Gary Lineker

Enjoying the World Cup. If you want proper analysis, honest opinions and plenty of laughs along the way, give the Rest Is Football a Listen Gary Lineker, Alan Shear and Micah Richards break down the biggest games, the standout moments and everything happening on and off the pitch with brilliant guests joining them throughout the tournament. Whether you followed football your whole life or you're just getting into it, they'll help you make sense of the drama, the tactics, the joy and the heartbreak of the World Cup. Listen to the Rest Is Football Wherever

Chip Patterson

you get your podcasts, we all belong outside.

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Bud Elliott

Welcome back to the COVID 3 podcast with your hosts Chip Patterson, Tom Fernelli, Danny Cannell and Bud Elliott. It's your call for the best college football coverage from national Signing Day to the National Championship and CBS Sports presents the COVID 3 Podcast.

Chip Patterson

And welcome back to the COVID 3 Podcast here on CBS Sports. That's Danny Cannell, that's Bud Elliott, I'm Chip Patterson coming to you live@YouTube.com cover3 and everywhere you get your podcast on demand. Thanks for hanging out. Smash that subscribe Smash that like and come and join us in the chat aka the COVID 3 tailgate where they are rocking and rolling here on a Wednesday. Coming to you live from Charlotte, North Carolina, place of ACC media days. We'll have some reaction to Jim Phillips and his Commissioner's Forum, some changes in the ACC that are coming. We will also continue to check back in on Ward Manual who who might be sending us shots. You know, he might be saying Cover three don't know what we're talking about. We need to keep his name out of our mouth. Okay, we'll dive into some of his comments with our friend Sam Webb, the Michigan Insider and really starting to look at what might be coming down the line in Ann Arbor tomorrow. And as you saw and as we promised, we are very, very excited about this because DraftKings sportsbook has put up head to head win totals and it might be some of the more fascinating thought experiments that I've had during my preseason preparation trying to stack these two against each other so we're going to take those DraftKings sportsbook win total matchups. We're going to draft them. Danny, Bud, myself. We're all going to try to see if we can not only pick the right side, but get that in our booklet, our portfolio and at the end of the season, count it up. And then what do we think? We. We go. It's a. Not a Vegas dinner, but something maybe drinks in Vegas. What sounds.

Danny Cannell

Oh, Vegas is natty, though. Vegas is more fun.

Bud Elliott

That's right.

Danny Cannell

I got a great spot. We can do it at SDK. Yeah, absolutely. That's where we had our little dinner last time we were there in Las Vegas.

Bud Elliott

STK Bizarre. Maybe maybe they host us for, for promo. And, and, and the, the loser or the loser or winner gets drinks paid for. Yeah.

Danny Cannell

After the weekend I just had, they should be buying all of us drinks.

Chip Patterson

Let's, let's, let's keep things right here on the, on the here and now ACC media days under ways as we're talking right now, the coaches are getting started. Mario Cristobal, Mark Fletcher motore. The rest of the Miami contingents going to be at the mic. Florida State is here today as well. North Carolina State is here today as well. Among some of the others, a little bit of news that is going to take some unpacking in terms of the new conference tiebreaker procedures. It's something that Bud, I know you've been asking about basically, like weekly. I mean, he's just hitting up the league office. Got him yet? Jim, Ph.D. aMD is like, no, Bud, I'm sorry, we don't have it. But you know, they are able to officially announce it here as part of their football kickoff before we get into the tiebreaker because I do feel like that's a confusing discussion. Dk, did you catch the commissioners forum?

Gary Lineker

What?

Chip Patterson

Anything else stand out to you? That sort of major notepad from his time at the mic?

Danny Cannell

No. I thought the commissioner looked pretty sharp. He looked good. Looked like he's in a good mood, positioning the conference in a position of strength. Some interesting stuff. He said he was optimistic about the Protect College Sports Act. I wouldn't, I don't know if I share the optimism that something could get done. He said 90 out of the 107 pages. I think he said they felt like they were good with 90 of the pages. The tiebreaker. I think we're going to get deeper into that. There's a lot of question marks, but he just said, here, take the booklet and look at it. You know, we've solved the problem. But I don't know if that's necessarily there. Yeah, that was overall was pretty good. State of the Union.

Chip Patterson

I mean I thought it, you know, it, it's tough because you didn't want to, I want to be appreciative of you know, the opportunity to all these great coaches and they are, it's a, it's, it is one of the best conferences in college football but man, there was a lot of we're number three, we're number three, we're number three kind of vibes like yes, that is awesome. This is the most revenue they have ever distributed. Like yes, your viewership is going up year over year and yes, you've got like there were so many things, Danny, to your point that they were able to continually roll out there and it, you know, maybe that's a good thing. Maybe they feel comfortable in their skin in being like yeah, we are better than everybody else except those two that are very clearly the 1 and 2. So maybe it's a, maybe it's a comfort in the skin that brings confidence. You think, you know, just sort of understanding who you are, what you're out here trying to do. I agree. The commissioner did look like he was, he was feeling good about himself. Budget catch anything from Phillips before we dive into tiebreaker? Did you get muted?

Tom Fernelli

I did.

Bud Elliott

So yeah. I like the self governance is no governance line in regards to the SEC and Big ten or two conferences. I don't know if he actually named him Breaking away. Not really sure what else he can say there. That's probably a decent response by him. He probably, he probably thought about that one for a while. I would have to say, you know, like if you have a team make the national championship game, you know, ACC or SEC hadn't had a team play for the national title in what, three years. So I'm sure like he should you know, dump his ch. Even though I didn't win it. Like if I was the AC commissioner I would definitely thought my chest over that as well. I, I, I don't really know that he has a whole lot of bullets to spray and I thought he did a fine job. Like it's not, it was not one of like the memorable like oh my God, this is a train wreck from Jim Phillips.

