College football may be our country\u2019s greatest sport, but the greatest sports day of the year is unquestionably this Thursday. I practically melt when the first notes of the CBS March Madness theme song hit at 9 a.m. PT.<\/p>\n
As such, I specifically requested any combo college football\/March Madness questions folks could come up with this week, thinking I\u2019d maybe get two or three. To my pleasant surprise, there were nearly enough to fill the entire column.<\/p>\n
In 2006, Florida became the first school to win both the football and men\u2019s basketball national championships in the same year. Who do you predict is the next school to accomplish the double? \u2014\u00a0Mark N., Downingtown, Pa.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to say anyone but Michigan as of this moment, given it hit the basketball lottery in hiring Dusty May. The guy took FAU to the Final Four in 2023, led the 2025 Wolverines from 8-24 to 27-10 and the Sweet 16 and now has one of the three favorites to cut down the nets next month. Maybe they\u2019ll end the Big Ten\u2019s 26-year title drought.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, football is only a few years removed from its last national title and just hired a future Hall of Famer in Kyle Whittingham. Granted, it\u2019s far from a given that Whittingham will come in and dominate from Day 1, but even if he flames out in a few years, May, 49, seems like the kind of coach who could spend the next 15 years overseeing a juggernaut.<\/p>\n
But if Michigan is 1A, Alabama is 1B.<\/p>\n
Nate Oats is not the world\u2019s most lovable hoops coach these days, but he\u2019s turned the Tide into annual contenders, reaching a Final Four, an Elite Eight and two Sweet 16s since 2021. I could easily see him cutting down the nets at some point. The question is whether Kalen DeBoer will hang on long enough to do the same. I still consider him a top-five coach<\/a>, given he\u2019s 54-14 in his five full seasons as an FBS head coach and won 11 games (including a CFP first-rounder) last season. But the preponderance of blowout losses his first two seasons has admittedly dampened my confidence.<\/p>\n I was still covering both football and basketball during that 2006-08 period when Florida was the toast of college sports, winning a pair of national titles in both sports. Urban Meyer and Billy Donovan were still in their early 40s. I assumed both programs would remain at a high level for years. Donovan did his part, reaching three Elite Eights and a Final Four before heading to the NBA in 2015. But Meyer was gone within two years, and the football program still hasn\u2019t recovered.<\/p>\n Hoops seems like it\u2019s doing OK.<\/p>\n Take away Bruce Pearl\u2019s Auburn ties. He argued the statistically better team (17-16 Auburn) deserves the NCAA Tournament over the most deserving (31-1 Miami (Ohio)). Translate that to college football: How large would the CFP need to expand before someone argues a 7-5 LSU deserves the Playoff over a 12-1 James Madison? \u2014 Craig B., Charlotte, N.C.<\/p>\n Probably not as large as you think.<\/p>\n As I\u2019ve long said: While most college basketball fans openly embrace postseason Cinderellas<\/a>, many college football fans seem almost allergic to them. Last year\u2019s Tulane\/JMU backlash being a prime example. But that\u2019s largely attributable to the size of the fields. It was more pronounced back in the two-team BCS (when 2010 Boise State became villainized) or four-team CFP (2017-18 UCF), but even at 12, berths are at a premium. Which makes people uncomfortable with a Group of 6 team \u201cstealing\u201d one of those precious spots.<\/p>\n If you noticed, the highly compromised Pearl<\/a> was on a one-man island regarding Miami (Ohio). Even though the RedHawks had no data whatsoever to support their case, the public sentiment was, c\u2019mon, they went 31-1, just let them in. I sensed no real controversy over them getting a bid. But of course, it\u2019s easier to say that when there are 37 at-large berths and the only power conference teams left by the end are indisputably mediocre.<\/p>\n While easy to laugh at the idea of someone pushing for 7-5 LSU, that\u2019s not far from what Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti is proposing with his 24-team Playoff. Last season, the final at-large spot would have gone to an 8-4 Iowa team with no Top 25 wins but also no bad losses. He himself said at Big Ten media days last summer, \u201cThere seems to be some feeling in college football that somehow if you\u2019re 8-4 you\u2019re not a really good football team. These conferences have gotten so much bigger and deeper. That\u2019s a pretty good winning percentage last time I checked.