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Why The Ohio State vs. Alabama College Football Series Is A Gamechanger · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to buck Eyes Tomorrow morning for Monday, May eleventh.
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  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Tom Moore. The ball State game in
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  Speaker 1: one hundred and seventeen days, the game against Michigan in
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  Speaker 1: two hundred and one days. Our friends are Grateful Griddle,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Columbus's favorite food truck. They are now on Uber each, Grubhub,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and Ordash. Just search for Grateful Rittle there or check
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: out grateful Brittle oh dot com for more. Yes, we
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  Speaker 1: are back. Thank you for your patience during an extended
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: week off of just the schedules didn't quite work. I
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  Speaker 1: had to go out of town for a my nephew's
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  Speaker 1: high school graduation. Congratulations to Joey on that. But we're back.
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  Speaker 1: We're back with Tony Gerdaman of the Buckeye Weekly podcast.
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  Speaker 1: We're gonna be talking about some news that broke over
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  Speaker 1: the time that we were gone. That was Alabama, which
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  Speaker 1: canceled its series with Oklahoma State, and there's a lot
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  Speaker 1: of speculation they might cancel their upcoming series with with
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  Speaker 1: Ohio State, but Brett McMurphy says, not so fast, my friend.
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  Speaker 1: The series with the Tide will roll on. It starts
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  Speaker 1: September eighteenth, twenty twenty seven in Columbus, four hundred and
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  Speaker 1: ninety five days away, just in case you were counting Tony.
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  Speaker 1: You know, there was some conversation on our message board that,
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  Speaker 1: you know, bo boy, why would Ohio State want to
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  Speaker 1: play this kind of game with the new realities of
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  Speaker 1: college football? And my question is, why wouldn't Ohio State
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  Speaker 1: want to play this kind of game with the new
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  Speaker 1: realities of college football?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm absolutely with you on that one, and it's
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  Speaker 2: I don't want to just slam the Ohio State fans
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  Speaker 2: that feel this way, because there are other fans that
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  Speaker 2: feel the exact same way, like, don't don't you schedule
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  Speaker 2: losses for us whatever you do, and if you schedule
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  Speaker 2: even a game that could be a loss, how could
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  Speaker 2: you do that? And yet these same people will complain
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  Speaker 2: about just I'm so tired of watching Ohio State versus Achron,
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  Speaker 2: I'm so tired of watching Youngstown State. Well, the alternative
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  Speaker 2: to that is watching a game that Ohio State or
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  Speaker 2: your team might lose. And that's that's the that's what
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  Speaker 2: all of these people love about college football. The games matter. Well,
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  Speaker 2: you say that, but if your non conference schedule, you
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  Speaker 2: have no chance of losing those games don't matter. You're
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  Speaker 2: just going You're just paying money so that you can
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  Speaker 2: feed coaches and their families and players. If you're not
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  Speaker 2: scheduling games that you could lose, then you're part of
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  Speaker 2: the problem. If you're happy not doing that, then I
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  Speaker 2: think you're part of the problem. So this is good.
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  Speaker 2: We know. This is what Ohio State is. You try
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  Speaker 2: to do every year for the last twenty plus to
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  Speaker 2: have a marque non conference opponent doesn't always work out.
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  Speaker 2: Sometimes they've had to drop some due to all of
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  Speaker 2: the college football chaos and the scheduling. But this is
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  Speaker 2: a complete easy sell, especially now as we're going to
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  Speaker 2: probably head into the expanded playoffs. But more than anything,
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  Speaker 2: to me, Tom, this just tells me that Alabama fears
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  Speaker 2: Oklahoma State more than Ohio State.
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  Speaker 1: Listen, if you have to play just one OSU, there's
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  Speaker 1: a former Alabama assistant now running Oregon State, so you
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  Speaker 1: know they're out, and then Oklahoma State, well they have
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  Speaker 1: to play. They have to play someone. So they will
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  Speaker 1: play the buck Eyes. And they will not just play
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  Speaker 1: the buck Eyes. They will play the buck Eyes in
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  Speaker 1: Columbus and in Tuscaloosa. A good old fashioned home and
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  Speaker 1: home series. Georgia and Florida State just recently, think might
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  Speaker 1: have been last week as well, canceled a home and
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  Speaker 1: home and they're talking about, well, maybe we'll just play
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  Speaker 1: one game at a neutral site. This is what college
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  Speaker 1: football is supposed to be. You're supposed to be playing.
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  Speaker 1: You go to the other schools like we, You and
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  Speaker 1: I and Ohio State fans in general have been to
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  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of NFL stadiums over the last several years.
