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Preston Solves The College Football Bowl Game Crisis · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

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  Good morning, and welcome to our number three of the Morning Show with Preston
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  Scott. I'm Preston, that's Grant. He's Darth Preston right now. It's
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  a little chilly in the studio this morning. Oh man. Anyway, great
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  to be with you. Happy New Year. If you're just joining us show
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  fifty sixty eight. It is January fourth. We're back live and joined by
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  the managing editor of war chant dot com. He's our friend to talk FSU
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  athletics, notably football Iraschaffell Ira. Happy New Year. How are you?
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  Happy New Year? I'm great, Preston, How are you? I'm good.
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  Did it take you a while as an even as an objective media guy
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  but still a fan of FSU to get over what happened at the Orange Bowl?
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  You know, I don't know. I mean, part of me was
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  like I felt worse I think, in the month leading up to that game
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  than I do right now, you know, I you know, I and
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  I wrote a column that week, basically the day of the game, basically
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  just saying they just need to get this over with and let this happen.
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  Whatever's going to happen is going to happen. And then they can start the
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  process of moving forward. And uh, you know, December was a terrible
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  month for Florida State in a lot of different ways, Florida State football in
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  a lot of different ways. And uh, you know, I just felt
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  like they had to kind of as one of those just take the medicine,
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  get it over with and move forward. So yeah, it was disgusting to
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  watch, but you know, even as soon it was over, I felt
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  like, Okay, at least now they can start moving forward. There are
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  examples going back a few years now of players' high profile players who decided NFL
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  career notwithstanding they were going to play. They're going to play with their guys.
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  It's a team game. They warred together all season long, some of
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  them longer than that obviously, and they were going to play. Have you
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  had any thoughts about whether some of those guys maybe just should have suited up
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  anyway? Oh, I think a bunch of them should have. You know,
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  to me, I've always understood, you know, at least since this
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  started the opt out era, you know, seven eight years ago, that
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  that you know, if you're a first round pick, you know, I
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  get it, and if you're not in a playoff game, I get it.
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  And as you said, there are examples of guys who have played,
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  there are also a lot of examples of guys who didn't play. I mean,
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  there are guys this this goole season who didn't even decide yet if they're
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  going to come back next year, but they said, I'm still not playing
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  in the bowl game. Like I may come back next year, but I'm
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  not playing in the bowl game, which is a whole different animal. But
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  yeah, I mean there's a bunch of guys that opted out that I think
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  are not going to be might not be drafted, might be drafted late in
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  the first round, or might be drafted late in the draft. They were
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  not risking a lot of money by playing in that game. I just think
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  it was it was a storm where you had a team that all year was
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  focused on one goal, which was little two goals winning the ACC but I
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  think the big goal was getting to the playoffs, and they felt like they
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  went undefeated, they would do that, And they went undefeated and still didn't
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  get in. And then several of the top players were you know, as
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  soon as that was decided, the team knew that Keon Coleman and Jared Verse
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  and you know, probably Trey Benson, a few guys were definitely not gonna
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  play, and you already had lost Jordan Travis, and I think that just
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  led to a kind of a cavalcade of guys saying, you know what,
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  uh, you know, this team isn't going to be the same, so
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  I'm gonna go ahead and start getting ready for the draft. No team in
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  the top twenty was hit by opt outs like FSU, not even and I
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  would say not even close to one team was hit like FSU. I don't
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  know if any team in the history of college football has been. I mean
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  it, it was. And it was a unique situation also because you had
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  so many guys who either came back for this one season, you know all
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  that, you know again, the Jared Versus and and and Trey Benson's and
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  Johnny Wilson's and you know a lot of guys, you know, Tatum Bethune,
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  a lot of guys who really this was the one year they were coming
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  back for. And then you had the one year players, you know,
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  the Keon Coleman's and Braden Fisk's and some of those guys who were only here
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  for one year. So I think it was a combination where you didn't have
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  you know, a lot of the guys that you know, some of these
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  other schools maybe had invested four or five years in their program and and you
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  know they weren't there just for this one big run. I just think it
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  was a unique situation. Irisha fell with us. When we come back,
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  We're gonna keep talking about this opt out problem because the bulls are in jeopardy.
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  It is absolutely apparent unless something significant happens, the bulls are as we
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  know them done. So I'm gonna tell I'm gonna give Ira my solution,
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  and I want to get his reaction to it next on The Morning Show with
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  Preston Scott. Let's just start with the presumption that he's right. Believe me,
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  it works around here. This is The Morning Show with Preston Scott.
