Andrew Luck fired Stanford coach Troy Taylor after off-field investigations of his conduct came to light. In this episode for SZD subscribers, Alex and Richard discuss the circumstances of Taylor’s firing and Stanford’s challenges:

* An investigation timeline going back more than a year

* Stanford’s decision to stand by Taylor until there was public heat

* How this mirrors Northwestern’s firing of Pat Fitzgerald

* Andrew Luck’s role as the key decision-maker for Stanford

* Alex wonders if Stanford is even a good job anymore

* Richard is very confident that it is NOT

* Stanford’s unique challenges in a post-House settlement world

* Recruits’ fading or nonexistent memories of the days when Stanford was one of the best programs in the country

* Why the college sports industry will be watching Luck as GM

This episode is for paid subscribers, but everyone can hear a free preview. You can sign up for a weeklong free trial at https://www.splitzoneduo.com/subscribe

The NCAA had complete control of college football TV. The association decided which games the public could watch, and where, and when, and how much money every school would earn as a result. Then came a new group called the College Football Association, an outside TV deal, and a lawsuit from two schools, Georgia and Oklahoma. What happened next, at the United States Supreme Court, created the fundamentals of how all of us watch college football today.

Jay Willis is the editor-in-chief of Balls and Strikes, an independent outlet that covers the Supreme Court. (He’s also a big Cal football fan.) Jay joins host Alex Kirshner to dive deep into NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, the case that destroyed the old world of college football TV and created a huge mess in its place. As we’ll learn, that took a while to clean up.

Producer: Anthony Vito

Dan Lanning signed an extension with Oregon that makes it impossible for all but a few teams to hire him away, and most of them aren’t college. Steven Godfrey, Richard Johnson, and Alex Kirshner discuss what his contract says about the evolved pecking order in the coach carousel. After losing both Willie Taggart and Mario Cristobal to Florida schools, has Oregon now ascended to be poaching-proof from everyone except the NFL, Ohio State, and Georgia? We run down some hypotheticals about LSU, Alabama, Oklahoma, FSU, and Clemson.

Hosts: Steven Godfrey, Richard Johnson, Alex Kirshner

Producer: Anthony Vito

This episode is for SZD subscribers

You can get a free trial of our paid episodes to get lots more shows like this.

Meanwhile, everyone can hear a short preview of this show.

Alex Kirshner, Richard Johnson, and Dave Campbell’s Texas Football senior writer Mike Craven discuss the state of the offseason in Conference USA, a league that was spicier than most of us expected in 2024:

* Jacksonville State loses the braintrust behind a conference championship and will now be completely different

* WKU’s run as the cradle of coordinators continues

* FIU tries an ultra-Floridian approach

* Sam Houston restarts with Phil Longo, who has school ties

* Kennesaw State is just trying to be in less disarray

* Liberty overhauls in the portal as it looks to bounce back

* UTEP is quietly building something intriguing under Scotty Walden

* Middle Tennessee emerges from a Year Zero

* New Mexico State deals with broader athletic department turmoil

* Louisiana Tech continues to ride it out

* And the league soon adds a couple of new members, Delaware and Missouri State. We’ll get to them in season previews. It’s not time yet.

Meet the Offseason Vibe Check: It's not a 2024 recap, and it's not a 2025 preview. It's a check-in with every team in every FBS conference about what's been happening since Thanksgiving. How was the postseason? How was the coach carousel? How was signing day? How was the transfer portal window? And is anything else going on around your program?

Producer: Anthony Vito

Elsewhere in Offseason Vibe Checks

* SEC

* Sun Belt

* ACC

* Big 12

Alex and Richard take subscribers’ college football questions in this live recording, conducted on the Substack app on Tuesday. We call it CFB Lunch Break, because we’re taking CFB questions at lunchtime:

* How we feel about player wearing #0 and single-digits

* The winner and loser from the ACC’s settlement with Clemson and FSU, which keeps the ACC together for at least a bit

* What’s the real reason that spring games are on the decline?

* Talking through Eddie George’s move to Bowling Green

* Whether George is now in the Ohio State long-term candidates pipeline

* San Diego State’s stagnancy as it heads to the new Pac-12

* Does Dan Lanning warrant “f—ing football coach” status?

* Why Lanning’s extension with Oregon is the realest extension ever

* Fanbases with the MOST REALISTIC expectations

* How long Indiana fans will (or won’t) tolerate a return to the old days

* If we think about college football in the middle of the night

Hosts: Alex Kirshner, Richard Johnson

Producer: Anthony Vito

Alex Kirshner, Richard Johnson, and Dave Campbell’s Texas Football senior writer Mike Craven discuss how the offseason is going for every team in the Big 12 Conference:

* Arizona State keeps a playoff core almost totally intact

* Arizona is in the danger zone after Brent Brennan’s first year

* Baylor is once again ready to contend for the league

* Oklahoma State is in uncharted waters

* WVU and UCF both do some fan service

* Kansas swaps out coordinators and has a QB injury to monitor

* Why Houston coach Willie Fritz is nicknamed “novocain”

* Iowa State needs to win in the portal at wide receiver

* Colorado is still acting very much like Colorado

* How much should we buy into the hype of Texas Tech’s NIL-driven offseason renaissance? Mike tells us

* Kansas State has its best recruit in program history

* Cincinnati is relying a lot on Scott Satterfield’s evaluations

* TCU has the best recruiting class in the Big 12 and could be rising again

* Utah’s coach-in-waiting situation could get a bit weird, no?