Chip Patterson

All right. He was up there and he said we had seven teams finish with nine wins or more. But bud, the team that was playing for the ACC championship had seven wins when they kick off. You know, a five way tie for second place last season had us using the combined win percentage of your conference opponents as the tiebreaker. That propelled a 7 and 5 Duke team ahead of an SMU team that was ranked before they lost to Cal. You know, like a top 25, top 30 caliber team. Other teams in the mix as well did not end up breaking through to the other side. Now we've got, according to Jim Phillips, three guiding principles. The three guiding principles of this new tiebreaker policy are, number one, going to be head to head results. Note number two that no team will be overly rewarded or penalized based on the number of conference games played. This is super, super confusing because as if this couldn't get confusing enough, some ACC teams like Florida State will be playing eight conference games this year. Therefore they could finish with 5 and 3, 6, 2, 7, 1. And a lot of teams are going to be playing nine conference games finishing with six, six and three, seven and two, eight and one. So a guiding principle, according to the way that Phillips described it, is that no team is overly rewarded or penalized. We'll get into the confusion there. Now the thing that solves all the confusion, the guiding principle says when head to head competition cannot separate the tied teams, the team with the strongest overall body of work will compete for the ACC championship and the conference's automatic qualifier to the college football team playoff. Two things here are important. Number one, it is the ACC stating that its champion gets the automatic qualifier. Not every conference has to have their conference champion as the automatic qualifier. You could, I mean it is your automatic qualifier. They want to give it to the ACC champion. That's something important to note. But then number two, how do you say overall body of work? Well, that's where we turn to our friends, Sports Source analytics, which based on their work with other conferences and based on their work within the College Football Playoff, to me guys seems like it's just a power rating. So we've got all these different possible scenarios. But at the end of the day, isn't this just going to come down to whoever is the best team is probably going to end up winning the new tiebreakers?

Bud Elliott

Maybe, maybe not. I, I think like they overfit this to fix the Miami situation last year and in removing the consideration of the quality of your opponents that you actually played in conference and pushing the Sports Source tiebreaker step further down the line, they may have set up some really ugly stuff for them. Right. So when you have this like 17 team mega conference that is spread out across the country, you have like such an imbalance in terms of strength of schedule. So if you were to take the hardest schedule in the league this year on an average opponent basis and just pull up Bill Connolly SP plus right striker. You don't need to do that because I already have it here, I'll read it off. So the hardest schedule this year, the average opponent rating is a nine. The easiest is a four. So yeah, in NC State. Yes. Right. So like literally, guys, the hardest schedule is playing a twice as tough team on average on a weekly basis in conference compared to the easiest. So if you were to take and run this out right, like the hardest schedules odds, if you gave them like a, like let's just say the team with the hardest schedule and the team with the easiest schedule both were the same exact quality of team. Right. Let's call it like a 20 on the SP Plus. That's what I use. That's like a pretty good. Miami was way better than 20 last year. But on average like a really good ACC team would be like a 20. The odds of, of the team with the hardest schedule finishing 7 and 1 or better, 39. The odds of the team with the easiest schedule, same quality of team as the team is the hardest. Right. So like if the same team just played the hardest or the easiest schedule, the odds of them finishing seven or two or better, which would be treated as the same here. Right? Because it's same in the win columns. 7 and 1 is treated the same as 7 and 2 for these tiebreaker purposes. 87.6%. So like more than double your odds. Like they're, they're not. I get like you want to, to respect the win loss column and I think in some ways you have to give some sort of nod to it. But when you have such separation in terms of like the quality of schedule, like you have teams that only play like two common opponents across their entire thing. Right. So you're playing like completely different schedules. You're saying let's go to the win loss column. That doesn't make sense to me. I think they need to consider like quality of play and quality of opponent much earlier in this process. And when you factor in the success initiative stuff, right, how they try to get the highest TV rating teams to all play each other, you're going to get some wonky results where NC State plays six of the worst eight teams in the league or maybe more actually. But it was something like that. It's like a, you know, if NC State is not terrible, they're going to be in the conversation come late November just because of the schedule alone. I don't Know like, like I saw this, I'm like man, this is really overfit to last year's scenario and is not really consider the problems that have not totally sprung up yet that will spring up when you have this many different teams and like this quality, like this, this gap in quality of opponents in the league.

Danny Cannell

But they did 10000 simulations. Bud said they checked off.

Gary Lineker

See I think

Bud Elliott

for in the sims though.

Chip Patterson

But I'm saying what you're complaining about exists no matter what's happening. You're just talking about the acc. You're not fixing the tiebreaker process unless you want to say wins and losses don't matter. If you want to say wins and losses don't matter because the ACC is so spread out, that's fine. Let's go to sure a writer's poll. Let's go to like a media poll and then be able to pick the if you are going to say that wins and losses matter within the context of conference competition then this is a tiebreaker that I do think addresses some of the problems where it was taken out of the hands of a team that was competing for the ACC championship where I had to root for a team across the country to have a certain result that would help me to be able to get in.

Gary Lineker

This is all about me.

Chip Patterson

Because your Sports Source analytics rating should be strength to schedule baked in. It should be quality of play baked in. A lot of the things you're calling for I think are going to be built into the team ranking team rating process of this we are only getting

Bud Elliott

to the Sports Source analytics piece if the teams finish with the same number of wins or losses. Yeah, we are not considering how they reach that in any way.

Chip Patterson

I don't, I don't think the ACC has enough teams that I care about giving a one game bar. Like I don't, I don't care if you were 5 and 3 and you were 6 and 2, 5 and 3 teams out. I'd rather see the 6 and 2 team. Even if the 5 and 3 team is objectively a higher quality team. I think wins and losses have to matter.

Tom Fernelli

All right.

Bud Elliott

I, I, I don't as much as they seem to be leaning on it

Danny Cannell

here but what would you guys have done? Like is it within the worst case scenario?

