Richard (from the Sugar Bowl) and Alex (from the Rose Bowl) break down the College Football quarterfinal bowl games in this order:

* Ole Miss 39, Georgia 34

* Indiana 38, Alabama 3

* Oregon 23, Texas Tech 0

* Miami 24, Ohio State 14

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Producer: Anthony Vito

The College Football Playoff quarterfinals are here. Alex, Richard, and guest host Rodger Sherman dive into all of these games:

* Miami-Ohio State at the Cotton Bowl

* Oregon-Texas Tech at the Orange Bowl

* Alabama-Indiana at the Rose Bowl

* Ole Miss-Georgia at the Sugar Bowl

* Illinois State-Montana State in the FCS title game

* UW-River Falls-North Central in the Stagg Bowl

Plus: Does the NFL need to reconsider its playoff format to exclude teams from the NFC South and AFC North? Producer: Anthony Vito

Want much more? Become a paid subscriber

Subscribers get weekly bonus episodes, usually more than one during the season and postseason, as well as the chance to ask questions and engage more deeply with the hosts. We’d love to have you.

Thanks to our partners and subscribers

* 20% off Dad Water: https://drinkdadwater.com/discount/SZD

* Nokian Tyres: https://www.nokiantyres.com/szd

* Shop Homefield at https://www.homefieldapparel.com/

* Modelo: Drink responsibly. Beer imported by Crown Imports, Chicago, IL

Alex and Richard spend 23 minutes talking about Michigan’s holiday hiring of former Utah coach Kyle Whittingham:

* In a time of intense national focus on the age of people in leadership positions (hmm, wonder where that came from), the 66-year-old Whittingham is unusually old to be taking this job. We wouldn’t worry.

* Whittingham’s recruiting at Utah became a pressure point that may have contributed to him leaving. How much does that matter as he moves to a job with a built-in financial advantage?

* Whittingham has been coaching Big Ten teams in the Pac-12 and Big 12 for years. What does he need to do differently in the ACTUAL Big Ten?

For your holiday listening, Alex and Richard take on dozens of questions from SplitZoneDuo.com’s paid subscribers. Let’s start with the juicy but sad breakup of Notre Dame and USC, move to the coaching carousel, and then have some fun. A rough listing of the questions featured in this episode, in order:

* What’s actually going on with Notre Dame and USC breaking up their football rivalry, and whose fault is it?

* What is Michigan’s realistic play in the coaching carousel, and who could they actually hire?

* Is Michigan likely to have a coach in place by the bowl game, or is that assumption wrong?

* Is a bridge coach (specifically Biff Poggi) a viable or sensible option for Michigan?

* Kyle Whittingham vs. Brian Kelly: Who is the better “CEO” head coach?

* With so many Power 4 openings, is the best path to a top job now being a successful P4 coordinator?

* What happened at Ohio, how should they move forward, and why did they handle it better than Michigan?

* Why does Warde Manuel still have a job (pending investigation)?

* Is Pat Fitzgerald possibly a worse pure football coach than Jonathan Smith but better positioned because of NIL and donor buy-in? Is “coach who can unlock donor money” now a core hiring archetype?

* Will Michigan State’s new $400 million donation allow them to immediately spend big on the roster?

* What are agency “speed-dating” events for coaches and athletic directors?

* Does the modern college football calendar make it harder for FCS programs to reset or fire coaches?

* Will the calendar lead to more long-tenured FCS coaches staying put at big programs?

* What are the chances Ed Orgeron resurfaces on LSU’s staff?

* Why didn’t Dan Mullen come up for any of the open head coaching jobs?

* What’s really wrong at Florida State beyond portal hits and misses?

* If an AD tried to reverse-engineer Curt Cignetti, what traits would they be looking for?

* What goes on your CFB trip bucket list?

* New York or LA: The better CFB city?

* Why do national college football narratives so often default to NY/LA logic when the sport itself doesn’t?

* What are our goals for this podcast in 2026?

Thank you so much for being part of what we do. We’ll see you around New Year’s Eve to get you set for the CFP quarterfinals and FCS title game.

Producer: Anthony Vito

These are difficult times for the college football bowl games that aren’t part of the Playoff system. Player opt-outs were already a thing, and now entire teams don’t want to take part. At best, the games are internet memes featuring some enjoyable football on the side. At worst, nobody cares. How many of these problems are truly new, and how many of them feel worse than they are because we have a distorted picture of being young in the 1990s and 2000s?

