Richard and Alex preview the SEC for the 2025 season:

* Texas has everything it needs to make a deep playoff run

* Georgia has a few more questions, especially at QB, but (this will shock you) looks like a frontline contender once again

* Alabama is back, per Richard

* LSU has championship upside, but will the defense be good or great?

* South Carolina has a huge star at QB and another at EDGE. The rest of the roster is more open to interpretation, but one of us is optimistic

* Florida has DJ Lagway, and that counts for a lot

* Ole Miss faces a QB transition, but there’s reason to be optimistic. Will the defense keep chugging after a bunch of losses?

* Texas A&M will run over you and play solid defense. How serious will Marcel Reed and the wide receivers be?

* Tennessee’s best side of the ball probably isn’t offense

* Oklahoma has some elite talent and some splashy portal additions, and Richard thinks this might work out

* Auburn might have the best receivers in the conference and has a bunch of young players that flashed last year. What about the weird QB situation?

* Mizzou is building its roster effectively but has some substantial losses to contend with, and it doesn’t sound like a great QB room

* Vanderbilt will probably move backward, but the ‘Dores have made progress

* Arkansas faces another year of coaching carousel questions

* Kentucky appears to be a bad situation

* Mississippi State is a bit more interesting but faces a long slog

After going through each team, the group awards preseason honors: The Split Zone Duo Dude of the Year, the Low-Key Cool Game of the Year, and the Coach Who’s Not Gonna Be Here Next Year Award. Producer: Anthony Vito.

That wraps up our conference previews

* Big Ten

* American

* Mountain West

* ACC

* Conference USA

* Big 12

* MAC

* Pac-12 and FBS independents

* Sun Belt

Thank you to our subscribers and partners

Become a paid subscriber today to get a lot more SZD, and check out www.nokiantyres.com/szd and www.homefieldapparel.com

Alex, Richard, and Rodger Sherman preview the Big Ten for 2025. This nearly two-hour episode runs through all 18 teams, in this order:

* Penn State faces “semifinals or bust” season

* Ohio State should step back, but how much can a team step back when it has Jeremiah Smith on one side of the ball and Caleb Downs on the other?

* Oregon has a few question marks but all the talent in the world

* Iowa has Rodger thinking about a darkhorse playoff run

* USC beefs up and has a QB that you could look at in one of two ways

* Michigan’s season is “found money,” but how much cash is in there?

* Wisconsin starts to get back to being Wisconsin

* Minnesota has a great running back, an optimistic QB, and … ?

* Indiana is poised to avoid a cliff after last year’s breakout

* Michigan State has an intriguing passing game. Will it be good?

* Illinois, with a light schedule and a heavy defensive front, has a playoff shot

* Nebraska figures out offensive line and maybe receiver, leaving a world of possibility in Dylan Raiola’s second season

* UCLA has a famous QB and a whole lot of questions (including that QB)

* Maryland is still Maryland, but it might have its QB of the future

* Washington could be the league’s hardest team to make sense of either way

* Northwestern will probably be bad, but it’s a left tackle development hub now

* Purdue has a good running back and, well, not much else

* Rutgers continues to play Schianoball, and it’s working fine

After going through each team, the group awards preseason honors: The Split Zone Duo Dude of the Year, the Low-Key Cool Game of the Year, and the Coach Who’s Not Gonna Be Here Next Year Award. Producer: Anthony Vito.

Thank you to our subscribers and partners

Become a paid subscriber today to get a lot more SZD, and check out www.nokiantyres.com/szd and www.homefieldapparel.com

The NCAA’s big decision on Michigan’s sign-stealing operation is here, and it is a nothingburger. To explain what happened and get a Michigan perspective on it (because it is very funny), Alex welcomes Jane Coaston, Crooked Media podcaster and Michigan fan, to discuss it. You can read the full infractions decision here if you would like some light PDF reading on your Friday. Can reasonable people finally agree on topics like whether Jim Harbaugh and Sherrone Moore knew what was up, whether the title was tainted, and whether Michigan really is a model program? Let us debate.

Producer: Anthony Vito

Richard and Godfrey preview 2025 in the newly renamed American Conference. In a recent episode, we touched on this league’s long-term difficulties. In this one, we talk about the season to come, previewing all 14 teams.

The episode wraps with preseason award nominees from the hosts for the SZD Dude of the Year, the Low-Key Cool Game of the Year, the Minority Coach of the Week In an Interesting Schematic Spot (of the Year), and the Coach Who’s Not Gonna Be Here Next Year. Producer: Anthony Vito.

