Guest host Jessica Smetana joins Alex to talk through the first College Football Playoff rankings reveal of the season. This episode first aired as a live stream on YouTube and has been spruced up lightly by our producer, Anthony Vito, to go into your podcast feeds now. In this episode:

* Running through the opening 1-25

* What the committee says it’s doing differently this year

* Our biggest beefs with the committee (Alabama, hello again lol)

* The committee’s crush of the week

* The team at risk of being dropped from the group chat

* Jessica Smetana’s Notre Dame Discourse Corner

* The sneaky good win (or loss) of the week. Hi, Oregon?

Thanks for listening, and especially thank you if you were one of the people who joined us live and waited for us during some early technical glitching!

Florida State is open. Richard and Alex give the whole job market an overview but focus most of this episode on the Noles, who are still (for most people) the best available gig on the market. In this episode:

3:01: Richard walks Alex through the backroom and infrastructural changes FSU has already made (and the ones fans still want)

12:50: Where exactly did Mike Norvell’s tenure go wrong?

22:59: Where will this job sit in the pecking order of available gigs?

25:24: Names who might make sense in Tallahassee

30:29: NC State’s apparent pursuit of Philip Rivers and what we see in it, plus a bit more on on Baylor and Sam Houston

Producer: Anthony Vito

Richard and Alex take you through Week 9, telling you about dozens of interesting games in 30ish minutes. Including but not limited to:

USC 30, Ohio State 18

Indiana 23, Minnesota 16

Washington 17, Nebraska 10

South Carolina 42, Oklahoma 25

BYU 27, Arizona State 20

Texas Tech 34, Arizona 26

Iowa State 51, Oklahoma State 49

Miami 38, North Carolina 35

Clemson 36, Florida State 24

Troy 24, James Madison 21

Johns Hopkins wins on a FAIR-CATCH KICK

Producer: Anthony Vito

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The New Mexico Lobos have a long and mostly bleak football history. A former coach one said you could fit the fanbase in a few rows of bleachers. The list of UNM players the casual college football fan remembers watching is zero player long. But right now, under coach Jason Eck, UNM is one of the most exciting turnaround stories in the country and has a real chance to make the playoff. The Lobos are doing something no one else is doing, and Rodger Sherman joins Alex Kirshner to talk about it on this SUBSCRIBER SPECIAL:

0:16: New Mexico’s moment

9:51: The Jason Eck story

19:26: Remember a Lobo (Brian Urlacher edition)

25:20: Why winning at New Mexico is ultra-difficult

36:48: The defense and the turnovers

42:50: What happens after Eck?

Producer: Anthony Vito

Alex and Richard break down the Week 9 of the college football season, including Lincoln Riley’s uphill climb against Ohio State, and the Cody Campbell rants that should have Texas Tech fans concerned.

Florida Atlantic University at North Texas (00:02:37) Baylor at UCF (00:06:08) Arizona at Texas Tech (00:09:50) Notre Dame at Navy (00:19:32)Wisconsin at Iowa (00:24:06) Florida at Georgia (00:31:22)Miami at North Carolina (00:52:40)Ohio State at USC (01:00:28)

Those are just a handful out of the dozens of games we cover this week. Produced by Anthony Vito.

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Cohost emeritus Steven Godfrey joins Richard and Alex on this episode for a discussion what the player pay market has done to coach expectations.

5:07: The price of the brick (or of Jesse Legree or Kamario Taylor) goes up: What does a mid- or low-budget program do when a superstar emerges?

13:47: How much longer can coaches use NIL as an excuse?

22:01: Why different people in the same program will give you a different number for their roster spend

32:36: If coach pay isn’t going down, what does that say about what we can reasonably expect from coaches without a ton of roster cash?

43:23: Dissecting the season’s three big-budget disasters so far: Oregon, Michigan, and Texas A&M.

Producer: Anthony Vito

Richard Johnson and Alex Kirshner take you on a 30-ish minute journey through yet another really wild weekend in college football. This episode covers 43 games, including:

1:25: UCF 39, BYU 31 (2OT)

3:13: Cincinnati 37, Texas Tech 24

5:27: Utah 21, Houston 13

11:02: Texas 34, Ole Miss 27

13:59: South Carolina 27, Tennessee 24

19:13: Indiana 13, Michigan 6 (OT)

25:00: Wisconsin 24, USC 7

28:23: Miami 52, Pitt 23

34:46: FAU 51, Rice 49

38:33: New Mexico 21, North Dakota State 16

Producer: Anthony Vito

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Coach firing season is upon us, and the first ouster of the year comes from Maryland, alma mater of SZD host Alex Kirshner. Richard joins him to talk through the first opening on the market. In this episode:

The meaning of Locksley’s Maryland tenure, and why it isn’t a failure despite eight-plus years of mostly bad results

5:48: Why firing season got a late start this season

12:47: What kind of job is this, really?

21:50: A very, very early candidate wishlist from a Terp

Producer: Anthony Vito