Bruin Source

Episode 136: Big Ten Football Talk Podcast Special! Part 1

We're joined by Zack Gugenheim (@ZackGugenheim) from the Big Ten Football Talk Podcast for a two part special! The Big Ten Football Podcast covers all things Big Ten, and Zack is a great generalist of the league who's here to share with us the Big Ten's historical perspective on the Pac 12, as well as Big Ten fans' general expectations of the four new teams next season and beyond. Oh, and Zack is an Ohio State fan, and boy do we have some things in common lately. We discuss that as well :) In Part 1 of this discussion, we cover the Big Ten's historical perspective on the Pac 12, as well as his and broader fan reaction to the new additions to the league.

Duration:: 32m
Broadcast on:: 13 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

as welcome back for a special episode and I'm welcome today by a very special guest, Zach from the Big Ten Football Podcast. Zach, you were gracious enough to have us on to talk about UCLA on your show a few weeks ago. Thanks for coming on. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, your podcast and where we can find it. Yeah, thanks Kevin. It was so excited to come on this show and loved having you on ours. So yeah, we're the Big Ten Football Talk Podcast. We post every Monday and Thursday, at least during the season. And I'm an Ohio State fan, but I just have a deep desire to cover the conference. I've been a fan of the conference probably for, oh man, probably for almost 20 years. I think ever since ESPN kind of had a hit campaign on the conference, went Ohio State, Michigan. Let me see you on Michigan, didn't they? Yeah. I was like, that's, that's, there has to be good journalism, which I wouldn't say I'm a good journalist, but, but I've, I've loved, I've loved the sport and I love the, loved the conference for, for that long. But yeah, so Mondays and Thursdays, we talk a lot about Big Ten over the summer, we were just doing the state of as many programs as I could find, podcasters, UCLA being one of them. But you can find us on X, you can find us on Instagram, and then YouTube and Spotify are our two main spots where we record. And then you can also find me over at the Big Ten Huddle, which is one of the big conference shows in the college Huddle network. So. Yeah, we're excited to be members of the Big Ten Huddle. Well, Zach, I have a very important job for you today. Yes. You not only represent Ohio State fans, you represent the entire league, because your show is the Big Ten football podcast. And so you're going to speak for everyone today. How do you feel about that? I, well, I already would feel daunted if it was just 14 teams, but now it's 18 as, as of August 2nd. So I've got my work cut out, but it's exciting because I think, I think the four teams coming in, UCLA included, it really does add to each tier of the league, I think. And I think it's, it's a new world, obviously, in college football. But it's, it's also really fun because I think you're going to get unique styles. You have new coaches, you know, Deshawn Foster. I, I'm excited for him. I know he had a little bit of a flub at Big Ten Media Days, but he owned it. We're in LA. Yeah. You're in LA. But, you know, he owned that. I think he got a shirt made and I'm like, dude, I like this guy, like, I can really jive with someone who makes a mistake and then owns it, unlike a certain former Michigan coach, which we won't, my guess is we won't talk about that much today. But it's been a, it's, it's fun and I'm excited to see what happens this year because, you know, we're talking off air on this, there's a lot of, a lot of intrigue and mystery to a lot of these teams. UCLA included and a lot of your opponents on the schedule. Teams like Indiana and Minnesota, Nebraska, Washington, like all these teams, there, there's a lot of question marks, Rutgers as well, and I'm very curious to see how it all shakes out. And we'll talk about that. I'm sure further as the conversation, but I'll give you a little bit of a hint where I'm at with these teams is I think, I think we're in for a chaotic year across the board in the Big Ten. Yeah. I mean, with 18 teams going forward, your, any conference is going to have a couple teams or two or three teams that like, all right, this is our year and we're kind of above the pack. But generally speaking, with 18 teams, I don't see how it's not going to be chaotic going forward, particularly now as like two leagues have separated themselves from the rest. I think recruiting is going to take off in those two leagues compared to the others and you can have nothing but chaos if that's the case. Yeah, jump right into this. We've been going on some of the Big Ten shows, you know, obviously, you know, Big Ten Country has not washed a lot of UCLA for a lot of valid