Inside the Big Ten-SEC Playoff Power Struggle with Ralph Russo of The Athletic
The Solid Verbal College Football
iHeartPodcasts
4.8 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 24 June 2025
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this college football podcast episode, Ralph Russo from The Athletic joins us to break down the complex College Football Playoff negotiations happening behind closed doors between the Big Ten, SEC and other conferences. Our conversation centers on how the number of SEC conference games is driving the debate, explores the Big Ten's push for automatic qualifiers, and examines why these meetings keep happening without real progress.
Ralph explains the power dynamics between Tony Petitti and Greg Sankey, why ESPN might not want playoff expansion, and how Brett Yormark is trying to wedge the SEC away from the Big Ten. Plus, the "reimagined" conference championship weekend, whether a breakaway league is possible, and why this feels like college football's most charged moment since the BCS era.
Timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction
05:02 - The SEC Decision Tree
16:19 - Power dynamics: Who's really running these meetings?
27:26 - The Unpopularity of SEC & Big Ten Power
36:35 - Reporting challenges and ESPN's actual role vs. perception
42:08 - The future of playoff expansion and what's next
51:19 - Outro and preview season setup
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the solid verbal. |
| 0:03.8 | The solid verbal. |
| 0:04.8 | Come after me. |
| 0:06.5 | I'm a man. |
| 0:07.5 | I'm 40. |
| 0:08.2 | I've heard so many players say, well, I want to be happy. |
| 0:10.7 | You want to be happy for a day? |
| 0:12.3 | Eat a steak. |
| 0:13.3 | It's that woo, whoa. |
| 0:14.8 | And now, down and tie. |
| 0:18.2 | Dan Rubenstein, our guest of honor today has not been on this show in a little over a decade, if you can believe it. |
| 0:25.7 | That's how old we are. |
| 0:27.1 | I could not believe my eyes when I went to our website and saw how long it's been. |
| 0:32.0 | Ralph Rousseau from The Athletic who is going to join us today. |
| 0:35.6 | It's been too long. |
| 0:36.5 | Doing a great job. |
| 0:37.5 | Was at the AP forever, if I remember correctly, and now has been at the athletic for a bit, |
| 0:41.9 | and does great work, has been reporting on all of the college football playoff conference |
| 0:47.0 | meetings and has done great reporting for the athletic, excited to pick his brain about |
| 0:52.9 | the whims and concerns and slamming fist, |
| 0:58.4 | standing on the table to support at some sort of automatic qualifying something. |
| 1:03.6 | He's not great. |
... |
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