We’re back for Part 2 of our May Q&A, which means the offseason conversation gets both bigger and weirder. We start off with College Football Playoff expansion anxiety, including the possibility of a 24-team field, the future of conference championship games, and the growing gap between the people running the sport and the fans who love it.

We discuss the new marriage between Michigan State and Pat Fitzgerald, which leads us into a broader conversation about safe hires, risky hires, Transfer Portal recruiting, and what it actually means to rebuild in the modern Big Ten. We also touch on Texas, Arch Manning, Steve Sarkisian, Florida State, Mike Norvell, and the kinds of expectations that can turn a normal season into a referendum.

We also spend some time on the quarterback and offensive coordinator pairings we’re most curious to watch, with stops at places like Georgia Tech, UCLA, Florida, Kentucky, and a few others. Which combinations are actually exciting? Which ones feel volatile? Which ones have the widest range of possible outcomes?

And because it’s an offseason Q&A, we find room for the important stuff: wearing your team’s gear when things are bleak, whether video podcasts have raised the appearance bar, and Dan’s surprisingly spicy take on wearing sneakers with suits.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
3:09 - Mass CFB Exodus?
25:04 - Why Pat Fitzgerald?
38:39 - New QB-Coach Pairings?f
47:50 - Loser Sports Apparel?
53:00 - Texas Expectations?
59:46 - Norvell's Future?
1:06:03 - Old School Showbiz?

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In Part 1 of our big May Q&A, we dig into some of the biggest questions hanging over college football right now, starting with Brendan Sorsby’s uncertain status at Texas Tech and what it could mean for the Big 12 race. We also get into the new single-window transfer portal calendar, the changing value of internal player development, and how roster construction is evolving in a sport where continuity, money, scouting, and plain old luck all seem to matter at once.

From there, we zoom out to the SEC’s national championship drought, Texas’s non-conference schedule, the future structure of college football, and what a more stable version of the sport might look like by 2035. And naturally, we also find time for foot massagers, suspicious domain names, street-naming philosophies, and a little competitive geography talk.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
2:16 - Brendan Sorsby & Portal Buyers' Remorse
22:16 - Homegrown Talent
36:18 - Non-con Schedule Smoke
44:12 - SEC vs The Field
51:24 - CFB in 2035
1:07:45 - Street Naming Strategies

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Bill Connelly from ESPN.com stops by to walk us through the post-spring college football landscape, fresh off turning in 7,000 words on the MAC and kicking off his annual conference preview series. We get into how the portal era has transformed his prep work, why the SEC has become a "horizontal" conference of strong middles, and which conferences are hardest to make sense of right now. Bill evaluates the Big 12 after the Brendan Sorsby news, talks up a few mid-major teams to watch, and explains why he still doesn't fully trust Texas the way the rest of the country does.

We also dig into the Bob Chesney's roster build at UCLA, Oklahoma State's full offensive transfusion, Lane Kiffin's quarterback insurance policy, and what to make of the pairing of Bryce Underwood and Kyle Whittingham in Ann Arbor. Bill also shares his Alabama skepticism, his read on Indiana's encore, and why he's increasingly intrigued by Texas A&M.

And, to close things out, a little World Cup talk in advance of this summer's tournament.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
4:05 - Bill Connelly joins the show

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Just as we hit record, news broke that Texas Tech's Brendan Sorsby, one of the highest-paid quarterbacks in the transfer portal this cycle, is checking into a treatment program for a gambling addiction, and is under NCAA investigation dating back to his time at Indiana. In this episode, we lead off with what it means for Texas Tech, and why this story is bigger than just one player in an era where sports betting has never been more accessible.

Then, we're joined by fantasy football extraordinaire, Jason Moore of The Fantasy Footballers, for a crossover segment years in the making. Jason gives his advice for how our favorite college stars translate to fantasy football, talks through a uniquely thin fantasy class, and picks out his favorite landing spots among the biggest rookie names. Plus, he helps Ty through his issue of drafting too many rookies. When in doubt, just bet against the bad teams.

Timecodes:
0:00 - Intro
4:19 - Brendan Sorsby seeks treatment for gambling problem
10:47 - Jason Moore of The Fantasy Footballers joins the show

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In this episode, we're joined by Cole Cubelic (SEC Network, McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning, The Cube Show) for an SEC vibe check. It's not a preview, just the temperature of the conference in late April. Cole pulls no punches on the reality facing SEC fan bases: Nick Saban's standards aren't coming back, sub-goals like winning the conference have been devalued, and we've collectively forgotten what a genuinely successful season looks like. Plus, we dive in the strange Kalen DeBoer hot seat chatter, Shane Beamer's underrated portal wizardry at South Carolina, why the Alex Golesh hire at Auburn matters more than who left in the portal, Texas's need for hard-hat glue guys to pair with its sports cars, and whether Lane Kiffin's LSU rebuild can actually cohere in year one.

We also discuss the loss of program continuity in the transfer portal era, the new nine-game SEC schedule as a gauntlet-within-a-gauntlet, and a big wave of defensive coordinator turnover that could make September interesting.

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It's time for one of our favorite traditions: Our annual NFL Draft preview with Nate Tice of Yahoo Sports. Nate walks us through why the 2026 class should be defined by the word "useful" rather than "generational," how color-coded chips on his big board separate the truly elite from scheme-dependent prospects, and why the lack of consensus near the top could produce a first round full of surprises and trades.

We talked through the most accurate comps and comparisons for Fernando Mendoza, the incredible Ohio State defensive factory, the Ty Simpson versus Garrett Nussmeier conversation, Jeremiyah Love's place among recently drafted running backs, Oregon's Kenyon Sadiq and Dillon Thieneman, a loaded class of offensive linemen and much more.

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It's time for an offseason thought experiment! In this episode, we run through eight "Ty-potheticals" — plausible scenarios for the 2026 season — and debate how they would go over within the Clemson, Virginia Tech, Alabama, Baylor, South Carolina, Colorado, Nebraska, and Michigan State fan bases.

Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
4:25 - Clemson
15:55 - Virginia Tech
24:57 - Alabama
36:22 - Baylor
46:20 - South Carolina
53:48 - Colorado
1:00:59 - Nebraska
1:11:12 - Michigan State

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Spring football is ongoing, and the quarterback battles are starting to tell us what 2026 might look like. In this episode, we work through a few of the most unsettled QB rooms in the country, from a four-way competition out West to a pair of SEC jobs where the depth chart has been rewritten since December. We also dig into the teams we can't stop thinking about heading into the summer, including Notre Dame, Oregon, Miami, TCU, and Oklahoma State's intriguing first-year project.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
8:13 - Florida State's QB Race
16:49 - Arizona State's QB Race
22:44 - Florida's QB Race
27:18 - Alabama's QB Race
30:45 - Notre Dame's RB, WR, OL
37:55 - Oregon's Coordinators
41:43 - Miami's Line
49:02 - Rapid Fire

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