x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast

Richard Johnson and Alex Kirshner

An independent college football podcast that covers the whole sport, led by Richard Johnson and Alex Kirshner. Free episodes each week (twice per week in season), plus frequent subscriber episodes. Featuring co-host emeritus Steven Godfrey and friends. www.splitzoneduo.com

sports football

All Episodes

7:34

The Job: Virginia Tech

Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast ·

2025/09/22

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.comVirginia Tech has an incredible fanbase and a history, in this century, as one of the best programs in the country. But those things only count for so much, and the Hokies are now facing an existential moment: Catch up in the financial arms race, or fade further from relevance. In this episode, Alex and Richard discuss:* Why Brent Pry failed* Why the concept of “fit” in this job is extremely hard to figure out, unless

en

45:48

Week 4 CFB Hurry-Up: Boomer Hoosier

Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast ·

2025/09/21

That was a heck of a week. Richard and Alex break down a busy Week 4 in college football, highlighting dozens of games of interest. In this order: Oklahoma 24, Auburn 17Ole Miss 45, Tulane 10Texas 55, Sam Houston 0Tennessee 56, UAB 24Missouri 29, South Carolina 20 Miami 26, Florida 7Syracuse 34, Clemson 21Duke 45, NC State 33UCF 34, North Carolina 9San Diego State 34, Cal 0Virginia Tech 38, Wofford 6Indiana 63, Illinois 10Michigan 30, Nebraska 27Maryland 27, Wisconsin 10Oregon 41, Oregon State

en

7:55

The Job: UCLA

Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast ·

2025/09/19

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.comWelcome to “The Job,” a new recurring series from Split Zone Duo in which Richard and Alex go through the ins and outs of open college football coaching job. UCLA fired DeShaun Foster, which means the Bruins are once again looking for a coach to take advantage of the good parts of this gig without succumbing to the bad parts of it. But it’s been a while since anything has worked. In this episode, Richard and Alex

en

74:40

Week 4 CFB Tasting Menu: I'm Gonna Be Ill

Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast ·

2025/09/17

The Week 4 college football schedule is loaded with big games that wouldn’t have felt this big in any other year, like Texas Tech-Utah and Illinois-Indiana. Alex and Richard break down what’s interesting this weekend. A non-exhaustive list of games covered:* Iowa-Rutgers * Texas Tech-Utah* SMU-TCU (for the last time for a while)* North Texas-Army* Arkansas-Memphis * The Civil War* The Apple Cup* Tulane-Ole Miss* Michigan-Nebraska * Auburn-Oklahoma * Boise State-Air Force * Florida-Miami* ASU-Baylor*

en

11:25

Are These Five CFB Teams Doomed?

Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast ·

2025/09/16

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.comOne quarter of the way through the season, Godfrey, Richard, and Alex discuss five teams that are off to terrible starts and haven’t fired their coaches yet. They all look doomed to at least a bad season and maybe more than that, but can we find reasons for hope? In this episode: * How Billy Napier’s staff management at Florida has made him an easy target for criticism as DJ Lagway has gone backward in his second year

en

41:17

Week 3 CFB Hurry-Up: Dawgs on Rocky Top

Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast ·

2025/09/14

Richard and Alex break down an excellent Week 3 in college football, with a spotlight on more than three dozen games. We go in this order:Georgia 44, Tennessee 41Texas A&M 41, Notre Dame 40Georgia Tech 24, Clemson 21WVU 31, Pitt 24LSU 20, Florida 10Alabama 38, Wisconsin 14Miami 49, USF 12Oregon 34, Northwestern 14USC 33, Purdue 17Ole Miss 41, Arkansas 35Vandy 31, South Carolina 7Cal 27, Minnesota 14Stanford 30, Boston College 20NC State 34, Wake Forest 24Arizona 23, Kansas State 17New Mexico 35,

en

8:01

How to Keep a Revived Rivalry Alive

Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast ·

2025/09/11

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.comSubscriber show! Realignment killed off a lot of college football rivalries. Then the schools involved brought some of them back … only to let them wither again. Why does this happen, and are some of the ongoing changes to the sport encouraging or discouraging teams to schedule more of these games? Now that the Border War is back and the Backyard Brawl is about to play what might be its last game in a while (after a

en

99:04

Week 3 CFB Tasting Menu: Good Games in Stock

Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast ·

2025/09/10

The Week 3 Tasting Menu discusses many, many college football games. Here are just a few of them:* Colorado vs. Houston: Deion Sanders makes a QB change, probably, but he’s being cagey about it* Oregon vs. Northwestern: This game will not be interesting, but recent events surrounding Northwestern and its football program were* Clemson vs. Georgia Tech: This is a dangerous spot for Clemson, again* The Backyard Brawl: Other than the fact that anything can happen in a rivalry game, is there any reason

en

5:34

Overtime: Bleak Situations at Florida and Virginia Tech

Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast ·

2025/09/08

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.comIn this week’s SZD Overtime episode for subscribers, we examine two programs that were dominant in the 2000s and are still, all these years later, trying to recapture some of their old magic. Florida lost to USF, endangering Billy Napier’s tenure once again. Virginia Tech dropped to 0-2 with losses to South Carolina and Vanderbilt and is staring down a failed hire in Brent Pry. Richard and Alex discuss what’s gone

