Speaker 1: This is Tie. My voice is getting better, but I'm
Speaker 1: still trying to rest it before attacking the off season. Luckily,
Speaker 1: you're in good hands with Dan and Max Olsen as
Speaker 1: they talk about coaching, hires and transfers and probably pizza
Speaker 1: at some point. Also, you probably didn't know this about me,
Speaker 1: but I consistently lose to Dan at table tennis. Enjoy
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Solid Verbal. I'll that for me.
Speaker 3: I'm a man, I'm forty.
Speaker 2: I've heard so many players say, well, I want to
Speaker 2: be happy. You want to be happy for dake Eda stake.
Speaker 1: Is the war whom?
Speaker 2: And now Dan and Tie. Hey everybody, and welcome back
Speaker 2: the Solid Verbal. This is once again the voice of
Speaker 2: your at least second favorite host of the show, Dan,
Speaker 2: because Tie's voice is still on the end, as you
Speaker 2: well know. But that's okay because we here at the
Speaker 2: Solid Verbal are not just committed to five star talent
Speaker 2: hosting the show, which we happened to have today, but
Speaker 2: we also have a contributor to the five star culture
Speaker 2: at the Solid Verbal. We're talking about a writer for
Speaker 2: the Athletic. We're talking about what I believe to be
Speaker 2: from his instagram, a softball champion, a resident of Nebraska,
Speaker 2: somebody who I looked up his most popular tweet in
Speaker 2: the last year or so and it involved a frog
Speaker 2: and a spider. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, Max Olson,
Speaker 2: how's life?
Speaker 3: Hello, Hello, Thank you for having me on. I'd like
Speaker 3: to clarify that I was the worst player on a
Speaker 3: softball team, in a pre pandemic softball team, but I
Speaker 3: appreciate you mentioning my small trophy collection here. I'm good man.
Speaker 3: I'm a couple of weeks away from becoming a father
Speaker 3: and so that is very exciting. And thank you for
Speaker 3: all of the pre fatherhood advice you unloaded on me
Speaker 3: prior to this podcast.
Speaker 2: Was I have a lot and it's mostly marry a
Speaker 2: smart lady and go with what she says. But I
Speaker 2: can confirm that she made a lot of really smart
Speaker 2: decisions that are now in retrospect. Say, great job, Jody
Speaker 2: with an eye, great job. So it sounds like you
Speaker 2: married a smart lady too, So I think you're gonna
Speaker 2: be in a good place.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, and you know, very it's it's nice to
Speaker 3: put this crazy season behind us and you know, focus
Speaker 3: on folks, on real stuff.
Speaker 2: That's true. That's absolutely true. And let's I guess, here's
Speaker 2: my segue, here's my soso segue into the real stuff
Speaker 2: of what's actually we're getting college football right now, which
Speaker 2: is not much, which is just it's actually a nice
Speaker 2: distraction from the very strange season that was the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty season, and we're into the silly season. We're into
Speaker 2: Tennessee firing a coach because that's something that happens every
Speaker 2: so often. We are seeing coaches get hired. We are
Speaker 2: seeing transfers on a huge level, good or bad. We're
Speaker 2: seeing a ton of people transfer away from their school,
Speaker 2: be a grad transfer, otherwise. And you wrote a long
Speaker 2: piece on I want to assume maybe the most fascinating
Speaker 2: or the highest stake situation during this coaching change season
Speaker 2: about Tom Herman and why things didn't work out at
Speaker 2: Texas for Tom Herman and his staff in that tenure.
Speaker 2: And now as Texas moves forward into the Steve Sarkisian era,
Speaker 2: I wonder, with the benefit of hindsight, why why couldn't
Speaker 2: Tom Herman's Texas teams consistently separate from what I mean
Speaker 2: with what we perceive to be better talent? And has
Speaker 2: sark done anything early slash. Do you believe Sark will
Speaker 2: do something differently in order to meet those great unmet
Speaker 2: Austin expectations.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the you just asked the twenty four million
Speaker 3: dollar question. This is why they are going to write
Speaker 3: some big, big checks to make people go away and
Speaker 3: make new people come to Austin is to just try.