reasons. I would wager probably hasn't washed as much West Coast football because the timing is a, it doesn't work out. Like I'm, I'm married into a Midwestern family. When we go and visit over there, like I hate it. I can't. 10 o'clock, 10 30 and like our game still hasn't started and I'm like up until 2 a.m. Right. So, so I sympathize with how all that is. So like, tell me this, like the Pac-12 in a lot of ways for many years, it was a partner of the Big Ten. The tradition of the Pac-12, the Pac-10 and the Big Ten meeting up the Rose Bowl, I would argue it was one of the great traditions of our sport. I would argue produce the greatest bowl game in the history of our sport, which is the Rose Bowl. Absolutely. Um, and so how the Big Ten country, how did you all view the Pac-12 over the years? Like maybe like, you know, from, from before and then all the way up until recent times, like how did you all view the Pac-12 just generally speaking? Yeah. I mean, I think, I think in some ways there was a little bit, a little bit of a little brother syndrome in the sense, and I, here's what I mean by that. Not necessarily with the Pac-12, but with the SEC. And because of that, I think we'd, with a straight face, we'd be like, yeah, I think we're kind of similar leagues, but I think we'd always try to get our shots in on the big, or on the Pac-12, uh, be like, oh, we're a little bit better than them. We're a little better. But I, I think honestly what I would say is I think there's, there's eras, right? So you had the USC dynasty with Pete Carroll and the Pete Carroll era, where I think you had USC who was kind of a cut above everybody else. And then you had like Ohio State and Ohio State Penn State in, in a similar, in a tier, just a shade below them. And they, they were shade below. You knew that because they played in the Rose Bowl or they played in the regular season and they got killed by USC. But then it seemed kind of like the leagues were fairly equal otherwise. And then I think you shifted to an era where the Big Ten in general was down. And the Pac-12 lost USC as like the predominant team. And so you had the Rose Bowl that kind of went back and forth. And I think that was a referendum on where the conferences really were. So you had the, the Rose Bowl in 2009 where Ohio State beat Oregon in a tightly contested game. But then you had Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl and they, they lost Oregon and you had, um, you had Stanford get killed by, or no, Iowa get killed by Stanford. Yeah. And, and like it seemed like while the Big Ten, the Big Ten from like 2008 to 2013, it was a bad conference with a couple of good teams. And I think the Pac-12 from top to bottom was probably a better league. But the heights of some of the teams in the Big Ten, like Ohio State and I think Michigan State 2013 were like a shade better. And then I think what happened in 2014 when Urban Meyer, Urban Meyer arrived in 2012, but I think in 2014 you started to see the Big Ten pull away a little bit at the top end. But again, I think if anyone would say, well, the Pac-12 was like head and shoulders below or the Big Ten was head and shoulders above, you had UCLA beating Nebraska, you know, back to back years. You had Pac-12 teams beating the Big Ten in, in other games, but you also saw Iowa stomp USC. You saw different teams beating each other. So I think that the reality is it's always been a tale of a couple of top end teams in one conference. And I think probably the Pac-12, the way we'd see them was they were probably more top-to-bottom, had more parity, particularly as we kind of ended this current era. And then I think the Big Ten had some teams that were just like, oh gosh, why are you in our conference? And I don't know if there's really anybody like that in the Pac-12, maybe for the exception of Stanford the past couple years. And even that, I wouldn't say I know Stanford well enough to speak authoritatively on that. But I think, I think I would say that the Pac-12 top-to-bottom was maybe the best league in college football a year ago. But I think the top end talent has been better in the Big Ten. Yes, you have such a level-headed take on this, because it's interesting hearing you talk through like time, because we've talked about times in our show, like I grew up a Big Ten fan on the West Coast watching Michigan, right? And I remember those days when like, I thought it was unfair that the league was labeled, like it was given this label, label, slow. I thought that was really unfair, because it's like, do we really want to put 40 times up on the board and compare, is that what we're trying to do right here? Taking a distance from it, because I was really defensive about it then, because I had all the USC people that I went to school with, and all that stuff, and Oregon