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  Back with Irischaffell. Subscribe Warchant dot com. You're gonna get so much good
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  intel, great reporting, and some really insightful columns all in one place war
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  Chant dot com. Ira, I've given this a lot of thought, and
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  obviously I'm a little older and I do have a little old school mentality here,
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  and I admit it. I still believe that the kids getting scholarships and
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  tutors and room and board. I think that's a pretty sweet deal given the
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  cost of college education these days. But that said, the coaches were making
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  millions. EA Sports was making millions, the NCAA making multiple fold times that,
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  and so I get it. But the players decided that they wanted to
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  be more treated like a pro and iel money and so forth. Right,
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  So why don't we just sign them to a contract. And this would be
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  across the country that to play a scholarship sport, In any sport, you
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  sign on to play for that year, whatever games that entails. If that's
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  a bowl game, it's a bowl game. If it is a playoff,
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  it is a playoff. And whatever we need to do, whether it's an
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  insurance thing for an NFL bound player or an NBA bound player, or whatever
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  the sport might be, we sign into a contract because if we don't do
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  something, the expanded playoff to twelve and I think eventually sixteen teams is not
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  going to matter because outside of that, those bowl games are going to be
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  meaningless exhibitions. Why bother play them? Yeah, you know, it's definitely
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  a fair question. I think that maybe that's a good solution, and maybe
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  that's where it's all going. I mean, I think if you talk to
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  people inside the sport, I don't know if anybody knows exactly what it's going
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  to look like in a few years. But everybody I talked to who seems
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  to you know, who's really plugged in, believes that they're going to go
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  to a point where there's real revenue sharing and it changes from this pay for
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  play model, which is it is right now where you have these schools coming
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  up with these you know, basically what used to be under the table deals,
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  now we're over the table deals. You get people to come to your
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  school. What's going to happen is the TV contract is going to get split
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  because some of these court decisions that are coming down the pike. And so
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  say it's one hundred million dollars that goes to a conference, you know a
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  big portion of that's going to start going to the players. And if that
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  happens, then you that leads to you know, collective bargaining and things like
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  that. So it may get to that point, but you know, it
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  is ridiculous what's going on right now with the bowl system. But I don't
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  think there's a solution until something like that happens. So I think you're probably
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  on the right track. I just don't see a way that. You know,
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  again, I go back to the fans, the boosters, the bowl
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  presenters, I mean, the Orange Bowl had to be just dying watching that
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  game unfold. Kirby Smart said it. Even though he played a little bit
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  of a role. He up the score. He didn't have to he did,
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  but he said it. He said, college football needs to see what
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  happened here tonight. And I thought he was very gracious. He said,
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  that's not Florida State what we saw. He said that team, for sure,
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  That team on the other sideline was decimated. No, for sure,
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  And I'm glad he said it. You know, it's one of those things
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  where I don't Again, I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for the
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  Bulls because they've let TV do this to them. You know that they took
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  the checks from ESPN, and basically ESPN has made it clear they don't care
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  if there's ten fans in the stands. They'll hold Bulls whenever they want,
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  wherever they want. They'll move them, they'll change the names, they'll do
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  anything. They don't care if fans go, they just want programming during that
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  month to go around the NFL schedule, And so they've got what they wanted,
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  you know. They they've they've they've they've created this situation where the Bulls
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  are meaningless. They wanted the playoff, they wanted all these other things,
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  and so now you know, again, to me, I don't have a
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  lot of sympathy for the Bulls because they've taken the checks from the ESPN and
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  let ESPN just bastardise the whole system, and so you know, they are
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  they're at where they're at. But I agree with you for the for the
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  good of the sport, you know, because you know what happened. You
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  know, I don't know if I've seen FSU fans as mad as I did
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  in the week or two leading up to that game, and the anger went
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  away from the playoffs snub to frustration about this team and the fact that all
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  these kids aren't going to play. And so so I get that, and
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  that's a that's a problem that they can affect, you know, not just
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  the entire sport, but obviously each individual program. Irish afell with us from
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  war chant dot com more to talk about, including what I think is maybe
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  the biggest elephant in the room, and it's not Alabama. It's the fact
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  that ESPN owns its own sports book. What role might that have played in
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  how things unfolded with the college Football Playoff Committee. We'll talk about that and
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  the future of FSU football with transfers and who's staying and who's hey. We'll
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  talk about it next more with Irishchaffel. He let me intrude one more time
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  in his world until spring football, when we'll circle back with Irishafel from Warchant
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  dot com. He's managing editor. Subscribe go there. War chant dot com
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  is the website. Ira, I have been really really burning a slow burn
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  on this ESPN suddenly coming out and making known it has its own sports book.