Speaker 3: And you know, I think ultimately they decided this is
Speaker 3: not the guy that's going to be able to fix
Speaker 3: this problem. And the thing the problem with Texas among others, is,
Speaker 3: you know, during the Herman era, certainly you have the
Speaker 3: peak there, the high of you know, going to a
Speaker 3: bitual title game, playing, you know, beating Georgia in the
Speaker 3: Sugar Bowl and all that, which sort of sets up
Speaker 3: all this hype for the next two years. But the
Speaker 3: problem that Texas couldn't couldn't really solve over these years
Speaker 3: was they played in twenty seven games decided by one
Speaker 3: score margins, and they went fourteen and thirteen in those games.
Speaker 3: I mean, they played more close games, you know, than
Speaker 3: any Power five program during that four year run. They
Speaker 3: had more losses as a ranked team to an unranked opponent,
Speaker 3: seven of them under Herman, than anybody else in the
Speaker 3: Power five. And so it's a weird thing where Tom
Speaker 3: Herman was always very good at being an underdog as
Speaker 3: a head coach, but then once they had to like
Speaker 3: kind of start being the favorite, once they had all
Speaker 3: this talent from a couple of years of really high
Speaker 3: level recruiting, and it was kind of time to you
Speaker 3: know that you had the quarterback, you had a lot
Speaker 3: of these pieces. They just couldn't really figure out how
Speaker 3: to turn all those ingredients into a team that could
Speaker 3: win really consistently and you know, win ten to eleven
Speaker 3: games and go play for a big toll title. They
Speaker 3: just couldn't really put it together. And that's that's the
Speaker 3: job for Sorry, Like, if.
Speaker 2: You're looking at the complete stew right now, you're looking
Speaker 2: at all the ingredients. Was there anything more flavorful about
Speaker 2: that Texas failure to separate than something else?
Speaker 3: Well, it's a it's a really kind of hard thing
Speaker 3: to like. I think now in hindsight, fans are going
Speaker 3: to want to put that on Herman and the coaching
Speaker 3: staff and say, if they'd just been, you know, a
Speaker 3: better coach, you get over the hump. But even this year,
Speaker 3: it was a bunch of like really weird little things.
Speaker 3: I mean the three losses, lose to TCU at the
Speaker 3: you know, fumbled the goal line there when you're driving
Speaker 3: to win it. You you know, lose to Oklahoma and
Speaker 3: four overtimes where if you just go for it two
Speaker 3: point conversion once you could win that game, and then
Speaker 3: you lose to Iowa stayed on a you know, you
Speaker 3: miss a game or a game time kick there. So
Speaker 3: I mean, like it's it wasn't They weren't horrible this year.
Speaker 3: They finished in the top twenty. They go seven and three,
Speaker 3: but it was kind of This is the thing that
Speaker 3: I think Chrystal, Connie and the stakeholders of Texas kind
Speaker 3: of lose hope is when you give the guy all
Speaker 3: the ingredients, and certainly they went through they remade their
Speaker 3: entire coaching staff pretty much going to twenty twenty, which
Speaker 3: made it a lot harder to be consistent and successful.
Speaker 3: But when you give this guy all the ingredients, can
Speaker 3: he put it all together? And ultimately I think they
Speaker 3: kind of lost faith that Tom Herman could be that guy.
Speaker 3: And so you look at Sark and you say, hey,
Speaker 3: here's the pedigree. You come from Alabama. You just built
Speaker 3: this incredible offense. The guy's learned from Nick Saban and
Speaker 3: Pete Carroll. Can he be the one to take this
Speaker 3: and not tear it down, but take it and take
Speaker 3: it to the next level.