Bud Elliott

Because I would pick them via Sports Source rating in conference games only and then if there was like a really like small differential I would go to secondary factors.

Danny Cannell

They just reference the sports horse that they're using is the same that the committee uses. Right.

Chip Patterson

And it's also the one the Mountain west uses. Mountain west has been using this computer poll to be able to pick its conference title champions for like the last two years.

Danny Cannell

So what would have been the worst case of saying we're going to go with the two highest ranked teams in the committee's poll?

Bud Elliott

That's what I'm saying. Right.

Danny Cannell

That would have been way simpler. You get.

Bud Elliott

I think you can make it a more perfect solution in this way. The committee's poll is influenced strongly by the non conference. I think if you want the performance in conference to matter, you just use the sports source for the games that happened in conference.

Tom Fernelli

Right.

Chip Patterson

That's fair. But I do think that the sports source they're using considers non conference because they want to. At the end of the day.

Bud Elliott

Yes.

Chip Patterson

At the end of the day, they want to put two teams on the field in Charlotte. They're going to have a chance to win a game and get them a unit in the College Football Playoff, you know, to not just be one and done the way that Clemson and SMU were. Question.

Bud Elliott

They want to make sure the Duke thing never happens again. Clearly. And look, your champion losing to UConn and all that stuff. And. Yeah.

Chip Patterson

So Duke would have been in the College Football Playoff if we had this year's rules last year.

Danny Cannell

Right.

Chip Patterson

Notre Dame would have been in the College Football Playoff if we had this year's rules last year. Miami, which was the national runner up, would not have made the College Football Playoff if we had this year's rules last year. 2026 college football season. 2027 college football season locked into the 12 team format with the current bracketing rules. Actually, 2027, I think could still be changed if they get it done by December 1st. But this, this is a new set of rules for the playoff here in this season.

Bud Elliott

Yes. If the tiebreaker had not changed, would

Danny Cannell

there have been room? No, because they couldn't have kept Duke and Miami, Right. Could they have kept Miami? Noted.

Gary Lineker

No.

Chip Patterson

Virginia was 7:1.

Danny Cannell

No, we only got one.

Chip Patterson

Yeah, yeah. You're only gonna have one team that's gonna be able to make that. So, yeah, it's.

Gary Lineker

It.

Chip Patterson

It is funny because he announced it. It was vague. There's a PDF that you can find that was posted to the ACC's website which details it. And again, like, I'm. I'm really sorry if this is boring you, but it. Sometimes you just have to go through step one, identify the tied teams, which includes any team or teams which played an alternate number of conference games and have either the same number of conference wins or the same number of conference losses. So 6 and 2 and 7 and 2 could be tied teams. 7 and 2 and 7 and 1 could be tied teams. We have expanded the. We've guys, right? We have expanded the definition of a tie. I mean, what kind of, what kind of like world breaking, mind bending kind of stuff we're doing here?

Bud Elliott

Right. It also gives that, you know, six and two team an assumption win that they would have won that game to get to 7 and 2 when you're comparing them against a team that goes 7 and 2.

Chip Patterson

But to your point about the imbalance. No, this is where I do a little UNO reverse. Because of the imbalance, that extra game could have been Miami or it could have been Stanford. And because that's such a gap, you can't penalize or reward the idea that you don't know what was in mystery box number nine.

Bud Elliott

Yeah, but that's extremely asymmetric in that like the vast majority of the conference is pretty crappy, right?

Chip Patterson

True. That's a lot of middle. There's a lot. Look, the difference, the difference between 6 and 13 is small. That's half the conference, half the conference is a perfectly fine ham sandwich. That does nothing for me other than feed me at the turn.

Bud Elliott

Yeah, but the. But, but six is closer to 17 than it is to one.

Chip Patterson

Oh sure. Well, one's out there on a island.

Bud Elliott

Right. So I'm saying I don't think it's true that like, hey, that could have been Miami or could have been Stanford. Sure. On a random chance basis. But you're much more likely to get a team that is closer to Stanford than it is to a Miami.

Chip Patterson

So Florida State gets an advantage this year by playing eight games.

Bud Elliott

In theory they would if it was randomly selected. They actually have the toughest schedule in the whole conference by a lot because of the like, the success stuff like Forest is not gonna make the AC championship game even if they're the second best team in the league or even the third best.

Chip Patterson

Interesting.

Bud Elliott

Because they play, they play six of the top seven best teams in the conference and then I think eight of the top ten.

Chip Patterson

I like those numbers. I think they sell well. I just don't think the ACC is split up cleanly like that. Like when you were talking about six of the bottom eight for NC State. I agree with you. NC State has the most favorable conference schedule. I just don't think the differences. You like if, if Tom were here right now, he would do his annual rant that when it comes about strength of schedule. People are talking about the difference between 45 and 85 nationally and it's not that big. You know, there's a couple of really, really, really hard and really, really easy.

Danny Cannell

I don't know. The acc, I do think, has a bottom problem. Memory to my. The anchor dragging it down.

Chip Patterson

Oh, yeah.

Danny Cannell

I do think the acc, it might be a little bit more dramatic, the drop off of those schedules, so easier ones. When you're playing the bottom tier, it is incredibly helpful.

Bud Elliott

What odds would you give me that Miami, Louisville, SMU or NC State wins the league versus the field? Like, would you take this field if I gave you five to one? No, ten to one.

Chip Patterson

I. I can't. I can't do that much. Yeah, I would take 10 to 1. Sure.

Tom Fernelli

Right now.

Chip Patterson

Let's go, Mason. Mason Heinzel up. Let's go. All right.

Bud Elliott

Yeah, yeah.

Chip Patterson

If I'm gonna take 10, I'll.

Bud Elliott

I'll take those four and you. You can have 10 to one.

