This is a subscriber episode of Split Zone Duo, but everyone can listen to a free preview. Become a subscriber today by clicking on this link.

In the second leg of our big offseason-opening mailbag, Richard and Alex take a big list of subscriber questions. (But first, yet another MAC head coach leaves his job and restarts the coach carousel in the process.) Among the questions answered in this episode: 7:54: Which new Sun Belt head coach is the best bet to succeed this year?

* 11:05: How excited should we be about Buster Faulkner as Florida’s new offensive coordinator?

* 16:41: Who’s having the hardest time coping with Curt Cignetti’s success at Indiana? (Alex says it’s Purdue fans; Richard disagrees.)

* 21:50: How durable is the House settlement-generated age of parity?

* 23:17: What will it take for college football players to finally be declared university employees?

* 28:17: Will college football adopt transfer fees like European soccer?

* 30:09: Are schools stuck in mutually assured destruction when it comes to recruiting rule enforcement?

* 32:04: What happened with the major running back transfers that fizzled out this year?

* 33:14: Can mid-tier power conference programs like Pitt still have breakthrough seasons in this era?

* 36:05: Why can’t Nebraska take the next step in NIL and rev share spending?

* 39:08: How can resource-deprived programs like West Virginia compete at the highest level right now?

* 43:22: Will the single transfer portal window eventually move from winter to post-spring ball?

* 46:50: Will more five-star recruits pick smaller schools over Blue Bloods, and are we entering the era of the strategic redshirt?

* 50:31: Does the expanded playoff put even more emphasis on having veteran starters on your roster?

* 52:15: Is the Pac-12 media deal ever actually going to happen, and what’s going on with the Mountain West lawsuit?

* 53:19: Does the new Pac-12 have the horses to keep up with the American, and will the playoff committee treat it as a premier G6 league?

* 54:00: Can the Pac-12 and Mountain West coexist, or is one conference going to have to absorb the other?

* 59:19: What happens to conference championships if they get rid of conference championship games?

* 1:04:07: Is the Big Ten pushing for a 24-team playoff because Fox wants to renegotiate media rights?

* 1:07:57: Would you rather have the Lou Groza Award winner or the Ray Guy Award winner on your team?

* 1:09:11: What will it take for spring football to succeed, and do people even want it?

Then, in the FUN ROUND:

* 1:10:46: Why are the swear words bleeped in the SZD podcast intro?

* 1:12:24: Who’s been the main character of SZD throughout its existence?

* 1:14:15: For Richard: What’s more likely, Dabo embracing the transfer portal or Spurs winning the Champions League?

* 1:15:51: Alex, have you ever done a trail run, and do you have any advice for someone training for a trail half and a 50K?

* 1:17:45: Alex, what’s on your race calendar these days? \

Produced by Anthony Vito.

Richard and Alex talk about a handful of college football news stories, headlined by Sacramento State’s geographically and financially absurd move to the MAC:

* 5:24: Sacramento State to the MAC and our many, many questions

* 31:55: The inaugural Split Zone Duo Olympic Hockey Hour

* 34:12: Eligibility lawsuits and who’s still a college athlete (Trinidad Chambliss, Joey Aguilar, and Charles Bediako)

* 48:52: The Pac-12’s flex scheduling idea

* 51:38: The merciful end of the Michigan sign-stealing saga (it was still going!)

* 52:33: YouTube TV’s coming sports-only package

* 57:55: RIP Robert Duvall, Clemson Tigers fan

This episode is free for all. Get more shows by becoming a subscriber today at www.splitzoneduo.com/subscribe

By no means do we stop talking about college football in the offseason. We take the opportunity to get creative and bring subscribers all sorts of deep dives on CFB history, the coaching carousel, Xs and Os, and plenty more. Help us make the show and get lots more of it by becoming a paid subscriber.

Thanks to our sponsors

nokiantyres.com/hockey

homefieldapparel.com

Producer: Anthony Vito

Subscriber episode: Richard and Alex answer questions from our subscribers as college football gets into the meet of its offseason. We got a lot of very good questions, so we are breaking this mailbag into two separate recordings and will answer more of your questions next week. In this episode:

* 0:15: Important news: Richard…

The greatest program in FCS is moving to the Mountain West, effective this upcoming season. North Dakota State won 10 of the past 15 FCS national titles and decided to try something new. It’s a huge move, giving FBS a new contender for the Group of 6 spot in the Playoff and reshaping the competitive pecking order in FCS. But we’ve still got many questions to talk through:

* Why now? NDSU had batted around this idea for years

* Does the money make sense? (NDSU probably wouldn’t be doing it if it didn’t, but the additional expenses will be millions per year)

* Why the Mountain West and not the new Pac-12?

* How good will the Bison be right away?

