lost out to C.
Dan [48:29]
Okay.
Ty [48:33]
C.J. Carr at Notre Dame. And if you listened to some of the beat writers and read some of the beat reports in advance of the 2025 season, there were a lot of folks who believed that Kenny Minchey actually beat C.J. Carr out. C.J. Carr worked out pretty well, I think. Now, everybody feels pretty good about that decision. C.J. Carr is going to be the guy. C.J. Carr is one of, like, the top five candidates for the Heisman going into the new year. But Kenny Minchey now gets an opportunity to start full-time in the SEC for Will Stein in a system that's been very good for quarterbacks. So we'll see what he can do at Kentucky.
Dan [49:05]
This is true. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there's I mean, this is going to be an annual tradition, the number of quarterbacks moving around the country in search of opportunity or a better opportunity. Texas went big with offensive skill in the portal. Again, I'm just sort of echoing myself at the beginning of this segment. If you root for a team, if you're familiar with teams who have championship aspirations. They are probably spending big in the portal to improve certain gaps on their roster. And yeah, when you look around, none of this is a surprise. All of the names, Ohio State, Oregon, Georgia, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, they all spent. So that's the sort of reality in the sport.
Ty [49:46]
The really big names, okay? And I will not do position by position because all of the team and conference previews are to come.
Dan [49:55]
Yes.
Ty [49:55]
We will unpack these once we get down onto the team level. But some of the really big names that commanded high prices. Cam Coleman. You mentioned Texas. Cam Coleman was wide receiver No. 1 in this portal class. Cam Coleman comes over to Texas seemingly to give Arch Manning the target that he needs out wide. That is certainly going to be a name that we're going to need to follow. I mentioned him on one of our offseason shows. I really like Omarion Miller, the wide receiver who goes to Arizona State from Colorado. Obviously, it's not going to be a situation where Arch Manning is throwing to him. We can get into Arizona State and its quarterback battle once we get to Arizona State. The other really big name that I'd call out here, who committed very quickly? I thought Notre Dame might have a shot at him, but Nick Marsh transfers out of Michigan State, and he is going to join up with Curt Cignetti and Josh Hoover at Indiana.
Dan [50:49]
The other, by the way, the other big transfer story, and again, this stuff kind of gets lost. This is just a bigger picture thing. And we mentioned the Darian Mensah thing a couple of years ago. We had the Xavier Lucas, was at the Wisconsin corner, who made his way to Miami. The other big transfer story that sort of seemed like it might have reverberations is Demond Williams at Washington, who had an extremely promising year as their starting quarterback, announced intentions to transfer and enter the portal. With a lot of conversation around him being the new LSU quarterback, at which point Washington expressed that they would exercise all of their litigation options given that he had just signed his rev-share deal with the Huskies. And the timing was particularly bad with tragedy within the athletic department at the University of Washington, I believe with a soccer player passing. Super tragic. He claims he got bad advice. His representation parted ways with him. And he looked at his options and what might happen with, you know, his career legally with regard to payment and everything, and decided to return to Washington. So he is going to be the starting quarterback once again for Jedd Fisch and the Huskies. And hopefully, just for the sake of their own success, that everybody has sort of moved past that situation.
Ty [52:12]
I'm going to give you a couple names here, real quick. I'm not going to go through this whole list. There's a lot of names in this list, but I'm going to give you a couple names that I think are of note. Just to stash away, just to remember when we come back to previews.
Dan [52:23]
Please.
Ty [52:26]
Since we're talking about wide receivers, here are a couple names. We already mentioned a few. Eric Singleton Jr., back on the move, going to Florida from Auburn. Remember, he was a big transfer from Georgia Tech to Auburn. Now he is going to Florida to give them another weapon out wide, I actually really like their roster. I think they've got a pretty good roster on offense, provided it hits at a quarterback. I think Florida could be a fun experiment. So, Eric Singleton Jr., back on the move. I think he is a name of note. Cooper Barkate is a name going from Duke to Miami. He is following Darian Mensah.