Chip Patterson

Yeah, sure. It's the ACC. As soon as everyone walked out, everyone looked at each other like, what was that? And how is this going to go wrong? You know? Yeah, like, it, it. Our.

AllTrails Advertiser

Our.

Chip Patterson

Our friend, an enemy that we love, Ralph Russo said he was like, this is going to get carried out to like the ninth decimal point on a Sports Source analytics rating and somehow Miami's going to get screwed still.

Bud Elliott

We also don't know how Sports source analytics ratings are comp piled. Right. That's not open source. Like, Conley's pretty clear out there with what inputs go into his, you know.

Chip Patterson

Sure.

Bud Elliott

Like Sports source and FBI are not.

Chip Patterson

So Sports source has thrown Boise State in because I think Boise State has consistently for the last, what, six, seven years rated as the best team in that league. Like, all they have to do is get to whatever they need and they know that they're going to be able to flip the turn on that. Any. Anything else. I know this was confusing, but it is. I. I don't know. Is it interesting, confusing, engaging? I guess we've been asking for it for a while.

Bud Elliott

I think it makes the ACC less interesting. Oh, like it, like, to me it's.

Danny Cannell

It's very.

Chip Patterson

Make it less serious.

Bud Elliott

It's a four team.

Chip Patterson

It might be more interesting. Less serious,

Bud Elliott

I think. Well, I think it makes the conference rates a lot less. A lot less interesting. Okay. Like, I would have given you more than 10 to 1 on those four if you, if you like, I would have gone up. Like, I, I think it's those four. Big gap as Far as the ability to make it Charlotte now.

Danny Cannell

Yeah.

Chip Patterson

Interesting. So even you're saying today things are different than they were yesterday.

Bud Elliott

Yeah. Now we get clarity how they're going to do this and like we had a lot more potential wild outcomes as far as like who could make it. If you accounted for the quality of opponent since they're not. It's like cool. All right. Like, you know, unless you get massive injuries to those four teams, it's. Yeah, but if you're a fan of one of those four teams, I would book Charlotte right now. You can always cancel.

Chip Patterson

Danny, you mentioned before we came on, did you get a chance to talk to Ashley Daniels?

Danny Cannell

No, I was watching him on ACC Network. Watching his interview. Yeah. Seeing him come through.

Chip Patterson

You impressed?

Danny Cannell

Yeah. I mean he's a very likable young man, easy to root for.

Bud Elliott

He's a bright guy.

Danny Cannell

I did think, I thought he said I was. I had almost went back and rewound it because he was with Deuce Robinson on the stage and he said, you know, I threw to Elic Elementor at Stanford. I threw to Cam Coleman and he said Deuces. I thought he said better than both of them. Which the Cam Coleman one would be the one. He was more productive than Cam Coleman.

Chip Patterson

So I think Deuce Robinson's one of the best wide receivers in the country.

Danny Cannell

Me too.

Chip Patterson

Like, if you have to make a list of 10, he needs to be on there.

Danny Cannell

But he's been, he's been on the list, but he's been six or seven. You know, he's been a little bit lower and maybe that's baked in with the quarterback that throwing to him and

Bud Elliott

they're going to force feeding the ball like crazy. Yeah, he is. The passing game, they don't have a tight end who's anything good. Like, you know, Danzy obviously is like a gadget guy who's a really. It's a really good gadget. But like Deuce Robinson is like 100 target guy. He's going to eat probably more. Right.

Chip Patterson

It's a.

Tom Fernelli

He, he.

Chip Patterson

He can do the whole tree and he can do the whole playbook. You know, it's not just like the green highlighter pages that we're just pulling out for the, the quick first down beef beefy start here. Anything else acc then we can put it away and we can get going with the fun stuff. I.

Bud Elliott

Not really yet.

Chip Patterson

I mean it's just getting started. Like I'm not anticipating there being a lot to chew on necessarily right away. Again, you're going to Get Miami, Florida State, North Carolina State, and I think Virginia. Maybe one more here today. Jeff Brahm, Debo Sweeney, couple others. James Franklin will be coming through tomorrow, so that'll be interesting. And then on Friday, North Carolina, Duke, Wake Forest and somebody else. We'll figure it. We'll be sure to be giving you all the latest as we get it. Also, be on CBS Sports HQ and CBS Sports Network through the day, so be sure to keep tabs on that. Coming up on the other side, we've got a pretty awesome exercise that if you haven't been twisting your brain enough today, talking about tiebreakers, we are going to be using win total projections against each other in win totals, matchups. We're excited about it. I think you'll have some fun as well. Check it out and more. Next,

Bud Elliott

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Chip Patterson

No purchase necessary.

Gary Lineker

Prohibited by law.

Chip Patterson

21 plus terms and conditions apply. Back here on the COVID 3 podcast for record keeping purposes. But we're doing chip units on this way on this friendly wager.

Bud Elliott

Okay, agreed.

Chip Patterson

Not bud units. We're doing chip units on this wager. Not much.

Bud Elliott

All right, how about this?

AllTrails Advertiser

If.

Bud Elliott

If the AC Champion is not one of those four.

Chip Patterson

One of the top four. Yeah, give it to me. Hey, give me the list one more time.

Bud Elliott

SMU and NT State. Yeah, I buy the whole dinner. If it's one of those four, you got to buy apps and we'll. We'll split the rest of the check.

Chip Patterson

I gotta buy a.

Bud Elliott

What? You gotta buy the apps. No, no.

Chip Patterson

Okay, yeah,

Bud Elliott

probably like a tenth of

Chip Patterson

the bill does that. If that math works out, I'll take it right now.

Danny Cannell

And although SDK probably has one of those, like chill, you know, crab meat. Like something that, you know. The tower. The seafood tower.

Bud Elliott

Yeah. Yeah. See, I didn't have a clue. I didn't consider all the possible factors of this dinner bet. Right. Just like the ACC with their tiebreaker approach. This is.

