Jon Joseph

The Future of CFB - Maybe - Pet Peeve - "His future is all ahead of him!" No kidding? Can it be "behind him?" https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/future-college-sports-debate-powerful-leaders-donald-trump/

Thanks, Steven. In previous releases of returning starters, the threshold was starting six or more games the prior season. Among the leaders in returning players in 2025 were Clemson and Penn State. One of the reasons both were ranked in the AP preseason top 5. Ooops! In today's CFB world of largely unregulated free agency and NIL deals, how a team picks the portal and how the portal-picked players assimilate with the coaches and the returning players is often as significant as the guys coming back. Using The Sporting News 2026 Top 25 Composite rankings, how many players return, and where is the program ranked in the 247 Sports portal rankings? TSN No.1. Ohio State - T No. 5 - 11 Returning/ Portal ranking - No. 5 4. Indiana - T No. 6. - 10/ No. 8 5. OREGON - T No. 2 - 14/ No. 25 13. USC - No. 1 - 11/ No. 26 14. Michigan - T No. 6 - 10/ No. 16 20. Penn State T No. 12 - 4/ No. 6 21. Iowa - T No. 10 - 6/ No. 64 22. Washington - T No. 6 - 10/ No. 47 30. Illinois - T No. 9 - 7/ No. 59 On OBD's 2026 Schedule - Boise State - T No. 3 - 13 - Portal No. 93/ Oklahoma State - Portal No. 7 - 81 players on the Cowboys roster are transfers/ UCLA - T No. 10 - 6 - Portal No. 33 - 41 new players on the Bruins roster/ Nebraska - T No. 4 - 12 - Portal No. 37/ Northwestern - T No. 7 - 9 - Portal No. 43/ Michigan State - T No. 11 - 5 - Portal No. 55 Can anything be gleaned from the above? No. 1 Ohio State and No. 4 Indiana have quality players returning, and they finished in the top 10 in portal rankings. No. 5 OBD has 14 quality starters back and finished, barely, in the portal top 25. Roster-wise, No. 13 USC and No. 14 Michigan seem to be correctly ranked. Do No. 21 Iowa and No. 22 UW have the rosters to finish in the top 25? No. 20 Penn State is bringing in 40 players from the portal. 24 players followed new coach Matt Campbell from Iowa State, including experienced QB Rocco Becht. The Nittany Lions have a cupcake OOC schedule and among the easiest in-conference schedules. Penn State does play Michigan in Ann Arbor, but does not play Ohio State, Oregon, Indiana, Illinois, or Iowa, and plays Minnesota, USC, and UW in Beaver Stadium. Penn State plays Wisconsin, Purdue, and Rutgers at home, and road games at Maryland and Northwestern. If the Iowa State transfers are Big Ten worthy, Penn State should finish no worse than 10-2 and be in the 2026 PO discussion. If OBD had PSU's schedule, I'd bet on the Ducks finishing 12-0. Forgive me the minutiae, but it's a looooong off-season. 🤬

More on Danno - Hopefully, Dan follows the path of Kirby Smart and not Sark - Kirby has two titles. His 1st round PO losses came when his starting QB, who led Miami to the champ game in 2025, was hurt, and Houdini, a/k/a Trinidad Chambliss, showed up for Ole Miss. Kirby and Dan are two for two in making the 12-team PO field. Sark is one for two. Dear Jorge A., are you out of your mind, eh? But, I get it, Patience has left today's wired world, and Prudence is nowhere to be seen. Six years for Kirby to get Smart. More than a Day, six years in fact, for Day to win it all. Cig? He put the Hoo in the PO punch bowl. If Cig can do it! 🤬 You not only have to be great, but you also have to be lucky. Oregon Ducks On SIDan Lanning Enters Elite Coaching Tier With Kirby Smart A...Oregon Ducks coach Dan Lanning, Georgia Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart and Texas Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian are grouped as a new tier of respected coaches and

The B1G - Hold off on tampering reference until rules are passed that reflect the current state of the game - https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/big-ten-sends-letter-ncaa-232759305.html

