Y-Option: College Football with Yogi Roth

Penn State football has a new feel under Matt Campbell.

Todd Blackledge and I were in Happy Valley and had to break down what we saw from Rocco Becht, the Nittany Lions’ roster, and why this team can compete right away.

Welcome to today’s episode of Y-Option - fueled by our founding sponsor 76, keeping you on the GO GO GO so you never miss a beat.

I’ve always felt that the best coaches have a conviction in their style, vision, theme and philosophy. Coach Campbell has that in spades, which is a core reason why we think PSU will have long term success.

We share that Penn State has the talent to win in year one, how Rocco Becht’s experience and toughness shape the offense, why the tight end room and offensive line matter, and what Tony Rojas and the defense need to become as the season goes on. We also double down on Matt Campbell’s culture, the transfer-heavy rebuild, and why the schedule gives Penn State a real path to a strong first season.

Thanks for listening!

Much love and stay steady,

Yogi

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Y-Option: College Football with Yogi Roth is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Michigan football enters a defining first five weeks and in today’s episode Todd Blackledge and I break down what we saw from Bryce Underwood, the Wolverines’ run game, and a more aggressive Michigan defense at Fall Camp.

We explain why Michigan needs to start fast under Kyle Whittingham, how Bryce can take the next step as a runner and passer, why red zone decision making matters, and what Jay Hill’s defense could look like against a tough early schedule.

Today’s conversation is fueled by our founding sponsor 76, keeping you on the GO GO GO so you never miss a beat.

Much love and stay steady,

Yogi

Y-Option: College Football with Yogi Roth is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Welcome back or welcome to Y-Option!

Am fired up to kick off Season 3 of Y-Option and update you on what will come this fall!

For starters, really proud to call Todd Blackledge a friend and colleague…now we get to be co-hosts of Y-Option. We will be bringing you LIVE shows each Monday this fall and content all week, fueled by our founding sponsor 76, keeping you on the GO GO GO so you never miss a beat.

We kicked it off today with our recap from our respective Training Camp Tours. We break down early season expectations and key storylines across the Big Ten and beyond, including Michigan’s first 5 games, reasons for optimism at Michigan State, Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa, Penn State’s conviction in their approach, and why teams like Indiana and Ohio State could be even better than people think.

Also, we share stories from the road at Washington, USC, UCLA, Notre Dame and more.

Be sure to subscribe to our SubStack channel here, as well as our YouTube channel.

Thanks for the constant support, so proud of the community we have curated over the years as we enter this season.

Much love and stay steady,

Yogi

Y-Option: College Football with Yogi Roth is a reader-supported publication. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Everyone thinks their college roommate is awesome. I got undeniable proof one of mine is when he put on a gold jacket last week.

I wasn’t surprised Larry Fitzgerald made the NFL Hall of Fame, as I knew he was talented the day I met him. What surprised me was everything else about the week in Canton. Which brings us to today’s Y-Option podcast, fueled by our founding sponsor 76, keeping you on the GO GO GO so you never miss a beat.

Four things stood out in profound ways — profound enough that I had to make a podcast episode about it.

To give you the highlights, those four are:

How talented Cris Collinsworth and Mike Tirico are. I was able to see the best broadcast booth and production group our sport has ever seen, up close. Spoiler, they are even better people than the talent they have.

How old I’m getting. Seeing so many faces from the past 25 years had me smiling ear to ear, until I realized how fast time has gone.

How many Pitt teammates showed up. Twenty-five years later, and the bond we built at 18 years old was poignant and powerful.

Don’t ever pass up a Hall of Fame after party! I lost my voice by 9 p.m. and got called on stage to sing with Marcus Fitzgerald and Bruce Arians — I never laughed harder.

Congrats to the new class, and especially to my guy Larry Fitzgerald. What a journey. Hope you enjoy today’s episode and looking forward to recapping this two week training camp tour once back home.

Until then, I’m off to Iowa, Indiana, and Penn State to finish it off!

Much love and stay steady,

Yogi

Y-Option: College Football with Yogi Roth is a reader-supported publication. Be sure to subscribe to our growing YouTube Channel.

