Brendan Sorsby, Conference Alignment, Saban on CFB, SEC Power Rankings

I break down how a Texas Tech lawsuit keeps Brandon Soreby eligible despite a major sports betting scandal, and why that moment exposes the NCAA’s fading power. I also look at  how this chaos could impact CFB positively in regards to unity rules and guidelines, NIL, the transfer portal, and the long-term integrity of college football. 
• The Brandon Soreby betting story and why it shocks fans 
• The risk of conferences breaking away and playing only each other 
• Why out-of-conference matchups shape the sport’s culture and arguments 
• Nick Saban’s warning about a money arms race and non-revenue sports getting squeezed 
•  A full reaction to SEC power rankings and a revised list 
Please remember to like, subscribe, and share the show 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

The NCAA, that's four letters. That's nothing more. That's not an enforcement body. That's not a governing body. It used to be. And truthfully, I don't ever know that it had the teeth we thought it did. It was just it barked really loud for a long time. And so schools were scared and got in line and they were complicit. And how foolish do you feel today, by the way? If at any point in your recent history, as a player or a coach or an institution, you self-reported violations.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Welcome to the third down conversation and your place for sports and entertainment. I am the turnip city. Let's talk about it. Yes, welcome on here to the third down conversation. My good people.

Texas Tech QB Betting Scandal

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Please remember to like and subscribe so you can always get the latest episode. Well, the NCAA, mainly college football, is on fire. It's ablaze. And that's mainly due to the fact that Brandon Soresby, the current quarterback of Texas Tech, is allowed to play football this year. Why is that so alone and causing so much chaos? Well, it recently came to light that he bet around $90,000 total from 2022 up until roughly last year on sports such as baseball, basketball, football. Even back in 2022, when he was a member of the Indy Anna football team, he bet on his own team. And as you know, that is against NCAA rules. That is against pretty much any sport out there, like betting is like a major no-no. So the video that you just heard, that was Josh Pate. He has his own show called The Josh Pate Show, talks strictly college football. And he essentially is stating that the NCAA is nothing more than four ladders. He's correct. The NCAA is at one point was a bully. If the NCAA said do something, teams, universities, 80s, everybody got in compliance. But now no one's afraid of the NCAA. Why is that? All you have to do is just sue them. If they come out and say anything or say that you can't do this or you can't do that, just sue them. And the beauty of it is you can sue them in your state, in your county. Use any judge you want, because we know that judge is more than likely going to side with you, and they're going to give you a temporary restraining order. That means whatever punishment or whatever um limitation they, meaning the NCAA, has enforced, is gone. It's wiped away. So what did Texas Tech do? They sued. They asked for a temporary restraining order. That temporary restraining order allows Brandon Soresby to play. Even though he broke one of the main rules, not just in the NCAA, but in sports in general. Gambling has always been seen as a black eye. It completely attacks the integrity of the game, which is why leagues want players to stay away from it. Pete Rose, great baseball player, called gambling, on his team. He's out of there. I think he just recently got in the Hall of Fame. And he should have been there a long time ago. But because of that gambling situation, they was like, nope. Tom Donahy, it's a referee for the NBA. He's in federal prison because of some gambling situations. Like gambling has always been seen as a black guy. But somehow, Texas Tech, they just letting it slide. They just rocking with it. It's really got most people shocked, including me, because if that rule, if if the gambling rule, if that rule doesn't mean anything, then no rule does. So yes, I believe Brandon Soresby should not play this season. Texas Tech's trying to explain it as a mental health situation, like he just can't help it. He has a gambling addiction. And I'm not knocking that. I'm not knocking that at all. And if that's the case, and it does appear to be the case, he needs to get help. However, that addiction did lead to breaking a major rule in sports in general, therefore, accountability has to be held.

Conference Alignment

SPEAKER_01 6:13

And two, um, you may, the bigger group, the NCAA was sued so much successfully because they have market power. And there's the thought that on the conference level, uh, that these individual conferences don't have market power and they will evade antitrust lawsuits. That's the theory. Of all these conferences, especially the Power Four, don't all have similar rules that they enforce in a similar way. It affects the equity of the competition. And thus, and you've heard Georgia's president say this, we'll just play ourselves and we won't play anybody else.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