Big Spring Questions for the B1G's biggest rival - https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/sec-football-spring-2026-burning-questions-alabama/

FWIW. Returning starters in 2026. In 2025, Clemson and Penn State were among the teams with the most starters returning. 😁 This season, a team that was favored in its bowl game and came up with a B1G choke in Texas, USC, has the most returning starters. With unchecked free agency in CFB, how you picked the portal may matter more than the guys coming back. Returning production means very little if the guys returning did not produce in 2025. With 14 starters back, Oregon is in a six-way tie for 2nd place. Quite a turnaround for OBD from last season. https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/college-football-returning-production-2026-returning-starters-fbs/

But it's the Big Ten that is cheating, right? SINebraska Football Players Preparing for Arbitration Fight...A group of Cornhuskers is challenging an important college sports body.

It Just Means Less Tax Dollars in Mississippi - SISEC’s NIL Arms Race Heats Up As Mississippi Passes New Ta...Mississippi could become the second state to pass a bill eliminating income tax on NIL money.

Please, Dan, Just Don't Do It! Oregon Ducks On SILane Kiffin’s Son Knox Kiffin Hoping To Land On Oregon’s...The Oregon Ducks have been one of the many teams that have made it a point to recruit very well at the quarterback position, as they continue to show that they

Place your B1G Tourney Bets? With difficulty getting the ball through the hoop, OBD has flown the Chicago coop. On32026 Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament Odds: Ranking be....

Kettle meets pot. Where's a full-length mirror when you need one? Greg Sankey wants the It Just Means More folks to leave the NCAA because the NCAA isn't enforcing the rules? 😜 Ready, aim, fire at Petitti, but which commissioner is falling from grace and 1st place? BTW, Greg, Kirby Smart, and Josh Heupel want more; they want 24. YardbarkerSEC's Greg Sankey makes huge admission about breaking awa...The SEC has to feel like it's too big to fail when it comes to college football.When it comes to Greg, I hate to be fair, but he did have this to say ... On3Greg Sankey acknowledges support for SEC to make drastic.... Whatever Greg and the SEC decide to do, it will have the backing of Dabo Swinney; or, I may have Miss-typed, is that the stabbed in the back, Dabo Swinney?

I think Doug Flutie is still alive and kickin'. https://www.patriots.com/news/flutie-converts-nfl-s-first-drop-kick-in-64-years-93631

Show Matt the $$$. Will the new OC, Arthur Smith, be as good? YardbarkerOhio State makes expensive move with DC Matt PatriciaOnce thought of as a joke for his time in Detroit, Patricia's career has bounced back nicely.

Let's Twist again like we did last ball game, let's twist again, Twisting time is here! 😁

How do you score 12 points in the 1st half? I can't. But it reminds me of a question asked Seve Ballesteros after a round at the Masters, and after he four-putted the 18th hole. Seve, how did you 4-putt? "I mezz, I mezz, I mezz, I make."😁

The game between Oregon and Maryland would be fit for an Aesop Fable. The Tortoise and the Duck. The Ducks have yet to lift off. 31-12 Terps at halftime. Do college sports really need a postseason? At least for the Moneyball sports. 🤬