I grew up watching Penn State football. The 90s with names like Ki-Jana, McDuffie, Collins, LaVar and more. They inspired all of us in PA and many across the nation. For Penn State in 2026, they hope new quarterback Rocco Becht does the same thing.

And after sitting down with him in today’s Y-Option podcast, fueled by 76 keeping you on the GO GO GO so you never miss a beat, I think he's going to do exactly that in Matt Campbell’s first year.

Rocco and I dove into falling in love with football in high school, the transition from Iowa State to Penn State, and how he’s learned to lead from the inside out. Growing up with an NFL Dad he has had to learn how to handle expectations and navigate praise and blame. That will serve him well this fall as gameday is right around the corner.

I’m back on the road, heading to Pullman, Seattle, Ames, Iowa City, Bloomington and finishing up in Rocco’s new town, State College. When back, Todd Blackledge and I will recap our respective camp tours right here at Y-Option. Wheels up!

Much love and stay steady,

Yogi

Y-Option: College Football with Yogi Roth is a reader-supported publication. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Nico Iamaleava is the most misunderstood QB in the nation.

I’ve known of Nico since he was 16, and I’ve always felt like people were quicker to react to the headlines than understand the person. And since we launched Y-Option three years ago the vision was to share insightful and thoughtful stories in college football.

That’s today’s podcast, fueled by our founding sponsor 76, keeping you on the GO GO GO so you never miss a beat.

This conversation will give you a different look at who he is. The way he talks about his parents. The way he processes praise and blame. The way his mom’s cancer battle changed his perspective. The way he gives back to today’s youth via his Wilson football camps.

There is a lot more to Nico than the noise around him. And if you’re a fan who has resented the new-age in college football, this episode may refresh your passion for the game.

As Nico steps into the 2026 season and the deepest group of quarterbacks in the history of the Big Ten conference, we will see the starter at UCLA as a man who is grounded, grateful and ready to be where his feet are.

I spend my life talking to quarterbacks and today’s podcast was one of the most enjoyable podcasts of this decade-long endeavor. We went back and forth on the craft, how he trains his mind, and the impact of new UCLA head coach Bob Chesney.

I walked in excited about our conversation and left the Bruins facility inspired by the face of the program on so many levels. I hope by the time you complete this episode, you feel the same way.

It’s been a hectic week as I’ve gone from USC to Michigan to the Hall of Fame game to Michigan State to the Hall of Fame induction to Minnesota to home. And I’m heading back on the road tomorrow to prepare for the Apple Cup on NBC, Cy-Hawk, Indiana, and Penn State. Full recaps with Todd Blackledge coming soon and a detailed essay about what it was like watching Larry Fitzgerald get inducted into the Hall as number 385.

Until then, much love and stay steady,

Yogi

Y-Option: College Football with Yogi Roth is a reader-supported publication. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel.

This the most talented year at quarterback in the history of the Big Ten.

So in part 2 of our Media Day recap show Todd Blackledge and I took a deep dive into the most critical position in sports and shared what we learned after being around most of the signal callers in the B1G.

Welcome to today’s Y-Option podcast, fueled by our founding sponsor 76, keeping you on the GO GO so you never miss a beat.

The West Coast has finally captured their footing in the Big Ten and their signal callers are primed to thrive this fall. We spent time in Chicago with Dante Moore, Jayden Maiava, Demond Williams and Nico Iamaleava, as well as Julian Sayin and others.

It’s a gifted crop of QBs which means that most games will come down to a final drive, which only makes watching and broadcasting these games that much more enjoyable.

I’m off to watch USC practice and later this week, Todd and I kick off our training camp tour. Be sure to follow along on social media and if you haven’t done it yet, please subscribe to our YouTube page.

Much love and stay steady,

Yogi

Y-Option: College Football with Yogi Roth is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

As talking season comes to a close and camp begins, Todd Blackledge and I return home post Big Ten Media Days to recap what we learned from 18 B1G head coaches and 54 players.

Welcome to Part 1 of our B1G Media Day recap, fueled by our founding sponsor 76, keeping you on the GO GO GO so you never miss a beat.

A whole lot of what happens and what is said during media days doesn’t really matter.But, for Todd and I, it does matter as we get to have some genuine interactions with the 18 coaches and 54 players throughout the week, and it gives us something we’ve been craving all off-season: data.

