Vegas Win Totals, Harbaugh the Lawnsman & Floating Lego Boats

Happy Thursday! Just a reminder that Mother's Day is this Sunday. You've still got time to hit up the store for a mushy card before all the good ones get picked out. I swear, this is a college football newsletter, but we're all in this together and figured an extra nudge wouldn't hurt.

Another remdiner... if you're finding this newsletter useful, please consider referring a friend. We'll throw in some perks if you do (scroll down for more). Here we go...

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

1) The pre-preseason has officially begun!

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines! Last Friday, DraftKings released its 2023 win totals for every Power 5 team. In these parts, it's cause for celebration, as it makes the upcoming season feel a little less hypothetical and more like something that will actually be here in *checks notes* 106 days!

Predictably, expectations for the usual suspects like Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State and Michigan are high. (Georgia's over/under is 11½!) But rather than dwell on the overwhelming favorites, here are a few lines that raised my eyebrows:

Florida State: +/- 10 wins

Look, nobody is higher on Florida State than our podcast. Both Dan and I are pushing our chips to the center for the Noles in 2023. But I will admit that the FSU Hype Train was a lot more fun before everyone else hopped aboard. And now I'm starting to wonder if the whole operation is jinxed, because preseason bandwagons rarely make it to the promised land.

We will know exactly what Florida State is by October. The Noles open up against LSU and close out their September slate on the road at Clemson. Though the schedule is frontloaded, there are landmines in the final two months of the season worth noting. Traveling to Pitt is no picnic. Closing out the season at Florida is not a sure thing. Miami travels to Tallahassee this year, and that rivalry tends to be wacky.

👉 My recommendation: Stay away

Nebraska: +/- 6 wins

I trust Matt Rhule implicitly with building a college program back to respectability. But not until Year 2. Rhule's system tends to take a full cycle to kick in. I don't know what to make of this roster and , frankly, I don't trust Jeff Sims — Nebraska's transfer quarterback from Georgia Tech — at all.

Nebraska WILL BE BETTER in 2023. I promise! And the schedule is kind of perfect for a first year run at a bowl game, which is why the line is a little higher than I expected. I'm just more confident in 5 wins than I am in 7.

👉 My recommendation: Under

Florida: +/- 5½ wins

Uhhhh, what? I thought being down on Florida was just something we were doing to amuse ourselves in the offseason. For sure, our Year One Debrief of Billy Napier's challenges in Gainesville was helpful in understanding the full context. But, man... this caught me off-guard.

The Gators' schedule is always hard and is only getting harder as teams like Tennessee and South Carolina improve. Even Vandy isn't the creampuff it used to be. It doesn't help that they have to travel to both Utah and LSU as well. I fully understand the skepticism but can't conjure up the pessissm to bail on Billy Napier this early this soon.

👉 My recommendation: Over

West Virginia: +/- 4½ wins

We had the pleasure of talking with Chris Anderson from Eer Sports on today's podcast and got the insider's perspective on the state of West Virginia football under Neal Brown. The takeaway: the Mountaineers are stuck in neutral for a handful of reasons and there isn't a clear consensus on whether Brown can make it work.

The schedule is tough and the home/road splits are brutal. Chris brought up an excellent point that Brown might not make it to October if the Eers get off to a rocky start. While I agree, I still have some faith that the West Virginia rushing attack can be effective and keep Big 12 opponents on their heels. I also think the pass defense has to get better. It just has to!

👉 My recommendation: Over

FWIW, we'll talk much more about these win totals in the coming weeks.

2) New apparel for Notre Dame?

If there are two things about which people have fiery college football opinions, it's uniforms and Notre Dame football. Behold this: Notre Dame's deal with Under Armour has officially expired.

It'll be interesting to see which direction the Irish go. UA took over for Adidas in a very public way back in 2014. As one of the biggest brands in sports, you'd have to imagine that Notre Dame will attract interest from nearly every player in the apparel market.

Personally, as a lifelong ND fan, I'm in favor of anyone who takes a hard, anti-green jersey stance.

3) Get well, Bo!

Join me in sending good vibes and warm wishes to football legend Bo Jackson who will be undergoing a medical procedure to stop the chronic hiccups he's been experiencing since last July. I'll admit that I had to re-read the article several times to make sure I was understanding it correctly. I had hiccups for a full day once and it was one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life — I can't possibly imagine how awful this experience must've been for Bo. Fingers crossed that all goes well 🤞

4) Your requisite Pac-12 media rights update

This week's Pac-12 update comes via the excellent Marchand & Ourand Sports Media Podcast. To summarize, two points are becoming clear:

1. Any deal involving the Pac-12 and Amazon seems unlikely. Amazon's sports strategy has revolved around the properties that it views as "premium," such as the NFL's Thursday Night Football, select New York Yankees games, potentially NASCAR's Summer Series, etc. If Amazon can't get the biggest Pac-12 game every week -- which it likely won't -- it doesn't seem like there is a path forward.

2. ESPN and Fox are still players for Pac-12 media rights, with the caveat that neither is willing to overbid to get them. Far be it it from either company to pass up a bargain if it presents itself.

TL;DR - One major player is out and the other two are treating the Pac-12 like it's an old iPad on DealDash, bidding in increments of $0.01 and hoping for a steal. Andrew Marchand of the New York Post is not optimistic that the conference will be able to command the same payouts as the Big 12, which inked a six-year extension with ESPN and Fox worth approximately $2.2 billion. To be fair, it may not need to get to the same number to hold the league together for the short-term. Stay tuned for more updates!

5) Jim Harbaugh would love to cut your grass. Literally.

We've been doing podcast mailbag episodes for 15 years. Every single time, we field hypothetical coach questions. Which coaches would we take with us on a road trip? Which coach would you be most afraid to fight? Which coaches most embody the properties of condiments? 

It's rare that you get answers to these types of questions from actual coaches. That's why I enjoyed Jim Harbaugh's latest quirkiness. While fielding some questions at SkillsUSA's "signing day" event, Harbaugh was asked what type of skilled trade he would've pursued if the whole football thing never happened:

The coach went further:

I think I'm on board with this answer. Riding mowers are objectively cool, though I've yet to fully master the dark arts of weedwacking.

Oh, and shout out to SkillsUSA, a great organization that I had the pleasure of working with a bit in my previous work life.

Others Receiving Votes

• How do we feel about this trailer for Oppenheimer?

• Here's 10 wonderful minutes from a guy who tested the buoyancy of 100 Lego boats:

• This is a good Jack Nicholson story and even better impression from Kevin Pollak. It gets a little racy, so be advised:

THE VERBALLERHOOD

WHAT'S GOOD IN THE VERBALLERHOOD?

This week on the podcast provided the perfect excuse to play the old Step By Step theme song and reminisce on the old days of TGIF. Sigh. Thematically, we took a look at a handful of teams (Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia Tech, Maryand, Missouri and West Virginia) and tried to figure out what it'd take for each to take the next step:

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:

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