That was Andy Staples and Ross Dillinger of College Football Inquirer. They are with uh Yahoo Sports. And well, the fallout of the Brandon Sorgeby situation has caused many uh conferences to think about doing their own thing. It's originally that well, that that thought originally uh generated from the playoff talks because the big team wants to go to 24 teams. The XC is firm, 10 toes down, saying 16. With so much friction going on right now, there's not a lot of give and take. There's some thought that conferences are just gonna do their own thing. The worst thing that can happen is conferences playing only each other. And if you want to be remembered what that would look like, it happened back in COVID. And when it was first announced back in COVID, due to that situation, the SEC mainly was like, we're gonna do 10 SEC only games. And as a fan, you like, yeah, that's cool. It'll be great. No cupcake games and things of that nature. But when it actually went down, I didn't really like it. Like it, it's it was okay, but you don't get those those out-of-conference matchups, right? You don't get the Texas and Ohio State, Notre Dame and Texas AM, USC and the LSU. The sport lives for matchups like that because we're gonna get the conference games every year. Like, okay. And those games are great, especially in the SEC, but those out-of-conference games bring something different to the table. It allows like fans of different conferences to have those conversations. Who's better? The Big 12, the Big Ten, the SEC. And one way you can determine that is when they play each other, you know, out of conference. So that would be the worst thing that can happen. Now that leads to how can conferences come together and make today's game more sustainable. Because that for me is the key. College football is the greatest sport to me. Like it's it's the best. But it's in an odd place right now. Not good, not bad, but odd. So if conferences could unify, not in the sense of all coming together, but in a sense of get on the same page with each other and create similar rules where everybody are playing by the same rules, right? A good example of this is the NFL. Say what you will about the NFL during the um the Colin Kaepernick situation. And no, I'm not agreeing with what they did per se. But what I will say is this they stuck together. They were unified. And when you're unified, it's hard for you to be divided. It's hard for division to seep through. And if the conferences can come together and form rules to where everybody's everybody's playing the same game, I think it would truly help the NCAA and make the sport honestly better. It would create regulation. But I've noticed that people say they want rules, say they want regulations. But no conference has really stepped to the forefront and put in any regulations. No conference has done anything about NIL. No conference has done anything about the transfer portal. No conference has done anything in regards to tampering with players. So they say they want these things, but who's gonna be actually willing to be the forerunner? Who's gonna step to the front and lead by example? If conferences could align from a rules and guidelines standpoint, who knows where the sport could go? But unfortunately, they won't. Which one of these conferences will be willing to sue one of their members if they step out of line?

Saban on CFB

SPEAKER_02 12:04

But I think it's a race to the bottom because if you don't spend to win, you lose your fan base and you don't have any revenue. Let me give you the history. My first year we had collective at Alabama, 2.7 million. Next year, 7 million, next year 10 million. I retired. Next year, 17 million, next year 24 million. Now you have schools that have close to $40 million rosters. So if we continue to do that, we're gonna lose Olympic sports, we're gonna lose non-revenue sports, we're gonna lose scholarships, and basically what's gonna happen is you're gonna have football and basketball succeed, and we'll have club sports for everything else.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

That's Nick Saban. And look, I'm not a Nick Saban defender, I am an Auburn fan, but he was on a heater. And the public, they disagree with the message because of the messenger. But the message is spot on. People want to bring up Nick Saban's pass about how Alabama paid players under the table, of course. Or when he was at LSU, they was doing some shady business as well. Supposedly, none of this has been proven. And my rebuttal is everybody was doing it. Even my beloved Auburn paid Cam Newton's dad. So everybody was doing doing it. That was that was the name of the game. Right? But that doesn't mean what he is saying should be discredited. So just because it's coming from Nick Saban, that makes it not valid. Because what he is explaining is a system that is built on who has the most money. He's explaining a system that can't be sustained. There's no way that we could keep those Olympic sports, gymnastics, swimming and diving, tracking. They would become club teams because everything is going towards basketball and football. And when those teams don't do well, as you know, fans stop coming. That's just how it works. They don't want to be in attendance for a team that's not good. Can you blame them? But you're banking on these collectives to continue to increase the cash. And as you notice from what Nick Saban is saying, the number only grows each year. It don't get smaller, it don't stabilize us, it's more and more and more. I am of the belief that college football needs a commissioner because it needs regulation. And when people hear regulation, they hear you don't want the players to get paid. And that's not true. Nick Saban didn't say that. I'm not saying that. Should that be a salary crap? Yeah, it should be. Because it's more to the college experience than just football and basketball. And I'm probably in the minority on this, but I never felt like players wasn't getting paid. I think players have always gotten paid, and I'm not talking under the table. A free education is payment comes from someone who has had student loans. On average, a four-year degree costs $124,000. If you're in state over four years, that's about $30,000 per year. If you're out of state for four years, it's $50,000. Now, people don't want to count that because they can't experience that physically. Like they can't touch it. It doesn't hit their bank account, but it should still count. So this is not about players not getting paid. From an NIL standpoint, from a transfer portal standpoint, and tampering standpoint, from enforcing rule standpoint, how can the system be maintained? That is what Nick Saban is trying to communicate. That is why they're asking Congress to step in. We talked about the Brandon Soresby situation and how much that's a black eye on the entire sport of college football. So much so that Big 12 ADs are all meeting together trying to figure out an additional punishment for Brandon Soresby in Texas Tech. But Texas Tech is just not hearing it because they feel like they're in compliance with everything, and that's just not true. They want to be relevant so bad that they'll sell their soul, as one former NFL player tweeted. And based on what's happening, he's spot on. In my opinion, college football wants to operate like a professional league without the rules and guidelines of a professional league. And what does that create? Chaos, disorder, simply craziness. I've stated before. This sport is so awesome, it's so beautiful. The masses love it, but it needs regulation to ensure that the sport continues to grow in a way that is productive, successful, and maintains the integrity of the game.