Now, we get the best data on Saturdays. It’s quantitative and it’s 30 days away. This data is nothing like that. It’s qualitative. It’s reading social cues and analyzing word choice. It’s often times about what’s not said.And fortunately or unfortunately it’s the best data we got right now, so let’s start with the coaches.

Welcome to part 1 of our Y-Option Media Day recap.

Much love and stay steady,

Yogi

Y-Option: College Football with Yogi Roth is a reader-supported publication. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube page.

Boise State football is one of the most consistent brands in all of college football and in 2026 this proud program is stepping into a reborn Pac-12, celebrating the 40th anniversary of its iconic blue turf, and doing it all under a head coach who has spent a decade with Boise State.

Welcome to the latest episode of THE DAWN, where Boise State head coach Spencer Danielson sat down to talk about what this new chapter means, and why he believes Boise State was built for this moment.

Coach Danielson grew up in Southern California watching the Pac-10 turn into the Pac-12, and he watched Boise State from a distance before he ever set foot on the blue turf. Now in his tenth season with the program, he called the move into the new Pac-12 an exciting time for West Coast football and a natural homecoming for a fan base that always felt like it belonged in that conversation.

The coaching lineage at Boise State is not lost on Coach Danielson with names like Dirk Koetter, Dan Hawkins and Chris Petersen setting the foundation for excellence on the blue turf. He called it the most humbling experience of his life to lead a program with that lineage.

On the new conference, Coach Danielson praised the coaching talent across the league and called this first year just the starting point. He argued the champion of the new Pac-12 deserves a spot in the College Football Playoff regardless of a perfect record, noting that Boise State and its peers are not ducking marquee non-conference games, opening with programs like Oregon and Washington instead of padding schedules.

For Coach Danielson, all of it traces back to a culture he sums up in two words: built different. Not just because Boise State plays its home games on the only blue field in the country, but because the program is chasing transformation over transactions. He talked about developing players in every facet and pointed to Ashton Jeanty, who had chances to leave and chose to stay, as proof the culture is real and not just a recruiting pitch.

It is fitting, then, that this 40th anniversary season on the blue turf will forever carry the fingerprints of two players who embodied that mindset. Ashton Jeanty and Kellen Moore will have their numbers permanently placed on the hash marks of the blue field, a tribute Coach Danielson calls a reflection of two humble pillars who helped build Boise State into what it is today, and a fitting bookend for a program stepping into its next era with the same identity that got it here.

Y-Option: College Football with Yogi Roth is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

THE DAWN debuted July 1 across the Pac-12’s YouTube and Pac-12 Insider, the league’s 24/7 FAST channel. The series culminates with a finale featuring never-before-seen behind-the-scenes content from the building of this new league. It drops in August, right before the season kicks off.

It was 2005 and my first season coaching. Fresno State was playing USC and that night I learned that the phrase ‘Anybody, Anytime, Anywhere’ was real.

And today, with Fresno State entering the new look Pac-12, that phrase is at the heart of my conversation with head coach Matt Entz.

Welcome to today’s episode of THE DAWN, a collaboration between Y-Option and the Pac-12.

Matt Entz first fell for Fresno State on a Saturday night in the Midwest, a young assistant watching the late ESPN game, checkerboard end zones on the screen, Pat Hill pacing the sideline. He’d GA’d for Coach Hill’s old line coach, so he had a rooting interest built in, and it stuck.

Now he leads this proud program and seventeen months into the job, he calls it Midwest California, blue collar mentality echoing the small Iowa town he grew up in. It didn’t take long to see the same thing in his own roster, blue collar young men who grew up dreaming about playing for the Bulldogs.

That dream now comes with a new league, the re-imagined Pac 12, and Coach Entz can feel the excitement building as September closes in. There’s pride in it and pressure too, elevating a program and an athletic department that’s now in Pac-12.

Y-Option: College Football with Yogi Roth is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

THE DAWN debuted July 1 across the Pac-12’s YouTube and Pac-12 Insider, the league’s 24/7 FAST channel. The series culminates with a finale featuring never-before-seen behind-the-scenes content from the building of this new league. It drops in August, right before the season kicks off.