Speaker 2: A school that I think seemed to be on the
Speaker 2: cusp of that, but have since sort of tread backwards
Speaker 2: to me, and I think it's been apparent to everybody,
Speaker 2: But I don't know how much actual stock you put
Speaker 2: in the twenty twenty season and performances therein Michigan. Michigan
Speaker 2: had been a program with a usually sterling defense, with
Speaker 2: quarterbacks who kind of came around and generally found an
Speaker 2: identity on offense by the end of the year, and
Speaker 2: you know, either one double digit games or flirted with
Speaker 2: it and then embarrassed themselves against Ohio State, except when
Speaker 2: they didn't. Now they just seem to be a program
Speaker 2: where nobody feels anything like it. It feels like even
Speaker 2: down programs find reasons for hope, and I know Michigan
Speaker 2: fans are hopeful that I think it's JJ McCarthy, the
Speaker 2: incoming five star quarterback, as the savior, but it just
Speaker 2: feels like the ann Arbor is buzz free right now.
Speaker 2: Do you get that impression, and is there a reason
Speaker 2: why you do or don't get that sort of stagnant,
Speaker 2: if not backsliding feel to the Wolverines.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's weird because you felt like going into twenty twenty,
Speaker 3: you still felt like, look, they're they're close, and like
Speaker 3: if Ohio State just didn't exist, they'd be pretty happy, right,
Speaker 3: they'd be pretty pretty damn close. And you know that
Speaker 3: they kind of have have done enough of the right
Speaker 3: things to to kind of finally put it all together.
Speaker 3: But I mean, I thought the way you know, I was.
Speaker 3: I was fine with the way they settled things at
Speaker 3: the end of the season to say, look, we don't
Speaker 3: we don't want to fire Jim Harbaugh. The NFL is
Speaker 3: not hiring him. We don't really totally know who the
Speaker 3: next head coach of Michigan should be. Let's strike a
Speaker 3: deal that's kind of fair on both sides here to
Speaker 3: not make a change at the top, but change some
Speaker 3: stuff and and kind of reset the dynamic here. I
Speaker 3: was fine with that. That's that's that's reason prevailing in
Speaker 3: a way that almost never happens during this silly season.
Speaker 3: But you're right, it is kind of like a this
Speaker 3: is fine situation where I mean, do you feel that
Speaker 3: great about what they're bringing back? Do you do you
Speaker 3: feel like this is and obviously this was a weird
Speaker 3: year in their division in a lot of ways, but
Speaker 3: do you feel like you know and and I'll say this, like,
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure Don Brown didn't forget how to coach defense.
Speaker 3: I don't think that he suddenly got very, very bad.
Speaker 3: And I'm curious how much you know Mike McDonald, the
Speaker 3: thirty five year old new DC off of John Harbaugh's
Speaker 3: raven staff, how much that shakes things up?
Speaker 2: But he'll lose two key assistants in Al Washington and
Speaker 2: Greg Madison.
Speaker 3: That's right, That's right. Yeah, it's hard to be like
Speaker 3: really fired up, especially when you've seen now here's Ohio
Speaker 3: State just chilling at the top of the mountaintop here too,
Speaker 3: right that it's not like uh and with with you know,
Speaker 3: certainly with you know, Chris Olave and Jeremy Record announcing
Speaker 3: they're coming back today, like it's not like a big
Speaker 3: old backslide is coming anytime soon. In Columbus.
Speaker 2: One of the interesting things you touched on, especially when
Speaker 2: you're talking about Texas, is going out and hiring two
Speaker 2: promising new coordinators when it was apparent that changes needed
Speaker 2: to be made. But it's also you can you can
Speaker 2: pad a coach on the back, a head coach on
Speaker 2: the back for saying, yes, these are where changes need
Speaker 2: to be made. But also he was the one who
Speaker 2: at least was a part of hiring those coordinators, which
Speaker 2: is not a great reflection. And that can kind of
Speaker 2: be said of at Orizron at LSU, who seemed to
Speaker 2: make a couple of pretty big whiffs and is starting
Speaker 2: over with both coordinators on each side of the ball.