Chip Patterson

Yeah. Also you know what else you didn't consider? There's a. There's a head coach who's got seven ACC championships that you didn't mention.

Danny Cannell

Exactly.

Chip Patterson

See my boy covered in Orange all season long.

Danny Cannell

Yeah.

Chip Patterson

Cliffs and Tigers, let's go. All right, let's. Bud, you, you pitched this. I'll. If you don't mind, I'll let you at the table. I know we've got some graphics. I, I think that this is really cool. And Striker did a great job of lining it up for those who are listening at home. What, what's the best way to, to explain the win total matchup?

Bud Elliott

Yeah, so they basically just took win total bets. Like how many teams, like how many games is your team going to win in the regular season? Like so regular season win total bets. And then draftkings made matchups with them. Like basically put a spread on them. So, you know, like LSU minus a half win against Ole Miss, you know, and like they seem to actually do some pretty cool. Like these are all, like there's. You could kind of tell the reason why they did all of these.

Chip Patterson

Oh, it's narrative. Very narrative.

Bud Elliott

100. It's great. I was like, this is, this is podcast gold. Especially in mid July.

Chip Patterson

Do we want to start the draft?

Bud Elliott

So there's. Are there 15 or 16?

Chip Patterson

It's an even number.

Bud Elliott

Might be 14 of selections. Okay, 15. I think there's 16. Okay, so. So four won't get picked. We're going to do four rounds of, of picks.

Chip Patterson

Okay. Right. This is picked by Striker for the draft order. Round one will go Chip, Bud and Danny. I will be taking the first bite here and that's where I will be taking. Virginia Tech/2 and a half head to head against Penn State. So the battle there and the narrative is of course James Franklin against his old university. And I want this in my portfolio because it is so much fun that, you know, Penn State fans will be tuned in to Virginia Tech success against their own. Now we can as well now at plus two and a half, minus 115. The other option was Penn State minus two and a half. That means a seven and five Virginia Tech season and a nine and three Penn State season is a winner for me. So I'm going to use that as my first pick because that, those are two, those are two records that I think are easy to get. And that's a way. I don't really need a lot of things I'm not imagining to be able to get Virginia Tech to 7 and 5 and Penn State to. I mean 9 and 3 might be my ceiling for a Penn State projection.

Bud Elliott

That was on my board as well. Especially because after our segment the other day we talked about like how Penn State has a Gift schedule and they really need to cash it in, especially because they're not doing super well in recruiting right now. Like, they're not. It's not a disaster yet, but, like, they do need to pick it up if they want to start competing again for the top of the Big Ten, especially if they had like a, you know, if they had Oregon schedule or Ohio State trouble if they keep recruiting the way they are. The other thing is Matt Campbell is not a reliable favorite. Like, he's not. Granted, maybe sometimes, like, the only time Iowa State actually got inflated to like, a major favorite was when they were, you know, like, finally, like, overrated after being underrated, you know, for such a long time. But he's not a guy that, like, is super reliable in terms of like, the winning games he should win category. He is pretty good at pulling upsets of which they will not have many opportunities to do.

Chip Patterson

Yeah, it's like Matt Campbell as a dog was. Was sort of the principal there. And then now you're. Now you're concerned that we're going to have a Jason Candle situation. Another Toledo brethren right there, you know, former Toledo coach. Now we're going to be asking him to win games against opponents that have lesser resources. All right, bud, you're up.

Bud Elliott

All right, shoot. I got like four I really like. So how do I sneak? Which one do I go with? Which one's Danny gonna pick here on the snake round? All right, give me, Give me Miami plus a half win against Indiana.

Chip Patterson

Hey, I love the, the narrative there. Obviously the, the. The rematch of sorts from last year's national championship game. What do you like about the pick?

Bud Elliott

I think Miami's really good again and the schedule is just extremely manageable there. There's just so few opportunities for them to, like, play games where they should have any real chance of losing. I think they're just going physically dominant. I mean, receiver looks incredible. I think they have a massive upgrade at quarterback this year. Like, it would not shock me if Miami goes 130 and gets the number one seed in the playoff. Also, Indiana schedule this year is much harder and I really trust Signetti. I think they did a great job in the portal. I don't know that Hoover is like that much closer to Mendoza than he is to work, you know, so they, they could have a legitimate quarterback drop off there. And I just think that with the harder schedule in the quarterback regression potentially. I like Miami here with the half wing cushion.

Chip Patterson

Fun ones, little ACC love on ACC media days kickoff. All right, Danny,

Danny Cannell

I'll go. Give Me Texas Tech -1 1/2 more wins than Texas.

Chip Patterson

I love Texas.

Danny Cannell

I love Texas. I mean, out of all these teams, Texas Tech, of all these teams on this whole thing, might have the easiest schedule of any one of them. Right? I mean that. Yeah, like there's not. I don't even know if there's a close second. I know there's questions around Soursby, but within the Big 12, they're the heavy favorite. I think they should be able to run the ball against most teams. I think they'll be fine at qb. The question marks for me with Texas Tech will come in the postseason and Texas, as much as I like them, I mean, and I think they probably have a really strong case at 9 and 3 to probably to possibly make the College Football Playoff. But even at 10 and 2, I still think I could win this bet with Texas Tech undefeated. Yeah. So I'll take Texas Tech. All right. My second one, I'll go around the board. Give me. This one's probably a little riskier. I'll go Ohio State. Ohio State half game better than Georgia's final record. Similar line of thinking. I mean, we saw Ohio State cruise last year through the regular season. They do have the road game against Texas. Could be tough, could be a loss. I in Georgia has been really, really good. Their schedule, their non conference is the not as tough without that, you know, early season matchup that they usually have. But I just think Ohio State's gonna be playing with that chip on their shoulder. I trust the offensive weapons, I trust Matt Patricia to replenish what they had last year on the defensive side of the ball. I don't think they'll be quite as good, maybe offensive lead this year early in the season while the defense plays catch up. But I think the Buckeyes will have a better record than Georgia.

