The Mountain West Food Fight, the Nightmare on A&M Street & Harrison Ford's Name Change

Author

Ty Hildenbrandt
July 06, 2023

Happy Thursday! If you’re playing along at home, Threads is Meta’s attempt at creating a Twitter killer. Meanwhile, the only thing you see when you log onto Twitter are threads. This is confusing.

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A very unofficial, more-abbreviated-than-normal ranking of the 5½ things worth discussing over the last week of college football, and beyond:

1) Who doesn’t love a good food fight?

Kent Horner/Getty Images

The ongoing kerfuffle between San Diego State and the Mountain West Conference is the most amusing college football thing that has almost no effect on 98% of the people reading this newsletter. For that reason alone, it’s the kind of guilt-free news story that fits perfectly in early July!

To recap, San Diego State has been playing footsies with the Pac-12 for months. There seems to be a lot of smoke that the Aztecs are about ready to move conferences, as soon as the Pac-12 can get its media deal figured out. The negotiations over that media deal have taken far longer than expected, which has put the Aztecs in a bit of a bind. The bylaws in their current conference, the Mountain West, stated that the school needed to give formal notice by June 30th if it intended to play elsewhere in 2024 and avoid $34 million in exit fees.

So, San Diego State played a bit of a legal gambit. It sent a letter to the Mountain West, announcing its intention to resign. The school has insisted that it isn’t actually resigning yet, but instead putting the conference on notice that it’s… thinking really intently about it? Meanwhile, the Mountain West is not impressed. It notified San Diego State that it considers the letter an official resignation and is basically replaying the F*** You, Pay Me! scene from Goodfellas.

For the time being, it seems like San Diego State is getting booted from the Mountain West next season. The conference will discuss the issue further when its board meets on July 17th. By then, the Pac-12 might have its house in order, which would clear this whole thing up pretty quickly. Stay tuned!

2) David Pollack, Todd McShay out at ESPN

News broke last week that David Pollack and Todd McShay, mainstays on ESPN’s college football coverage, would not return for the 2023 season. The move was part of a larger wave of layoffs as ESPN looks to cut costs. Gene Wojciechowski, another popular voice, was also let go, and rumors persist that more cuts could follow. Sigh.

3) Rece Davis hates (LSU) vacation

Last week, I detailed LSU football’s run-in with the NCAA. The big takeaway was that, due to the vacation of 37 wins during his tenure as coach, Les Miles was actually the biggest loser, as this dropped his winning percentage below the .600 threshold required for his consideration by the College Football Hall of Fame.

Rece Davis… not a fan:

The vacating of wins for LSU in particularly Les Miles and it dropping his career winning percentage below .600, which you have to have in order to qualify for consideration for the CFB HoF. Vacating victories is the dumbest, most ineffectual, punishment in the history of anything especially when you do so to games that were played 11 years ago. That is beyond stupid and all you do is mess up the record books for the fans who already saw the games. They know who won the games. Like pretending Reggie Bush didn't win the Heisman or pretending they were ineligible. We saw the game and those things taking down banners in arenas, so stupid.

Rece Davis

4) Anonymous coaching items are the best

Kudos to Brad Crawford from 247sports for summarizing the most important part of the Lindy’s preview publication: Anonymous coaching comments. As always, take these with a grain of salt, but it’s well worth your time as a curious college football fan, starved for real sustenance in early July.

5) Oklahoma’s “big picture guy” is out

Thad Turnipseed made headlines in 2022 when he followed Brent Venables from Clemson to Oklahoma. Turnipseed — yes, that’s a real name — was touted as the visionary for the next chapter of the Sooner football program:

“He’s a critical part,” said Venables. “He’s got vision. He’s four, five and six steps ahead with everything. He anticipates both programmatically, facility, structurally, and he knows how to get it done both on the coaching side of it and how a football home — how it all works organically. He knows what that all looks like in the weeds.”

Now, Turnipseed is out. Those in the Sooner community have been quick to downplay the move, citing Turnipseed’s recent success in shepherding a $175 million football project to fruition. Still, a sudden exit for such an integral figure in Sooner Nation — officially to spend more time with family — comes as a bit of a surprise to those of us on the outside.

Others Receiving Votes

This story about an exec trying to get Harrison Ford to change his name is wild:

Thoughts on Dune: Part Two? The first movie was awesome:

My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed watching Jennifer Lawrence on Hot Ones:

WHAT'S GOOD IN THE VERBALLERHOOD?

This week, we took a much needed breather for July 4th. Our only episode this week took a look at six 7-5 programs from 2022. Are you a “flex” or “flop” on Kentucky, Louisville, Wake Forest, Syracuse, Washington State and Houston?

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:

Flex or Flop? Kentucky, Louisville, Washington State, Houston, Wake Forest and Syracuse

Ty and Dan take a look at teams that went 7-5 last season and examine whether each is a "flex" or "flop" moving forward. Where do you stand on the longer term outlooks for Kentucky, Louisville, Washington State, Houston, Wake Forest and Syracuse?

www.solidverbal.com/episodes/flex-or-flop-kentucky-louisville-washington-state-houston-wake-forest-and-syracuse

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Thanks for reading. Until next week, stay solid!

-Ty Hildenbrandt