was on the rise, and Oregon was on the rise at the time, like came to Michigan and like slapped them up and down the field. So like, at the time was very defensive about it, but I take a distance from it now, and I just think of sports as cyclical, like it's just, it's always been cyclical. And I think you pointed out, well, it's not that anyone was fast or big or slow or anything like that. The Big Ten went through a period where it's flagship programs were down. And the Pac-12, like they lost SC, but like the middle tier of the schools came up. So it's really interesting here you like talk about that, because especially these past like eight years of Pac-12 football, where it's just been like, you know, a lot of schools experience some hubris, a lot of schools like experienced some like, we don't got to worry about this for a little bit, like we got our money in, like in that period, I think what we saw last season was like, it was just, it was a down period. And then like, you know, it all kind of just like came back around. So obviously, you know, two and a half years ago at this point, is that when this happened? USA. June of 2022, I think it was. Yeah. So that was when USC and UCLA made the jump. It was on the heels of Texas and Oklahoma, leaving the SEC, right? Which is really crazy, because like, you know, in an alternate world, we'd be living in a place where the Pac-12 had Texas and Oklahoma, but that's a whole other story for a whole week. Yeah. Right. And so like, what was your initial reaction when that first happened? I mean, like what was Big Ten fans reaction? Yeah, I, so my initial reaction was shock, because I, you know, you always hear smoke or see the smoke coming, and it felt like this was very much a back like backwards deal. Like, you'd think something of this magnitude, like would have been, would have had more smoke, like Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC felt like it had been coming for a while. And so when USC and UCLA joined the Big Ten, it actually kind of felt like this big finishing move, if you watch wrestling at all, it felt like a counter finishing move to the SEC in some ways. And the reason why is for a couple of reasons, one, while the SEC has been better competitively for the past two decades. The one thing that I think they have not done well is secure media markets. Now they're, they're living off of the fact that they have the sweet deal with ESPN. But if you look at their market, like their markets, most of their teams are, are their regional. They're not national brands. And so even Alabama, like Alabama is, they're a really good brand, especially now because of, you know, the past 15 years with Nick Saban. But like, if you think about it, their, their relevance when they are not good is, is fairly suspect to in the national spotlight, Tuscaloosa, not a big market. And if you look at all of those teams in the SEC, outside of Austin, Texas, which Texas is the arguably the biggest brand in college football, you don't have much of a national market, whereas Ohio State, Michigan, USC, UCLA and basket, like those are, those are national brands. And not only that, you secure the biggest markets across the country. So if you think about the Eastern Eastern time zone, you have New York, Central time zone, you have Chicago, and now in the Pacific time zone, you have LA. And I don't care how, how much people poo poo LA college football, right? Like, you know, in favor of pros, it's still, it still is on cable deals, streaming deals. And that's what matters. Those markets and those dollars matter, especially in a new world of NIL. And so my reaction when the big 10 got USC and UCLA was this is a slam dunk. This is, you know, it's the SEC got Texas and that's a national brand. But also you got USC and UCLA, you have a certified blue blood in USC, you have a very good program historically in UCLA, you have a natural rival, you have a pathway to get Notre Dame, because USC is a rival of Notre Dame. And you get into that, that West Coast market, and that matters for recruiting. It matters for the market share. And so in every single way, it was a slam dunk, it was a slam dunk, no brainer. And it was the death nail for the pack 12, because while Oregon and Washington, and we'll talk about them in a minute, what they are, they are good programs. USC was your anchor, and UCLA kind of solidified that with a historic rivalry. And the realities without USC, you really, it'd be like taking Ohio State out of the big 10. Like now you take Ohio State out of the big 10, now it's fine. But like if you take Ohio State out of the big 10, even in 2018, like Penn State was good, they weren't, you know, they were, they were not elite, according to James Franklin. Michigan was, you know, struggling to get back to that, that blue blood