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  Speaker 1: They play all the college football playoff quarterfinals almost in
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  Speaker 1: NFL stadiums. They play you see those kickoff classic kind
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  Speaker 1: of games in NFL stadiums. Now, this is a good
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  Speaker 1: old fashioned home and home. I mean this year we've
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  Speaker 1: got the return for the Texas home and home. That
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  Speaker 1: was a great game in Columbus last week. I was
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  Speaker 1: down in Texas last week and sorry the game in
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  Speaker 1: Tech Columbus last year. I was down in Texas last
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  Speaker 1: week talking to some Longhorn fans, and there is some
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  Speaker 1: high level excitement around that one, So I can I
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  Speaker 1: can tell you that they are very very excited for that.
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  Speaker 1: That makes those season tickets a little more valuable and
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  Speaker 1: is good for business in terms of the athletic department there.
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  Speaker 1: This is just but just in terms of atmosphere and
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  Speaker 1: all of that. If you can play those games in
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  Speaker 1: on a campus site and have a home crowd like that,
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  Speaker 1: that is what I'm looking for out of my college football.
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  Speaker 2: If I'm a Georgia fan, I'm incredibly annoyed because you
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  Speaker 2: already have the Florida game on a neutral site, and
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  Speaker 2: now you're going to take another game and maybe do
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  Speaker 2: a neutral site there. They continue to get short changed
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  Speaker 2: in terms of what their home schedule could be, especially
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  Speaker 2: in the SEC and with Ohio State, there are some
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  Speaker 2: you know, the years like oh, it's a bad it's
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  Speaker 2: a bad schedule, it's bad ticket, bad season ticket, or
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  Speaker 2: it's not a great season ticket. And if you're if
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  Speaker 2: you don't have a great season ticket, you're going to
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  Speaker 2: lose money the school is and they're going to have
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  Speaker 2: to come up with that money somewhere else or they're
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  Speaker 2: going to be sure changed. That's one of the reasons
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  Speaker 2: why they always have to have seven home games, because
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  Speaker 2: they've got to fund so many other things. And you
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  Speaker 2: can look at the schedules year over year in terms
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  Speaker 2: of the attendance for the non conference games. You know,
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  Speaker 2: the Texas game everybody goes to and it's a sellout.
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  Speaker 2: The others, you know, five ten thousand fewer people there
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  Speaker 2: and they still make money. But would you rather have
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  Speaker 2: five thousand more people in the seats. And the thing is,
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  Speaker 2: if you continue to schedule bad non conference, then those
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  Speaker 2: numbers aren't going to continue to climb, and they're not
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  Speaker 2: going to stay in pat They're going to go down
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  Speaker 2: because I'm not paying one hundred dollars for the ticket
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  Speaker 2: and then one hundred dollars for the water and the
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  Speaker 2: hot dog, and then the fifty dollars to park when
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  Speaker 2: I've got my seventy inch TV here and i can
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  Speaker 2: get nice dominoes delivered. These are all things that people
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  Speaker 2: have to weigh, and these are all things that Athletic
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  Speaker 2: direct going back to you, Jeene Smith trying to figure
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  Speaker 2: out now ross Yorke trying to figure out how to
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  Speaker 2: make the game day atmosphere more enticing to pay all
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  Speaker 2: of that stuff for. And so that's why that's why
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  Speaker 2: you go and get a song from camp, That's why
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  Speaker 2: you get speakers for the band. It's all of these
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  Speaker 2: reasons why you're doing all of this. And another thing
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  Speaker 2: that you could do to bring people to the stadium
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  Speaker 2: is to continue to bring an Alabama and Georgia, Texas
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  Speaker 2: and so on.