Dan [52:58]
Sir, Harvard, Harvard to Duke, to Miami.
Ty [52:59]
Gives Miami another. A smart guy. A smart guy.
Dan [53:05]
Well, and has a quarterback literally named Mensa.
Ty [53:08]
Mensa, I know.
Dan [53:09]
Pretty good.
Ty [53:09]
This is not bad at all.
Dan [53:11]
Yeah.
Ty [53:11]
Not bad at all. Another name here that I think is notable. I like the JJ Buchanan transfer from Utah to Michigan follows Kyle Whittingham. He's a guy they're going to use in a bunch of different ways. Get used to that name. At running back, Justice Haynes going to Georgia Tech, which means we still have something of a Haynes-your-way backfield, though not a double Haynes situation like last year.
Dan [53:34]
Transferring in from Michigan, before that at Bama, memory serves, yeah.
Ty [53:38]
Correct. You mentioned the coup of Eric Morris bringing Drew Mestemaker with him to Oklahoma State. He is also bringing his running back, Caleb Hawkins, who is a truck, with him from North Texas, in addition to Wyatt Young, their wide receiver. So you got the full three-headed monster coming to Oklahoma State. I'm also excited about Oklahoma State. That's why I bring them up. You mentioned Texas earlier. They've got an interesting tandem now at running back as they go for both Hollywood Smothers from NC State, as well as Raleek Brown from Arizona State. Two guys who had a pretty good season the year prior that I think could definitely make an impact. And I will close this one out. Again, there are many other names, but one that I called out earlier in our offseason here is Adam Mohammed, who
Dan [54:28]
Oh, yeah.
Ty [54:29]
figured to be the starting running back at Washington, but transfers down to Cal, and he's going to join up with Tosh Lupoi, their new coach.
Dan [54:29]
Speaking of Washington. Correct. Who is an alum and former assistant at Cal, and so has already proven himself to be a dogged recruiter both in the portal and doing well in the prep ranks. So a lot of energy around Cal, both in the portal and otherwise.
Ty [54:51]
A handful of big names on defense. Princewill Umanmielen leaving Ole Miss, going with Lane Kiffin.
Dan [55:00]
Yep, edge rusher.
Ty [55:01]
edge rusher, going to be at LSU.
Dan [55:03]
Florida to Ole Miss to LSU as well.
Ty [55:05]
Florida to Ole Miss to LSU.
Dan [55:05]
Yeah.
Ty [55:07]
My three linebackers, Cade Uluave, going from Cal to BYU, I think is a sure thing.
Dan [55:14]
Very productive and has had a really great history of recent linebackers at BYU.
Ty [55:18]
Austin Romaine, I won't make the lettuce joke on this show. Maybe on one when we talk about Texas Tech, but a very productive linebacker sliding down to Texas Tech from K-State. Maybe to fill that role left by J-Rod.
Dan [55:32]
Jacob Rodriguez, but will be next to Ben Roberts.
Ty [55:35]
Correct.
Dan [55:35]
So that should be one of the best linebacker tandems, not just in the Big 12, but in the country.
Ty [55:40]
And my guy, Caleb Bacon, leaving Iowa State, going with Matt Campbell. Going to be playing linebacker at Penn State, a really, really good linebacker room at Penn State this year.
Dan [55:51]
Yes.
Ty [55:51]
And to close things out on the transfer side, again, I cannot list all these names, but Koi Perich, big name from Minnesota, going to Oregon, a safety.
Dan [56:01]
Yes, very athletic, played a little offense last year for Minnesota. Will be, I think, a center-field type. for Oregon, he won't occupy the Dillon Thieneman type all over the field in the box kind of role, but should be a nice addition for what looks like a pretty stacked secondary.