status. Yeah. Yeah. Like, so like really it was Ohio State that was carrying the league, and they had been for, you know, almost 20 years. And I think similarly it's that, that was USC with the pack 12. Yeah, I can tell you this, I was shocked from the UCLA perspective when this happened. Like, I mean, for, for those who don't know, but I mean, UCLA fans, this knows this well. The school traditionally, athletics has to operate in the black. That's just generally speaking, how the school has operated. It's in a lot of places, athletic departments are in debt. The vast majority of athletic departments in the country, I would say, are in debt. UCLA, the way they've operated for many, many years is you got to balance the books, you got to be in the black. And our previous athletic director, Dan Guerrero, like that's what he was really good at. He operated in the black year after year after year. And so, so long as that was happening, kind of the school didn't really bother him. He's like, all right, well, then you decide what you want to do and you just do it. In many ways, I think UCLA did this for two reasons. When was they needed to get back in the black? Like, UCLA could write off our debt tomorrow if they wanted to, like it's a blip on the university's budget, like it really is. But again, historically, not how they've done it. And then the other part to it is I think they realize the value of, you know, it's one thing to not be like the best, but there is value in being in one of the high major leagues in America. Every big public school in America is in one of the quote unquote, "power five" leagues. Like the reason Cal is now doing this insane thing and moving to the ACC is because like they want to, for a school of their stature, they need to that beast be participating, like in a major conference. So I was done when they did it. At first, I was delighted because the Pack Wolf, it just like, it felt like it was amateur hour for a little bit, like these marquee games were on like 8 p.m. on the Pack 12 network. First off, the Pack 12 network, like I don't wish that upon any fan anywhere. I really don't. Like the experience of the Pack 12 network, like the amount of bad ideas they had with that where it's like, hey, we have seven channels, Pack 12 Oregon, Pack 12 LA, Pack 12 this and that and like cable providers have to give all of them. Like guess what, like the person in Oregon now lives in the Bay Area LA and like Pack 12 LA doesn't play their games. So it was just like all this like stupid stuff that was like, so at first I was super happy to be done with the Pack 12. Even if like it was for not the best reasons, not very competitive reasons, like I was happy to be out of it. But then this happened. And like the inevitable, like the day that USC and UCLA happened, I think we knew in about a year, year and a half's time, the league was going to fold. And Oregon and Washington leaving, I think were like the start of like the end of everything, right? Colorado left that day, Arizona, Arizona State left that day and it was just like, yeah, in about a 24 hour span, everything just was gone. But for the big 10, really another exciting move. So like what was your reaction then like it's you've added two exciting teams. And we've also now lost this league that like is steeped in the tradition of like college football. Yeah. Well, so I had a couple of thoughts. It's really helpful to hear your perspective first off about your journey to the big 10 because I think that's one thing I didn't mention. But I think we all kind of knew even across time zones that Larry Scott was not a very good commissioner and but like I didn't experience it. You guys did. And so it's helpful to even hear like how poorly run it was and then also US or UCLA's the way that they tend to be economically and in their budget. So my take on Oregon and Washington was actually a lot of people did not like it. So like I obviously I was like freaking news they're joining and I was like, I wish they waited and at the time at my my mood has shifted on this. But at the time I really felt like while I think Oregon and Washington are great programs, I think Oregon is maybe one of the biggest programs on the rise and maybe that's until Phil Knight no longer is able to donate as much money as he is. But at the same time I'm like, man, the big the big fish is Notre Dame. Hold out for them. And that that was kind of my my feel was like Oregon and Oregon and Washington will always be there. There's no other conference that they're going to join that's going to be better than the big 10. So like why why go after them now? And that was my my stance on that. Because I don't think I think the pack 12 would have survived a few more years if Oregon and they had like two years left and so to me I felt like I felt like the big 