Chip Patterson

Man, are you, are you, you saying man, about Danny just taking the minus 140 and the minus 165. You know,

Bud Elliott

look at that range. The half win matters a whole heck of a lot. Right. I mean it. Those teams that are lined, you know, nine and a half, 10, 10 and a half, 11 and a half that they're going to be in the College

Chip Patterson

Football playoff with like 10 and 2 or 11 and 1 records.

Bud Elliott

They land in that range. So I'm not going to like, like complain about Danny being a chalk donkey here, although maybe, maybe we should.

Chip Patterson

You know, I just like it as a, as a personality trait more than I'm mad about it for the competition.

Bud Elliott

My questions about Georgia are more like, you know, going all the way. Because I think there are so many quarterbacks out this, out there this year who have that, like, real top end of the draft potential. And I think the team that wins it all is going to have one of those guys, you know, like, like Mendoza did last year. And I don't think Stockton is that guy, you know, like, I don't think Stockton's gonna be drafted to be a starter, you know, top 50 type pick. But in the SEC, like, if it's not LSU as the easiest in conference schedule among the contenders, I think it's Georgia. And like, they're really, they're really reliable in conference. Man, they don't play Texas, Ohio State. Schedule's brutal.

Chip Patterson

But they're also back to back SEC champs. That's the disconnect in this era is that back to back one and done showings in the playoff have made us feel like they can't win a national championship again. But that ain't what this competition is.

Bud Elliott

But look, I get why you took it. I mean, if they both go 10 and 2, they're both in the conference championship game, most likely. And Danny wins. He's getting a half win.

Tom Fernelli

That.

Bud Elliott

That's it was on my board.

Chip Patterson

Yep.

Bud Elliott

All right.

Chip Patterson

You know, so always, always try to make this entertaining for myself. So we're with my second round pick. You. I'm gonna go with another one. Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's you. It's. Yeah.

Bud Elliott

You want to tell me your pick? I can do the Vikings thing.

Chip Patterson

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Go ahead.

Bud Elliott

All right, we're going prime time. Give me Colorado plus a half win against North Carolina.

Chip Patterson

Glad you took it.

Bud Elliott

I don't think Colorado has much of a ceiling this year, but they took a lot of guys who were really good at the FCS level. And I think the floor is meaningfully raised there. Like, not a lot of guys with high potential. It's the total reverse of what they had been doing, you know,

Danny Cannell

So I

Bud Elliott

like, I like Colorado there. I think they can get to like 5 and 7 or 4, 4 and 8. And I think UNC is more in that like 2 to 5 range. And so I win on any of those outcomes, basically.

Chip Patterson

Hey, God, come on, Doc, don't go too intense.

Bud Elliott

I mean, UNC went like high school heavy. Like, if you just compare the off season approaches to these two teams, North Carolina is like doing like the 10 year plan now, taking 40 high schoolers and Colorado. Dion's like, yeah, we got to bounce back.

Chip Patterson

They're big, though. They Got a lot of bodies.

Danny Cannell

You know, Brendan Marion said their offensive line is better than they had at Texas in 2022 when he was there.

Bud Elliott

We're getting some offensive line claims today. Guys on Twitter catch some heat because I don't agree that Notre Dame's second string offensive line is, quote, probably still the best unit in the country.

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Chip Patterson

it's that time of year, baby. We love to see it.

Bud Elliott

For seven sports with a premium subscription, you can visit all the other sites and I would encourage maybe some of y' all to visit some other sites to see if they have any good players in their team. But you do you like Jesus?

Chip Patterson

Hey, Striker, let's see if we can give away. Let's start doing contests and see if we can give away 247 sports subscriptions with the like. Go visit other sites. You should see what they're saying about their team. They think they're multiple, best shape at their life, Aggressive, ready to go. You know, everyone's coming back, getting fall camp started. Good. That's good.

Bud Elliott

The other thing here is Carolina has the second toughest in conference schedule of anybody.

Danny Cannell

Yeah.

Bud Elliott

In the league, which is tough.

Chip Patterson

And do you know what it is? I don't know if you've got it pulled up, but it is the Bud Elliott special of I wish I was playing Louisville at Louisville and not in Chapel Hill. I wish I was playing Notre Dame at Notre Dame and not in Chapel Hill. And a lot of these games that are, even the more manageable conference games are going to be road games where they're going to have to go be road warriors. It's going to be a. It's going to be, you know, Mr. And Mrs. Patterson sitting over there with their season tickets. It's going to be a tough, tough home schedule for, for the Tar Heels. All right, so we need to get to.

Bud Elliott

All right.

Chip Patterson

We need to get to our next. We need to finish out round two. All right. Glad you didn't take it. Glad you did take that, Colorado. But it leaves for me the opportunity for a little plus money at a team that I do think is going to finish one win better. Give me LSU minus a half a win plus 100 against Ole Miss. Very much in the same spirit of Penn State, Virginia Tech. I feel like this is one that's going to be monitored heavily by both fan bases and then swing on a game between these. Unlike Penn State, Virginia Tech will swing on a game between these two rivals in the SEC. I really, really, really like LSU's pass catching target like bodies that they've pulled together. Think Jackson Harris is going to have a good season. Think Jace Brown's going to have a good season. I think that they're just set up to to light it up and I think Ole Miss will be very good. But in a head to head I think LSU is going to win that game against Ole Miss and I do think that LSU will finish one win better than Ole Miss and I like it especially at plus one plus money. So give me the Tigers over the Rebels as my second round pick. You push back there?

Bud Elliott

No, not really. If you don't win this LSU fans are going to just like Twitter is going to be worth the price of premium for that alone.

Chip Patterson

If LSU was plus a half win and they didn't win then it's meltdown city. I think it's bad if they've got the same record. If they've got a worse record, it's really bad. Yeah, yeah.