Ty [56:16]
At the risk of listing off too many names and maybe putting those dreary eyes to sleep. Let's shift gears a little bit and let's close this out by talking about some of the bigger storylines, broadly speaking, that we are following throughout the course now of this 2026 season. I can tell you one off the top of my head. I did have this jotted down as something that is changing, but I also think it's worth noting as a storyline. It took us now close to an hour to get into the SEC and the ACC moving to nine conference games. Now, could have mentioned it earlier, had it mentioned in the earlier block, saved it for now because this is very much a storyline people are going to be talking about. So the SEC
Dan [57:03]
You're always talking about edging. What is that exactly?
Ty [57:06]
Settle.
Dan [57:08]
Just waiting for the good stuff. Continue.
Ty [57:10]
The SEC is going to a nine-game slate this year. Every team in the SEC has to play every other SEC team once every two years and every opponent home and away over four years. So they're setting this up. 16 teams now in the conference. Everyone's got to play everyone, and there's got to be a better rotation for home and away. Nine conference games makes that a little bit more doable. With regard to how they schedule, it was harder under eight. Now it's easier under nine.
Dan [57:42]
Did you see there was a, I don't know if it was a tweet or whatever, so it was a social media post. that said because the World Cup is happening right now, I guess Argentina's in Texas somewhere, that they played a friendly at Kyle Field and that Messi was able to play at Texas A&M before Georgia.
Ty [58:00]
That's right.
Dan [58:01]
Which I enjoyed very much.
Ty [58:01]
That's right. The reason that this is more of a storyline than it is in the change section of this 101 episode, it's because some SEC coaches claim that they feel misled over the move. They thought maybe it would be paired with further playoff expansion because, you know, we've joked all offseason about the gauntlet of the SEC. In addition to those nine conference games, SEC teams are still required to schedule at least one additional quote-unquote high-quality nonconference opponent from one of the other Power conferences or Notre Dame each season. So it's a tough slate. Look, we're not going to... we make the jokes. It's a tough conference, yeah? It's a really tough conference to make your way through.
Dan [58:45]
Definitely, without a doubt.
Ty [58:47]
So I understand the perspective of coaches, if they feel a bit jilted over this, because it's going to be a slog. It's going to be tough to get through an SEC schedule.
Dan [58:57]
What's it gonna be, Ty? Say it! Say it!
Ty [59:00]
It's a gauntlet.
Dan [59:01]
We should have a sound at this point.
Ty [59:03]
We got to make a gauntlet sound.
Dan [59:03]
A gauntlet.
Ty [59:05]
We got to cook one up in time for our SEC preview.
Dan [59:05]
Yeah.
Ty [59:09]
And if people want to send their own version of it in, solidverbal@gmail.com.
Dan [59:13]
Yeah, absolutely.
Ty [59:14]
The ACC is also doing this. It's not as much of a talking point as it is on the SEC side just because it took them forever to get there. The ACC moving to nine conference games in 2026. Not everybody's going to be playing nine conference games right away, and that is mainly because they want to accommodate some of the non-con games that were already on the books. But they'll eventually all get there. It's just it might take a season or two before they can sort of work through the old scheduling stuff.
Dan [59:45]
And it'll give us more data points for the ACC who had tiebreaker issues last season. So hopefully this I mean, I think the ACC is going to update what their tiebreakers look like to make the conference championship game because it needs to be updated. But yeah, with additional games, we will have more data points to have a more accurate tiebreaker, hopefully.
Ty [01:00:08]
And I would say more broadly, as we talk about this nine-game thing and the coaches in the SEC maybe feeling like there was some miscommunication or misunderstanding. There is an ongoing negotiation that everybody knows about between the Big Ten and the SEC over the future of the College Football Playoff, right? Will they expand? Will they not expand? The SEC seems to be more in the camp of going to 16. The Big Ten and Tony Petitti want to go all the way up to 24. We may have resolution to that by the end of this year, or it could just stay the same again going into the 27 season. But just know as we're talking about storylines and things that are going to pop up and over and over and over again, whether you like it or not, this ongoing, like, it's not even a Cold War. They just have differing visions for where they want to take the sport. Wherever it goes next, it has to be agreed upon by both the Big Ten and the SEC, otherwise, it's going to be a non-starter.
