Alex, Richard, and host emeritus Steven Godfrey turn a Memorial Day subscriber mailbag into a holiday-travel episode, starting with an either/or question about Steve Sarkisian and Lincoln Riley. From there, they get into G.J. Kinne’s future, Arkansas cutting and then quiickly reinstating a sport, what a 24-team Playoff might do to scheduling, how to talk about Kirby Smart, Dabo Swinney, Dan Lanning, and Eli Drinkwitz in 2026, and then the important holiday matters: message boards, soccer pain, cookout tips and tricks, Alex’s recent discovery of beans, and Spotify deep diving.

In this episode:

* 2:08: Who is under more pressure in 2026: Lincoln Riley or Steve Sarkisian? Plus: Will Muschamp’s role at Texas and USC’s politics around Notre Dame

* 13:46: Where G.J. Kinne could go next, and which coaches might make sense for future Texas G5 openings.

* 19:51: Arkansas reinstates tennis, then the conversation turns to Hunter Yurachek and athletic department accountability.

* 26:44: Would a 24-team Playoff make schools schedule better non-conference games, or just change the incentive to chase automatic bids?

* 33:57: Kirby Smart, Dabo Swinney, Dan Lanning, and Eli Drinkwitz as case studies in how we talk about portal usage, title ceilings, and carousel smoke.

* 44:52: Memorial Day light fare: Eastside LA food, message board culture, Tottenham and Valencia, cookout rules, beans, and all-time Spotify listening history.

Producer: Anthony Vito

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SUBSCRIBER EPISODE: Alex and Richard start with the surprise of UCLA becoming one of the offseason’s best recruiting stories, then Alex brings on Ira Gorawara fromThe Athletic for a campus-level look at Bob Chesney’s first few months in Westwood. This subscriber episode is about whether UCLA’s current burst of money, attention, and salesmanship is the first sign that a program long trapped between Los Angeles indifference and its own underinvestment might finally be changing its shape.

In this episode:

* 0:00: Richard and Alex set up UCLA’s recruiting surge, the money behind it, and why Los Angeles is a hard place to matter unless you are winning or selling.

* 10:49: Ira Gorawara joins to explain why Bob Chesney’s arrival has given the program a different feel than it had under recent coaches

* 17:02: Chesney’s contrast with Chip Kelly and DeShaun Foster

* 22:45: Whether UCLA’s donor alignment and roster spending are real enough to change the program’s ceiling.

* 29:17: How durable the Bruins’ recruiting bump might be, and what counts as success over the long term

* 34:29: The Rose Bowl vs. SoFi Stadium

Producer: Anthony Vito

Everyone can hear a free preview of this episode. To get the whole thing, become a paid subscriber today. For $10 a month (or you can get a free month with an annual subscription), subscribers get about twice as many Split Zone Duo podcasts, as well as our coach carousel reporting, deep dives on college football history, Q&A opportunities, and many more goodies as we think of them. You also help keep this show independent and ensure we’re making a podcast that puts our listeners, not anyone else, first.

Alex and Richard use Richard’s trip to ACC meetings as a window into the big college sports fight of the hour: how many teams will be in the College Football Playoff going forward. Then they sort through the Big Ten/SEC split over 24 teams, Ole Miss’ strange week as a national punching bag in the middle of May, and Nebraska’s first run-in with the new NIL enforcement system, which might be less the end of creative player payments than the start of better paperwork.

In this episode:

* 3:22: What Richard learned at ACC meetings, including the coming ACC tiebreaker puzzle

* 7:24: Why 16 vs. 24 teams is the next Playoff fight, and how conference title games, ESPN, and FOX fit into it

* 17:47: Why the Big Ten and SEC are on opposite sides of the 24-team debate

* 37:25: Ole Miss catches strays from Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian

* 47:22: Nebraska’s rejected NIL deals, the College Sports Commission’s first big test, and the future of athletic department creativity

Producer: Anthony Vito

If you like this episode, you’ll love a paid subscription at www.splitzoneduo.com/subscribe

For $10 a month (or you can get a free month with an annual subscription), subscribers get about twice as many Split Zone Duo podcasts, as well as our coach carousel reporting, deep dives on college football history, Q&A opportunities, and many more goodies as we think of them. You also help keep this show independent and ensure we’re making a podcast that puts our listeners, not anyone else, first.