Biff, Jimbo and Coach Prime: College football’s best quotes from a wild offseason
Credit to Author: Dave Wilson| Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2023 17:49:13 EST
Pete Thamel explains what Michigan’s self-imposed suspension for Jim Harbaugh means in the short and long term. (1:08)
The college football offseason is the best of times: Coaches love to tell you they’re all undefeated, the new recruits arrive to add some juice, and the strength coaches have everyone in the best shape of their lives. Meanwhile, the defenses are multiple and the offenses all have new wrinkles.
The offseason also is the worst of times: There aren’t any dang games, for starters, and nobody knows that if the offense lighting it up in the spring game means it’ll be great when it counts — or if your own defense is just bad.
In the 230 days since last season ended, an entire conference on the West Coast evaporated, the entire Colorado Buffaloes team was encouraged by Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders to “jump in that portal” — and, boy, did it — and Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin called the entire sport of college football a “disaster.”
So there is some history to recall. Let’s relive it in the words of the people in the middle of it all.
“It’s not a concern. Our schools are committed to each other and to the Pac-12. We’ll get our media rights deal done, we’ll announce the deal. I think the realignment that’s going on in college athletics will come to an end for this cycle. The truth is we’ve got bigger fish to fry.” — Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff, at the conference’s media day on July 21, on any worries about the Big 12 potentially poaching teams
“What we’ve seen is that the longer we wait for a deal, the better our options get. … There’s an underlying shift in the media market that’s happening and we’re long-term taking advantage of that, but short term may have provided some hiccups.” — Kliavkoff, at media day, on a potential new television contract
“They’re back.” — Michael Jordan-style statement issued by Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark, announcing Colorado’s Big 12 return on July 27
“I’m trying to remember what they won to affect this conference and I don’t remember. Do you remember them winning anything? I don’t remember them winning anything.” — Oregon Ducks coach Dan Lanning on Colorado
On Aug. 1, Kliavkoff ended up presenting his league schools with a primarily subscription-based Apple streaming deal that expired after this school year. Shortly after, Oregon and the Washington Huskies joined the Big Ten, while the Arizona Wildcats, Arizona State Sun Devils and Utah Utes joined Colorado in the Big 12. The Pac-12 was left with just four teams: the Cal Bears, Stanford Cardinal, Oregon State Beavers and Washington State Cougars.
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“I think it’s been well documented that the last couple of weeks was a culmination of years of failed leadership, vision, failed implementation. It isn’t one singular thing that led to the destruction of the Pac-12 as we know it. It was a bunch of decisions and failed strategies that put us in this place.” — Washington State athletic director Pat Chun, whose school was left out of the realignment derby and remains as one of the four Pac-12 schools in limbo
“It just wasn’t one of those great feelings to work in college sports, in my experience. I take responsibility where we’ve made moves. But there was something different last week about the questions around the existence of the Pac-12 Conference, given its long and storied history.” — SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, on the Paul Finebaum show
“My current assessment of the situation after very deep analysis is I believe FSU will have to at some point consider very seriously leaving the ACC unless there were a radical change to the revenue distribution.”
— Florida State president Robert McCullough, in a board of trustees meeting on Aug. 2
“What they want to do and how they want to go about doing their business, that is their business but it does have an impact on us. And quite frankly, I don’t think it’s good for our league for them to be out there barking like that. … Pay for the exit fee, wait for your grant of rights that you’ve given and then in 2036 when those rights return to you, do whatever you want.”
— North Carolina Bubba Cunningham, of FSU, on the Adam Gold Show.
“The timing for us to do something radical is not known, but it’s not 2036.”
— FSU AD director Michael Alford, to ESPN, about the Seminoles’ desire to leave before the school’s ACC grant of rights are up, because they say they’re falling financially behind SEC and Big Ten teams
“We are where we are, and we have to try and make it work. I mean, we’ve been pretty vocal in the past month about, we need to find a home for Stanford and Cal. You can’t have two of the great academic institutions in the world not have a place to play.”
— Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, on the Dan Patrick show, about the possibility of the two institutions joining the ACC, which Notre Dame belongs to in all sports except for football and ice hockey
“People used to have to come across the country in a covered wagon — it would take them months and they’d be completely different people by the time they got there. We get on a plane for five hours, six hours, that’s not the end of the world. You get drinks served to you and some snacks, and it’s not that bad.”
— Stanford coach Troy Taylor, about potentially having to travel to the East Coast for ACC games.
“Starting to think about the next one, I do think it’s going to be much tougher. And I do think we’re going to have to reinvent ourselves next year because you can’t just stay the same.” — Georgia Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart, the morning after Georgia’s 65-7 victory over the TCU Horned Frogs in the College Football Playoff National Championship game
“No offense to the Minnesota 1935 team, but I don’t know if it’s going to resonate with my audience.” –– Smart, at SEC media day, on examples of three-peats in history he uses to talk to his team
“He’ll call a lot of — hopefully he’ll call the game. We’ll have suggestions on things we do, whether it’s offense or defense. Every coach is always involved. It’s a more collective thing than people want to give it room for.” –– Texas A&M Aggies coach Jimbo Fisher, at SEC media days on July 17, on new offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino and if he’ll take over playcalling from Fisher
“I’ve read or heard, or I’ve had people send me things about [Petrino] and Coach Fisher getting along. That’s not really how it works, OK? Coach is the boss, all right, and my job is to try to keep him happy and make sure that everything works the way he wants it to work.” — Petrino, at his Texas A&M media day news conference on Aug. 6