Jon Joseph

Tan, I think it depends on the opponent. A Friday night kick-off against USC, UW, Utah, UCLA, Oregon State, and a big-time OOC opponent, is going to sell out. Against Hawaii, I think there would be empty seats. This season's game versus Prime Time would definitely be a Friday night sell-out. But I feel the pain of people traveling from Portland and man, I miss when CFB was played in the sunshine.

Good take. But especially with the problems the B1G is having finalizing its new media deal does Fox really want to be spending more on B1G inventory? Fox just took it in the shorts with a close to a billion-dollar judgment against it from non-sports media activity. This is a big number for any business to swallow. And today's economy is not as robust as even a year ago. Fox is only the middle-man in its media deals. It has to sell off the conference media rights it has bought to advertisers to make a profit. The Pac-10 deal is obviously, taking a long time but this is not a seller's market and I'm certain that GK wants to have a deal fully nailed down before bringing the deal to the conference as a whole. The conference does not want to have a Kevin Warren-like egg on its face. As to Warren, this couldn't have happened any better. I wonder if the Pac-10 is reaching out to UCLA to see if the Bruins are having 2nd thoughts.

A lot of this depends on the site doing the rankings. I like that Charles uses Rivals but Rivals is often a tougher grader than the 247 composite rankings. Of course, at the end of the day, all of the highly-ranked kids arrive with potential and they have to be coached up.

College Football News has the Utes winning 9 regular season games. So much of the 2023 season is riding on whether QB Rising can make a full recovery from a bad ACL tear suffered against Penn State in the Rose Bowl. Even if Rising is healthy with out-of-conference games versus Florida and at Baylor and conference road games at Oregon State, USC, and UW, and with home games versus Oregon and UCLA, I see an 8 and not a 9-win regular season. https://collegefootballnews.com/cfn/utah-utes-college-football-preview-2023-breakdown-prediction-top-players-win-total Man, the Pac-12 is top to bottom loaded in 2023. No easy day.

Dan. has the first part down. You have to bring in big-time recruits. As I have mentioned before, no school without a Blue Chip Roster (BCR) won a BCS title and to date, no team without a BCR has won a playoff title. BCR = at least 50% of the roster being made up of 4* and 5* recruits. Dan Lanning is one coach on the verge of winning first national title DUCKSWIRE.USATODAY.COM Will Dan Lanning bring a national championship to Oregon? According to 247Sports, he isn’t far away.

Every draft prognostication I read before Nix decided to stay in Eugene had Nix going not later than the 2nd round and many had him in the 1st round. And there is a big difference between paying $1.5M to a guy straight out of high school and to a guy who has started in college ball for 4 seasons and had his best season in 2022.

It ain't over before the fat (and these days not so fat) media companies sing. It took the B1G 9 months to do its deal and apparently, the deal isn't done yet. Don't count your chickens. Kevin Warren is a lying backstabber who did not leave the B1G in the financial shape he promised the conference. And not only are there money issues, but there are also issues regarding how junior members CBS and NBC will fit in. The B1G has no streaming broadcast partner. Considering the direction in which sports media is headed, this is a mistake that I don't believe the Pac-10 will make. $5M short? Does the problem stop at $5M? Even at $5M, there goes a big chunk of the Trojans and Bruins travel budgets. And also perhaps the amount the Bruins will be required to pay in 'CAL tax' payments. $5M pays for a lot of private air travel. If one or both SC and UCLA were to decide to stay in the Pac I very much doubt they would be held liable. The B1G conference misrepresented the dollar amount. That's fraud in the inducement. Many UCLA fans, see Bill Walton, are not happy about the move. And also several SC fans. Yes, the money is nice but how does Traveler deal with not being the lead pony? That would be the horses out of Ann Arbor and Columbus.

New Brunswick, New Jersey is the promised land? Maybe for Tony Soprano. Kidding. Great comment.

Sirius radio today reported that the B1G deal is at least $5M short of the anticipated number of $70M a year.

Jon Wilner, who I trust along with Canzano to accurately report the situation reported the exact opposite of this article today. Rumor-mongering will continue until a deal is announced. ESPN needs late-night broadcast inventory. Fox has this with the LA market and SC does not.

We have met the enemy and they are us!

As Jon Wilner reports in a scathing article on his Pac-12 Hotline, Larry Scott will have been paid a total of $50M during his tenure as the Pac-12 commissioner. Larry was paid $4.1M for his last 6 months, January through July of 2021, as the leader of the Pac and notwithstanding his likely role in the Comcast foul-up, Larry was paid a $1.5M severance fee. Larry still owes $1.8M to the conference for a loan extended by the conference to facilitate his relocation from Florida. Meet the old boss, the same as the new boss. The only 2 conference presidents left from the 'gurus' who hired Larry are ASU's (Eat) Crow and UCLA's Block (Head.) The beat goes on.

Great post but what a vapid article. Riley is going to walk from $10M per annum because Bohn was fired. Come On Man!

Gold: USC’s next AD hire is too big to screw up…again SATURDAYOUTWEST.COM Yet another USC athletic director has come and gone, only this time, nepotism did not do the Trojans in. Narcissism did. Now how does the school respond? Bohn led SC to the B1G? I at least somewhat disagree. Fox led SC and UCLA to the B1G as payback for ESPN leading the poaching of OK and TX. Without Fox's money, the 2 LA schools are going nowhere.

Tan, spot on between the city and small town. But this does not affect the football-mad world of the SEC with communities such as Starkville, Oxford, Fayetteville, College Station, Columbia, Missouri, and Baton Rogue among others. Clearly, there is a difference between Pullman, Corvallis, and LA. In Eugene? Division Street has its act together far better than UCLA and USC. LOL. SC pays its football coach $10M a year and whines about Oregon paying players.

