Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast

Richard and Alex preview Conference USA, as the league adds Delaware and Missouri State. In this episode: * Liberty remains the favorite, even with a downgrade at QB * Sam Houston is primed for regression after 10 wins and a coaching change * WKU goes back to a strategy that has worked time and again: portaling an entire offense from a lower-level program * UTEP might have a bit of juice under Sco...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.com Dan Casey, coach and founder of the Play Caller’s Club, joins Richard to discuss the Xs and Os trends that are percolating across college football ahead of the 2025 season. Weird alignments, formations into the boundary, running backs out of the backfield, and the use of two-QB systems so that teams don’t have to le...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.com Listen to Alex’s extended-cut interview with Miami University play-by-play announcer Steve Baker, for Split Zone Duo subscribers. Listen to the full “Dead Letters” episode about Miami and the Cradle of Coaches here .

Miami University went on an unprecedented run of hiring coaches: Woody Hayes, Ara Parseghian, Bo Schembechler, and many more: . By 2003, with Ben Roethlisberger behind center, the RedHawks were the best program outside the power conference. Then trouble hit, both for Miami and the MAC. Split Zone Duo’s paid subscribers can listen to an extended cut of our interview with Steve Baker , the longtime...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.com The House settlement was supposed to create a clear line between “legitimate” NIL deals and so-called “pay for play” from NIL collectives. It took three weeks for the NCAA to make a major concession. Front Office Sports reporter Amanda Christovich joins Alex for a quick subscriber episode explaining how the House se...

Shehan Jeyarajah, college football writer for CBS Sports, returns to the show to join Alex and Richard for a meaty preview of the Big 12. You may enjoy Shehan’s recent report on the details behind Texas Tech’s NIL boom. In this preview: * Arizona State loses Cam Skattebo but still has so much returning from a team that nearly made the playoff semifinals * Iowa State has questions … and probably an...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.com Leave us a voicemail telling us why you love college football. Details are at www.splitzoneduo.com. In this show, Alex and Richard take a bunch of subscriber questions in the run-up to the season, with an early focus on realignment matters: * The Athletic reported that despite a desperate financial offer, Memphis ha...

Conference previews continue with the MAC. Alex and Richard break down every team in the league, including new entrant UMass: * Toledo still has the best hand * Miami is poised to contend (again) after getting portal-raided (again) * Buffalo is in a great place after the first year of Pete Lembo * Ohio defends its first MAC championship in decades and enters the season with one of the most fun QBs...

Split Zone Duo’s conference previews for 2025 keep rolling along with a two-parter: the Pac-12 and the FBS independents, whose ranks have thinned. * Oregon State might finally (finally!) be poised for stability and growth * Washington State faces a similar crisis to the one OSU faced last year, although the Cougs have a few reasons for optimism as they prepare to take a big chunk of the best progr...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.com Godfrey joins Alex and Richard for the third installment in our offseason series, “Why You’re Always Bad.” This episode is about ULM, formerly known as Northeast Louisiana State. The Warhawks are perhaps the most consistently bad team in the top division of college football, which raises the question of why they’re...

Season previews are back! Richard and Alex go alphabetically through the whole Sun Belt, picking out one rose, one bud, and one thorn for all 14 schools, from Appalachian State to Troy. In this episode: * App State hits the reset button * Coastal Carolina should be feeling some urgency * Georgia Southern extended Clay Helton and kept its roster together, so why aren’t we feeling so good about the...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.com For the Fourth of July, we look all the way back to the founding of … college football. Richard and Alex pick and debate the defining teams of each decade of the sport’s history, starting with one year of the 1860s and rolling through the 2010s. Remember that “defining team” is usually complimentary, but not always....

Around 20 FBS coaches will retire or get fired by the end of this season, but which ones will they be? Alex and Richard pick out 23 names and rank them from least to most likely to be entering their last season on the job. Then we talk about the context, especially in the handful of cases with big differences in our rankings. Plus, everyone gets buyer’s remorse at least once. This episode is free...

Part 2 of our conversation with EA Sports College Football principal game designer Ben Haumiller. Ben takes a bunch of subscriber questions on the upcoming CFB game and the state of college sports video gaming in general: * How to actually learn to play a football video game * Incorporating the House settlement and NIL * How a new 'gadget” position” embraces the reality of modern depth charts * Im...

Part 1: EA Sports College Football principal game designer Ben Haumiller joins Alex and Richard for a discussion of the upcoming CFB video game, with a focus on Dynasty mode and lessons learned from last year’s long-awaited return. * What EA learned from the best-selling sports game of all time * The easier and more difficult parts of releasing a second game * How the new game will (and, most impo...

Alex and Richard discuss a handful of offseason stories: * The Pac-12’s expansion efforts are coming to a head, and Texas State—not Sacramento State—appears to be the apple of the league’s eye. Extra Points publisher Matt Brown joins to talk about why Sac State’s extremely public campaign for FBS membership has not paid dividends. Read Matt’s report on the Hornets’ looming move to FCS independence...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.com Richard and Alex take subscriber questions on: * How to assess if a school’s FCS-to-FBS transition is in a good place or not, especially if it takes a little bit to win any games * The big business of college football data distribution * The endless (?) expansion of eligibility for old players * Why the SEC owns the...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.com We believe in an old college football theory: If a coach is going to win at his current job, he’s going to have a good second season. The exceptions, like Bill McCartney and Jim Harbaugh, prove the rule. This year, 28 FBS coaches enter their second season in charge of their programs. Who’s already banked enough good...

Fall camp approaches. Let’s talk about the most consequential transfer portal moves of the offseason that weren’t quarterbacks and, in a lot of cases, didn’t even happen in national championship-contending programs. Oklahoma’s new running back and receivers! Dabo’s dip into the portal! Oregon’s new secondary import from Purdue! Notre Dame’s acquisition of an actually-good wideout! Indiana’s second...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.com Cody Alexander of MatchQuarters joins Richard to discuss how the football coach at North Carolina will actually, ya know, coach football (a novel concept, we know). His evolution as a defensive mind shaped the way you watch the game in more ways than you can realize, but can he be the same guy in college football? W...

A running back from Boise State helped define the 2024 season. Does CFB have an RB waiting in the wings to make a similar imprint in 2025? Probably not exactly, given Jeanty’s historic season and the difficulty non-power programs have had retaining star running backs this offseason. But if we’re just looking for running backs who can defy difficult circumstances and elevate their offenses to a new...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.com In this week’s CFB Lunch Break, Alex and Richard answer live questions from Split Zone Duo subscribers: * What to make of Luke Fickell’s mediocre first two years at Wisconsin and a challenging situation in Year 3 * Ohio State/Texas scheduling fight * Florida’s upside this fall * What Penn State actually needs from D...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.com For live show tickets in Raleigh on 8/23: https://www.etix.com/ticket/p/78691649/the-2nd-annual-sports-podcast-festival-raleigh-the-rialto Godfrey, Richard, and Alex present the second episode in our “Anatomy of a Coaching Carousel” series. This show covers the new college football head coaches for the 2010 season....

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.com Split Zone Duo State is the newest startup FBS program. We've got our coach, but now we need a staff. Blueprint Sports head of analytics Parker Fleming joins the show to help Richard break down who to hire, and the roles that need filling, to build SZD State into a title contender. For additional (free) listening on...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.com Richard and Alex take live questions from our Split Zone Duo subscribers. Topics covered in this episode include: * The slightly messy ending between Jim Knowles and Ohio State * What we’re most excited about in the 2025 season * More developments in Bill Belichick/Jordon Hudson * Rapid scheme turnover, like Washing...