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  And I'm sorry, but I'm really buying into the to the optic that
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  there was a lot more behind the scenes and FSU being left out of this
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  playoff committee, and how much of that might in fact shift to the fact
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  that they have a sports book. And should Congress start asking questions. It's
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  a fair question. You know, it's hard to nail down or point to
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  anything specifically about it, but there's no denying whether their motivation was strictly ratings,
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  or whether the motivation was, uh, you know, taking care of
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  the sec the SEC or they have such a strong financial relationship with or the
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  motivation was you know, as you said that they do have a sports book,
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  which you know, they have a marketing agreement and so they you know,
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  obviously they're going to want to help build that business. I don't know
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  if it's one of those things, two of those things, or all of
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  those things. The bottom line is clearly was the fix was in. I
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  mean, there's nothing legitimate about that whole process. They they used their mouthpieces,
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  Kirk curb Street and those guys to sell the narrative. Even before Florida
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  State lost Jordan Travis for the season, I think if Jordan the greatest thing,
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  you know, the bristonustice of all. I still think if Jordan Travis
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  was healthy, they were going to leave Florida State out because they didn't look
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  great against Boston College or whatever, and they played in the ACC And could
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  you imagine if Florida State had had their whole team together and got left out
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  of the playoff and then we saw those teams plan on Monday night, which
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  I think Florida Stay could have played with any of them. So it yeah,
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  I don't know exactly who the motivation is, and maybe you're on something,
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  but it clearly was. The whole thing was a sham. Well,
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  I mean, at the very least, there is a massive conflict of interest
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  of a major network that controls largely as you talked about the scheduling and so
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  forth. And I mean, they own the college football playoff for all intents
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  and purposes, but they own a sports book. I read that is a
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  conflict of interest. And I don't know how we got here. When I
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  was, you know, in the late nineties, I worked for sports CBS
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  sports line dot com, which was originally sports line dot com. In part
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  we had gambling information on the site that was a differentiator between sports Line and
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  ESPN dot com. And when CBS bought into sports Line, CBS made sports
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  Lines sell off all their gambling information and they created a news site called Vegas
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  Insider, which I actually ran as gambling site, gambling information site because CBS
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  couldn't be affiliated with gambling. And that was you know, I mean,
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  it's in our lifetime. It was only thirty years ago. It wasn't like
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  it was one hundred years ago, and then we went from that to at
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  some point we can advertise draft fantasy information on television. To some point,
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  no, we can provide all gambling information. And so now where ESPN is
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  in bed with his sportsbook. I don't know. It's incredible how we've gotten
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  here, but you're right, I mean, it can lead to all kinds
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  of questions and problems. All right, let's transition here quickly to the portal
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  to the team that's coming back. I guess Patrick Payton had a change of
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  mind and change of heart. But where does this team stand right now with
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  what they need to find in the portal versus what they've got recruiting coming in?
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  You know, I think they still. I think they're gonna look to
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  sign probably eight to ten guys out of the transfer portal. They already have
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  two big ones Barvin Jones Junior. Obviously, I don't have to explain who
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  he is anybody that's a Florida State fan. He's spent the last two years
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  at Georgia, was a five star recruit coming out of high school, played
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  sum at Georgia. But on that defense, as we saw with Jermaine Johnson,
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  sometimes it can be hard to get on the field there, so he's
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  already transferred in. And then obviously the quarterback, dj Ungola, who started
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  his career at Clemson was last year at Oregon State. They've got him.
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  So they've got a quarterback, they've got a defensive end. They're gonna have
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  to get probably four or five players on offense and probably three or four more
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  players on defense to kind of bolster what they've got, But they did retain
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  a lot of key players, basically the whole offensive line. The guys that
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  are eligible to come back are coming back. Darius Washington, Maurice Smith,
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  Robert Scott. Those give you three four fifth year guys that played a ton
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  of football back on the offensive line. As you said, Patrick Payton's coming
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  back. They've got several other young talented players are definitely coming back as well.
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  So I think there's still a decent nucleus, but they're gonna have to
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  get about eight or nine more guys out of the transfer portal, and those
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  visits have started now. This this next week will be big for that.
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  They've got kids on campus today, they have won on campus yesterday, and
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  that's going to continue through the weekend. Is they try to get kids enrolled
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  for the spring semester. Safe to say, then offensive side of the football,
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  they need some skill guys, wide outs and maybe a tight end and
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  a running back. On the defensive side, linebackers and secondary maybe and maybe
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  a little bit more help on the defensive line as well. But that's gonna
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  be tougher to come by. So yeah, I think that's accurate. And
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  again, you know, I think that you know, the people that saw
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  that game and think, okay, that's the twenty twenty four football team,
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  that's not accurate. I mean a lot of the guys that could have played
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  in that game didn't play in that game. Josh Farmer was coming off I
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  believe a surgery, so he didn't play right. And then you have a
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  lot of guys that were thrown into a new situation. So I still think
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  there's a really good nucleus here. I don't think they're going to be I
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  don't. I wouldn't predict that they're going to be a playoff contender next year,
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  but I think, you know, if they do well in the portal,
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  they could go back to be a team that to piece at least for
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  an a sec Championship, which I think makes him a playoff team, but
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  that's just me. But then I hope, yeah, hope. We saw
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  what happened this year and I don't think it's going to change. The optics
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  are going to change in one year. All right, Ira, You've been
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  the best and we'll talk again come spring football. I look forward to it.
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  Thanks Presdon, Happy to thank you, sir. Happy New Year to
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  you and your family as well. Twenty seven minutes after the hour, it's
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  The Morning Show with Preston Scott