Terrific take Charles, thank you. Man, has the college football world changed? As you so well noted Charles for Greybeards this is like living in a CFB alternate universe. Especially for those of us who remember one CFB game broadcast on Saturday on living black and white TV, one announcer in the booth, OL tackles who at 250 pounds were behemoths, one platoon football, no clock stoppage after 1st downs, and coaches routinely grabbing face masks. I was very interested and happy to see that it is not only football players and men's basketball players who are getting paid. It's great to see that non-revenue athletes of both genders are getting a piece of the pie. And to think, USC would not have lost all of those scholarships and Reggie Bush would not have had to forfeit his Heisman Trophy. And Don James was run off because a QB was paid $50K. QBs are getting the most money as a position group. No surprise here. Peyton Manning makes far more money from advertising than any all-pro lineman. Jealousy in the locker room? You don't see it in the NFL and I doubt that we will see it in college sports. If people who excel are being paid do college athletes need to be employees? Even if they are all employees NIL is not going away and the market will award the athletes in all sports who are the most successful and have the best marketing presence. Is Bo worth $1.5M a year? If this is what his market value is then the answer is 'heck yes.'

Slightly OT. But this could affect recruiting. It is anticipated that the Ducks game versus Texas Tech in Lubbock will be broadcast on ESPN 2 at 12:30 Pacific time. I am not surprised that this game which could be a great game is not on ABC, big-boy ESPN, and is not on Fox. I think this is likely to be the case for Oregon's next 6, including TX Tech, P5 opponent out-of-conference games. Colorado's first two games will be getting the big-boy treatment from Fox. At TCU is expected to be the main Fox broadcast at 12:30 Pacific with the Nebraska game the following week in Boulder being broadcast at 10 AM Mountain time as Fox's Big Noon game. CU is getting a nice ROI from its investment in Deion.

Eugene, we have a Travis Jonsen sighting. Ty is #1 on the list and no Heisman winner Marcus Mariota on the list. 'Drafting' QBs in college ball is as much of a throw of the dice as drafting QBs in the NFL. Oregon Recruiting: Where Michael Van Buren ranks among Duck QBs DUCKSWIRE.USATODAY.COM Where does Michael Van Buren rank among the highest-rated QBs to ever commit to Oregon?

Oregon's track record on taking two QBs in a single class. Interesting how often this has panned out for only 1 guy and often neither guy. Oregon Recruiting: Ducks’ history of taking 2 QB recruits in a cycle DUCKSWIRE.USATODAY.COM The Ducks took 2 QBs in the 2024 cycle, the sixth time they’ve done so since 2000. What ended up happening the other five times?

This would be most fine. I see LSU defeating FSU in the opening game and Clemson will not be an easy out for the Seminoles. FSU is a team that I believe is this season's A+M although FSU will make a bowl game. 9-3. Ohio State has the WRs and RBs but does it have a pitcher in the class of Fields and Stroud? At Notre Dame and at Michigan will be very tough games for the Buckeyes and in the final year of the Final 4 two strikes and you're out.

And it's not like Fox is rolling in dough right about now. GK as others have noted is dealing with a tougher media market than even a year ago. Rumor also has it that ESPN is having difficulty coming up with the money a year earlier than expected for Oklahoma and Texas. The B12 talks a big game but where is the money going to come from to add additional teams? This is all headed to pay for view so getting on board with streaming now likely makes a lot of sense and cents, in the long run.

I think Penn State loses in Columbus but Penn State took tOSU deep into the 4th quarter last season. PSU has been blown out recently in Ann Arbor so it's good to have the Wolverines coming to Happy Valley for a white-out. PSU has lots of guys back including a very good QB in Allar and should be nasty on D. And FWIW a 98 SOS instead of 9 for Ohio State and 58 for Michigan is nice. PSU's crossover games are home vs Illinois and Northwestern. I don't think Illinois which is a developmental program and had a lot of seniors last season will be as good as last season. At Iowa will be tricky but I don't think the Hawkeyes have the firepower to hang with Penn State. PSU only has 4 road games with 1 at Maryland in a semi-rivalry game and 1 at Rutgers. Its toughest OOC game is versus W VA in the opener at home. The other 2, Delaware and UMass also at home. I like the schedule. I think PSU defeats whatever team comes out of the West and finishes 12-1 and joins 13-0 Georgia, 12-1 LSU, and 12-1 Oregon.

But if the Dude is down? Over the line!

Happy, in response to your great take and your thoughts in regard to the Utes, Utah lost a great close Rose Bowl game against Ohio State, with the Buckeyes having many stud players sitting out the game and were stymied by Penn State. Last year Utah had the edge in playing SC in the champ game coming off a win against a hapless CU while SC was coming off a game against Notre Dame. And Utah missed UW instead of playing UW in Seattle this season. The Utes also have to play SC in LA. And again, SC will be coming off a game versus Notre Dame this time in South Bend. Utah also has to play the Beavers in Corvallis. And will Rising be good to go versus Florida and hold up for 11 other regular season games? Tables turned this year with SC being idle the week before the conference champ game. With Utah opening versus Florida and then playing at Baylor Utah has a more difficult SOS in 2023 than do Oregon, Oregon State, and UW. No team that does not have a Blue Chip Roster (more than 50% of the players being 4* and 5* recruits) won a BCS title and to date has not won a playoff title. Utah is far from having a Blue Chip Roster. Coaching can make up only so much of the difference. I see the Utes finishing 8-4 in 2023. Ls at UW, USC, Oregon State, and in SLC vs Oregon.