Catch up on all of our 2025 previews

In reverse chronological order:

* Mountain West

* ACC

* Conference USA

* Big 12

* MAC

* Pac-12 and FBS independents

* Sun Belt

Thank you to our subscribers and partners

Become a paid subscriber today to get a lot more SZD, and check out www.nokiantyres.com/szd and www.homefieldapparel.com

Our partners at Homefield have seen a lot of you on the road in recent years. They’re getting back on the trail this fall for the Homefield Can't Miss Kickoff Tour, presented by Modelo, and we’re sharing news of the first three stops on the tour in Tallahassee (weekend of 8/30), Philadelphia (weekend of 9/13), and Bloomington (weekend of 9/20). You can get much, much more information on this tour here and get the rest of the reveal from our friends’ shows, the Shutdown Fullcast and Phantom Island.

Richard and Alex preview the Mountain West in 2025, starting with the same team that’s favored every year and then going in no particular order:

* Boise State still looks like the class of the league

* San Jose State has leveled up, but now Ken Niumatalolo confronts life without an All-American receiver

* UNLV is the apple of Richard’s eye with Dan Mullen in charge

* Colorado State made strides last year, but were they real, or were they just the result of a lousy schedule? Does it matter?

* Fresno State wipes the slate clean, but we’re optimistic

* Hawaii looks a lot better than we both thought they would

* Air Force should get back to business the way it used to be done

* San Diego State was shockingly bad on offense in Sean Lewis’ first year. How much does that change our feeling on them?

* Utah State made a great hire, but it’ll take some time

* Wyoming is still searching for an identity

* New Mexico is a blank canvas, and a new coach from FCS is trying something different

* Nevada is a hard job that continues to be hard

The episode wraps with preseason award nominees from the hosts for the SZD Dude of the Year, the Low-Key Cool Game of the Year, the Minority Coach of the Week In an Interesting Schematic Spot (of the Year), and the Coach Who’s Not Gonna Be Here Next Year. Producer: Anthony Vito.

Catch up on all of our 2025 previews

In reverse chronological order:

* ACC

* Conference USA

* Big 12

* MAC

* Pac-12 and FBS independents

* Sun Belt

Thank you to our subscribers and partners

Become a paid subscriber today to get a lot more SZD, and check out www.nokiantyres.com/szd and www.homefieldapparel.com

Richard and Alex preview 2025 in the Atlantic Coast Conference, discussing the league in the following order:

* Clemson, now with a light sprinkling of transfers, has every ingredient

* Miami’s defense should finally arrive, but will Mario Cristobal come through on the margins?

* Louisville has both of us excited

* SMU is graded on a different curve now, and on that curve, it has work to do

* Georgia Tech is in its best spot since we started podcasting

* Duke might be a better team … with a worse record

* Florida State (coming off a 2-10 season with one FBS win over Cal by five points)

* North Carolina is one of the ACC’s more interesting teams even before you get to the Belichick of it all

* Pitt has offensive firepower, elite linebackers, and a lot to figure out anyway after sputtering to end 2024

* Virginia Tech isn’t out of reasons for optimism, but it’s getting there

* NC State shows worrying signs of a program in decline, but does have a QB of the future

* Syracuse gets a bad schedule draw and will decline in Fran Brown’s second year

* Boston College shows good and bad signs under Bill O’Brien

* Virginia has certainty at QB and uncertainty at a lot of other places

* Cal appears to be heading toward the end with Justin Wilcox

* Wake Forest straps in for a rebuild

* Stanford is interesting for the long term, but check back after 2025

Then we share our nominees for preseason awards: the SZD Dude of the Year, the Low-Key Cool Game of the Year, the Minority Coach of the Week In an Interesting Schematic Spot (of the Year), and the Coach Who’s Not Gonna Be Here Next Year. Producer: Anthony Vito.

Catch up on all of our 2025 previews

We already have previews available for the following conferences:

* Conference USA

* Big 12

* MAC

* Pac-12 and FBS independents

* Sun Belt

Thank you to our subscribers and partners

Become a paid subscriber today to get a lot more SZD, and check out www.nokiantyres.com/szd and www.homefieldapparel.com

Why do you love college football? It's a simple question with a not so simple answer, but we asked it of you, our listeners, as well as some special guests. And you delivered. Sit back and enjoy an audio love letter to the game that fills us with delight, disappointment, thrills, and frustrations.

Producer: Anthony Vito.

Thanks to everyone who contributed, including our partners:

www.nokiantyres.com/szd

www.homefieldapparel.com