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

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

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

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