Speaker 2: And I'm curious as to how you see LSU and
Speaker 2: needing a great reset of their own and if that
Speaker 2: sort of says anything bigger about the state of the program.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a it's a really kind of fascinating dynamic
Speaker 3: here in ed arz RAN's tenure at LSU, where Matt
Speaker 3: Canada was just based on results and how that all
Speaker 3: played out was like a very bad season, ruining higher, right,
Speaker 3: and so was Bo Polini And you kind of like
Speaker 3: ruined two seasons based on on on whiffing on those
Speaker 3: hires and then in between, uh, those those hires are
Speaker 3: are you know this sandwich? Those these really prime years
Speaker 3: when LSU was incredible with Joe Burrow, you know, and
Speaker 3: so I I think the the changes, you know, make
Speaker 3: a ton of sense on on the LSU side. Clearly
Speaker 3: the DC higher was just a bad higher that didn't
Speaker 3: you know that you didn't really see them make any
Speaker 3: good adjustments over the course of the season and get better.
Speaker 3: Like they had one of the worst pass defenses in
Speaker 3: the country with two of the best young corners in
Speaker 3: the country, Like, how does that? How does that happen? Man?
Speaker 3: Like so and obviously like there's a lot of excuses
Speaker 3: and and they were missing you know, X number of
Speaker 3: players and all.
Speaker 2: That, but instingly was hospitalized before the season started. There
Speaker 2: are variables.
Speaker 3: Yeah, certainly, certainly a lot of things did not go
Speaker 3: right and and that's the trade off for just having
Speaker 3: the most perfect season possible in twenty nineteen. But with
Speaker 3: the Jake Pet's higher, I think is really interesting. They
Speaker 3: just announced today that Ryan Nielsen's going to be the
Speaker 3: DC or at least that's the words leaking out now
Speaker 3: that they're hiring him away from the Saints, which if
Speaker 3: I'm sure folks are not super familiar with either of
Speaker 3: their work, but Ryan Nielsen's the guy behind that incredible
Speaker 3: D line at NC State that had Bradley Chubb and
Speaker 3: all those NFL players, and Jake Pets just worked with
Speaker 3: Christian McCaffrey and the Panthers, which went pretty well when
Speaker 3: he was healthy. So you're betting on some guys to
Speaker 3: I don't want to say like save ed or Jaran's job,
Speaker 3: because that seems hyperbolic, But at the same time, like
Speaker 3: that's when you're in that division and the expectations are
Speaker 3: where they are thanks to your national title, like you really,
Speaker 3: you really have to nail these And I also think
Speaker 3: losing Steve Ensminger's is a not insignificant thing here.
Speaker 2: Sure, no, he bridges the gap, and I guess let's
Speaker 2: go to the other division because South Carolina, certainly, with
Speaker 2: getting rid of Will must Champ and paying him the
Speaker 2: money to leave and then bringing in Shane Beemer, seemed
Speaker 2: to make some waves in that division, at least until
Speaker 2: literally today when Tennessee got rid of Jeremy Pruitt and
Speaker 2: also Phil Fullmer stepped down and Kevin Steele steps in
Speaker 2: after being named an ambiguous defensive assistant and now they're
Speaker 2: looking for a new head coach, but probably have to
Speaker 2: hire an ad first, So South Carolina other than losing
Speaker 2: some of its assistants to other schools, it's been a
Speaker 2: relatively quiet start. I know they lost a big quarterback
Speaker 2: recruit as well. But something that I had heard a
Speaker 2: lot of with Shane Beemer's hiring was people really missed
Speaker 2: him in Columbia. He really has a lot of friends
Speaker 2: at South Carolina. He's really well liked. And I don't
Speaker 2: know anything either way, just because I have not looked
Speaker 2: into special teams coordinators super in a super detailed way.
