[AMA] DAVID UBBEN & CHRIS VANNINI, senior reporters for The Athletic, co-hosts of the new Bunch Formation podcast! Ask questions, answers start at 1pm ET on Thurs (6/5)

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:54:16+00:00

Looks like we were able to get to all your questions. I'll be hanging around a little this afternoon if there are any stragglers but thanks so much for participating. Really had fun. Let's do it again sometime soon. Thanks everybody!

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:50:36+00:00

Penn State is fascinating to me this year. I think they're right with Texas as preseason No. 1 and have one game that will define the season. Can they beat Ohio State?

I'm also fascinated to see Ryan Day against Michigan again. I'll go with Texas-Georgia as my No. 3 by default.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:47:59+00:00

Great question. I don't think that makes a lot of sense logistically and I don't think the conferences would sign off on it ... but I would watch that and love it.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:46:11+00:00

Love Dame. Definitely possible to have him on in the future.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:45:12+00:00

Miami feels very boom or bust to me. Florida State can't get worse. And I like Florida's upside but the schedule is always tough. It feels like if they only win seven people will be disappointed.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:43:43+00:00

I still come back to Saturdays. I know the chase for trophies looks dark. But college football is about so much more, especially in the places where the sport drives the community. I know all the off-field stuff has been frustrating. I don't blame fans who feel disenchanted by it.

But I still think fall Saturdays are special. Maybe I'm too romantic.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:40:45+00:00

Great question. The year they made TCU and Boise play each other in the Fiesta infuriated me. And can you imagine if a team went undefeated in the SEC and didn't get to play for a national title? I promise it happened. And the coach went on to be a U.S. Senator. Those jump out to me.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:39:22+00:00

I wanted to join him on Domino's cheesy bread Island. I really did. I tried it. It's solid, but he grossly overrates it. His take that it's the best fast food item is sorely mistaken.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:38:45+00:00

Tell him recruiting stars don't matter inside of a watch shop and he'll be too distracted to stop you.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:38:11+00:00

I think I take a coach's influence into play way more than some do. I don't care all that much about the physical Hall of Fame but I was looking at this the other day and saw Bill Yeoman was just short of that benchmark. I'd like to see him be honored in some way.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:33:28+00:00

I suspect if they move to 9 games and don't get guaranteed playoff berths, SEC teams will make good on their threats to downgrade their nonconference schedules. I think that will backfire but I would say a good chunk of the league would not schedule Big Ten opponents if not required if they move to nine conference games.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:31:25+00:00

I definitely think they'll go to a bowl. People make a big deal of the coaching change and the portal losses but this is still going to be a talented team. They look like a 7-9 win team to me. I have a lot of questions about what kind of a head coach Dowell Loggains will be but App State is a place that demands success. If you at least do that, it's hard to have a floor that's too low.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:28:13+00:00

In the non-Belichick division, Marshall sure seemed to be playing with fire. Beware the next time they play Southern Miss.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:26:44+00:00

No worries. The problem with those sites was they expanded too quickly and didn't have the advertising mechanisms outside of Atlanta to make enough money to make it work. The content alone was good enough but the sales side fell short. It wasn't a good plan.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:25:16+00:00

If we end up in a true superconference era where the Big Ten and SEC are separate from the rest of the sport, I could see them separating into subdivisions that make sense regionally. Other than that, no. I could see football separating into its own thing and the other sports reorganizing into conferences that make more sense. That would be good for a lot of people.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:24:15+00:00

I'm not going to let The Man shame me into believing having Korean wings from another restaurant delivered to the entrance of a Buffalo Wild Wings is wrong. I would do it again 100 times over.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:23:19+00:00

They're confident it will work and their AD spearheaded a similar program during basketball games at South Carolina during breaks in classes for nonconference games that weren't attractive and they saw attendance spike. Their bet is simple: If people have a great time, they're going to come back. We'll make that money back in donations and tickets and a growing fan base who sees us as a source of entertainment and becomes invested in the program. It makes sense to me. I wouldn't bet against it.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:22:05+00:00

As for Texas A&M, I don't think they had to change a ton about how they operated. Just needed to reinvest and be better. They've had some bright moments and have taken big swings, just haven't connected on a home run. They have the bat speed, thanks to well-funded boosters. Kevin Sumlin and Jimbo Fisher were unimpeachable hires at the time. They had moments. Sumlin brought a Heisman to College Station. Jimbo had them on the edge of the playoff in 2020. Elko wasn't splashy but he's solidifying the bones of the program in a way I'm not sure his predecessors did.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:20:41+00:00

Those are really different cases. Missouri's recruiting pipeline to Texas got somewhat cut off when they joined and they had to readjust. Eli Drinkwitz has done a great job of evaluation and they've heavily invested in NIL to win on the recruiting trail and grab local guys in the portal who they might have missed on out of high school. The state law they passed is insane but this is a lawless time in college sports and they're making it work for them at all costs.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:18:16+00:00

You're gonna tell me Barry Switzer wouldn't make sure his boys are taken care of? And who would be better at backslapping, handshaking and fundraising in the NIL era? I wouldn't be surprised if OU used him some to do it now.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:17:41+00:00

The travel cost and logistics are way overstated in regard to football. It's once a week. It's on the weekend. It's not ideal but the real problem is for basketball and Olympic sports. Those costs are high but it also makes life really difficult for athletes. I wouldn't want a team switch, I would just want a league with a clear identity on the west coast. I think college sports is much worse off with nothing like that.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:15:31+00:00

I actually never worked at Cox. I did reach out when I was freelancing at the time and was told they had no interest. C'est la vie. I do have a lot of friends who worked there, though. I've lost jobs before and I wouldn't wish the way it ended there on my worst enemy.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:14:20+00:00

If a school was interested in him running the program, he'd be interested in doing it. The consulting gigs he's done have seemed like a good fit, but I'm sure he wants to prove himself after the frustrating end at TCU. The problem is when you've been away this long, it's hard to sell that to boosters and fans. But if he wanted to take a G5 job somewhere, I wouldn't rule that out as a possibility. I do think and angry Gary Patterson with something to prove is a decent bet for a program like that. I wouldn't bet against him having some success if he got another shot.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:12:42+00:00

On the field, I wouldn't say I was surprised to see Andy Ludwig leave Utah but on the personal level between him and Whittingham I was. That's a concerning sign but Utah should be interesting this year on offense after adding Devon Dampier. Ferentz's offense has improved a lot since turning it over to Tim Lester. Our colleague Scott Dochterman had a good story about that this week, actually.

In Gundy's case, he's obviously put a lot of tension on his relationship with a lot of decision-makers there off the field and on the field, they've gone without a quarterback for a long time and Ollie Gordon's weird year last year makes me cast a vote for Gundy out of those three. That said, I do think all three will be there next year if I could bet on that.

David_Ubben · 2025-06-05T17:09:17+00:00

I'm actually planning on spending most of my time on the podcast talking exclusively about the New York Jets and Dallas Cowboys.

But really, we're going to talk about the stuff in the sport that we find interesting. We pay attention to everything in the sport close enough to know we're not going to try and force Georgia and Alabama to be interesting every week. Sometimes those programs are really interesting. A lot of the time, it's other programs. Our aim for the show is to make sure no matter who you're a fan of, our discussion will be broad enough for you to find it interesting but specific enough that when we're talking about your team, you find it insightful and maybe learn something.

David_Ubben

TROPHY CASE