Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast

Richard and Alex take you on a lean but detailed journey through Week 1 in college football. Ohio State does business the old way. Anthony Richardson might be the man. Houston/UTSA and Pitt/WVU play regional bangers. Georgia just has better players. Kirk Ferentz makes a decision. Penn State has a QB with a rocket arm, and it's not the starter. Virginia Tech does something it should never do ... ag...

Before getting into a substantial preview of Week 1, Godfrey, Richard, and Alex talk about a few stories away from the field. The episode starts with a discussion of the sexual assault story at San Diego State that broke last week and how we in the college football media cover people we don't really know, and that goes until approximately the 10:05 mark of the show. Then we pick through Auburn's o...

We think this might be the longest episode in SZD history. Conference preview season concludes with college football's Midwestern and "Midwestern" conferences, making an effort to get into detail on every single team in the Big Ten and MAC. Which Big Ten East mega-extension is most likely to look regrettable in four months? What kind of Ohio State season will this be? Is it finally time for a Tole...

Alex and Richard take you on an almost entirely realignment-free journey through the Pac-12 and then the Mountain West. Has Utah changed, or has the Pac-12 changed around it? What's fair to ask of USC in Lincoln Riley's first year, and does fairness even matter? Is Utah State primed for another step back after a big year, or not? Is this the year to make judgments about the current state of Boise...

Defending FCS Upset Draft champion and Shutdown Fullcast host Jason Kirk joins the podcast to pick FCS winners over FBS opponents for 2022. Then the whole group spends a few minutes running through each of the FBS independents, contemplating questions such as, "Why is Notre Dame interesting and perhaps slightly less villainous these days?" and "How long is Jerry Kill going to hang out at New Mexic...

Godfrey, Richard, and Alex preview FBS' two Southeastern conferences, one after the other. Topics include whether either Georgia or Alabama will take a gap year, if the Texas A&M narrative will change one way or the other, whether there's any team that *can't* finish second in the SEC East, who could finish last in the West, the QBs at Kentucky and Florida, the Sun Belt's new additions, what w...

Alex is out of office so Godfrey immediately hijacked the conference season preview format to talk about cigarettes and media parties. Let's explore the ever-changing world of the American and calm down – or warn – a group of ACC hopefuls about their 2022 season and beyond. Production: Anthony Vito See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/p...

Tulane University built one of the most powerful football programs in the American South. The Green Wave had a spot in the SEC and a history of winning a lot of big games, including against their rivals from Baton Rouge. Then something changed. Alex Kirshner and Steven Godfrey tell the story of Tulane's journey from the upper echelons of the sport to a program scrapping for respectability in the G...

Damn, it's great to be talking about actual college football again. Welcome to Split Zone Duo Relaunch Week! We're officially turning toward the 2022 season, and this week's show is a hefty preview of two conferences: the Big 12 and Conference USA. We're also releasing four Patreon episodes this week at  splitzoneduo.com , and we spend the first 26 minutes or so of this episode talking to you abou...

Hugh Freeze steps in it yet again, and Godfrey, Alex, and Richard explain how it fits into both Liberty's shtick and a years-long personal pattern for the head coach. Then the group talks about the current state of play in realignment, what we're hoping happens next, and a little flap at Minnesota that recently got buried in the news. Subscribe to our Patreon at  splitzoneduo.com . Production: Ant...

Richard, Godfrey, and Alex take your questions on a long list of topics. Which program is the hardest one to get information about? Is Oklahoma State maybe on the verge of something really good? Why doesn't Spurrier have much of a coaching tree, and why are Florida fans already getting impatient with a new coach who was quite explicit about needing time? (Note: We recorded this before he wrote an...

Alex and Richard spend 30-some minutes closing up last week's realignment conversation and then diving into summer recruiting in an SZD way. We don't cover the ins and outs of everyday recruiting on this show, but there are several things we wanted to bring to your attention as storylines to keep track of over the next six months. And after that, we've decided to share a Patreon episode that we pu...

Godfrey and Alex pick through some recent college football news. Godfrey explains the incentives at work that will get UCF, Houston, and Cincinnati to the Big 12 a year earlier than expected, and why their 2023 move could lead to an absolute blast of a conference for exactly one season. Then it's time for a round of the hot new game "Good Schedule, Bad Schedule," where Alex and Godfrey pick out th...