Dan [01:01:10]
I think we can all agree that we're looking forward to a Presidents' Day national championship, right? I think we can all agree
Ty [01:01:17]
What is that, in February, Presidents' Day?
Dan [01:01:19]
Deep into February. I think we can all agree that this is what the founding fathers of this sport had in mind. When they said, let's play some college football and let's have it last eight months. Yeah.
Ty [01:01:34]
Why don't we close this out by talking about some odds, all right?
Dan [01:01:37]
I mean, yeah, speaking of Brendan Sorsby, let's hit it.
Ty [01:01:40]
Let's talk some odds. Here is your top 10 at time of recording, per the odds for the national championship. Ohio State is your favorite at plus 650. That means if you bet 10 bucks, you get 65 back.
Dan [01:01:56]
I'll go about new behind-the-scenes with Ohio State, by the way. Hiring an NFL, former NFL head coach to run the offense, losing the best receivers coach in the country. A lot new, a lot old. Should be fun.
Ty [01:02:06]
Notre Dame is your next favorite at 7-to-1, plus 700. This makes me very nervous as a Notre Dame fan. Very nervous, but I get it. And I don't like, I'm looking at these other teams and I'm thinking, man, you can't put them realistically outside the top five with this roster.
Dan [01:02:24]
Yeah, made it to the championship game two seasons ago.
Ty [01:02:27]
Both Indiana and Texas are at plus 750, 7.5-to-1, bet 10 bucks, get 75 back if they win. Indiana still in there in the conversation as well. They should be. Texas, very much in the conversation. Arch Manning, loaded up in the transfer portal. Very, very good roster.
Dan [01:02:44]
Definitely to run the defense, yeah.
Ty [01:02:44]
Bring him back, Will Muschamp to coach defense. Very aggressive and attacking, as it were. And then to round out the top five, it's your, it's our Oregon Ducks at 8-to-1.
Dan [01:02:56]
Yeah, deservedly so. Made the final four last season. Yep. We don't need to talk about what happened after that.
Ty [01:03:00]
I was going to say, how deep do we want to go into this, Dan?
Dan [01:03:01]
No, no, no, no, no. Ty, we have to get going.
Ty [01:03:03]
We can talk all day.
Dan [01:03:04]
We got a lot more stuff to talk about. We don't need to waste our time with that.
Ty [01:03:07]
To round out your top 10, we got Georgia at 10-to-1, Miami at 13-to-1, LSU at 16-to-1, Texas Tech also at 16-to-1.
Dan [01:03:13]
Wow.
Ty [01:03:16]
And still hanging in there despite some of the
Dan [01:03:19]
Oh, and lost like a lot of firepower on that defensive line last season.
Ty [01:03:23]
I mean, yeah, we'll get to that, but still in the conversation, right?
Dan [01:03:25]
Yeah.
Ty [01:03:27]
Still a very good roster.
Dan [01:03:27]
Definitely.
Ty [01:03:29]
And to round out the top 10 right now, it's Texas A&M at 18-to-1.
Dan [01:03:32]
Yep, so it's one, two, three, four SEC teams. One, two, three I think just three Big Ten teams, an ACC team, a Big 12 team, and an independent team
Ty [01:03:45]
Speaking of the G6, care to venture a guess as to the best odds for a G6 team or a group of G6 teams?
Dan [01:03:53]
No, because I just looked at it and I'm not a good actor. It's in our document. But Boise State, new Pac-12 program.
Ty [01:04:00]
That's right. Man, that's weird.
Dan [01:04:01]
So
Ty [01:04:02]
That is weird to say.
Dan [01:04:03]
Yeah. By the way, and I think the Pac-12, I believe, you can fact check me on this for basketball added Gonzaga.
Ty [01:04:08]
Yeah.
Dan [01:04:09]
Okay, that's new.
