Phantom Island

Jen Ramos Eisen joins Ryan Nanni to discuss the A's first year in Sacramento, from the logistical challenges that come with playing in a minor league park to how locals feel about having a temporary major league team in town, and take the temperature of the planned move to Las Vegas. Does the city want them there? Will the stadium even get built? And what's The Fontainebleau? Steven Godfrey and Ry...

Three games into the 2025 season, UCLA and Virginia Tech have moved on from their head coaches. Steven Godfrey and Ryan Nanni sit down to discuss why these moves happened so quickly, what advantage being first in the market gives you, and what the process to find the next coach may look like at each school. This is a preview of the full episode, which is available to paid subscribers – go to phant...

Parker Fleming joins Ryan Nanni to discuss the 247 Team Talent Composite (the recruiting site's formula for determining the overall amount of talent on a college football roster in a given year), the NFL's franchise tag valuation system, and how to combine the two to get a sharper picture of which college football teams might be best at acquiring players at the most important positions. (Or at lea...

Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and the rest of the Ivy League schools have tons of football history and deep donor pockets to draw from. So why does the world of player compensation not necessarily present an opportunity for these football teams to reclaim their ancient thrones? Rodger Sherman, author of Read Rodge , joins Ryan Nanni to talk about the customs and choices that keep the Ivy League from f...

The Pete Carroll Seahawks gave their fans and the football world a seemingly endless supply of spectacle. More than a decade since their Super Bowl triumph over the Broncos and subsequent Super Bowl agony on the goal line against the Patriots, how do Seattle fans feel about the past, present, and future of their team? We talked to Mina Kimes, Jacson Bevens, and Natalie Weiner about the highs, lows...

The 2020 (and, in some cases, 2021) postseasons of several American sports were changed drastically by Covid, from playoffs contained to bubbles to drastically shortened seasons and changes to postseason formats. But the way fans and media members think about and discuss the champions of these unusual seasons varies somewhat widely, which is why Ryan Nanni and Steven Godfrey sit down on this episo...

Steven Godfrey answers questions from paid subscribers to Phantom Island about issues ranging from how coaches feel about Friday night college football, status checks on Lane Kiffin, Mario Cristobal, and Brian Kelly, personnel changes at Pearl Jam, Family Dog Update, and plenty more. This is a preview of the full episode, which is available to paid subscribers – go to phantomisland.show to sign up...

Steven Godfrey and Ryan Nanni review the Phantom Island preseason survey of college football fans to see which coaches have strong support and which don't, discuss the growing gap between schools that value playoff wins and those that still value conference titles, look at which programs teams are most excited of beating or fearful of losing to, and plenty more. Phantom Island is presented by Home...

It's easy to make a hot seat list based on which coaches in college football have underperformed relative to expectations, but The Eyes List is where Steven Godfrey cuts through the speculation to tell you (and co-host Ryan Nanni) where various schools, coaches, and boosters really stand entering 2025. Which SEC coach is on the thinnest ice? Would candidates be more tempted by Stanford or Cal? Is...

The short answer: no, Ryan Nanni does not, despite goading from cohost Steven Godfrey, believe the 2001 Gators were derailed by Osama Bin Laden. But this episode is a look back at how the sports world reacted after the 9/11 attacks, the strange chain of events that led to Florida - and then Tennessee - blowing a chance to play for a national championship, the team Steve Spurrier said he wanted to...

Ryan Nanni brings on Shehan Jeyarajah of CBS Sports to discuss the story he wrote earlier this summer about T exas Tech's brazen plan to spend heavily on the last open market transfer class . Where should improvement be most obvious for the Red Raiders? How will a somewhat weak schedule help or hurt their ambitions? And what's the plan to turn this into lasting momentum instead of one outlier year...

This episode of Phantom Island is a little different. Rather than look at a question about the sports world, Steven Godfrey brings a subject that's much more personal to co-host Ryan Nanni. See, Steven's selected a La Liga team to pull for, and he's worried that his experiences as a Braves and Falcons fan are pulling him towards absurdity. What kind of absurdity? The kind with kidnapping and incre...

Enjoy this special bonus episode for paid Phantom Island subscribers, in which Steven Godfrey interviews Parker Fleming fresh off the conclusion of the 2025 Personnel and Recruiting Symposium. This is a preview of the full episode, which is available to paid subscribers – go to phantomisland.show to sign up today. Phantom Island is presented by Homefield and produced by Michael Surber.