Bud Elliott

But like 9 and 3 LSU is missing the playoffs.

Chip Patterson

9 and 3 LSU against LSU schedule is probably missing the playoffs. Yeah, interesting. I think we'll see. I mean the thing about a 12 team playoff, but you got to find 12 teams to put in the playoffs. Never know what the records are going to be. All right, coming up on the other side, we continue with our win total matchup, draft and more next

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Chip Patterson

conditions, we are getting the third round rolling. That means that I am on the clock. And I will say there's some wild numbers for those listening at home to consider having to sweat. Nebraska, plus four and a half wins against Oregon just doesn't sound like a great experience for me, but I'm going to go with something that's a little bit cozier. Margins a little tighter, easier to track. Give me The Tennessee Vols minus a half a win, minus 115 against the Florida Gators. Florida has a very good schedule. This is a bet. This is a bet on Faison, Brandon, who I've said I think is going to end up winning that job, and I think it's going to end up having a good season. If that's the case, there are a lot of pieces there for Tennessee to have a nice little bounce back. I was actually watching. I was actually watching the replay of Tennessee, Oklahoma, you know, recently, you know, sort of trying to remember what was a not a lost season for the Vols, but certainly with all the other chaos in the sec, we didn't necessarily have them on that. Alabama, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Georgia, like, we just didn't have them up in that level. The quality of the team, though, is still competitive. I think from Joey Aguilar to Faison, Brandon, we could see a little bit of a tick up. Some concerns, obviously, defensively, but I'll take. I'll take the balls to be able to get it done and be a half win better than the Gators.

Bud Elliott

We're not allowed to fight according to Strikers rules because he would have to redo the spreadsheet, so.

Danny Cannell

Oh, I was gonna. I was gonna ask that question.

Bud Elliott

I thought about it and then it

Chip Patterson

would be green on both of them and like, with a chip. Seven, bud. Eight.

Bud Elliott

I think also, like, for purposes of discussion, we should pick other ones, I guess.

Chip Patterson

Okay. But you. But spiritually, you're on the other side of this one.

Bud Elliott

Yeah. With the half win in my pocket.

Chip Patterson

Yeah.

Bud Elliott

Yeah, I. I think so. I think, yeah, like, 8 and 4 are very possible for both and you'd have very different reactions from both. Fan base at 8 and 4.

Chip Patterson

Yeah. Tennessee 8 and 4 is not as, like, you know, the Tennessee 8 and 4 is asking questions about Josh Hypo, John Summerall. 8 and 4 is like, all right, building blocks. Let's go. Do you read it the same way I do?

Bud Elliott

Yeah.

Chip Patterson

Yeah.

Bud Elliott

All right, so let me see here.

Danny Cannell

I'm going to take.

Bud Elliott

There's two more I really like. I have two picks left. Yeah.

Chip Patterson

Yes. This is round three.

Bud Elliott

So which one can I sneak through?

Tom Fernelli

Danny?

Bud Elliott

Get two. Give me Michigan plus one and a half against Utah. That is just so much new for Utah. All nine starters along the line of scrimmage have to be replaced. You lose Barton at linebacker, like that's a lot, a lot, a lot of stuff to lose a one off season and you lose a really good head coach. And I, I know they clearly think highly of Morgan there because why would you have pushed out Whittingham if you didn't? But if I get one and a half with Michigan, like you got to go 9 and 3 to beat me. If I go 7 and 5 as the Wolverines, like if I can get to 8 in a Michigan, you got to go 10 and 2. I, I don't know man. That, that's a lot of trust put putting that Utah team so. Which I usually love. And I'm not that down on them. I just think like the variance here could be on my side. So give me Michigan plus one and a half. I like that.

Danny Cannell

I, I actually had for my pick, Utah was gonna come up.

Bud Elliott

Oh well, this is a good discussion.

Danny Cannell

That's okay. Since we can't fight it. It's all good. We'll just tuck it away back in the memory banks. Very worried about Bryce Underwood. We'll see if he comes through. A lot of new pieces at Michigan as well, including a whole new staff. You want me to take some plus money Chip, you started. I was gonna fight you on one. You just kind of mumbled out of your math, your mouth, but you didn't end up going with it. I know why you're hesitating. Because you don't want to sweat out Nebraska. It's because Oregon is going to go 11 and one. Worst case, that's all they do is rattle off 11 and one seasons. And I think Nebraska is bound for another six and six season. Give me Oregon plus 125, which is five wins better. It is almost a lock just to put up. I know their schedule's tougher, but they're almost a lock to go 11 and one every year.

Chip Patterson

I, I agree with you. I'm not, I'm not pushing back on it. Confidence in Oregon hitting its number. It just seems like it's going to be hard to track, projecting out the tighter lines. I can just keep an eye on the records and be able to get it. But man, Nebraska gets three or four wins, you're going to start getting sweaty. What about the Nebraska side? Is it an outright fade or is it more Confidence in the Ducks.

Danny Cannell

I think it's both. It's an outright fade of Nebraska. I just. I think Matt Rule timed up everything perfectly with the Penn State news. Got the extension, then things kind of fell apart. We'll see if the whoopsie days of King can play pretty well at qb, but I just, I. I gotta see it. Not a huge believer in Nebraska.

Bud Elliott

They also probably have the largest increase if you normalize for the SEC going 8 to 9. Right? They probably have the largest increase in conference schedule difficulty year over year of any team in the country. Like, they had a cakewalk last year. They needed to cash in and didn't. And now they, like, now the other half of that bill comes due. It's like the reverse Wisconsin.

Chip Patterson

It'd be like that. These big conferences, you know. All right, Danny, you get us going with round four.