Ty [01:04:11]
Everybody changing banners. Boise State 300-to-1, so Vegas not expecting the Broncos to make any kind of real championship run, but relevant, I think, as it relates to the playoff, given that we've got a little bit of a new setup here. Right. Highest-ranked G6 team is getting in. Right now, the odds-on favorite for that is the Boise State Broncos.
Dan [01:04:30]
Yes.
Ty [01:04:31]
UNLV and USF are at 500-to-1. Very, very tall odds, but again, mindful of the situation, notable to mention it here. And we've also got San Diego State, Navy, and Memphis at 600-to-1.
Dan [01:04:46]
Yes. San Diego State, Pac-12, Navy and Memphis from the American, obviously all teams who have had a good amount of success the past few years.
Ty [01:04:54]
I also jotted down for each Power conference the odds of winning.
Dan [01:04:59]
That specific conference.
Ty [01:05:00]
That conference, yeah.
Dan [01:05:01]
Yeah.
Ty [01:05:02]
You want to run through those quick? I did about like five or six for each conference.
Dan [01:05:06]
All right, I'll just go through the odds-on favorites to make that conference championship game, if that makes sense.
Ty [01:05:11]
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Dan [01:05:13]
So Miami and SMU are the two favorites in the ACC with Louisville just trailing SMU. In the Big 12, it's a repeat of Texas Tech-BYU with Utah.
Ty [01:05:21]
Texas Tech.
Dan [01:05:23]
Excuse me, Texas Tech-BYU in the Big 12 with Utah nipping at BYU's heels in the Holy War situation. In the Big Ten, Ohio State and Indiana, with Oregon nipping at Indiana's heels at plus 250 and plus 260 to make the Big Ten Championship game. Georgia and Texas with a distant A&M and Alabama behind them to win the SEC, or at least Georgia and Texas are the odds-on favorites to make the SEC Championship game.
Ty [01:05:50]
LSU nine to one to win the SEC is kind of interesting to me. And Alabama at plus 850 is also interesting to me. I like Alabama a lot this year, even with the new quarterback.
Dan [01:06:00]
An Ole Miss team who was in the Final Four and within a, I guess, a very physical play at the end of the game against Miami to make the championship game last year with a then first-time head coach in the College Football Playoff. They're at a plus 1,100, 11-to-1 to win the SEC. They do lose a good amount, but as we mentioned, returning Trinidad Chambliss.
Ty [01:06:22]
Bigger picture to put a bow on this thing. We're going to be starting up previews. The way that we have shaped our previews over the last couple of years is we do a show for half of the G6 in Part 1, the other half of the G6 in Part 2. The power conferences get one episode that is sort of a bigger picture overview. Conference themes, tiers, how we're feeling about just broader
Dan [01:06:49]
Tears, right? Yeah.
Ty [01:06:55]
Talking points within each conference. And then we've got an additional two episodes where we split it down the middle. We talk about half the teams in one, the other half in the other. That's more team-preview based. So we really go as you know, pretty deep. We do our best to give you the talking points that you need. And also the storylines that we think are going to emerge within each conference. But bigger picture, looking at the sport as a whole, the common themes that you have found in our studies here, we're not going to hit them all, but what are the things, what are themes that are of interest to you as we record this, as we put this out there in July, middle of summer?
Dan [01:07:42]
I mean, the main theme, and I said this to you in a conversation a couple of weeks ago, is if the sport is now defined by always trying, teams always trying to improve themselves, right? By either buying out a head coach or hitting the portal hard or hiring a new coach and bringing in, you know, 68 new athletes for the team. I think the concept of building upon that construction aspect, how, we'll bring it full circle and welcome everybody back to the Fleck Parade. How is Minnesota trying to build upon Drake Lindsey's first season? How is Maryland trying to build on a season that started well but obviously collapsed into itself like an exploding star in the back two-thirds of the season. You know, how is Cal trying to construct itself to return to the best of the Jeff Tedford or Sonny Dykes or Justin Wilcox eras? You know, I think the idea of how are you building upon what you did last year, maybe it's the full gut renovation, or maybe it's just, okay, we got some spackle here, we've got, you know, a leaky pipe there. What are teams doing to build upon 2025, to take whatever they feel like the next step or steps are? That's what jumps out to me. Because also, Ty, full transparency. I apologize for cutting you off. I pitched you pretty hard. On just taking recordings from previous preview years. Like, just nobody's gonna notice if we're talking way too much about Sam Ehlinger. And just take the summer off, right? We just post a Maryland preview with... give me an old Maryland. Danny O'Brien, was he an old Maryland quarterback in The Solid Verbal era?