Welcome to a special edition of Phantom Island, presented by our sponsor Homefield and highlighting five spots on this year's Can't Miss Kickoff Tour. We do that in the most sensible way possible: a game of Two Truths and a Lie, where Ryan Nanni runs Steven Godfrey through a gauntlet of questions about Georgia vs. the Mannings, Hugh Freeze vs. history, Indianapolis vs. the rest of the United State...

Steven Godfrey takes listener questions on football, life, and his latest sports media venture. He argues in favor of the 3-3-5, considers the future of Washington State, explains where to find coaches who don't want to jump all over the country, offers some advice on attending games solo, and provides his thoughts on the latest iteration of a Superman movie. This is a preview of the full episode,...

Here's how the narrative used to work in college football: when a coach struggling to win found himself working for a new athletic director, his chances of getting fired went up significantly. The AD, the all-powerful head of a college's sports programs, simply wouldn't owe any loyalty to an underachiever they hadn't hired. So Ryan Nanni looked at the last four years of coach firings, compared the...

ESPN's Bill Connelly joins Steven Godfrey to review the underappreciated qualities of Louisville and SMU, assess Boise State and Arizona State trying to maintain momentum, name the thing Bill's looking for Clemson to do against LSU, play a terrifying game of Two Coaches Control A James Bond Villain Death Trap, and lots more. Be sure to order Bill's forthcoming book ! This is a preview of the full...

Steven Godfrey is joined by Hector Diaz to reflect on the enormity of Hulk Hogan's initial cultural impact, the decay of his image over time, the truths and falsehoods of his wrestling character and his real life, and what value nostalgia has against a litany of harmful and toxic choices. (There are plenty of wrestling stories as well.) Phantom Island is presented by Homefield and produced by Mich...

ESPN's Bill Connelly joins Steven Godfrey to talk about his forthcoming book , preview the fortunes of Virginia Tech, Cal, NC State, discuss the value of returning production versus transfers with experience, explain the ongoing challenges with previewing teams, and more. This is a preview of the full episode, which is available to paid subscribers – go to phantomisland.show to sign up today. Phan...

Hugh Freeze has spent this summer 1) losing a decent number of Auburn recruits to other schools and 2) playing a lot of publicly-recorded golf. These two facts have combined to create some stress for Freeze, which Steven Godfrey and Ryan Nanni use to unpack the myth of the grindbro head coach, the future of our expectations from this job, and why Tulsa's embracing the links skills of their coach....

NC State often finds itself in tricky spots – drawing less national attention than UNC or Duke, succeeding in football just enough to create expectations that then go unfulfilled, and wrestling with a legacy in men's basketball that can feel like it's fading further into the past. We talked to James Curle, Alec Lower, and Joe Ovies to learn more about what makes the Wolfpack fan base tick, whether...

Men's and women's flag football will be part of the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, and the NFL announced earlier this year that they're open to letting pro players participate. Rodger Sherman joins Ryan Nanni to discuss which details haven't been figured out yet, what the international competition looks like, and why a 5'7" quarterback who will be nearly 40 might be America's best hope for g...

On this edition of the Single Wing, Steven Godfrey takes questions from listeners on topics ranging from expectations for Sherrone Moore, if and how you can get a lifer in the Group of Five, advertisements on uniforms, and navigating the future of your child's fandom. Of note: Godfrey's answer to one question about Scott Frost was recorded before Frost decided to go scorched earth on Nebraska, so,...

Steven Godfrey is joined by Hector Diaz on this episode to talk about works, shoots, and the ways in which wrestling fans want to discern what's real, what's "real," and what's neither. You'll also get some good Godfrey stories about his days working in pro wrestling, as the two discuss the ways in which real life informs and shapes the storylines in the ring. Phantom Island is presented by Homefi...

The New York Knicks came two wins away from playing in the 2025 NBA Finals, but they still made the somewhat surprising decision to can the coach who'd helped turn the franchise around, Tom Thibodeau. Host Ryan Nanni brings on Neil Paine, writer for ESPN, NASCAR, and his own Substack , to look at what the numbers say about teams that have bailed on successful coaches in hopes of improving their fo...