* Is it ever right to be bored of success?

* Is it time to update our priors on how hard it is for teams to successfully leap from FCS to FBS?

* TRIVIA: Which seven states still don’t have an FBS team?

Also, we talk about the college elements of the Super Bowl and Bobby Hauck’s very brief retirement from coaching. Producer: Anthony Vito

Thanks to our partners, Homefield and Nokian Tyres.

Get a lot more of this show by becoming a paid subscriber.

By no means do we stop talking about college football in the offseason. We take the opportunity to get creative and bring subscribers all sorts of deep dives on CFB history, the coaching carousel, Xs and Os, and plenty more. Help us make the show and get lots more of it by becoming a paid subscriber.

The Big Ten’s commissioner, Tony Petitti, spent much of this season trying to do two things: 1) Expand the Playoff to his liking, and 2) Get his member schools to sign a big private capital deal. Neither happened, and the conference now appears to have wasted a lot of time off the field even as it was winning a third-straight national championship on it. Matt Brown of the tremendous Extra Points newsletter and document library joins Alex and Richard to talk about these misadventures, in particular:

* How Petitti has made himself the sport’s main bureaucratic villain, taking a role that SEC commissioner Greg Sankey may have seen as his birthright

* Why a lot of the Big Ten wanted this private capital deal

* Why it didn’t ultimately come together, despite those wishes

* The one actual good reason for wanting the deal, explained by Matt

* Why Rutgers’ finances are so bad

You can read Matt several times every week by subscribing to his Extra Points newsletter. We are both happy subscribers, along with most conference commissioners, countless athletic directors, and anyone else who cares about being informed on the off-field movements shaping college football.

SZD paying subscribers will hear a lot more from Matt later this week

He’ll join us on a subscriber episode to discuss Playoff non-expansion, the state of the football calendar, the NCAA’s stalled (?) efforts to get an antitrust exemption from Congress, the eligibility crisis in multiple sports, the race to fund excess NIL money on top of the House settlement, and the topic that’s always on all of our minds: basketball video game licensing.

Before the season, Godfrey, Richard, and Alex made a bunch of predictions and buried them in a time capsule. Time to dig it up! What did everyone learn over the course of the season? How were our prior opinions challenged? Where we got things wildly wrong, was that bad luck (Penn State) or the sign of missing something much deeper (arguably Clemson)? Let’s review in detail:

* How each FBS conference met or didn’t meet our expectations

* Conference USA and the MAC will just never make sense

* The shocking collapses of Penn State and Clemson and the still-pretty-surprising three-loss season that Texas had

* Godfrey’s almost legendary spotting of a North Texas QB

* What will we think about in a different way heading into 2026?

Producer: Anthony Vito.

This episode is for paid subscribers, but everyone can hear a free preview

You can become a paid subscriber here.

Interested in hearing more about how our podcast is doing? We’ve got a “state of the union for you

The short answer: Things are good.

The longer answer: Read this letter from us to the audience.

It’s time to review the 2025 college football season, with our annual awards special, the Zonies. Rodger Sherman joins Alex and Richard to dole out some important CFB honors for this past season, including:

* Power conference team of the year

* Non-power team of the year

* Moment of the year

* Proof of concept of the year

* Minority Coach of the Week of the Year

* Bryan Harsin Award for Forestalling the Inevitable

* The Podcaster’s Player Award

It’s an awards show, but it’s mainly a walk down memory lane of the things we enjoyed most about the season. Thanks for listening. Producer: Anthony Vito

Also, we briefly discuss the Olympics at the end of the episode. You’ll be able to read all kinds of Rodger stories on the Olympics at his newsletter.

SZD doesn’t stop in the offseason

The opposite, if anything. We use these months for all sorts of creative projects that are designed to appeal to people who love college football and want to learn more about it while having a good time. History projects! Sports business! Roster moves! We’ll do all of it. (Alex would even say that his favorite subscriber shows are the ones we have time to do out of football season.) We’d love to have you:

Support Split Zone Duo’s sponsors

* nokiantyres.com/szd

* homefieldapparel.com

Welcome to the rest of the college football calendar, the part when games aren’t actually being played. In this quick subscriber episode, Alex and Richard debrief on the state of their CFB fandom and talk about what’s both good and not good right now. Producer: Anthony Vito.

This show is for paid subscribers

Thanks so much to the thousands of people (!) who subscribe to support Split Zone Duo. One thing you get is the knowledge that you are making this independent college football podcast possible.

Another thing you get is a lot of bonus episodes, including weekly dispatches all offseason long. The football season is our busiest time, but we like to think the offseason is our most creative time, and there’s still a lot of news to talk about. Thanks so much and here’s the subscribe link.

Also, subscribe to our YouTube channel!

That one’s free, though: