Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast

Richard Johnson and Alex Kirshner
  • 4.8 (947)
  • FOOTBALL
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

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

  1. 1D AGO

    Big 12 Offseason Vibe Check: Houston, You Have a Quarterback

    Our offseason wellness check on all 16 teams in the Big 12. Richard and Alex discuss a league with a few teams trending upward and a lot more teams just trying to figure things out. Producer: Anthony Vito This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.splitzoneduo.com/subscribe

    1h 9m

  2. 5D AGO

    Lou Holtz (1937-2026)

    Alex and Richard go through the one-of-a-kind football life lived by Lou Holtz, who died on March 4 at age 89. In this episode, we discuss: * 1:46: Holtz’s Saban-like upbringing and why Notre Dame was the apple of his eye from an early age * 4:14: William & Mary, Holtz’s first head coaching stop * 7:25: NC State, where he was an all-timer * 11:13: The Jets, a one-year misadventure * 17:15: Arkansas, where Holtz was “the guy after the guy” and managed to stick the landing after replacing Frank Broyles … for a while * 24:41: Minnesota, where Holtz’s eye was elsewhere * 28:15: Notre Dame, a school that already had a unique football tradition but that Holtz took to another level on the field and mythologically * 37:25: South Carolina, a strong closing act * 39:16: Where Holtz’s resume is truly exceptional * 42:58: Holtz as an NCAA perp, TV commentator, irascible storyteller, and guy who made Ryan Day really, really angry * 48:49: Holtz’s endorsement of Jesse Helms, and a discussion of the cognitive dissonance that he deployed throughout his career Producer: Anthony Vito This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.splitzoneduo.com/subscribe

    1h 4m

  3. MAR 11

    Which of College Basketball's Problems are Its Own, and Which are Football's?

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.com Quick note! This is a subscriber episode of Split Zone Duo. You can subscribe here. Subscribers, be on the lookout on Sunday night or early Monday for the links to enter our annual bracket competition, with SZD sponsor prizes for the winners. It’ll be fun! OK, here’s this hoops-centric episode. College basketball has many of the same challenges as football, and some that are even tougher. Rodger Sherman joins Alex and Richard for a state of the union on CBB and a compare-contrast of how the dynamics we’ve observed in football are showing up in hoops. In this episode, you’ll find: * 7:46: The story of Miami (Ohio), a mid-major basketball team whose undefeated regular season has resulted in an awfully CFB-like discourse about whether they should miss the NCAA tournament * 17:08: The widening gap between the high-major conferences and everyone else, quantified in real time by Rodger * 27:33: Why continuity problems appear to be worse in CBB * 41:32: Is that thing actually happening where the House settlement results in basketball-only schools having an advantage? * 45:06: We probably shouldn’t actually worry that much about a small number of recent pros returning to the college game * 1:00:27: Rodger prepares us for March Madness Produced by Anthony Vito. This is a subscriber episode For $10 a month (or getting a free month with the whole year), you get: * Roughly twice as many episodes (usually two bonus a week in season and once a week out of season, but sometimes more) * Our entire back catalog of hundreds of bonus episodes, with many of them focused on evergreen topics from college football history * Subscriber Q&A opportunities * The knowledge that you’re helping us make an audience-driven podcast about college football and keeping this podcast alive and well

    22 min

  4. MAR 10

    Big Ten Offseason Vibe Check: Ohio State's President Makes It Weird

    Offseason vibe checks return for 2026, starting with the Big Ten. This is our way of checking in on how the offseason is going for every team in the league. Richard and Alex go through the 18-team B1G in the following order: * 3:22: Indiana * 9:08: Iowa * 12:08: Oregon * 16:36: Rutgers * 17:39: Illinois * 20:24: Penn State * 25:59: Michigan State * 30:15: Michigan * 34:38: Purdue * 36:01: UCLA * 38:23: Nebraska * 42:10: Wisconsin * 47:44: Maryland * 52:19: USC * 55:38: Minnesota * 57:18: Washington * 1:00:24: Northwestern * 1:08:52: Ohio State This episode is free, but you can get a lot more of them by becoming a paid subscriber For $10 a month (or a free month with the whole year), you get: * Roughly twice as many episodes (usually two bonus a week in season and once a week out of season, but sometimes more) * Our entire back catalog of hundreds of bonus episodes, with many of them focused on evergreen topics from college football history * Subscriber Q&A opportunities * The knowledge that you’re helping us make an audience-driven podcast about college football and keeping this thing alive and well Producer: Anthony Vito Learn about the Nokian Tyres Hakkapeliitta 01.Shop at Homefield. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.splitzoneduo.com/subscribe

    1h 19m

  5. MAR 5

    The Most Interesting Coordinator Moves (and Non-Moves) of 2026

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.com Host emeritus Steven Godfrey is back to join Richard for a whip-around of the most interesting coordinator moves (and non-moves) from the 2026 coaching carousel. There’s a lot to cover here, including but not limited to: * 1:04: Miami’s key retentions * 3:13: Palace intrigue at Auburn * 4:45: Clemson pushes the Chad Morris button * 8:50: Texas says hi again to Will Muschamp * 11:31: Kansas does the same with Andy Kotelnicki * 12:45: Tennessee’s possibly great but definitely kind of awkward Jim Knowles hire, after he flopped at Penn State * 16:45: Chip Kelly’s post-Eagles career remains bizarre * 19:49: Bobby Petrino and Bill Belichick * 23:05: Ole Miss’ new world * 27:48: Gary Patterson and USC * 29:02: Deion’s shrinking runway in Boulder * 30:22: TCU’s identity shift * 31:22: Mike Norvell, play-caller * 31:45: Michigan’s Utah era * 32:31: Ohio State’s NFL OC hire * 33:00: Oregon replacing not one but two coordinators * 34:50: Buster Faulkner (with the GT offense?) heads to Gainesville Producer: Anthony Vito

    13 min

  6. MAR 3

    How to Spot a Great (or Terrible) Athletic Director in 2026

    Matt Brown joins Richard and Alex for the latest SZD/Extra Points Sports Business Hour. In this episode, the group talks about how the job of an athletic director has changed in the past handful of years: * The worst athletic director Matt has ever seen * What used to be the key markers of a good AD? * How have those traits changed in the 2020s? * News story reactions: Oliver Luck gets yet another college sports job, and Mississippi is poised to give tax breaks to athletes on NIL deals Thanks to Matt! You can read him all the time at Extra Points. Get more SZD by becoming a paid subscriber We don’t stop in the offseason! Subscribers get bonus shows roughly each week (sometimes more frequently) on college football history, the coaching carousel, or any other topic or news story that we think you’ll be interested in hearing about. Thanks to the 4,000 of you who make this show possible! Thanks to our sponsors nokiantyres.com/hockey homefieldapparel.com Producer: Anthony Vito This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.splitzoneduo.com/subscribe

    1h 5m

  7. FEB 26

    Anatomy of a Coaching Carousel: 2012

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.splitzoneduo.com In this subscriber episode, Godfrey, Richard, and Alex revisit 28 head coach transitions before the 2012 college football season. This was one of the most consequential coach carousels of the 21st century, with lots of very good, lots of very bad, plenty in the middle, and also the John L. Smith situation: THE GOOD * 9:29: Urban Meyer to Ohio State * 16:05: Mike Leach to Washington State * 22:39: Bill O’Brien to Penn State * 31:34: Justin Fuente to Memphis * 34:28: Matt Campbell to Toledo * 35:31: Jim McElwain to Colorado State * 36:55: Gus Malzahn to Arkansas State * 39:28: Terry Bowden to Akron THE WHATEVER * 41:36: Jim Mora Jr. to UCLA * 46:54: Todd Graham to Arizona State * 50:28: Paul Chryst to Pitt * 51:10: Larry Fedora to North Carolina * 53:42: Kyle Flood to Rutgers * 55:45: Bob Davie to New Mexico * 56:46: Tim DeRuyter to Fresno State THE UGLY * 58:05: Tim Beckman to Illinois * 59:00: Tony Levine to Houston * 1:00:59: Curtis Johnson to Tulane * 1:01:59: Norm Chow to Hawaii * 1:05:54: Charley Molnar to UMass * 1:06:21: Garrick McGee to UAB * 1:13:08: Carl Pelini to FAU * 1:17:05: Ellis Johnson to Southern Miss * 1:19:25: Charlie Weis to Kansas * 1:28:00: John L. Smith to Arkansas THE DEBATABLE * 1:20:48: Kevin Sumlin to Texas A&M * 1:21:36: Hugh Freeze to Ole Miss * 1:25:02: Rich Rodriguez to Arizona Produced by Anthony Vito. Paid subscribers can here this episode and also our other “Anatomy of a Coaching Carousel” shows: * 2001 * 2010 Everyone else can hear free previews of these episodes. Thanks so much to our paid subscribers for making this show possible.

    28 min
  8. 24 Points to Change College Football Forever

    FEB 25

    24 Points to Change College Football Forever

    Your mission is simple, should you choose to accept it: By awarding or subtracting 24 points from a handful of old college football games, how much can you alter about the entire trajectory of the sport? Richard and Alex see how much damage they can do with three possessions’ worth of points: * 0:23: RIP to college football’s Wes Rucker, Joey Knight, and Rondale Moore * 3:37: Richard’s additional reporting on Sacramento State’s MAC move and the ridiculous math used to justify it * 13:22: The Split Zone Duo Hockey Hour responds to the Olympics * 19:46: News of the week: Joey Aguilar loses his eligibility case, and Jeff Monken suggests moving Army-Navy to Thanksgiving weekend * 24:32: Reshaping college football history with 24 points Get more SZD by becoming a paid subscriber The offseason is a busy time at SZD, where we focus a lot on creative projects and CFB history while also keeping tabs on the news of the moment. Many of our favorite episodes go out in these months for subscribers — including the next one on Friday, featuring host emeritus Steven Godfrey. Thanks to our sponsors nokiantyres.com/hockey homefieldapparel.com Producer: Anthony Vito This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.splitzoneduo.com/subscribe

    1h 8m
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4.8
out of 5
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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

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