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  Speaker 1: In my head, the year that it was sort of
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  Speaker 1: like absolutely iconic for this, I think it was two
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  Speaker 1: thousand and eight, I believe, where they had Youngstown State, Akron, Washington,
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  Speaker 1: and Northwestern for the first four games of the season
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  Speaker 1: at home. And this was back when Washington was terrible, terrible,
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  Speaker 1: and someone pointed out that the helmets for the first
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  Speaker 1: four games spelled yawn, and it was like, yep, that
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  Speaker 1: was pretty much a good synopsis of that. And now
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  Speaker 1: not only do you have these seventy inch you also
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  Speaker 1: have people who if most of the home schedule isn't
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  Speaker 1: worth seeing, then why am I buying season tickets? I
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  Speaker 1: can just buy tickets for the Michigan game and the
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  Speaker 1: Alabama game, or the Penn State game or the Oregon
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  Speaker 1: game or whatever. And then you know, then you're losing
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  Speaker 1: money from the seat says and ticket sales. You're losing
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  Speaker 1: money from the donors who have to pay money to
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  Speaker 1: get the season tickets. There's all sort of you're losing
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  Speaker 1: money for parking every time someone doesn't show up. All
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  Speaker 1: in sessions all that kind of stuff. So yeah, this
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  Speaker 1: all sort of yeah, I think makes sense from business
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  Speaker 1: side and from the side of you know, what are
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  Speaker 1: you putting yourself at risk for. I'm going to go
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  Speaker 1: back to what I say every single time we have
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  Speaker 1: this conversation. There is no reason you cannot talk to
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  Speaker 1: the college football Playoff Committee folks and say the criteria is, now,
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  Speaker 1: how many good wins do you have or you know,
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  Speaker 1: bad losses or losses don't count, you know, don't are
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  Speaker 1: not the primary driver. It is not just rank all
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  Speaker 1: the unranked, unbeaten teams and then rank all the one
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  Speaker 1: loss teams and rank all the two loss teams. Change
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  Speaker 1: the criteria. You can do that to incentivize teams to
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  Speaker 1: schedule better non conference games, to incentivize teams to play
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  Speaker 1: better games, because if you do not, only do the
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  Speaker 1: teams win in terms of finances. That's better for the
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  Speaker 1: TV networks, which for some reason, this is the only
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  Speaker 1: thing that TV that does not seem to be driven
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  Speaker 1: by TV networks these days. But you can you can
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  Speaker 1: incentivize this for everything. All you have to do is
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  Speaker 1: change what the criteria is. There's nothing that says the
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  Speaker 1: college football playoff committee needs to judge it based on
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  Speaker 1: rank the teams by fewest losses, like anyone can do that,
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  Speaker 1: Like you can. You can be a little more strategic
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  Speaker 1: about it. But you know that feels like you know,
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  Speaker 1: people look at that and go, well, this is how
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  Speaker 1: they do it. It's like it doesn't have to.
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  Speaker 2: Be no you can those instructions can be out there
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  Speaker 2: and they can wait it in different ways. And there's
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  Speaker 2: also tom the idea of a being tested throughout the
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  Speaker 2: season is a good thing. And last year Ohio State
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  Speaker 2: went from the Texas game to the Indiana game without
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  Speaker 2: playing another Top twenty opponent like Michigan finished the season
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  Speaker 2: like twenty one. That's three months without really being tested.
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  Speaker 2: Whereas you go to the twenty twenty four season and
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  Speaker 2: they had three top ten opponents before they got to
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  Speaker 2: Michigan and then they had been tested and they came
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  Speaker 2: through into playoffs. Last year, they don't really get tested.
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  Speaker 2: And what happens. The first time they run up against
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  Speaker 2: a stiff test, they lose to Indiana. The second time
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  Speaker 2: they run up to another stiff test, they lose to Miami.
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  Speaker 2: So I think there's something to be said for having
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  Speaker 2: some of those games throughout because sometimes I'm not going
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  Speaker 2: to say they're not going to get that in the
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  Speaker 2: Big Ten every year. They should, but last year was
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  Speaker 2: not a great schedule, Penn State let people down and
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  Speaker 2: all of that. But I think just knowing what your
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  Speaker 2: team is capable of, and last year that first game
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  Speaker 2: against Texas, that was all just feeling out and they
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  Speaker 2: got through that. If that's if that game had been
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  Speaker 2: in October and it went that way, then they would
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  Speaker 2: have learned something from themselves. I think playing games that
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  Speaker 2: maybe isn't the season opener, you learn something more about
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  Speaker 2: yourself and it allows you to correct some things, and
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  Speaker 2: they got They were able to correct quite a bit
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  Speaker 2: in twenty twenty four, and they went through most of
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  Speaker 2: twenty twenty five without really having anything to correct until
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  Speaker 2: it was too late.
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  Speaker 1: They will have plenty of opportunities to potentially correct some
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  Speaker 1: things this fall at DKR at Texas. Week two, They've
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  Speaker 1: got Illinois at home, They've got Iowa on the road,
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  Speaker 1: they go to Indiana, they go to usc Oregon at
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  Speaker 1: home at Nebraska home for Michigan. What ay season it
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  Speaker 1: will be? Can follow along with all of that with
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: us on the Buckeye is Tomorrow Morning podcast and the
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Buckeye Weekly podcast will be there for all those games.
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  Speaker 1: Should be in a really really fun Ohio State football season.
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  Speaker 1: Really looking forward to some of those trips. I hope
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  Speaker 1: you will join with us on all of them. That'll
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  Speaker 1: do for today. Thank you guys all for joining us.
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  Speaker 1: Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.