Five Candid Thoughts on Realignment, The 455-pound Lineman & More!

1) It turns out the Dennis Dodd may not have been full of $hit

I had jokes. I warned you, dear Verballer, to calibrate your Doddplar radars accordingly, as nearly every article by Mr. Dodd on the subject of realignment was aggressively pro-Big 12. It started to feel like some kind of college football PSYOP hatched by Brett Yormark himself. And while it may have started as an elaborate PR campaign to spook Pac-12 teams into jumping ship, it ended with the destruction of a 100+ year old conference, a 16-team Big 12, and Yormark looking like Keyser Söze.

Was Dodd right all along or did he unwittingly speak Yormark’s wishes into existence? Who’s to say? All I know is that the most fantastical, worst-case scenarios rarely come to fruition, and this one absolutely did… just like Dodd said it might. While he was not the only writer telling us to brace for impact, he was the only one I poked fun at in this newsletter. Kudos, sir.

2) Oregon and Washington bluffed us all

After months of being reluctant targets for speculation, Oregon and Washington left the Pac-12 exactly one millisecond after the Big Ten invited them last Friday. We had been told months ago by Brett McMurphy that the Ducks and Huskies were biding their time for an invite elsewhere, but both presented as advocates for the Pac-12 right until the bitter end. Even Arizona’s president — the purported leader of a separate breakaway faction — was snowed.

Though I’m deeply miffed by this turn of events, I have to hand it to Oregon and Washington for playing their cards close to the vest. To quote the wise prophet Mike McDermott from Rounders, “it’s immoral to let a sucker keep his money.” They certainly didn’t. The Pac-12 has four teams and no money starting next season.

Sign up now to play Grand Total, our game of over/unders. Guess how each Power 5 team will do against its Vegas win total and compete against the Verballerhood for a fabulous prize pack!

3) Is Utah immediately the favorite in the Big 12?

Right now, it’s popular to wonder whether an influx of Pac-12 teams will change the ethos of the Big Ten. The answer is probably not. But what if the real agents of change are joining the Big 12?

Utah may have been stubborn about switching conferences, but I wonder whether the Utes will perk up once they survey their new competition. Kyle Whittingham has built an underappreciated juggernaut over the last decade, and one with a very specific identity of physical football. How many teams in the new Big 12 are actually built to deal with their style of football? Kansas State? Baylor and Iowa State, sometimes? I’m serious in saying that the Utes could be favored on Day One.

4) The ACC has completely lost its mind

Immediately following the Pac-12’s implosion, attention quickly shifted to the ACC, which has been catching strays from Florida State and six other schools all year long. The deadline to leave the league in time for the 2024 season is this coming Tuesday, August 15th.

Could we see yet more realignment this summer? I won’t say anything for certain during college football’s Dumb Money Era™. Florida State would leave right now if it didn’t cost $300 million to do so. Even still, the school might take its medicine just to get out, hence the reason its looking into some, uh, unconventional ideas. Points for innovation, I guess?

Speaking of creativity, the ACC is playing its own three-dimensional chess and thinking of adding… Cal and Stanford? Apparently, they’re serious about this. The plan, as I understand it, would be to add teams now to stave off potential extinction later, assuming Florida State and/or others decide to leave. The caveat is that neither team would raise the conference’s television value, which seems like a pretty big issue. My favorite wrinkle is that Notre Dame is pushing hard for Cal and Stanford. Notre Dame, mind you, which isn’t even a full member of the conference! This feels a lot like someone inviting awkward work friends to someone else’s bachelor party.

The Any-Warm-Body approach to conference expansion doesn’t seem like a great, long-term idea. It sounds like other members of the ACC aren’t buying it, either.

For the sake of completeness, I should mention that the ACC is also looking at SMU as an expansion target. The Mustangs are so desperate to get into the Power 5 that they’d be willing to play for FREE for 5-7 years.

5) This season is going to be nuts

Though all the news is focused on uncomfortable shape of college football in 2024, I’d like to again remind you that the 2023 season has all the makings of a banger. Georgia, the two-time defending champs, will break camp with a brand new quarterback. Michigan has the fewest questions of any team, but might be in the toughest division in the sport. USC has Caleb Williams, the best player in the game, but might lack a defense. Alabama might be starting Tyler Buchner?! The list goes on and on. Nearly every team has major questions.

If I’ve learned anything over the last 15 years of doing our podcast, it’s that college football is the king of lookaheads. Just when you start thinking about the future, it finds a way to sneak up on you. It snuck up on us over the last two weeks as the Pac-12 was wiped off the map. My hope is that the constant focus on 2024 will lead to fun things in 2023.

✍️ Others Receiving Votes

As usual, the Verballerhood delivered some awesome video links to be included in this week’s newsletter. Shout out to our great community at Verballers.com!

From Josh G… an introduction to Brione Ramsey-Brooks, TCU’s 455-pound lineman:

Also from Josh G… how ants build bridges:

From LawHog on our Discord: “I know very little about music. But this video got me down a Bulgarian folk music rabbit hole the other night…”

WHAT'S GOOD IN THE VERBALLERHOOD?

This week, we concluded our preview of Power 5 teams and conferences and dipped into the Group of Five.

Listen to the podcast by clicking here or check out this week’s episodes below. You can also view full episode videos and smaller clips on our YouTube channel. If you’re already a subscriber, I’d kindly emplore you to tell as many of your friends as possible about The Solid Verbal College Football Podcast.

THIS WEEK'S PODCAST EPISODES: