Jon Joseph

The rule you mentioned plus the 25 scholarship limit on new players signed in a given year has been terminated. It's open season on any player you want off the roster. Deion reversed course regarding the film situation. But it baffles me that some of the guys leaving expect a free limo ride to the airport. CFB is Big Business. The players wanted more flexibility in the transfer rules. They have it and as is often the case for the average player there are unintended consequences. As you noted David all of the 'cut' CU players can stay and receive a free education at a school rising in academic reputation. No school won a BSC title or a playoff title to date without a Blue Chip roster. When a team goes 1-11 there are plenty of buffalo chips on the roster but few if any, blue chips.

How do you backfire from a 1-11 season and 20 years of being irrelevant? Sell out your spring game at $10 a pop and sell out your season tickets. Backfire?

Will be interesting to see how many other Ducks players will enter the portal after the spring game. The May 1 window is rapidly closing. Oregon as of today is #5 nationally in roster turnover with a lot of this having to do with the late date Dan L came on board last season.

For once the NCAA was proactive in recognizing the strain the portal is having on putting together a roster in this day and age of the portal. The limit of 25 new scholarships a season is gone. Theoretically Coach Prime could entirely turn over the entire 85-man roster from 2022. He's 80% of the way there. Any number of these kids would be better off staying where they are and at least in the Pac-12, remaining on scholarship and playing intramurals brother, play intramurals.

Jon Wilner has a great article up today (Mercury News paywall) that among other things exposes Coleman, the director of refereeing in the conference. Why the man was hired in the first place and why he is still on the conference payroll is beyond me. Why hire consultants to review refereeing in the conference and do nothing to act on the consultant's advice? Wilner calls out Coleman's management style as being one of the reasons refs are leaving for the B1G. And Merton Hanks? I see nothing that this guy has done to materially improve football operations. Where is GK? Larry messed up the conference by commission. Is GK doing the same by omission?

Bear Alexander before committing to SC had Oregon on the list of possible landing spots. I seriously doubt that Dan Lanning would call Kirby Smart and ask for the Georgia practice films. Again, I don't care for any of this 'stuff' but who cares what I think? The portal is a big part of today's game, period.

Wow! 5 teams on Oregon's 2023 schedule are ranked in this preseason top 25. Oregon plays 3 of the teams on the road. The way-too-early college football top 25 WWW.YARDBARKER.COM It's spring, but it's never too early to start thinking about who the best teams of the 2023 college football season will be. Here's our early take at the top 25 teams entering this coming season. The Pac-12 conference in 2023 will be as deep as I can remember. I'm really looking forward to watching the Ducks spring game on Saturday and forgetting all of the other 'noise' surrounding the Pac-10.

Practice film? Why not game film from last season unless the young man was not good enough to see the field? Does seem somewhat petty. On the other hand, what is the film from last season's practices under Dorrel going to mean to anyone? If the player is referring to the spring practice film why would any sitting coach allow films of his practices, the O and D being installed, etc., to go out to the world at large? This would be crazy on the part of the coach. Is Dan Lanning allowing guys who entered the portal in the 2nd window allowing players to take practice film with them? I doubt it. I find this to be a confusing post by a guy who likely will not be missed in Boulder. If Travis Hunter or any new transfers to CU were entering the portal I'd be worried. But these guys if they played at all played on a 1-11 team. I'm sorry but this and I do not particularly care for it is the CFB world in which we live today. I frankly don't see any coach having an obligation to any player who does not want to stay with his team.

This goes both ways. Prime is far from through with mining the portal. It is not like any CU player who has entered to date is critical to Prime turning the program around. BTW, Oregon is #5 in players transferring out.

Amen. But in life, you reap what you sow and among other terrible business decisions, the 'leaders' of the Pac-12 allowed Larry to do his damage for over a decade. It's easy to lose patience with and question the man's tactics but GK was dealt an awful hand. With things like the Comcast fiasco not being revealed. Plus, and it is in part his fault, he was stabbed in the back by Kevin Warren, the B1G, and Fox. And outhustled by the B12. Will a lifeline be thrown by the B1G? And will it be long enough to reel in Oregon? What will SC and UCLA do? Push to take in Oregon and UW or CAL and Stanford? Oregon and Washington present athletic threats to the two LA schools that CAL and Stanford do not. And any decision made by the B1G to expand will depend on Fox and to a lesser extent, CBS and NBC. Adding CAL takes a lot of political pressure off of UCLA. In CFB world today I am making no assumptions and no predictions. Other than I believe one way or the other the Oregon brand will survive and thrive.

There are 'top refs' to poach? Who knew? This is yet another example of the problems caused for others when you have a financial Power 2.

Read this take by our buddy, Dennis Dodd, earlier today. Pretty good take. I guess that come 2026 we will have a 16-team field. There will be no 1st round byes. Another way to shorten the season besides all teams playing in what is now week zero, play a cupcake FCS opponent in the spring game with the results counting in the following regular season reduced to 11 games including week 0. This would allow for conference champ games to be played on Friday and Saturday of Thanksgiving week with the field finalized that Sunday. Schools not in the B1G and the SEC best carefully check out the details of the expanded playoff money being distributed more to contending teams and not the same amount for P5 teams and a lesser same amount to G5 teams. Like the basketball tournament, I expect the B1G and the SEC, already way ahead of the other conferences financially, will have the majority of teams in the field season after season. Thanks for the post.

Back, back, wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy back. Should be a very good game. The game is sold out with Tyler Shough having a lot to prove.

More layoffs at ESPN. Parent Disney is reining in the World Wide Leader's spending amid cord-cutting the increase in broadcast payouts, especially to the SEC, come 2023. Chris Fowler to remain at ESPN amid layoffs, but reportedly without big raise he sought WWW.SATURDAYDOWNSOUTH.COM Chris Fowler will remain at ESPN as the network begins widespread layoffs. You have to tip your hat, unfortunately, to the B12 for getting in line ahead of the Pac-12/10 and securing a new media deal before ESPN and Fox were looking at different and lower broadcast evaluations.

Thank you, T. Yes, TT ran the most plays in the nation in 2022. For us old timers not having the clock stop after 1st downs is back to the future. I do like the 2-minute end of the half exceptions as this will likely bring a lot of strategy into play. I also note that consecutive time-out calls will not be permitted in 2023 and there will be no untimed downs unless a penalty is called on the final play of the game. Chain gangs best be working out in the off-season. These folks will now have to hustle to get the markers down.

Great take. With the playoff expanding CFB has to limit the number of plays in a game. But 'fly by?' This will help move the game along no doubt but I still think CFB needs a change in the review process. Go to the NFL rules or limit the amount of time a review can take. Why not do this when today's reviews often take 5 minutes or more and the reviewers still do not make the correct call? And IMO there is nothing wrong with a tie game in the regular season. In regards to play calling, with fewer plays teams with good run games may look to run the clock more than is the case today. FYI, the team that ran the most plays in the nation in 2022? Texas Tech

Thanks, Alex. I'm pretty sure that Ferguson is out with an injury. This means that Oregon is down to 2 healthy scholarship TEs. So, one thing I will be keeping an eye on is whether Matayo U gets reps at TE. A position he played in high school as well as playing on the D side of the ball. Could be a heck of a season for Oregon. But Oregon has a sneaky tough game at Texas Tech and travels to Seattle and Salt Lake while SC gets Utah and UW in LA. Riley bagged the Bear, just one of the solid defenders he has taken from the portal. The new guys on D get successfully coached up and integrated by Grinch and SC's D in 2023, could improve as much as its O did in 2022. GULP! I'm hoping that Ducks fans flock to Autzen. Need to put on a show for the bevy of stud recruits in attendance.

Thanks for the detailed summary.

Ink cannot dry before the consultants and layers (and Comcast?) are paid. Steven, please offer to represent the Pac-12 vs Larry at a discount. I do note that 2 network executives fired have filed a wrongful termination suit against Larry claiming that they told Larry about the Comcast situation and Larry sat on this information. Larry, the gift that keeps on giving. Thank you, Michael (Eat) Crow and UCLA's Mr. Bloch-head.

Good call but I fully expect that players will be deemed to be 'employees' and at such time Stanford will go the way of the Ivy League. Stanford is one of the Pac schools with an endowment sufficient to pay for many non-revenue sports without football bringing in big bucks.

I think, unlike CAL and Stanford the WSU administration would like to improve but WSU does not have the $ to do so. One of the reasons why WSU will be left behind as CFB further consolidates. Good call on the media right payment to the Bruins. IMO, UCLA should have waited to sign on with B1G until the media Pac new media deal is done but I imagine that the B1G was not willing to Wait for Godot.

Plus, throw in the 'tax' to be paid to CAL and does the move even pencil out for UCLA? I agree that UCLA football will struggle but UCLA CBB could be the best of the bunch in a way overrated B1G.

But you can actually watch real jockeys and their mounts. THIS is like waiting for the Sphinx to speak.

As an AAU member, Pitt like Georgia Tech, Duke, UNC, and UVA has a shot at going B1G.

SDSU is currently receiving @$4M per annum in media money. It will not receive a Pac-10 or B12 media share. SDSU is irrelevant to FOX. Back-in-the day I could see ESPN paying $30M plus to get a piece of the SoCal market but not today. Disney has pulled in the ESPN reins. With today's cord-cutting impacting ESPN subscriptions, I expect more layoffs and salary cuts are coming ESPN's way.