Alex and Rodger challenge their priors on how much bowl season has changed and how much of bowls’ decline comes down to nostalgia.

Want much more? Become a paid subscriber

Subscribers get weekly bonus episodes, usually more than one during the season and postseason, as well as the chance to ask questions and engage more deeply with the hosts. We’d love to have you.

Thanks to our partners and subscribers

* 20% off Dad Water: https://drinkdadwater.com/discount/SZD

* Nokian Tyres: https://www.nokiantyres.com/szd

* Shop Homefield at https://www.homefieldapparel.com/

* Modelo: Drink responsibly. Beer imported by Crown Imports, Chicago, IL

Producer: Anthony Vito.

Richard and Alex dive into the results from first round of the College Football Playoff, in the following order: Miami over Texas A&M, Alabama over Oklahoma, Ole Miss over Tulane, and James Madison vs. the idea that Group of 5 teams should have less access to the tournament. Then, a tour through FCS, Division II, Division III, and the NAIA national championship. Producer: Anthony Vito.

Want much more? Become a paid subscriber

Subscribers get weekly bonus episodes, usually more than one during the season and postseason, as well as the chance to ask questions and engage more deeply with the hosts. We’d love to have you.

Thanks to our partners and subscribers

* 20% off Dad Water: https://drinkdadwater.com/discount/SZD

* https://www.nokiantyres.com/szd

* Shop Homefield at https://www.homefieldapparel.com/

* Modelo: Drink responsibly. Beer imported by Crown Imports, Chicago, IL

In 2024, Indiana got good at football. In 2025, it got serious as a national championship contender. The Hoosiers enter the Playoff as the best team in the country, and it all comes back to a coach who can best be described as a more modern version of what Dabo Swinney used to be at Clemson. This wraps up our 2025 College Football Playoff Preview presented by Modelo.

Thanks to Modelo, the Official Beer Sponsor of the College Football Playoff. Modelo: Drink responsibly. Beer imported by Crown Imports, Chicago, IL

Ohio State was supposed to be a little bit worse this year. That’s technically true, sort of, as the Buckeyes enter the Playoff at a mere 12-1 after a missed 27-yard field goal cost them overtime in the Big Ten Championship. Everyone was wrong about Matt Patricia, and this team could win it all again.

Thanks to Modelo, the Official Beer Sponsor of the College Football Playoff. Modelo: Drink responsibly. Beer imported by Crown Imports, Chicago, IL

SUBSCRIBER EPISODE: Godfrey joins Richard and Alex for an awards show: The 2025-26 Coach Carousel Superlatives. Split Zone Duo hands out the following sought-after honors:

* The Trent Dilfer Award for Bungled Hiring Process

* The Deion Sanders Award for Celebrity Coach Hiring

* The Ed Orgeron Award for Interim Coach Promotions

* The Curt Cignetti Award for Best Hire from the Group of Five or FCS

* The Indiana Football Award for a Program’s Demonstration of Newfound Seriousness

* The Retread of the Year

* The Todd Graham Award for Sleaziest Departure from a Job

* The “It’s Definitely Gonna Work” Hire

* The “It’s Definitely Not” Hire

Some eligibility notes: For obvious reasons, we are excluding Michigan from these superlatives. Also, the carousel never really stops now. But much like the Oscars, if the movie didn’t come out by a certain point, it can’t win that year’s award. These are two awards shows of similar stature, we feel.

Producer: Anthony Vito.

Everyone can hear a free preview of this episode, which is for paid subscribers

Do you enjoy Split Zone Duo? Do you want to get something like twice as many episodes of the podcast, including the vast majority of our coaching carousel podcasts and many historical retrospectives? If so, we think you’ll really enjoy becoming a paid subscriber. It’s a great holiday gift for yourself, or for the college football podcast obsessive in your life. Yep, we have gift subs. Subscriptions cost $10 a month and grant you hours of podcasts, plus the priceless feeling of supporting an independent CFB podcast and keeping it sustainable.

For a while, this was a weird UGA season. The quarterback looked shaky, and the defense didn’t look good enough to drag him to a championship. All of that has shifted in the Dawgs’ favor over the past month or two. Let’s discuss the 2025 UGA team in our College Football Playoff Preview presented by Modelo.

Thanks to Modelo, the Official Beer Sponsor of the College Football Playoff. Modelo: Drink responsibly. Beer imported by Crown Imports, Chicago, IL