Freeze's Spring, Overrated Teams, Super Fast Trains & More!

Happy Masters Week! I've got money Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, and Cameron Young, with a side of Jordan Spieth as the first round leader. I'll admit that I'm not exactly going out on a limb with these picks, but the same guys tend to do well at Augusta every year. I also took a $5 flyer on Tiger Woods to win at 55/1. I couldn't resist.

To pay special tribute to "Redbud," the very hole-able par 3 at Augusta, I'm leaving our updated referral rules in place. For a limited time, JUST ONE REFERRAL will get you in the door of our Virtual VerbaCon event this summer. Scroll down for more info. 

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

1) Hugh Freeze has a point about spring football

OK, this is the part where I hold my nose and give Hugh Freeze props for a genuinely good idea. The gist of his proposal: Turn spring football into an actual scrimmage between two teams with the proceeds going to charity. It's not the first time that Freeze has mentioned this plan and it feels like... it'd be awesome?

Naturally, our friend Andy Staples ran with the concept and put together a piece for The Athletic with more details about how a re-imagined spring football could work. In it, he leads with a hypothetical scrimmage between Alabama and North Dakota State, which would surely create its own news cycle. On the podcasting front, we'd welcome the content with open arms.

Do you like this idea? Hit us up on Twitter and let us know.

2) The Most Overrated Teams are...

Shout out to Redditor u/IMissTheMidRangeGame for doing the dirty work and calculating the most overrated teams between 1989-2022 based on preseason and postseason AP Polls. 

CFB Reddit is great for random research projects like this. Obviously, there are some limitations with this approach. Blue blood teams that frequently found themselves in preseason rankings over 30+ years will overwhelmingly appear at least somewhat overrated, and a few BIG misses can skew results. Plus, college football's top 10 is often a function of when teams lose.

Nonetheless, it's a Thursday in March and I support anyone getting us to think critically in the absence of actual games. Plus, it gives us a different spin on the whole "Texas is back!" quip. 

3) Anthony Richardson hit the roof at Pro Day

It's a tradition unlike any other: Hitting the roof with a ball. Allow your inner child to giggle at Anthony Richardson, a bona fide athletic freak, chucking a pass off the roof of the Florida practice facility at Pro Day last week. I feel like we all have a fascination with these types of athletic conquests.

For what it's worth, this is still the GOAT in this category:

4) This could be bad for the Pac-12, or complete bull***t!

Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports is at it again, this time with a quasi-update from the land of Pac-12 media rights. OK, it's not really an update, but more of a thought experiment after a conversation with a media consultant named Jim Williams. The TL;DR version of this piece is right in the title: "Pac-12 unlikely to reach media rights deal with more than 50% of games airing on TV, long-time consultant says."

There are, of course, many caveats here. Williams is expressing his informed opinion based on conversations with other media types. He's quick to mention that he could be wrong. That said, many of his comments line up with other reporting on this story. Remember that controversial report that ION TV could be a player to broadcast games? Williams gives further context on why it was probably true.

More broadly, if this prediction comes to pass, the Pac-12 is done-zo. Now more than ever, college football is an attention economy. If a school like Oregon isn't part of the national TV show every week, it seems likely that the Ducks will jump ship the first chance they get.

Also, if your Dodd-plar radar works anything like mine, it's only right about 54% of the time. Be cautious, but watch the next two weeks very carefully, as more news is likely to break.

5) Niumatalolo goes West

Former Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo is back in the game after accepting a gig with UCLA. Despite some other opportunities, Niumatalolo decided to join the Bruins and serve as an adviser to staff and players. As Heather Dinich points out, the coach's honest reputation is unimpeachable and will only benefit him in this new role. Also true: His new title of "director of leadership" is comically vague and a little Human Fund-y.

Others Receiving Votes

• Here's five minutes of highlights from Tiger's first Masters victory in 1997. He won by 12 strokes!

• Here's 10 minutes of a dude riding the fastest train in the world in Japan, clocked at over 300 mph.

• Here's 15 minutes on the unintended consequences of trying to re-engineer a river. Would it be too punny if I said that this very was good... but a little dry?

THE VERBALLERHOOD

WHAT'S GOOD IN THE VERBALLERHOOD?

We've gotten such good feedback to our Year One Debrief series that we're just gonna keep doing them. This week, we talked Brian Kelly with Jordy Culotta and Brent Venables with Eddie Radosevich.

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.

THIS WEEK'S PODCAST EPISODES:

SUPPORT THE PODCAST AT VERBALLERS.COM

For early access to all our episodes and a pipeline into our teeming community of Verballers, consider signing up for a subscription at Verballers.com. It's the best way to support The Solid Verbal!

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