Big Ten Vibe Check: What Mayyyyy Happen in 2026
The Solid Verbal College Football
iHeartPodcasts
4.8 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2026
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We’re midway through May, which means it’s time to start talking ourselves into, and out of, what the 2026 college football season could become. In this episode, we turn the month itself into a game with a Big Ten “Mayyyyybe” vibe check, asking which scenarios feel realistic, which ones feel like offseason nonsense, and which ones might look strangely prescient by November.
Could Ohio State’s schedule create a real College Football Playoff problem? Is Maryland quietly positioned to take a step forward? Can Wisconsin stabilize things for Luke Fickell, Iowa mess around with a playoff run, or UCLA become one of the more interesting teams in the conference under Bob Chesney? We also dig into Oregon’s internal coordinator hires, Michigan’s tricky first year under Kyle Whittingham, and USC’s unlucky, unforgiving schedule.
Along the way, there are schedule sandwiches, quarterback questions, offensive line concerns, coaching crush rankings, a surprising amount of hernia talk, and more.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
5:01 - Ohio State misses the CFP
14:22 - Maryland wins a game after September
20:42 - Wisconsin saves Luke Fickell's job
27:23 - Oregon regrets new coordinators
34:19 - Iowa makes the CFP
39:27 - UCLA wins 8 games
47:22 - Michigan becomes a mess
55:52 - USC's unlucky schedule
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.5 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:06.3 | Welcome to the solid verbal. |
| 0:08.1 | The solid verbal. |
| 0:09.1 | Come after me. |
| 0:10.8 | I'm a man. |
| 0:11.8 | I'm 40. |
| 0:12.6 | I've heard so many players say, well, I want to be happy. |
| 0:15.1 | You want to be happy for a day? |
| 0:16.7 | Eat a steak. |
| 0:17.6 | It's that woo-woo. |
| 0:19.2 | And now, down and tie. |
| 0:22.8 | Yeah, Rubinstein, as people are listening to this, we are about midway through the month |
| 0:27.8 | of May. |
| 0:28.6 | This is true. |
| 0:29.8 | This is normally my favorite month, not maybe not favorite. |
| 0:33.0 | This is normally a favorite month because it's, you're getting warmer weather, you're |
| 0:37.3 | throwing away the boots and the jackets and the gloves and the beanies because you're getting warmer weather, you're throwing away the boots |
| 0:38.2 | and the jackets and the gloves and the beanie and you're busting out shorts and flip flops. |
| 0:44.4 | Not the case. |
| 0:46.2 | Dude, I got the heat on down here. |
| 0:48.0 | I'm freezing my blood off. |
... |
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