Gee Scott Sr., Pete Thamel join Tim May to discuss state of college football
COLUMBUS — Gee Scott Sr. was mulling over what he had seen at an Ohio State football morning practice and otherwise watching the world go by below his High Street hotel window while wiling away the hours on a rainy Columbus afternoon earlier this week when suddenly a DM appeared on his Twitter account.
That’s how Scott — father of Ohio State tight end Gee Scott Jr., a radio personality in Seattle and expert on the Seahawks, an auctioneer and public speaker — ended up on The Tim May Show this week. He’s a man who always has an opinion and always has something to say, so tap that vein again?
Absolutely.
Also, making his first appearance on the show is longtime friend and a fellow admired nationally for his inside scoops and writing, Pete Thamel, senior college football writer for ESPN and insider for ESPN’s “College GameDay.” I wanted to get his opinion on the state of college football in 2023, an era of outrageous talent and offense exacerbated by the ever-flowing transfer portal coupled with name, image and likeness collectives while the conferences, wow, they are a-changing.
“We’re in a golden era on the field,” Thamel said, “and a muddled era off it.”
Thamel and I spoke at the Big Ten Media Days back in late July, but that muddled part only got more so a week or later. That’s when we learned Washington and Oregon were headed to the Big Ten next year to join fellow Pac-12 runaways USC and UCLA, and that four other schools from that league — Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Colorado were headed to the Big 12, leaving a final four of Oregon State, Washington State, Cal and Stanford.
Thus Thamel’s statement stands, plus this rejoinder: “No matter what the suits do, be they in Indianapolis or conference offices, they can’t mess up the sport. The sport is unbelievable. It’s the best on-field product in the entire time I’ve done.”
And Thamel never has pulled punches, which is why he’s risen to his current status at the top of the heap. Neither has Gee Scott Sr., which is why he is one of the more popular voices on Seattle radio.
Seattle? Oh yes, that’s the home of the University of Washington, soon to be one of 18 teams in the Big Ten.
“Yeah, this is good for Washington. If you’re a football fan, it’s great,” Scott Sr. “But, the local part of it? When you start having the potential of losing local interest — yeah, U-Dub fans are gonna be fine … but the state of Washington has Coog fans, too.”
He referred to Washington State, which is being left behind, and perhaps with one of the great traditional rivalries, the annual Apple Cup game with Washington, in jeopardy. Indeed, the Pac-12, the “conference of champions” soon will be no more.
“And the fact this is happening to it is heart-breaking,” Scott Sr. said.
But huge TV dollars are fueling this change, and he sees that change being far from over.
“I think the world … is going to be one day we have two Power Conferences, and then they run it like the Premier champions league (of soccer) over in Europe where, if you’re not playing well enough you’re relegated down, and if you’re playing well enough down here you’re relegated up,” he said.
What he knows for sure is he is proud of his son who showed up at Ohio State several years ago as one of the top wide receiver prospects in the country, switched to tight end and this preseason is showing “the best version” of himself, according to coach Ryan Day, as the Buckeyes head toward the season opener Sept. 2 at Indiana.
In between the switch and today, though, Gee Scott Jr. has had some challenges getting on the field, and there was “the elephant in the room,” his dad said in the show, that head-butting incident with a Michigan player last season that blunted a promising Ohio State drive during what turned out to be the Buckeyes’ second straight loss to the Wolverines.
“That head butt he did, that was the best-worst thing that ever happened to him,” Scott Sr. said.
It was the worst for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is because “it will be talked about for years to come,” and the unbridled wrath it brought down upon him on social media and the like, Scott Sr. said.
In the spring, his son asked him whether he thought he should transfer. Well, Scott Sr. gets into that and more – let’s not give it all away before you listen to the show.
But suffice to say, “2023 is already his year,” Scott Sr. said. “He’s on one of the arguably top-five, best teams in the country. That’s one. … No. 2, he just graduated from The Ohio State University a few weeks ago. No. 3, mentally … he’s doing better than I’ve ever seen him do.”
It’s a rousing conversation, and while the Youtube version can accessed on Lettermen Row, the audio version is available on you favorite podcast platform.