* BYU has an offseason of turnover and near-turnover at the top

Meet the Offseason Vibe Check: It's not a 2024 recap, and it's not a 2025 preview. It's a check-in with every team in every FBS conference about what's been happening since Thanksgiving. How was the postseason? How was the coach carousel? How was signing day? How was the transfer portal window? And is anything else going on around your program?

Elsewhere in Offseason Vibe Checks

* SEC

* Sun Belt

* ACC

The Offseason Vibe Check series continues with the ACC, as Rodger Sherman joins Alex and Richard to talk about the state of the league. It's not a 2024 recap, and it's not a 2025 preview. It's a check-in with every team in every FBS conference about what's been happening since Thanksgiving. How was the postseason? How was the coach carousel? How was signing day? How was the transfer portal window? And is anything else going on around your program?

* Pitt finished on an 0-6 run but has continuity in some important spots

* Florida State makes wholesale changes after going 2-10 with one FBS win over Cal by five points

* Jake Dickert takes over at Wake Forest after Dave Clawson stepped away without making it all about him

* Virginia Tech’s make-or-break year approaches

* Cal adds some funny culture fits

* Belichick’s UNC is talking funny about operating like an NFL program

* SMU appears to be building on its playoff season

* Duke might be in the best shape of its football life

* Syracuse recruits a massive class as Fran Brown tries to build

* “We’re all on in Georgia Tech, right?”

* Clemson steps into the transfer portal at last

* NC State’s party might be over, but give Dave Doeren a chance

* Miami gets itself involved (of course) in a major legal matter

* BC and UVA make quarterback swaps

* Is Louisville about to have a highly drafted NFL QB to recruit off of?

* Palace intrigue at Stanford involving Andrew Luck (!)

More from SZD and Rodger

We love Rodger’s newsletter

We also loved having him on this episode (for subscribers, with a free trial!) about the unbelievably grim history of Kent State football:

Elsewhere in Offseason Vibe Checks

* SEC

* Sun Belt

Alex and Richard take live and pre-submitted subscriber questions in this quick episode to start off the new month. Topics include:

* Biff Poggi’s return to Michigan

* The tough job ahead of Pitt’s new AD

* Brian Kelly’s make-or-break year

* Colorado State continually being just short of being something

* The first 100 days of the Belichick UNC administration

* Gary Pinkel’s underrated career

* Nebraska canceling a Tennessee series and the Big Ten either retreating from tough non-conference games or setting up for more of them

* The concept of a Tulane-LSU-Saints football road trip

* How many coaching trees can we really name right now?

* A quick preview of SZD’s offseason plans

Random historical show note: Here’s Colorado State’s pitch to the Big 12 from 2016, which Matt Brown and Alex dug up for SB Nation.

Producer: Anthony Vito

A bunch of fresh podcasts from SZD

In case you missed any of these:

* Our special on why Kent State’s football program is always bad, and what can be done about it if anything. Featuring Rodger Sherman!

* Anatomy of a coaching carousel: 2001. Diving deep into the ramifications of one coach hiring cycle with our co-host emeritus Steven Godfrey

* Offseason Vibe Checks: The state of the SEC

* Offseason Vibe Checks: The state of the Sun Belt

Stay tuned for more this week

Offseason Vibe Checks will roll on with the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Not a subscriber but want to try it out?

We love to hear that and are offering a week’s free trial.

Subscribers: Any thoughts on this format?

Let us know. We’re eager to hear what you think.

The history of the Kent State Golden Flashes is full of missed opportunities, real-life tragedies, and lots of losing—never more than in 2024, when Kent State had one of the worst teams in college football history. Why is the program perennially so bad? To answer that question, Rodger Sherman joins Alex and Richard for a deep dive into the Flashes.

* A long history of great, memorable players on bad teams

* Separating the challenges that come with being a MAC school from the ones that are specific to this MAC school

* A string of tragedies that affected the football program, led by the fallout from the killings of four students by national guardsmen in 1970

* More than one missed chance to hire alum Nick Saban

* The program’s best case-scenario over the next 10 years

* Should Kent State stay the course, drop to FCS, or do something else?

Read Rodger’s recent newsletter on Kent State’s miserable 2024, and join the thousands on his mailing list to get more of his one-of-a-kind writing.

This is a premium episode of Split Zone Duo for our paid subscribers. If you’re not a subscriber yet, you can try us out on a seven-day free trial.

Also, let us know if you liked this episode concept and if there are any other troubled programs you’d like to see us explore in the future.

Split Zone Duo’s “Offseason Vibe Check” series rolls on with the Sun Belt. It's not a 2024 recap, and it's not a 2025 preview. It's a check-in with every team in every FBS conference about what's been happening since Thanksgiving. How was the postseason? How was the coach carousel? How was signing day? How was the transfer portal window? And is anything else going on around your program? In this week’s Sun Belt episode, Alex Kirshner and Richard Johnson discuss:

* Louisiana’s sour ending after being the most low-key playoff contender until the final days of the season

* Marshall’s tumultuous end of the season and coaching change

* App State’s Dowell Loggains era starts with winning hearts and minds

* Coastal Carolina cleans house … except for the head coach

* Butch Jones and Arkansas State are in it for the long haul

* Charles Huff finds his life raft at a downtrodden Southern Miss

* Texas State hangs onto GJ Kinne after it didn’t look likely

* Georgia Southern gives Clay Helton a contract extension that isn’t outrageous but doesn’t make a lot of sense

* James Madison tries a bespoke approach in the portal, and it should lead to the Dukes being favorites in the league

* Georgia State’s recruiting blitz under Dell McGee picks up

* A snippet from friend of the program Justin Ferguson of the Auburn Observer, talking about the situations at Troy and South Alabama

Offseason Vibe Checks so far

* The SEC

Producer: Anthony Vito