\u201d<\/p>\n Play this to its logical conclusion. Assume there are no automatic berths in his format. Say Iowa had lost one more game, to 7-5 Minnesota. And the No. 24 seed came down to the Hawkeyes and 12-1 JMU. He would absolutely argue Iowa had a better season because it played in a tougher conference, just as SEC commissioner Greg Sankey would for one of his teams.<\/p>\n Which of Kirk Herbstreit\/Nick Saban\/Desmond Howard would do the same on national television like Pearl did for Auburn?<\/p>\n Football blue bloods are quite resistant to sustained down periods, mostly because they are near recruiting hotbeds, have strong national brands, etc. Basketball blue bloods have proven themselves to be similarly resistant, but the reasons seem less obvious to me. Why does Arkansas of all teams have a strong basketball reputation as compared to South Carolina? How come Gonzaga is so good year in and year out but Washington State isn\u2019t? They feel less obvious than the assured excellence of Georgia and Ohio State in football. \u2014 Asa M.<\/p>\n In basketball, much more so than football, it seems like the best coaches are so consistently good that it almost doesn\u2019t matter where they are. You see that most obviously with guys such as Rick Pitino and Kelvin Sampson, who\u2019ve jumped around a lot (not always by choice). No one could win at St. John\u2019s for decades, but then Pitino gets there and quickly wins. Sampson goes away for six years, comes back at Houston and turns it into one of the best programs in the country.<\/p>\n But the transient ones are the exception. Think about how many recent or current coaches in that sport stayed in one place for decades: Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Boeheim, Jim Calhoun, Roy Williams, Bill Self, Tom Izzo and others. Arkansas had one of those guys in Nolan Richardson, and Gonzaga has one now in Mark Few. Even once a coach leaves, the program\u2019s cachet usually carries on. John Calipari is probably not at Arkansas today if not for the legacy Richardson left behind.<\/p>\n Which brings me to a related question: How exactly do the top basketball coaches manage to almost never have a down year, despite the constant roster turnover? There was only one Nick Saban in modern college football, but in basketball, at least prior to all the recent retirements, it felt like there were closer to eight of them at any given time.<\/p>\n Three theories:<\/p>\n \u2022 A good recruiter in hoops can get players to go almost anywhere. For instance, anyone who\u2019s ever been to Syracuse in the winter should appreciate Boeheim\u2019s ability to land future NBA draft picks year after year. But even if Syracuse landed the Boeheim of football tomorrow, he would not be able to overcome the dearth of four- and five-star recruits in that region.<\/p>\n \u2022 By no means would I suggest coaching college basketball is easy \u2014 but it\u2019s definitely easier than football. It takes far fewer players to field a good team, which means far less recruiting time. If a hoops team has a star point guard, shooting guard and center, it\u2019s not the end of the world if the small forward isn\u2019t great. Whereas even if a football team is good at most positions, a bad offensive line could sink the whole season.<\/p>\n \u2022 A much-bigger NCAA Tournament gives coaches wider latitude. You don\u2019t have to win a national championship, or even reach the Final Four, to have a \u201csuccessful\u201d season.<\/p>\n Take Izzo. His lone national title came a quarter-century ago. Were he an SEC football coach, they may have run him out for that years ago. But Izzo has reached 28 consecutive NCAA tournaments and made eight Final Fours. That\u2019s an incredible resume. Mind you, there have been quite a few seasons over the years where Michigan State bowed out in the first or second round, but even those don\u2019t go down as \u201cbad seasons.\u201d<\/p>\n Though they probably would if basketball had a 12-team tournament.<\/p>\n Dabo Swinney at Clemson and Joey McGuire at Texas Tech have a lot of similarities. Neither was a coordinator. Both are \u201cprogram manager\u201d types known for their charm and salesmanship, and both are in their mid-50s. However, they\u2019re going in opposite directions in their career. Dabo has openly rejected the new era of roster building, while McGuire has embraced it. Which would you pick to run your program for the next 10 years? \u2014 Benjamin D.