Speaker 2: Why is it that people like Shane Beemer and what
Speaker 2: is his perceived upside in Columbia.
Speaker 3: I think the very very likable guy. I think everyone
Speaker 3: has said that, and we'll keep saying that, and that
Speaker 3: will that will be the thing that sex with I
Speaker 3: think that probably when he interviews for the job, the
Speaker 3: idea is, look, I can I can take the old
Speaker 3: school of what I learned from my dad and the
Speaker 3: new school of working for Lincoln Riley and seeing, here's
Speaker 3: how you run like a very like vibrant modern program
Speaker 3: that kids want to play for and that that everybody
Speaker 3: is like really happy in their jobs and have a
Speaker 3: good culture. Like I think he can kind of bring
Speaker 3: a little bit of both to the table for South
Speaker 3: Carolina and just be like a positive person that everyone
Speaker 3: likes and gets behind, and that the recruits in that
Speaker 3: region kind of get behind. And it reminds me, like
Speaker 3: I just wrote about prior to the Orange Bowl, kind
Speaker 3: of wrote about how mac Brown has nailed this return
Speaker 3: to coaching at North Carolina, and a lot of it
Speaker 3: is that he came in, came back to Chapel Hill
Speaker 3: with the cheek codes. He knows exactly how you win there,
Speaker 3: who you recruit, who you had to hire, like what
Speaker 3: works you. You've saved the years and years of like
Speaker 3: missteps that that you know other folks that could have
Speaker 3: hired would go through. And you know, maybe Shane Biemer
Speaker 3: and coming back to South Carolina, not that he's won
Speaker 3: at the level of mac Brown, but having having been
Speaker 3: at that place before, you would think, kind of, maybe
Speaker 3: he can come back and avoid some of the mistakes
Speaker 3: that others might make in that job and and kind
Speaker 3: of bring bring everybody together there in the right direction.
Speaker 3: I think that's the that's the hope there. I would
Speaker 3: think I think that.
Speaker 2: The reaction on the other side of the sec back
Speaker 2: to the West with with Brian Harson arriving to the
Speaker 2: planes has been okay. He has this pedigree where he
Speaker 2: actually coaches at Texas and Arkansas State and goes back
Speaker 2: to Boise and has coached under or with a lot
Speaker 2: of really strong coaches, including I believe was Mac Brown
Speaker 2: who hired him at Texas with Brent Peace. If I'm
Speaker 2: remembering my co offensive coordinators from way back when.
Speaker 3: That was that was when Mac wenton, did Harson and
Speaker 3: Nanny Diaz as the program?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: You know, Reviver that that.
Speaker 2: Was his own reset. Maybe we'll do a whole podcast
Speaker 2: about resets. I love a good love a good reset, absolutely.
Speaker 2: But Brian Harson goes to Auburn, has head coaching experience,
Speaker 2: which seems very nice when you go to a major
Speaker 2: program like Auburn, makes a couple of interesting hires, including
Speaker 2: Derek Mason to coach his defense. I imagine there's optimism
Speaker 2: just because that's the general feeling when you hire a
Speaker 2: younger I think he's in his early forties, a younger
Speaker 2: head coach who has head coaching experience and has one
Speaker 2: What is known about Brian Harson, what is expected and
Speaker 2: what is expected of him? That will be different if
Speaker 2: they're trying to get away from the Gus Malson era.
Speaker 2: What is noticeably different about Brian Harson than what Auburn
Speaker 2: fans were used to with with Gus Malson.
Speaker 3: I want to start by asking this, when that, yeah,
Speaker 3: when that hits your timeline that afternoon that Brian Harson's
Speaker 3: the new head coach of Auburn, what was your reaction
Speaker 3: that he was their third choice? That he has won?