Ty [01:09:26]
I think so. Yeah. We could talk about Rett or Retzlaff, yeah.
Dan [01:09:30]
And just
Ty [01:09:32]
Randy Edsall, if you want to play sexier than Edsall again.
Dan [01:09:34]
Talk about Randy Edsall.
Ty [01:09:35]
Yep.
Dan [01:09:35]
We do an Illinois preview and we're just like Juice Williams is going to change people's minds this season. And we just Frankenstein's monster the whole preview out of that. And you and I go to Portugal or something. I don't know, but you turn me down.
Ty [01:09:47]
Yeah, I did. I did turn that down. Look for me I think the theme that I have most been like transfixed by as I read about these teams is the star tier that we are going to see emerge at quarterback.
Dan [01:10:07]
Oh, okay.
Ty [01:10:10]
So much of the sport now, and it doesn't matter if it's college or pro, but everything is driven by the quarterback position, the portal is driven by the quarterback position, right? There's no shortage of imagination around who is playing quarterback for whom and what that could mean. And I think the confluence of events with there being this really big tier of star quarterbacks with there being crazy star potential elsewhere in college football, means that this season, maybe more than most, is going to be shaded by like the 2027 NFL Draft. Right. The NFL Draft, the one that is coming up in 27, in May, or whenever they do it now, it is going to be so chock-full of bona fide elite caliber talent from college, that there is simply going to be no avoiding it.
Dan [01:10:59]
Elite.
Ty [01:11:02]
And so, not just how these guys do performing for their college team, but the constant need to translate what it could mean at the next level is very much going to be a storyline that will not go away and will be unavoidable. And I'm talking about the likes of Arch Manning, of Dante Moore, of C.J. Carr, who could go pro, of Julian Sayin, who could go pro, of Trinidad Chambliss, who could probably play for seven more years if he keeps suing. I don't know what the deal is there. But Darian Mensah, Jaden Maiava, Sam Leavitt, even Gunnar Stockton, Josh Hoover, right? I got ten guys in, eight guys in before I got to Josh Hoover who's going to be taking over for the national champion, the reigning national champion, Indiana Hoo-Hoo-Hoosiers. So this just underscores the point that there is a lot of talent at that quarterback position spread out across the entire sport. We've also got a bunch of big-name newcomers that I think could very much impact things and impact the conversation, whether they are transferring in from elsewhere, whether they are being promoted from within. But, you know, I look at guys like Drew Mestemaker. I look at guys like DJ Lagway. I look at a guy like Rocco Becht, a Byrum Brown. These are names that could have a really serious impact on their new schools. And they're playing for teams that we may not have fully factored in yet to the national conversation. So for my money, I am very excited about where this thing goes just on the quarterback level. I think this year above many of the others that we have seen in recent memory has a very real opportunity to be shaded drastically by the quarterback position, and that makes the whole product very exciting. So I'm pumped.
Dan [01:12:40]
And part of this is, to your point, NIL-driven, that you can come back another year if you're Dante Moore or LaNorris Sellers or Arch Manning and develop and improve your draft stock and improve
Ty [01:12:43]
Yeah.
Dan [01:12:51]
your ability to play the position. And hopefully that benefits all of us that we have more seasoned quarterbacks to watch from Labor Day onward. So, yeah, that you can make a good chunk of money, not NFL money, not for the number of years, but that you are afforded the ability to improve while being paid significantly.