10 almost pulled a desperate move when they didn't need to. Where I've shifted on that is for a couple reasons one, you know, hindsight's 2020 Washington was just in the national championship game. Oregon probably should have been, you know, like was good enough to be a playoff team this year. And I mean, there's six points away from being pack 12 champs and in the in the playoff. So, you know, hindsight's 2020 I also think, you know, Washington is still a very good brand. Oregon is probably the hottest up and coming brand and they have been for years, right? You know, all that Nike money. And so it's not the plan I would have done, but there's a reason why I'm a podcaster and not a conference commissioner. So that was my take on it though is I'm like as a traditionalist, I wanted Notre Dame. I thought it made it would have made sense. Go get Stanford and Notre Dame, you know, and that that would have made sense from a rivalry perspective. That being said, well, and I'll say this too, I am from a traditionalist standpoint, really sad about the pack 12 because again, you know, you mentioned the Rose Bowl. I think the Rose Bowl is the greatest venue in sports. I've never been there. We talked about this on the episode. You did work. We're excited. You're all out here. You're out here. I want to go like that's bucket list for me is a game in the Rose Bowl and yeah, like there's a sense like I might save up all my money because it's going to be a hot ticket to get to Pasadena when they finally play at UCLA when Ohio State finally plays at UCLA. From a logistics standpoint though, it makes a ton of sense, right? To have four teams from the West Coast, it levels out the travel for the West Coast teams. It maintains some conference rivalry. They're all, they all have good tradition for the exception of Oregon who is much, much more of a new blood, but you know, UCLA, Washington, USC all have great tradition. And they all have history with Big Ten teams because of the Rose Bowl, right? Oregon has very recent history. Washington obviously has very recent history, but then and then you look at UCLA and USC, they have historic cross conference rivalry with a lot of these teams. And now they're all coming together at the same time. So I think logistically, financially, traditionally, I think it makes a lot of sense. It just took me some time to get on board with it. Yeah, it's funny when it became clear that like something else was going to happen. For the long, I think there was a first three month period where a lot of us were like, yes, we're done with the Pac-12. And then there was this period of like, oh, wait, like, there's a competitive disadvantage to this, like, we have to go and travel like every week in every sport. They only have to do it like once. And so like, I think it'd be helpful to get some more West Coast presence. And then Oregon and Washington come and it's like, great, we got West Coast presence. But wait, we got like the two other best teams in our league, like, we didn't like stuff the schedule with some more wins here. Like we stuff the schedule with two very, very capable and in the case of at the moment Oregon, last year, Washington national runner up like top end teams. Yeah, so for you, Kevin, was it like, obviously, there's the realization of top top end teams, but like, do you have like, what were some of the other reactions that you and the UCLA faithful had when when they dropped the we're joining the big 10 to? Yeah, I mean, USC for the longest time, one of the biggest reasons, like from a football standpoint that they wanted to leave the pack 12, like, they didn't want to share California with Oregon. So like, that was a major thing. And then when those two schools are kind of negotiating, get back in, I think both USC and UCLA were like, wait, because, because Oregon can't physically be good unless they get players from California, like now, now they are a great national recruiting brand and they got the money and it's a great operation and all that and that that's all true. Both Oregon and Washington, like rely upon California. And so I think there was some stuff there of like, are we really trying to, you know, share our lunch right now and like, you know, share the life, but I think in the end of it, I would say yes, because like, you need some level of like competitive balance in the league where it's not just that the other teams are going to travel one time to face you, they're going to have to do it now at least a couple more times. It's why I would argue that I know a lot of big 10 fans want Florida State and, you know, Miami and like, I don't know if they want Miami, but like, you know, some of these big time programs, I think Notre Dame is one thing. That's like an entirely separate thing. But I would argue like for the sustain, as