Speaker 3: But I haven't like every year I care about Boise
Speaker 3: State football a little bit less, and they just seemed
Speaker 3: to be treading water as a good program. But they're
Speaker 3: not a killer anymore, and there's not the unique quality
Speaker 3: to Boise that they were under Chris Peterson, and he
Speaker 3: seemed to hire good coordinators that got hired away Andy Avlos,
Speaker 3: who's now their head coach, to Oregon, and I think
Speaker 3: it was Zach Hill went to ASU. So that's a
Speaker 3: good sign for him. But I never I had seen
Speaker 3: stories leading up that Brian Harson was unhappy that Boise
Speaker 3: wasn't taking as taking football as seriously as he wanted
Speaker 3: them to, So that didn't come as a surprise that
Speaker 3: he leapt at the opportunity for a big job, but
Speaker 3: also like it was out of the region.
Speaker 2: It seemed fine. It didn't. It didn't strike me as like, ooh,
Speaker 2: good for Boise. That makes a ton of sense. I
Speaker 2: never had that sense about it. Right to me, it
Speaker 2: was like kind of a jaw dropper. And that's not
Speaker 2: to disrespect Brian harsonn't. It doesn't mean I think he
Speaker 2: can't be successful. And it's funny because like we always
Speaker 2: kind of think about this stuff as like I think,
Speaker 2: especially fan bases, when you're going through coaching change, you
Speaker 2: always kind of fantasize about like can you hire the
Speaker 2: person that everybody else in the conference goes like, oh shit,
Speaker 2: like oh we're trouble exactly right. And I don't know
Speaker 2: that Brian Harrison does that for Nick Saban or anybody
Speaker 2: else in that division, but maybe they kind of sneakily
Speaker 2: just like hired a very good coach who just sort
Speaker 2: of like chucks a bunch of boxes. And I mean,
Speaker 2: I was, you know, when they moved on from Gus,
Speaker 2: Like I joke to my old colleague justin ferguson that
Speaker 2: night of like it seems like Auburn is moving on
Speaker 2: from like a pretty pretty good marriage thinking that like, oh,
Speaker 2: I want to hit the dating pool, see what's out
Speaker 2: there for me, just so they can kind of like
Speaker 2: be disappointed in all sorts of new ways by lesser,
Speaker 2: lesser men, you know what I mean. Like it's it's
Speaker 2: it was a big old risk when they did it.
Speaker 2: And you should mention if we're going to talk about
Speaker 2: Tennessee here at some point, Kevin Steele, you know, chaos
Speaker 2: is a ladder, you know, yeah, what an offseason. But
Speaker 2: in terms of the Harson.
Speaker 3: Move, I the the the coordinator hires of of Mike
Speaker 3: Bobo and Derek Mason, I think are are pretty interesting
Speaker 3: kind of kind of pairings there. Usually, you see, when
Speaker 3: a guy's had as much success as he's had at Boise,
Speaker 3: you're kind of bringing the whole game with you, right,
Speaker 3: So to go go out and bring guys that that
Speaker 3: have this sec experience, it kind of goes to show
Speaker 3: you first that you know, maybe they felt like they
Speaker 3: needed to have really strong coordinator hires to feel feel
Speaker 3: better about this this choice. But I mean, I think
Speaker 3: I'm I'm with you on on kind of the the
Speaker 3: trend and perception of where Boise was at. I think
Speaker 3: Boise State fans probably were like both pretty grateful for
Speaker 3: Brian Harson and and also maybe a little bit little
Speaker 3: bit underwhelmed in some ways too. And it's hard to
Speaker 3: follow Chris Peterson, so that's that's just hard for anybody.
Speaker 3: But I think they'll be good. I'm fascinated to see
Speaker 3: how recruits respond to this and can you build the
Speaker 3: kind of staff that you know, you know, Auburn is
Speaker 3: a job that you can recruit at a top ten
Speaker 3: level if you if you play your cards right. Can
Speaker 3: they build the kind of staff that can do that
Speaker 3: or is it going to be building an Auburn program
Speaker 3: around kind of more of the you know, OKG thinking
Speaker 3: of like here, here's what we need and we're not
Speaker 3: chasing the big studs. I'm really curious. It's a really
Speaker 3: interesting experiment, and usually guys like him do not get
Speaker 3: jobs like this coact from the G five level.