<\/p>\n Interesting that you chose those two in particular, given a couple of brouhahas with my recent Top 25 coach rankings<\/a>.<\/p>\n Both Bruce Feldman (who had Dabo No. 8 in his rankings<\/a>) and Ralph Russo (who actually said out loud<\/a> he\u2019d have him in the top 5) were incredulous I had Dabo way down at No. 19. Whereas I found it puzzling they could still be so high on someone whose program has fallen further and further from relevance.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, I got a flood of complaints in the comments of my rankings story for leaving McGuire out. I didn\u2019t even seriously consider ranking him, given he\u2019s had only one big year so far (and went 8-5\/7-6\/8-5 before that).<\/p>\n So while I\u2019m down on Dabo, and cringe to think how out of touch he might have become 10 years from now, I think I\u2019d still default to the two-time national champion as of the moment. While McGuire just led Texas Tech to its best season in 17 years, who\u2019s to say it wasn\u2019t a one-off? Might the Red Raiders revert to the pack having now lost arguably the best defensive front in the sport last season? Could Cody Campbell\u2019s hit rate on this year\u2019s expensive portal class be lower than last season\u2019s?<\/p>\n Now, it\u2019s a different story if I\u2019m not bound in writing to keeping the guy for 10 years. In that case, then I\u2019m more inclined to take a risk on the less-proven but more forward-thinking McGuire, knowing I can cut bait in a few years if he flames out. Maybe Dabo will have redeemed himself by then.<\/p>\n Funny how the critics chastised Notre Dame for passing on the Pop-Tarts Bowl. However, not a peep when shunned basketball teams pass on the NIT. \u2014 Sean P.<\/p>\n Indeed. Playing top-12 BYU in a wildly popular bowl game that 10 million people would have watched is absolutely the same exact thing as a .500 basketball team taking on Bradley on a Tuesday night on ESPNU.<\/p>\n (Personally, I did not begrudge the Notre Dame players making that decision in the heat of the moment. I was just disappointed we didn\u2019t get that matchup.)<\/p>\n Of the traditional basketball blue bloods that do not have the same level of success on the gridiron (Kansas, UNC, Duke, UCLA, Kentucky), which has the best case to be a surprise contender for a Playoff spot the soonest? I will even throw in Michigan State, Louisville, Arizona, Syracuse and UConn. \u2014 Nolan C., Lincoln, Neb.<\/p>\n Duke nearly pulled it off last season, thanks in part to a bizarre ACC tiebreaker that got it into the conference title game. But the Blue Devils at least get to claim being the first school in that league\u2019s history to win a football, men\u2019s basketball and women\u2019s basketball championship in one school year.<\/p>\n But losing Darian Mensah<\/a> unexpectedly with no obvious successor on hand (Manny Diaz got San Jose State\u2019s Walker Eget on short notice) makes it hard for me to say a CFP berth is imminent.<\/p>\n Of all the other schools you mentioned, I\u2019d say Louisville under Jeff Brohm has the best shot. The Cardinals have appeared in the CFP rankings at least once in each of the past four seasons (but finished there only in 2023.) They were off to a 7-1 start last year, which included a big upset at No. 2 Miami, before star running back Isaac Brown got hurt and they lost three straight games en route to a 9-4 record.<\/p>\n Brown will be back this season, but in general, Brohm is relying heavily on the portal. This year, that includes leaning on Ohio State\u2019s three-year backup QB Lincoln Kienholz. So I have no idea what to expect from Louisville. But other than Miami, there\u2019s no ACC team I feel strongly about. In fact, though I had the Cardinals at No. 17 in my early Top 25<\/a>, they were still the second-highest ACC team. So I\u2019m saying they\u2019ve got a chance.<\/p>\n It would also be fun to take this question in reverse. Which football blue blood that\u2019s not usually great in basketball will make it to the Final Four the soonest?<\/p>\n I\u2019ll go with Indiana.<\/p>\n As a nod to our current era, an award is created to honor the best player to have used up their eligibility all at one school. Who is the trophy\u2019s namesake, and who would 2025\u2019s winner have been? \u2014 Anonymous U.<\/p>\n I assume you mean the namesake would be someone from the transfer portal era rather than, say, Tim Tebow? Or any other four-year standout from the previous 80 years or so of guys staying at one school?<\/p>\n