Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast - Podcast Rankings and reviews

It’s so hard to find people that talk about football without getting all dude-bro about it. It’s even harder to find that for college football. These guys are making the most thoughtful, well rounded, and insightful content on this sport. Rather than telling you what you see in games, they tell you why it’s happening. College football is weird and these guys are some of only a few to really embrace that.

Still think this is the best CFB pod out there but the most recent epi with Carparelli was bad. Admittedly I did not get through it because I kept waiting for you guys to push back on some of his talking points and when that didn’t happen, I stopped listening.

He brought up “what about the character of the players who sit out bowls?” I would ask, if a player gets injured during a bowl game, will an NFL team draft that player in the same spot/sign them to the same $ as an UDFA because their “character” makes up for their torn ACL? Really strong “I walked 8 miles, uphill both ways, in the snow to get to school” vibes from Carparelli on that take.

He also stated that “bowls don’t have extra money to pay schools” while also claiming it’s not about the money for the schools…First, bowls have plenty of money, they just pay it out to administrators and PR people, like himself. Who deserves to get paid, the players who risk serious injury and whose participation dictates the quality of the product, or some guy in a funny-colored blazers, whose absence would have no discernible effect on the quality of the game? And I can’t imagine that it’s not about the money for the schools when some teams are playing the day after Christmas and on NYD, instead of being with their families. Call me crazy, but even guys who love the game would probably prefer to play on a different date.

Lastly, his complaint that the bowl deals were struck prior to NIL and that the current environment isn’t “what bowls signed up for”…are you kidding me? He’s complaining about no longer being able to take advantage of student-athletes the way they could in the good ol’ days? Coming from a bowl executive, this is laughable, as bowls have become largely obsolete, leeches on the system. I could be persuaded to change my mind on this if someone could please point out one benefit bowls supply to CFB that the networks and schools can’t already provide for themselves. A stadium to play in? When you have bowls in Birmingham and Detroit, and schools already invest heavily in their own stadiums, that’s not it. TV exposure? Conferences already have that with their network deals. The one thing bowls used to have- notoriety, is quickly eroding as we get things like “the Sugar Bowl presented by KFC” or worse “the Beef O’Brady’s bowl”, which used to be something else that wasn’t sponsored but was so forgettable, no one remembers what it was originally called.

Really would have liked some more pushback from Alex and Richard in this guys boiler plate talking points.

Generally good discussion but the comment that UM’s cheating is victimless is wrong. Might not have victims with physical harm. But this cheating impacted competition. How about those betting on games losing money because the cheating impacted scores and spreads. How about the Buckeye players losing a rivalry game and a chance at Big Ten Championship and playoffs 2 years - after all of their hard work. Not reaching their goals and not knowing if it was because they didn’t do enough or because the opponent had their signs. How did it impact players and coaches UM faced. Were some players not drafted because they looked ineffective in a big game or some coaches fired? Did CJ Stroud lose the Heisman and and was he not drafted number 1 because he couldn’t win the big game. Hard to prove that the cheating impacted the outcome of the games but no one can prove that it didn’t either. And why did they do it if it didn’t make a difference. Their win loss record sure did improve once they started cheating. Just bothers me when I hear media make that statement and takes the cheating lightly - most of whom are former Michigan grads and players.

I like how deep the split zone duo crew gets into subjects that other pods seem to skip over. Well educated hosts and well thought out pod.

I tried to listen to this show but I couldn’t get through an episode. They try to be funny and sarcastic but it’s just more annoying than anything and it’s kinda all over the place. I make an effort to give all these different college football podcasts a listen to but unfortunately this one just fell flat. I highly recommend The Joel Klatt Show and Late Kick w/ Josh Pate. I find them to be more knowledgeable and much more enjoyable to listen to so I’m gonna stick with them.