Future Schedulepalooza, USF's Bullpen & Colliding Bullets

1) Future Schedulepalooza

Late last week (riiiiiight after I hit send on the newsletter), the Big Ten kicked off college football’s new favorite season within the pre-pre-season and released its schedules for 2024 and 2025. Notably, the conference debuted its divisionless setup and “Flex Protect Plus” concept, which sounds a lot like something you’d apply to your leather seats. With its new scheduling model, the conference sought to define each team’s annual rivalries, leading to some intriguing results. While teams like Iowa have three protected rivalries, Penn State has none. This set off an interesting conversation among Penn Staters, who lamented the absence of Ohio State as an annual opponent, only to seesaw back to “Is this good?” Also, the intrepid internet did some Google Mapping and determined that UCLA will travel a total of 26,762 miles next season.

Not to be outdone, the SEC announced its full eight-game conference slate for 2024 last night:

After an initial graphic that showed Oklahoma playing South Carolina twice, the conference announced that each current SEC school will get a crack at either Texas or Oklahoma next season. Nobody will play both newcomers, at least not in 2024. Also, I’m happy to report that our national nightmare is over and the Texas-Texas A&M rivalry is back on!

2) Jack Swarbrick stepping down at Notre Dame

This one is… interesting. Jack Swarbrick is stepping down as Notre Dame’s athletic director. Swarbrick has overseen Notre Dame athletics since 2008 and was viewed as a stabilizing force within the world of college athletics. It does not sound like Swarbrick plans to fully retire, as there were not-so-subtle indications in this announcement that he has his eye on other projects.

Swarbrick will be succeeded by Pete Bevacqua, the chairman of the NBC Sports Group and a 1993 Notre Dame grad. Bevacqua seems committed to the idea of football independence, at least for now, but his deep roots in the media world could have him singing a different tune if macrotrends continue. Ultimately, it won’t be Bevacqua’s decision whether or not the Irish join a conference, but he’ll have a lot of influence.

3) Feeling Bullish

Exciting news for the South Florida fans out there: The Bulls will have a new, on-campus stadium as soon as 2026. This week, the USF board of trustees approved a $340 million budget plan to make it happen. The university has shown it is willing to spend on athletics and just opened a new $22 million performance center in January.

Matt Baker of the Tampa Bay Times did a good job outlining the dilemma facing programs like USF, which have been left out of the last few waves of major conference realignment. As stated by the board’s chairperson, Will Weatherford, the risk of falling behind outweighs uneasiness of taking on $200 million in debt. What a world.

The most important question in all this: Can we please call this new stadium the “Bullpen”?

4) Troubling traffic trends at Georgia

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution dropped a big story last Friday, detailing an apparent pattern of traffic-related violations among Georgia football players. ESPN released its own findings this week and drew similar conclusions. This is a problem that Kirby Smart needs to fix.

All told, police have charged Georgia players with traffic violations almost 300 times since 2015 when Smart became coach. Though efforts were made to address the issue, the problem persists:

The AJC and ESPN conducted their investigations following a tragic incident back in January, when a car driven by team staff member Chandler LeCroy veered off the road and crashed, resulting in the unfortunate deaths of both LeCroy and passenger Devin Willock, an offensive lineman. It is believed that the incident occurred during an alleged street race involving standout lineman Jalen Carter. In March, Carter pleaded no contest to reckless driving and racing charges.

5) Reggie Bush out at Fox?

The “Big Noon Kickoff” pregame show on Fox Sports may be undergoing a bit of a change. Per Andrew Marchand of the New York Post, Reggie Bush and the network “squabbled over money last year,” apparently to the extent that Fox “looked into alternatives including ESPN’s Desmond Howard and Robert Griffin III.”

Now, it seems as though Mark Ingram III could fill the chair. All he has to do first is retire from the NFL. Stay tuned!

Others Receiving Votes

Every wonder what it looks like when two bullets have a head-on collision?

He had me at “How to Paint A Room Fast”

I’m a sucker for these stories about people rescuing wild animals

WHAT'S GOOD IN THE VERBALLERHOOD?

This week, we took a dive into an overflowing inbox and answered all your college football questions as part of our June Mailbag episode. And just this morning, we released one of the weirdest shows we’ve ever done, guiding your through the sordid world of Thurston Howell V, a billionaire college football fan.

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