Danny Cannell

All right, I'll go. You know, this isn't. This isn't chalk, but I definitely don't get plus money. Give me Alabama. And this pains me because, Chip, I want to see your bet win. I would love to see Clemson fighting for an ACC championship game, but I do think Alabama, I think they're probably nine and three. You know, I think they're just a program that has one of the best defenses in the sec. If Keelan Russell is as special as people think, I think you could see this offense really open up, take another gear. And Clemson, I just, I wonder. And I've defended Dabo, but I kind of got to see it first before I believe that he's gonna just rattle off another nine win season, you know, be right there where he is. So only half a game. I was actually surprised it was only half a game. I thought maybe one and a half, but I'll take Alabama.

Bud Elliott

Thought about that, too. Like it. I'm very interested to see Dabo's comments.

Chip Patterson

Today I don't think we get. I don't. Or tomorrow we get. Yeah, I think we get Dabo tomorrow.

Bud Elliott

Like, does he come out with bravado? Does he lean on like. Like the past track record stuff? Always.

Danny Cannell

You got to refer to the resume.

Bud Elliott

Yeah.

Chip Patterson

Because you got to remember too. No, we don't have time for inside ACC baseball. But there's another media day. Remember, Clemson does its own media day for the Clemson crew. And so there's like, there's two Dabos. There's the Dabo you get at Clemson media day, and then there's the dabo you get at ACC media day.

Bud Elliott

All right, so there's. There's two left that I kind of like I was gonna take USC and get the two and a half against the Irish at plus,

Danny Cannell

Because if they

Bud Elliott

can go nine and three and the Irish go 11 and one, I win that. I scoop it. Scoop a dollar 25, but I'm gonna go Kansas State plus a half win against A M. I'm a little surprised, like, the chat called this out early, that they were. That they thought I would take it. They were right. I was just trying not to mention it. I do think that Colin Klein can unlock something in Avery Johnson for sure. And A M. Last year, there's a reason they didn't make the Big Ten or the SEC title game. Right. And. And that was because of the schedule strength. Tiebreaker. Correct. This year, the schedule for them is a little bit more challenging. And they. I think they're still a really good team, but, like, if they both go 9 and 3, I win this bet. If they both go wait in four, I win this bet. I think those are like, very reasonable ranges for those teams. So I like having the half win at pocket without having to pay. Some kind of crazy juice there. And I think Colin Klein's like, really has it rolling.

Chip Patterson

I love that they called you on that and said it was going to come and then you were able to deliver. I also love that you were able to leave just a cozy jacket, you know, something that's so worn and broken in it, like, has my shoulders fit. Let's go, usc. Come on down, Trojans. I'm ready to be hurt again. Let's go, USC plus two and a half against the Fighting Irish. And the way that I thought about this is that I basically need Miami to beat Notre Dame and USC to go nine and three. You know, you don't even like that. That's it. That's all we would need there. And I think that if you're buying Jaden Maeva, if you're buying Gary Patterson, being able to continue a little bit of a step forward for that team. Defensively, they are young. They're going to have some of those true freshmen playing in, like, important roles on offense and defense. But, you know, they're super talented. If they can put it all together, then. Then, yeah, I will go. I will go with the USC plus two and a half against Notre Dame. Okay, we got it.

Bud Elliott

We're all.

Chip Patterson

We're all, all locked in there. Are we ready? It's kind of fun. Are we ready to do a quick review?

Danny Cannell

Yeah, there's one. I was surprised that didn't get taken.

Chip Patterson

Oklahoma State was it Kansas, Missouri that

Danny Cannell

I would have taken Missouri. As much as I like Lance Leipold, I do worry about them and I feel pretty good about Mizzou, Austin Simmons era, Ahmad Hardy. Like to know more about his health if he's going to be 100%. Another schedule's tougher than Kansas but back to back five and seven seasons now they have to replace Jalen Daniels who has really helped help them in a lot of positions a little bit worried about Kansas.

Chip Patterson

Any strong positions? We got a wrap soon but any strong positions on the three that did not get picked. Iowa against Oklahoma State 1 1/2 favor to the Hawkeyes. You mentioned Kansas, Missouri and then Arkansas, Auburn. I just

Danny Cannell

I almost took Auburn.

Bud Elliott

I almost took Arkansas.

Chip Patterson

I don't have my arms around Arkansas in a way that I could feel confident one way or another. I mean is it do you see it as variance? Like it could be 2 and 10, could be 6 and 6.

Bud Elliott

I don't know if I see 6 and 6 for them but like I I could see Auburn in that sort of like you know, four to eight win range and I could see Arkansas in that like two to five win range. So I think there's enough overlap to where two and a half place.

Chip Patterson

Got it. Let's real quick in the order that they were picked. I Chip has Virginia Tech plus two and a half over Pen State. Bud has Miami plus a half a game against Indiana. Danny has both Texas Tech minus one and a half against Texas and Ohio State plus a half against Georgia. Bud has Colorado plus a half against North Carolina. I've got LSU minus a half against Ole Miss. I also have Tennessee minus a half against Florida. Bud coming through with Michigan plus one and a half games wins against Utah. Danny coming through with the double header. Oregon minus four and a half games and and then Alabama minus a half a game against Clemson. Oregon against Nebraska for those keeping track and then Bud with Kansas State plus a half against Marcel Reed and the Texas A and M Aggies and then I've got USC two and a half wins against Notre Dame. Very, very fun stuff. Glad you brought that up but glad we were able to use that as yet another way to continue to talk about these teams. A lot of questions in the tailgate. Win totals will be starting August 3rd so we are closer than ever, are closer than ever to being together at Big Ten media days. But tomorrow Thursday 11am Eastern time will be a little bit more acc. Whatever we hear, whatever we see as well as your questions from the big old bag of mail come and jump in. Join us early and you can follow him on Twitter at Danny Canel. You can follow him at Bud Elliot. 3. You can follow me at Chip Patterson. Gentlemen, thank you very much.

Danny Cannell

See you.

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