00:00And he brought up something very interesting in the Big Ten.
00:02You have Kyle Whittingham going to Michigan after spending really his entire career
00:06and basically a two-decade run at Utah.
00:08Matt Campbell was at Iowa State after leaving Toledo, correct, Bill?
00:14For what, about eight or nine years?
00:17Yeah, he was at Iowa State for a decade, you know, and he was at Toledo before that.
00:22So he's been around for a very long time.
00:25And Fitzgerald was at Northwestern for a very long time,
00:30obviously after Randy Walker passed away.
00:32And he was there up until, what, like two years ago?
00:35Yeah, I would even put, like Fitzgerald and Whittingham,
00:38I would put almost in the same category where, like, you know, Fitzgerald played there.
00:42He GA'd there, then took over.
00:44You know, Whittingham has all the connections to Utah.
00:48D.C. there takes over the head job.
00:50And, like, that's really, if you look at his resume, but, like, almost 80% of it
00:56consists of being, you know, in the state of Utah.
00:59So very, very unique.
01:01Of those three coaches, who do you think has the most success in year one?
01:06Well, I think by the schedule alone, I mean, it's set up for Penn State
01:10to have a lot of success under Matt Campbell.
01:12Now the question is, how does it work with all the Iowa State transfers coming over there?
01:17Rocco Beck's played a ton of football.
01:19I think he has, like, 36 starts as the Cyclones quarterback.
01:23And does it work?
01:25I mean, schedule-wise, anytime you don't catch Indiana, Ohio State, or Oregon,
01:29I can't believe I'm saying anytime you don't catch Indiana, it's great.
01:31But for them this year, it's absolutely great.
01:34And they play USC at home.
01:37They'll go to Michigan.
01:37And then they go to Washington.
01:39And it's a very manageable schedule for them to get eight or nine wins.
01:42I think with Pat Fitzgerald, there's some catch-up work to be done on NIL,
01:46on talent development in East Lansing.
01:49It hasn't happened.
01:50And maybe he can tap into the culture that they created under Mark D'Antonio.
01:55I mean, that was the big thing with Mark D'Antonio.
01:57Like, and you know this.
01:58I mean, he was the master of recruiting a three- or four-star guy.
02:02I, the name that always comes up with what I think of with Michigan State is
02:07Darquez Dinard, who was a three-star corner that he turned into basically a
02:11Thorpe Award-type All-American, unanimous All-American corner that played with
02:16that edge.
02:17And I think that's the challenge for Pat there.
02:19And then at Michigan, Whittingham, they'll be solid, but it's the schedule.
02:24They do play Indiana, Oregon, and Ohio State.
02:26And it's a difference when you have those three teams on the schedule.
02:29It was interesting when we were talking about Ohio State and their schedule
02:32today.
02:33And it's like they're the team most likely to, on a regression level, win less
02:39games than they did last year.
02:40Like, well, when you go undefeated in the regular season, that's, you're
02:42definitely not winning more.
02:44But they have Indiana, as you mentioned, Oregon.
02:48They've got USC on there.
02:51Michigan, as always.
02:53Texas on there in the non-conference.
02:55When you start, then you start talking about Iowa, Illinois.
02:58I mean, some teams that are pretty good.
02:59USC, like, very, very tough schedule.
03:02Are you a believer, Bill, that you think a 10-2?
03:04I know you put this out there in your playoff bracket and rankings.
03:10You had Ohio State rematching Texas.
03:12You had Ohio State maybe winning the first, losing in the rematch.
03:16Is it better in college football now to, like, if you're Ohio State, you have this
03:20really tough schedule?
03:21You go 10-2.
03:23You win most of the games you're supposed to.
03:25You're closer than the other ones that get you a home game, or do you think that
03:29we're going to continue to see this dilution of the scheduling, especially in the
03:32non-conference?
03:33Well, I think we're going to continue to see an imbalanced schedule.
03:36You know, there will be years where Ohio State misses these teams.
03:41That, you know, all the, they're just the perfect storm on their schedule this
03:45year.
03:45And again, all these years of covering Ohio State football in the Big Ten, I haven't
03:49seen a schedule this difficult, especially when you go to Texas, when you go to Iowa,
03:55when you go to Indiana, and then later in the season, you're playing Oregon, you're
04:00playing Michigan, you've got a road trip to USC, and they're even playing Illinois.
04:04And Illinois is going to be a top 25 caliber team as well.
04:07So, I mean, that's seven teams, essentially, that could be ranked in the top 25 to start
04:11the season.
04:12And there's not many breaks, but on one hand, again, they could be that team.
04:18And I'm not saying Ohio State's going to go nine and three, but if they were nine and
04:21three with that schedule, much like Texas was last year, I think they would have a very
04:26legitimate argument to get in the playoff.
04:27It's kind of like Ohio high school football.
04:29You know, there's teams that get in at seven and three over teams that go nine and one because
04:34the schedule and the computer points and all of those things show you that that schedule
04:39was much more difficult.
04:40We can see it right now how difficult that Ohio State schedule is going to be.
Comments