en

49:21

Week 2 CFB Hurry-Up: Bullish on USF

Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast ·

2025/09/07

Richard and Alex break down the interesting stuff from Week 2 of the college football season, starting with upsets in Starkville and Gainesville and moving on down the list to dozens of games:* Mississippi State broke through against Arizona State* USF cemented its very early hold on the G5 playoff spot at Florida* Oklahoma made sure Bryce Underwood had the night you expected* Iowa State has become what Iowa is when Iowa is good* Mizzou brought back the Border War in style* Illinois stood back as

en

81:26

Week 2 CFB Tasting Menu: Freshman vs. Brent Venables

Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast ·

2025/09/03

Alex and Richard preview Week 2 of the college football season, which is light on big-time helmet games but heavy on interesting regional matchups. This episode has notes and observations on a big bunch of games, including:* JMU at Louisville, a great Friday night opener for the weekend* Baylor at SMU, where we should learn a lot more about Baylor* Illinois at Duke, where the Illini put their playoff dark-horse status on the line* Iowa at Iowa State, a matchup that seems hard to figure out because

en

26:25

ESPN's Bill C. on His New Book, UNC's Disaster, and...

Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast ·

2025/09/02

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.comESPN’s Bill Connelly, author of a new book on the evolution and future of CFB, joins Alex and Richard for a big post-Week 1 chat:* Bill’s new book, “Forward Progress,” is a mix of caution and optimism about the ways college football has changed. We talk with him about how sports actually die, what still works well about CFB, and what’s broken. (This portion of the episode is free for everyone to hear.)* Richard reports

en

8:32

Covering Alabama in the Time of a Meltdown

Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast ·

2025/09/01

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.comIn this subscriber special (join us!), Alabama beat writer Matt Stahl of AL.com joins Alex to talk about exactly how bad things are right now in Tuscaloosa. Coming off a 14-point loss to FSU, we had a lot of questions, like:* How seriously is the Alabama beat taking the possibility of a coach firing?* What about Kalen DeBoer’s management of the program has been so wrong?* Did Bama do anything to make this worse for

en

45:04

Week 1 CFB Hurry-Up: Florida Statement

Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast ·

2025/08/31

The Split Zone Duo Sunday Hurry-Up returns for 2025, still featuring notes on dozens of games delivered in 30-ish (emphasis on “ish”) minutes and now sponsored by our partners at Dad Water. In this Week 1 rundown: * FSU doesn’t just beat Alabama, but does it with beef * Arch Manning flops at Ohio State, but we won’t engage in Arch Doomerism just yet. Meanwhile, a great start for the defending champs* LSU overcomes ref adversity and takes care of business at Clemson * Tennessee is winning the Nico

en

17:02

The 2025 CFB Time Capsule Prediction Special

Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast ·

2025/08/28

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.comAfter an offseason and preseason of talking, it’s time to answer: What do we think will actually happen in this college football season? Alex, Richard, and Godfrey put their names on some picks in this subscriber episode. At the end of the season, we’ll dig up the time capsule and see how we did:* The champions of every FBS conference* The playoff field* The national champ* The Heisman finalists* The Group of 5 player

en

84:53

Week 1 CFB Tasting Menu: Time to Eat

Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast ·

2025/08/27

Richard Johnson and Alex Kirshner preview the first week of the 2025 season, with notes on dozens of games that will make your Week 1 more interesting. A brief selection of the games we talk about this week:* Boise State vs. USF is the Bulls’ biggest moment in years* Nebraska vs. Cincinnati is a major interior pressure test for Dylan Raiola* Auburn vs. Baylor and Georgia Tech vs. Colorado headline Friday night* Northwestern vs. Tulane features a Big Ten team as a justified underdog in a Group of 5

en

87:05

Which FBS Teams Will Lose FCS Games? Let's Draft.

Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast ·

2025/08/26

This season, FBS teams will play 126 games against FCS opponents. Most years, anywhere between five-ish and 10-ish FBS teams will lose those games. The purpose of the Split Zone Duo FCS Upset Draft is to identify those teams, engage in some friendly competition, and use the process as a look ahead to the season. Everyone picks three FCS winners, but there’s a catch: Some FCS upsets are barely upsets at all, and they may only be worth three points. Others could be worth 100. Folks, it’s time for some

en

6:05

Why, Exactly, Is Arch Manning Good?

Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast ·

2025/08/25

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.comYahoo Sports’ Nate Tice joins Richard in this new episode of “Scheme School,” focused on one very famous QB. Arch Manning finally takes the reins of the Texas Longhorns this weekend at Ohio State. For a quarterback who’s been talked about more than any other QB prospect in maybe the whole history of the sport, we haven’t talked much about the specifics of Manning’s game.* What we’ve seen in limited reps so far* What,

en

100:23

College Football Previews 2025: SEC

Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast ·

2025/08/21

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

en

115:22

College Football Previews 2025: Big Ten

Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast ·

2025/08/19

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

en

523 results

Similar Podcasts

Keeping Karlsson Fantasy Hockey Podcast

Elan Dubrofsky and Brian Kom

Daily Fantasy Sports by Ship It Nation

Ship It Nation

Fantasy Football Today

CBS Sports, Fantasy Football, FFT, NFL,...

Bring The Pain

Heat00veride

ESPN SportsCenter Update

ESPN