Ty [01:13:07]
No, no.
Dan [01:13:16]
It's good for us.
Ty [01:13:16]
The other storyline that I would call out here, and I'm not going to read the list of these guys out, okay? But know that as we get deeper into preview season, one of the common themes is going to be new coordinators, specifically defensive coordinators. Defensive coordinators this year, I think, have a very real possibility of shaping the way that we view the sport. And this is always the case, right? Defense wins championships. We say that more, I find, as we get older, okay? It's not any less true than it was back in the day whenever they invented the saying. But let me just say it right here, right now, that the crop of new defensive coordinators that are going to be part of the sport in 2026 I think are going to have an outsized impact on how all this shakes out. Maybe that's like cliche to say, and it's like kind of never not true, but I just feel like there is more possibility this year.
Dan [01:14:10]
Sure.
Ty [01:14:15]
to shape it in a way that it is almost like drastically reshaping by defensive coordinators.
Dan [01:14:22]
Okay. Muschamp at Texas. Who are the other big names at DC that
Ty [01:14:24]
Muschamp at Texas, D'Anton Lynn at Penn State.
Dan [01:14:29]
Penn State, Jay.
Ty [01:14:31]
I mean, there's just a whole list of guys, Dan, that will get Jay Hill.
Dan [01:14:34]
Hill at Michigan had a lot of success at BYU. Yeah, Oregon made their change, an internal promo, like kind of promotion. He was a co-DC.
Ty [01:14:41]
Right. But like to the point, to the point.
Dan [01:14:42]
Hampton. Yeah.
Ty [01:14:43]
Muschamp, you could argue Muschamp was the guy that Sark wanted all along at Texas. He had Kwiatkowski there for a while, but ultimately Muschamp was the direction he wanted to go. You know, perhaps initially, and now he finally gets him. Muschamp is going to be, I'm going to make my own joke here, but he is going to be more aggressive in attacking. That's his style. What kind of an impact is that going to have on the SEC? What kind of impact is that going to have on Texas? The flip side of that is what's going to go down at Oregon. A promotion from within, a ton of talent to work with, especially up front. But will they get the most out of that unit with a guy who's being promoted from within? I don't know. I don't know, but I find that I can go around college football and at least in the Power conferences, I could pick out like half the teams in each conference where the defensive coordinator role in particular I think is going to dictate a lot.
Dan [01:15:35]
Gary Patterson, SC, yeah.
Ty [01:15:37]
Yep. Taking over for D'Anton Lynn, who left to go to Penn State, it's all the modern. So it's just real, there's an intricate web on the defensive coordinator side of things. And look, the same is true, too, in a degree. On the offensive side as well. But I just find defense way more interesting this year.
Dan [01:15:53]
Okay. Cool.
Ty [01:15:57]
I think we did a pretty good job here.
Dan [01:16:00]
I mean, you're burying the lede that there is a five-part Patriot League preview that will sort of bring everything together, round everything into four-dimensional shape.
Ty [01:16:06]
Just the tie that binds is the Patriot League for sure.
Dan [01:16:09]
But yes.
Ty [01:16:20]
You know, we had that moment amid the coaching carousel. I would just add this as a parting shot. We had that moment where people on message boards were bringing up Jimbo's name as a potential suitor for some job maybe wants to get back into it.
Dan [01:16:32]
Yeah, of course.
Ty [01:16:36]
I saw a couple of schools mentioned. Whether or not we get Jimbo back in our lives at any point in time remains to be seen.
Dan [01:16:43]
Nobody has ever truly gone from this sport.
Ty [01:16:45]
No one's ever gone. It's like being in the CIA, man. Like, well, you're part of the agency, you're always part of the agency, whether you're retired, air quotes or not.
Dan [01:16:53]
Look, you can get let go because you're just an incompetent coach. You can be let go because of off-field situations. There are people who want to hire Art Briles. You are never out. Ed Orgeron is back at LSU. Brent Pry, who was run out of Virginia Tech, has been gone from Virginia Tech for 17 minutes. He's their new defensive coordinator. Fired as head coach, he's back already.
