Until Saturday: A show about college football - Podcast Rankings and reviews

At the end of the 2023 regular season I wanted to get out of my sports echo chamber, and I’m glad I found Until Saturday. It’s a high quality CFB podcast with bearable ads. The show often hosts interesting and knowledgeable guests.
I like Ari’s cynical frankness about the business of the sport, but I have to say that I agree with Dave about 99% of the time. CFB is more than just Ohio State, Michigan, Georgia, and Alabama, Ari.

The Big12 does not cease to be relevant just because Texas, who just had their first strong season in over a decade, and OU, who can’t keep a QB around, are off to go get beat up in the SEC. UCF, Cincinnati, and Utah are strong programs coming to join a rarely down Oklahoma State and Kansas State along with up-and-coming Kansas and a slew of tough competition. Laugh at TCU for getting stomped by Georgia in the 2022 championship all you want, but the Big12 isn’t out here serving up a Vanderbilt or the Big10 West. The Big12 CFB also has more heart. Just look at this last bowl season and which teams/conferences had loads of opt-outs.

I love the show and I look forward to scoffing at Ari’s opinions on the next episode.

It’s almost July, the dog days of summer are near, and the countdown to kickoff feels closer and closer with each episode of Until Saturday. The horn section blasts in the intro, I’m bobbing my head to the beat, and Ari and the boys are brining a daily oasis of content through the long drought of the offseason. Whether or not I agree with their takes, their daily topics are fresh, relevant and engaging. I look forward to enjoying another season this fall with Ari, Ubben and the rest of their team. Great work guys!

Love Ari and Dave. They have great insight, and keep it light. A must listen for any college fan!

I’ve been following this show for about a month now, and the ongoing discussion about playoff expansion has been fun and thought-provoking. However, there’s one point that I haven’t heard Ari, Max or others make, but seems very relevant to whether the intensity of the regular season will be diminished. Hence my 5 star review question: why treat playoff expansion and regular season scheduling as totally distinct issues? (Ari did just that in the last week when dismissing a comment about Michigan’s schedule this year.) A more restrictive playoff format incentivizes weaker scheduling because the impact of an individual loss is greater. Assuming quality wins becomes a key selection criterion, the expanded playoff format should incentivize more competitive scheduling. Combine this with conference expansion, where the pool of playoff-contending opponents gets deeper, and it seems to me that the competitive intrigue (for everyone) of the regular season should go up, not down. For example, Ohio State will probably have to play at least 3 of Michigan, Oregon, Penn State, USC; plus a Washington, Wisconsin or UCLA; plus a conference championship foe that isn’t just a Big 10 West sacrifice. And that doesn’t factor in non-conference. So there should be at least 4-5 losable games in there, maybe more, and conferences will be motivated to schedule more big matchups so that the teams who do end with 2 losses have the chance for quality wins to get them into the playoff. Anyway, thank you for this show, and I’d be curious to hear your thoughts!

I have listened to this podcast this football season after having listened to The Athletic CFB podcasts in years past. I finally had to unsubscribe because more and more the hosts and guests turned into a bunch of apologists for Michigan. I don’t understand what kind of hold Michigan and Harbaugh have over the media, such that the media champions the perpetrators of the cheating scheme over the victims. I did enjoy Power Auer and I thought Audrey Snyder was a good guest. Many of the episodes ran too long and there was unnecessary discussion of raw meat.

They do a good job of having guests on and providing as detailed of coverage as they can for national talking heads but they cover the same handful of teams every episode. If you value a truly plugged in opinion that’s outside of 3 teams in the big10 then this isn’t for you.