Conventional wisdom says a coach's second year is when we start to get an idea of how he'll do at a school in the long run. Godfrey, Richard, and Alex go through every second-year FBS head coach and sort out how we're feeling about his tenure and future, on a scale from "good" to "holding" to "uh oh." This show also features a quick news roundup at the beginning, including programs launching their...

College football is in a quiet period, but Split Zone Duo continues apace. Richard and Alex talk about a notable Deion Sanders hire, why Bryan Harsin is starting a podcast to compete with ours, the last embers of SabanFisherGate, how the SEC meetings are now covered like a papal conclave, a 30-year history (at least) of the coaching industry being in crisis over the future of the sport, how much l...

Godfrey, Richard, and Alex start this episode by picking through the aftermath of the May coaching kerfuffle of the century between Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher. After that: The lifting of a 25-man limit on initial scholarship counters is going to be a big deal for programs at the top of the sport, and we'll see how it affects everyone else. Then, to finish up, let's go FBS league by FBS league and...

Richard, Godfrey, and Alex are tired of talking about NIL all the time, but fortunately, this mid-May stretch has brought a kernel of 2022 football business to discuss. ABC’s primetime schedule is partially out, and the inner workings of how it was built are interesting. Let’s also talk about the XFL establishing itself as the new alternative pro league and some coach news around Dan Mullen, Chad...

Richard is back from college football's big offseason conference meetings and Fiesta Bowl confab. He explains to Alex what his industry contacts are talking about and wondering about at those meetings, including a breakdown by conference. The NCAA teases a crackdown on name, image, and likeness collectives, but it is fighting with one hand tied behind its back. And Ohio State's athletic director f...

Godfrey and Alex talk about some of the most CFB-centric storylines from the NFL Draft, including how the NFL gave an icy reception (in different ways) to college football heroes like Nakobe Dean, Matt Araiza, and Matt Corral. Then, an extended discussion about the ongoing transfer process of Biletnikoff winner Jordan Addison. There are good reasons and bad reasons to be mad about it, and sometime...

Godfrey, Richard, and Alex discuss Mark Emmert's run as the president of the NCAA. In some areas, his failures were systemic and probably inevitable. In others, he made a mess all by himself. It is also NFL Draft week, and the crew talks about some specific college football angles to the NFL's marquee spring event: What do evaluations of the 2022 QBs say about how the NFL sees college offense toda...

The Big Ten and Fox are poised to deepen their TV partnership. What’s that mean for you, the viewer? The adults in the room are doing a lot of hand-wringing about college football economics. Texas Tech is trying a recruiting gimmick that isn’t exactly a gimmick, and it might work! Plus, let’s classify a whole bunch of 2022’s new QBs. Subscribe to our Patreon at  splitzoneduo.com . Production: Anth...

Ed Orgeron visited Notre Dame and told the Irish they’d win a national title. Godfrey explains the long game at play here, which is — we swear — more interesting than you’d think. Steve Sarkisian knocks back a Texas player who commits the grave crime of honesty in public, for reasons that don’t seem to serve Sark at all. Plus, welcome to a new spring football league, which has more “name that guy”...

Notre Dame scheduled a game with Tennessee State, which it very much wants you to think of as purely an HBCU rather than also an FCS team. Alex and Richard play a round of “Fantasy Big 12 Commissioner” and pick out this year’s spring ball optimism teams. During this episode, we mention an audience survey that we would appreciate you filling out, with an eye toward giving you the episodes you want...

Godfrey and Alex answer listener questions on a handful of topics: Why Matt Campbell and Nebraska make sense for each other, who the Big Ten would seriously consider for expansion and why, the issue with Navy's conference affiliation compared to Air Force's, if it's possible to have long-term coach stability at the elite blue-bloods these days, and why various states' high school landscapes. Plus!...

This show covers three topics in detail. The first (6:23) is about the rush in sports media streaming deals, and how it'll come around to college football in the near, near future. The second (35:30) is about Billy Napier, the first-year Florida coach who is mastering the art of "not saying that much before you have a lot to say." And the third (58:10) is Godfrey, unleashing a new theory on the wo...