As the temperatures have started to dip, especially at night here in the Midwest, it is starting to finally feel like football season. This is without question my favorite time of the year and I know most sports fans across the country feel the same way. When I thought about what I wanted to listen to this week I knew I wanted something with a lot of football talk. Fortunately, I saw this story about Sinclair launching a new football podcast, ‘The Triple Option’ and then I saw a social media post that said Nick Saban would be the guest on the debut episode which dropped on Wednesday, Aug. 21.
The podcast, which also has a video feed on YouTube, features FOX Sports’ Rob Stone along with three-time National Championship winning head coach Urban Meyer and Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram II. The three, along with Matt Leinart and Brady Quinn, make up FOX’s Big Noon Kickoff show.
You can tell the trio has experience working together right away as the beginning of the show has a locker room feel to it with some loose chatter about what they’d all been up to recently. Ingram talked about chasing his five kids around and all of their activities and made the point that he had never had this time before with his family as he was always getting ready for a football season. When it was mentioned Meyer and Ingram spent some time together in Cabo over the summer, obviously Stone wondered what had happened to his invitation.
Ingram, also referred to as ‘Deuce Deuce,’ brings the humor and keeps things loose, but don’t let that fool you, he is just as knowledgeable about the game as anyone and just recently finished his pro career after a dozen years in the NFL.
All three of the hosts showed off their knowledge of the college football landscape as the show really got going and they took a look at all 10 of the preseason AP Top 10 teams in reverse order. Meyer said before they got going that with a lot of these teams the schedules really determine a lot of things and it’s the first thing he looked at for each team.
From Florida State at No. 10 to Georgia at No. 1, the three gave thoughts on each time and talked about their chances to be the one standing with the National Championship at the end of the season. In about 20 minutes they broke down what they see as the strength and weaknesses of each team. There is a lot of intrigue about Ole Miss, who is ranked No. 6, as well as Texas who will be in their first season as a member of the SEC.
As they concluded, Stone mentioned that all three agree the top three teams of Oregon, Ohio State and Georgia are somewhat interchangeable and could have all been ranked No. 1. None would be surprised if any of the three won the championship this year.
After running through the top 10 teams, Stone asked for teams “outside of the Top 10 teams that we think is going to make some noise.” He mentioned that according to show sponsor BetMGM, Utah is the team outside of the Top 10 with the best odds, they are currently ranked 12th.
This made Meyer perk up as he spent time at Utah as the head coach and said, “I think they have the best coach in college football,” in Kyle Whittingham, although he admitted he is a bit biased. However, he has been to see them practice twice and mentioned getting a text from Whittingham saying he thinks they have a good team. Meyer said that really means something as he noted normally Whittingham is a ‘half-empty’ guy when it comes to talking about his own team.
Ingram went with Miami, who is ranked 19th in the preseason poll. He noted their success in the transfer portal, highlighting former Oregon State running back Damien Martinez and ex-Washington State quarterback Cameron Ward.
The second segment of the show featured their special guest, seven-time National Championship winning head coach Nick Saban. This brought together the only two coaches to win two FBS championships at two different schools with Saban winning at LSU and Alabama and Meyer doing it at Florida and Ohio State.
They started by asking Coach Saban what he has been up to lately, not having a team to get ready for the first time in forever.
“Well, I had the opportunity to do the draft this year, SEC Media Days, now I’m going to do GameDay,” Saban said. “There takes a lot of preparation time for these things, but the one thing that you can do is you do it on your time. You can do it in the morning, go play golf in the afternoon, go see your mom in the afternoon, whatever you need to do. So that keeps me busy. It gives me something to do.
“The biggest thing that I realized is for 50 years of my life, I was always in a hurry, always in a hurry to do the next thing, always in a hurry to get wherever I was going, because it was something else you had to do, whether it was to recruit, get ready for practice, prepare for a game, whatever it was.
“And what I realized when I retired is I didn’t even know that I was always in a hurry. I just thought that was the way of life…I like to say that I retired from coaching, but I didn’t really retire from working because I do enjoy having something to do all the time.”
The rest of the interview is best summed up as a masterclass in what has gone on in college football over the last decade and really gets to the heart of what this podcast is, which is to get some of the best football minds together to not just talk about what is happening on the field but the important things off the field as well.
Another question centered on what Saban has said to new Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer about coaching at Alabama. “We coach at these programs that have high expectations, which is what we all want…But I think the number one thing you got to do is be who you are, focus on the things that are in front of you and don’t get impacted by external factors…And I think [ignoring external factors] is a little more difficult to do in this day and age because of social media…There’s all kinds of impacts that you can have from worrying about what other people think rather than controlling what you control.”
Both Meyer and Saban have been vocal about what the responsibilities of a head coach have become in the age of NIL and the way the recruiting schedule has changed. First, Saban was asked about the evolution of the recruiting calendar as Meyer noted he had talked with Ryan Day at Ohio State who said he spends half of his time dealing with things other than coaching his team.
“I don’t think there’s any question about the fact that, especially the last five years, we’ve passed a lot of legislation relative to college football that has really made it more difficult to spend time with your current team…because you’ve got to recruit the players on your team all the time, because basically they’re free agents twice a year,” Saban said. “When they changed the recruiting calendar to allow spring and summer visits… those were almost sacred times…you had a lot of time to spend with your team throughout the summer, even though you weren’t allowed to go out there and coach them, you could spend a lot of time with them. And that’s all kind of disappeared.
Another topic Saban was asked about was the amount of transferring that is going on and this clearly struck a nerve.
“Players that came into your program, the number one goal is how can we help them be more successful in life because they were involved in the program,” Saban said. “So, you’re really going to college, to create value for your future. And as an athlete, that could be on the field in terms of developing a career at the next level, but most importantly, preparing yourself for the day you couldn’t play football. And that means making sure you get an education.
“The one fear that I have is guys being able to transfer, especially two or three times, you know, they impact how many guys graduate. So, we may have down the road, we may have some sad stories about what happens to these players…I am very concerned about that because there is statistical information out there as to when you transfer, how that impacts your chances to graduate.
“I do think that having the ability to transfer after two or three years of school and you can go someplace else and play, maybe that’s not a terrible thing in some cases, but when guys just do it for financial reasons, I think, it’s a little short-sighted in terms of what they can develop down the road.”
‘The Triple Option’ had plenty of knowledge, some laughs, and fascinating conversation. In about 90 minutes, Stone, Meyer and Ingram II delivered on their promise of having a football show that is different and brings unique perspective.
The show will drop each Wednesday and Oregon head coach Dan Lanning is the scheduled guest for week two.
Dave Greene is the Chief Media Officer for Barrett Media. His background includes over 25 years in media and content creation. A former sports talk host and play-by-play broadcaster, Dave transitioned to station and sales management, co-founded and created a monthly sports publication and led an ownership group as the operating partner. He has managed stations and sales teams for Townsquare Media, Cumulus Media and Audacy. Upon leaving broadcast media he co-founded Podcast Heat, a sports and entertainment podcasting network specializing in pro wrestling nostalgia. To interact, find him on Twitter @mr_podcasting. You can also reach him by email at Dave@BarrettMedia.com.