Too convoluted? I don't think so. Especially if the B1G and the SEC break away and the 'Super Conference' has 34 teams, possibly as many as 40 teams with the addition of Notre Dame and other immediately accretive teams. When looking at where the teams are located, pods in the NFL more or less make sense. However, every team in the NFL has a Blue Chip + roster, and the goal of the NFL is parity. Teams that underperform, like New England without Brady, play easier schedules than successful teams. Mike Whitty's goal is to achieve parity in scheduling in the Big Ten. As Mike the Hiker notes, the B1G has too many teams, as does the SEC, to achieve parity. Without salary caps, differences in budgets for football, no restriction on player movement, and the differences in money available for NIL, I don't believe any CFB scheduling model, and Mike's is as good as I have seen, will produce balanced schedules. If players are not deemed to be employees, and there is no uniform, enforceable, bargained-for agreement with the players, and uniform investment in football programs, I don't see a Northeast Pod of Maryland, Rutgers, an add-on UVA, and Penn State, being competitive with a West Pod of OBD, UCLA, USC, and UW. In a given year, a team or three in today's mega conferences will get the short end of the scheduling stick. Perhaps if one of the scheduling goals wasn't having every team in a conference play one another over a period of years, parity could be achieved? But parity would have to depend upon a team's performance in a given season, or over a few seasons. How do you factor in an Indiana? College basketball uses disclosed metrics to balance out teams based on the strength of schedule (SOS). 31-0 Miami of Ohio is not likely to be seeded higher than 9th. The college football committee simply wings it. And the CFB committee is not helped by a media company with rankings tease shows, and not the NCAA, managing the playoff. All of the supposed improved metrics in the hands of the committee still equate to how many losses a team has, except for Bama, of course. Mike's goal is worthy, no doubt. But without systemic changes modeled on the NFL format, including a draft of high school players, I don't believe we will see equity in CFB scheduling. What we could and should see is a CFB Playoff committee making its decisions based upon disclosed metrics that, among other things, make SOS a determining factor when deciding on and seeding the PO field. Good luck.

All my bags are packed; I'm ready to...? Is it time for the Power 2 to take a powder? https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2026/03/10/what-did-sec-big-ten-learn-at-president-trump-roundtable-its-time-to-go/89072802007/?utm_source=usatoday-sports-strada&utm_medium=email&utm_cam

Heading into Spring practice, CBS Sports has B1G questions - OBD - Will all of the talent show up? https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/big-ten-football-spring-2026-burning-questions-each-team/?ftag=SNL-04-10aaa0b&ET_CID=531873&ET_RID=52482716

More on Miami-Ohio https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/miami-ohio-football-spending-nil-transfer-portal/

Not so Fast! It looks like the Left Coast Women's teams didn't get the memo. OBD, UCLA, perhaps the No.1 seed, USC, and UW are all headed to the NCAA tournament. Stuff happens.

Mike, spot on, citing Penn State's schedule. And Notre Dame? The Domers have a Golden path to the playoffs. On3Notre Dame, Georgia and, yes, North Dakota State among 6...Entering the 2026 college football season, there are six schools currently favored in all 12 of their regular-season games.

Good luck, yuck, yuck 😁. The NCAA Been There, Done This and Paid BIG Legal Fees to No Avail - On3Donald Trump proposes return to pre-NIL era, wants to 'ra....

Beat the Twerps, er, Terps! On32026 Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament Bracket: Finaliz....

Thanks, Mike. Your format, including flex scheduling, could work and would be an improvement on the current throw of the scheduling dice from 2024 through 2028. The difficulty would be in selling the idea to Tony P and the folks at Fox, CBS, and NBC. But as you noted before, discussing the issue is a start. As iuphound pointed out, and as Charles commented on above, the Legends and Leaders split, followed by the more aptly named East-West, did not work out, due to Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, and, on one occasion, Michigan State's dominance. Two years in, OBD has won a conference championship, with the other won by Indiana. Not what the folks in B1G HQ imagined when putting the schedules together. I do believe Petitti's 24-team playoff without automatic qualifiers format will be adopted, including no conference champ games being played. I also believe that, in addition to Oregon, SC, UCLA, and UW are spending the money required to be successful in football. Wisconsin has stepped up, and one day, Nebraska may see a decent return on its football investment. So, would East-West Divisions be better balanced today? I think OBD, USC, UCLA, UW, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois could be competitive versus the East. Perhaps a flex-scheduled East-West crossover conference opening slate of games using the prior season's standings, and a final week of crossover games using the standings after the penultimate week of the regular season. Play ten conference games, eight division, and two crossover games. Have half of the B1G teams idle in Week Six, the other half in Week Seven. Could the ACC, B12, and SEC be convinced to play ten conference games and follow the same format? I do think travel matters. Your Division structure would help with travel. Asking OBD to play two games in four weeks in the Eastern time zone in November is handing Oregon the short end of the scheduling stick. Trying to balance the in-conference SOS is certainly worthy of consideration. Can the folks in Chicago be convinced? Great follow-up article, Mike, thank you.