SEC Power Rankings

SPEAKER_00 18:40

A graphic made by Chris Lowe of On three. And it's the SEC Football Power Rankings. And I got a lot of beefs with this ranking. Let's look at his top five. Well, let me explain his top five. He has Texas at one, Georgia at two. No problem with those two. He has Ole Miss at three. I've got a problem with that. Because Ole Miss lost their head coach, Lane Kevin, and their offensive coordinator. That team was so successful because of those two. Losing them hurts. And it's fair to question if Trinidad, Chamberless, which is Ole Miss's quarterback, how good is he without Lane Kiffin? That's a fair question. Fair question. So Ole Miss should not be number three. Oklahoma is four. I'm cool with that. Texas AM is five. I'm fine with that as well. LSU at number six, big problem. Big problem. They have a new head coach. They have a new offensive coordinator, Lane Kiffin. And that I'm not being counterproductive there. I just kind of hype Lane Kiffin. Now I'm like, they LSU has Lane Kiffin, so shouldn't LG shouldn't LSU be up? No, they shouldn't. Because again, new system. Also, Sam Levitt, their quarterback, transfer quarterback, never been in this system before. He did not go through spring because of a foot injury. So no, they should not be number six. He's got Bama at seven. He's got Tennessee at eight. I got a problem with that. Tennessee doesn't even have a quarterback. They don't like, it's a new quarterback. They're eight. I don't know about that. Florida is nine. I don't understand the Florida hype. I never have. But they're nine. South Carolina is 10. Missouri is 11. Vandy is 12. Bandy is 12. They're gonna have a freshman quarterback as their starter, more than likely. And they're 12. Auburn is 13. And you know I got a problem with that. 14 is Mississippi State, 15 is Kentucky, and 16 is Arkansas. I have no problem with 14, 15, and 16. I mean, you can you can put those in a in a cup and roll it out, or whatever the case may be, and it doesn't matter how those three falls, those are the three worst teams in the conference. Auburn should be ahead of Vanderbilt simply because Auburn brains the head coach, the offensive coordinator, the quarterback that ran that offense, most of its receivers, most of its offensive line, to Auburn. Alex Golish and Byron Brown came from South Florida. They should be ahead of Vandy, period. South Carolina should be ahead of Florida. Florida's nine, South Carolina's ten. Those should flip-flop. Mainly because, again, Florida, new coach, that's kind of the theme here. New coach, new offensive coordinator, new quarterback who has not played in the SEC. That quarterback barely played it at his previous school, which was Georgia Tech. South Carolina's returning their quarterback, returning most of their uh players. South Carolina should be ahead of Florida. I would even say Missouri should be ahead of Florida as well. Just from a from a from a cohesion standpoint, Missouri should be ahead of them. So if I made the SEC power rankings, this is how I would rank it. I'd have Texas number one, Georgia is number two, Oklahoma is number three. John Matthews' second year in the league, I think they're gonna take a step. Texas AM will be number four. Alabama will be number five. Don't hurt me. Don't hurt me. But yes, Bama will be number five for me. I put them at number five because even though the quarterback will be new, but he's been in the board system for so long, he has to know it in my opinion. So if Austin Mack is the quarterback, Bama should be number five. Number six, that's where I would put Ole Miss. Number seven, I will go with LSU. Tennessee will be number eight. South Carolina would be number nine. Missouri would be number 10. Florida, I'd have at number 11. I'd move Auburn up one spot to number 12. Vanderbilt would be 13. And then those last bottom three: Mississippi State, Kentucky, and Arkansas to round out the 16 teams. So Chris Love needs some more help, man. I got you. Just let me know, brother. I fixed your list. So my list is gonna be great. I'm telling you that right now. I'm telling you that right now. My good people, thank you so much for joining me on this episode. Please remember to like, subscribe, and share the show. I am the turnipsey. Jesus loves you, and I'm out.