The Big Ten's Head Honcho, Spring Transfers, Cool Tools & More

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Here's my very unofficial ranking of the 5½ things that got the juices flowing over the last week two weeks of college football and beyond:

1) The Big Ten's new head honcho

The Big Ten officially has its guy. Tony Petitti, a former executive for Major League Baseball and CBS Sports, has been hired as the conference's next commissioner, replacing Kevin Warren. The general consensus is that Petitti's rich experience with the media landscape will serve him well in a sport that is quickly being overtaken by ESPN and Fox.

Just last year, the Big Ten agreed to an enormous media rights deal which will pay schools somewhere between $80-$100 million annually. Most notably, the conference also poached USC and UCLA from the Pac-12. With a new commissioner in place, the obvious question is: what's next? Petitti's tenure will be defined by whether he further expands the footprint of the league, either by adding other schools from the West Coast or Notre Dame, or both.

2) The Texas QB battle is already over

Welp, that was quick. After a "really efficient" day by Quinn Ewers in the Texas spring game, Steve Sarkisian ended any speculation about who his starter will be this fall: "I think it's pretty clear to say that Quinn's our starting quarterback and we feel very good about that."

Ewers was 16 of 23 passing for 195 yards and a gorgeous TD pass to Georgia transfer A.D. Mitchell. Meanwhile, Arch Manning, the No. 1 overall recruit of the 2023 class and lifelong Manning, looked very green going 5 of 13 passing for just 30 yards.

The real story may actually be the development of redshirt freshman Maalik Murphy, who put on a clinic going 9 of 13 for 165 yards and a 79-yard TD pass. It's early, but Murphy could edge out Manning for the No. 2 spot on the quarterback depth chart, which would surely be noteworthy.

We'll have a LOT more coverage on spring position battles over the next few weeks on the podcast.

3) What to watch in the spring transfer window

In the few days since the spring transfer window opened last Saturday, over 230 players have already thrown their names in the portal. There is a lot less starpower in this round of transfers... but there's still time!

I'm intrigued by the high-profile quarterback battles taking place this spring and expect some late transfers before the window closes on April 30th. One name, for example, is Georgia's Brock Vandagriff, who seems to have lost the starting job to Carson Beck. Vandagriff is a former five-star recruit and was rated as the fourth best quarterback in the class of 2021, behind only Quinn Ewers, Caleb Williams and Sam Huard. If Vandagriff doesn't want to wait, he could play immediately for a team outside the SEC.

Personally, I'm most interested in the situation at Notre Dame with Tyler Buchner. It's a stretch to think that he'll beat out Sam Hartman and be the starting quarterback this fall. However, he's clearly taken a big step forward in his development and has looked a lot better as a passer this spring. The Irish would love to have some quarterback depth to avoid another Drew Pyne situation. The question is whether Buchner will love being a backup for another season.

At the end of the day, we know at least one team is still looking for quarterback help.

4) An update on Urban Meyer's next job

Though the rumor mill has slowed since his cataclysmic run with the Jacksonville Jaguars, it's remained a common practice to wonder whether Urban Meyer would consider the high-profile opening at [INSERT SCHOOL HERE]. Wonder, no more:

"That book is closed," Meyer said at a coaching clinic last week. "It's going to be TV and grandfather."

For the record, you can never fully trust these guys... especially this guy. One school with stupid money could easily open Meyer's book again. But here's hoping we have one less rumor to chase down this fall.

5) The new visitor's locker room at Texas Tech is in the parking lot!

As we've joked on our podcast many times, the entire sport of college football is scaffolding built on top of more scaffolding. So it should come as no surprise that college football construction projects have a history of creating odd circumstances.

The latest chapter takes place in Lubbock, TX:

I love these stories so much. I'm going to talk about this all year.

Others Receiving Votes

• This guy hasn't slept since 1962, drinks a small bottle of rice wine every day, and feels fine:

• Here's what happens when you drop a GoPro under a beach fishing pier:

• Spend the next 12 minutes with this video of cool tools:

THE VERBALLERHOOD

WHAT'S GOOD IN THE VERBALLERHOOD?

We closed out our Year One Debrief series this week by digging into the extremely successful campaigns by Kalen DeBoer and Sonny Dykes at Washington and TCU, respectively. Next week, it's onto *other* topics, like the NFL Draft and this whole spring football thing which has been going on the last couple weeks.

Listen to the podcast by clicking here or check out our individual episodes below. You can also view full episode videos and smaller clips on our YouTube channel.

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Thanks for reading. Until next week, stay solid!-Ty Hildenbrandt