someone who just witnessed the fall of a hundred year old league, like the sustainability of a league is an important thing. It's like, you may think you add a team to just like get a bunch of TV ratings, but in the long term, you actually anger other constituents in your league. And so I think that was one thing. I think another reaction overall is, you know, just the realization that the mistakes that the Pac 12 leaders made over time, like had some really bad consequences for a couple of schools, like in what world why does Washington State and Oregon State deserve to be sent off to the wilderness when I don't know per do or Northwestern get to stay in the big 10 and like make all this money besides their like historical geography in the Midwest? Like, and you realize like it didn't need to be this way. You know, does that and I did a little podcast on this when the dust finally settled and like I had to go back and listen to it and you realize this the number of things that had to happen to tear down again a hundred year old league that was steeped in the tradition of the sport. Like it was a really sad thing at the end of it. Like there was Larry Scott, you know, there's hubris from a bunch of schools that like, you know, figured out we got our that the one TV deal will never have to negotiate for a TV deal ever again. You had like people spending insane amounts of money on rent and downtown San Francisco on TV studios, like a bunch of stupid stuff like this that was just going and and every one of them was necessary to get the league where it was. And I think that was something that was just like, yeah, I just to that I think and it's interesting to hear your perspective on like Purdue and Northwestern. I think the advantage that the big 10 has always had on everybody, including the SEC, was when Jim Delaney was the commissioner of the league. You know, at time, at times it kind of felt like he was an old Fuddy Duddy who like time had passed him by and he wants to, you know, keep the traditional live and you know, you was arguing for the roadable until like, he couldn't anymore, yeah, and you know, against revenue sharing. But he was making moves and people undersell the Rutgers, Maryland decision. But it was a brilliant move at the time because they were they fit the profile in many ways. When you get DC Baltimore in New York, and like, and so he's making them more financially stable at the worst dip of the conference in its history. Like I mean, they were the most nationally panned conference. Even when they beat the SEC in bowl games and even when they beat, like it just didn't matter the amount of bad press that they got, but it didn't matter because Delaney had just outmaneuvered everybody. And I think that's the different one of the big differences between the pack 12 and the big 10 in the last decade. Larry Scott did not know how to manage that conference. And Jim Delaney, you know, Jim Delaney was succeeded by what many think was the worst commissioner we could have gotten in Kevin Warren. And yet Kevin Warren, he had the slam dunk of adding USC and UCLA. He did that despite mismanaging the whole COVID situation. So Jim Delaney deserves a lot of credit for really making sure that every program in the big 10 really bought into a vision of revenue sharing, which allowed teams like Northwestern and Purdue to really thrive. Whereas I think the pack 12 and I think the big 12 too, they felt it with Texas being the divas that they were. That's a lot of where that comes from. And so Jim Delaney deserves a lot of credit. Yeah. I mean, it's really the last thing I'll say about this and we can get to football. You know, in 2010, like coming off the success of SC and like the rise of some other powers and whatnot, the pack 12 had just at that point, like they signed the richest deal and the history of like TV deals and too many schools after that, again, you have some universities. They just went through some hubris. They went through like a bunch of stuff. Larry's got almost pulled off this whole pack 16 thing, which like, look, that wasn't the red zone. And he fumbled it, which like, had he not fumbled it. We live in a different world today with collegiate athletics. But after all of that, like with him kind of being, you know, and he sold himself is that the pioneer of all this stuff, he kind of got this like, he got too much respect from some of these like, you know, school presidents and stuff who generally speaking otherwise, like school presidents don't want this to be their job. They want to focus on like other things. I think the likes of Jim Delaney and like what the SEC did really well is like they were always looking to solidify their position. They were always looking to like for the health of their league. And that's why they're in the position they're in.