Ty [01:17:17]
Another defensive coordinator.
Dan [01:17:17]
Yeah. A defensive coordinator.
Ty [01:17:18]
Ted Roof still getting work.
Dan [01:17:20]
Ted Roof, Power conference coordinator.
Ty [01:17:22]
Ted Roof must have pictures of somebody notable in college football or I don't know how else he keeps getting work. He keeps getting work.
Dan [01:17:28]
I think you know what it is? I think he has great thumbs. He does these interviews. He's giving great massages. He's getting all the tension out of Bill O'Brien's neck.
Ty [01:17:37]
He's got stylish eyewear, right?
Dan [01:17:39]
Yeah.
Ty [01:17:39]
Could get a Warby Parker thing next to Arch.
Dan [01:17:41]
Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. Nobody's ever gone.
Ty [01:17:47]
Write in, solidverbal@gmail.com. For sure, there are things that we missed here, but hopefully, we gave you enough of a crash course to just whet the beak. Yep, toe in. Start getting ready. Get your affairs in order. We've got plenty of preview content to follow. As I said, we're going to start with Part 1 of the G6, we'll work our way through to Part 2, then we'll roll things out starting with the ACC on the power conference side of things, okay?
Dan [01:18:15]
I think that's a great plan.
Ty [01:18:16]
If you did make it this far, if you enjoyed this episode, please hit follow. Please hit subscribe. If you've already done that, please tell your friends about The Solid Verbal. We'd love to get more people under the big tent here that is the Verballerhood. If you want to support the team, support what Dan and I do, you can always go to Verballers.com. That's our Patreon, sign up for ad-free episodes, get them a little bit early. You can also go on out to SolidVerbal.com and get our newsletter. We've been sending that out like crazy once a week. Original content once a week.
Dan [01:18:46]
It's what it's support what Dan and me do. No, I'm just kidding.
Ty [01:18:49]
Oh, jeez.
Dan [01:18:50]
You nailed it. You did it right.
Ty [01:18:50]
Dan and I, right?
Dan [01:18:51]
You did it.
Ty [01:18:51]
Dan and I.
Dan [01:18:52]
No, you did it right. Yeah.
Ty [01:18:53]
And of course, if you've got some spare time, if you have yet to do so, even if you've already done so, I just figured this out by the way. Even if you've already left us a review, you can go in and you can edit your previous review, and when you resubmit it, it bumps it to the top.
Dan [01:19:09]
Oh, okay.
Ty [01:19:09]
So it doesn't give us like another one, it doesn't add a number or one, doesn't increment it by one, the number of reviews that we have.
Dan [01:19:16]
Yeah.
Ty [01:19:17]
But it does bump yours to the top. So, whether you've already done a review, or if you are just interested in maybe jumping in, the star ratings and the reviews.
Dan [01:19:19]
It's more recent.
Ty [01:19:28]
Don't do anything for the algorithms, regardless of what people tell you, but they do go a long way towards just offering social proof. I think that's the word.
Dan [01:19:36]
Okay.
Ty [01:19:37]
Social proof that we're not a bunch of dum-dums, and that at a minimum, the show is at least fun to listen to.
Dan [01:19:41]
Wow. Please help us do that because I'm trying my best.
Ty [01:19:46]
We try to do it. We struggle with that, you know.
Dan [01:19:48]
I started this show with Welcome to the Fleck Parade. I have problems. Continue.
Ty [01:19:53]
Dan, I'm excited we did the show.
Dan [01:19:55]
Yes.
Ty [01:19:55]
Hopefully, people got something out of it. As always, solidverbal@gmail.com or any of the social platforms is how you can reach out and get in touch if you got something to say. In the meantime, hey, until we dive fully into our previews, go back, listen to this, send it around. We'll catch you on the flip side. Stay solid.
Dan [01:20:13]
Peace.