Speaker 2: The thing I'm I'm always curious about is when you
Speaker 2: go in a coordinator direction with two recent head coaches
Speaker 2: and guys who probably want to be head coaches again,
Speaker 2: because that's typically where they where they fall under this circumstance.
Speaker 2: And Derek Mason was there with you know, I interviewed
Speaker 2: for other jobs even while he was at vander Built.
Speaker 2: Mike Bobo of course had some highs at Colorado State
Speaker 2: and then moved over to South Carolina. I'm always curious
Speaker 2: about head coaches who go older rather than go up
Speaker 2: and coming, and whether or not that's a recipe for success,
Speaker 2: Like it's something like what we've seen out of Nick
Speaker 2: saban Is. You know, he hasn't necessarily gone older, but
Speaker 2: you know he's he's plucking guys that probably have more value,
Speaker 2: guys like Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian and Mike Loxley,
Speaker 2: and he's sort of identifying value. And whereas the Brian
Speaker 2: Harrison thing, there are up and coming coordinators around the South,
Speaker 2: all over, you know, all over the country, and even
Speaker 2: you mentioned Mac Brown. He goes and gets you know,
Speaker 2: Phil Longo, who had had so much success I think
Speaker 2: at Sam Houston State like an up and coming offensive
Speaker 2: mind and went to Ole Miss. I think, and I
Speaker 2: always like when head coaches have that feel for up
Speaker 2: and coming guys, you know, James Franklin with Joe Morehead,
Speaker 2: and I just wonder if the energy to build something
Speaker 2: at Auburn, the energy required is within Derek Mason and
Speaker 2: Mike Bobo.
Speaker 3: Well, and I think we saw this year that like
Speaker 3: one one of the more brilliant moves of the last
Speaker 3: last cycle was Sam Pittman recognizing, Okay, this is this
Speaker 3: is a big new thing for me. I'm going to
Speaker 3: hire Bury Otam and he's going to help kind of
Speaker 3: show show the way, right, similar to Derek Mason, though
Speaker 3: similar to Mason except Brian Harson's been a winning head coach. Right.
Speaker 3: I think that kind of shows you that that this
Speaker 3: is like just what a bear this this conference, in
Speaker 3: this division. Is that like you probably need to surround
Speaker 3: yourself with people who are going to tell you, hey,
Speaker 3: here's here's how they actually succeed here, because it's just
Speaker 3: such a dramatic change from total boise and and what
Speaker 3: you're going up against. Uh, you know, you know, shout
Speaker 3: out to San Jose State obviously, and like there have
Speaker 3: been some teams that have risen up in the Mountain
Speaker 3: West obviously, but it's just a complete change and in
Speaker 3: the uh, you know, the difficulty on the Madden level there, right,
Speaker 3: So you're just you need to surround yourself, I guess
Speaker 3: with people that show you here's what to do. But
Speaker 3: and I know he goes back with Bobo from going
Speaker 3: against him that color out of state. But I'm really
Speaker 3: curious to see if that's if those moves are a
Speaker 3: fit and kind of help speed this up, or is
Speaker 3: this just going to be a whole learning process here
Speaker 3: for the next year.
Speaker 2: It seems like I can appreciate a big swing, you know,
Speaker 2: I can say I lean going younger up in comer
Speaker 2: to sort of reinvigorate a program that I honestly didn't
Speaker 2: need all that much. I mean, they've they've beaten Alabama
Speaker 2: relatively recently, so it wasn't a program that needed to
Speaker 2: be scrapped to the studs. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: it's big swing. Those are big personalities, and they have
Speaker 2: connections in the South. They have good reputations in the South,
Speaker 2: I assume with with high school coaches, and are known quantities,
Speaker 2: so that seems important. But at a place like Tennessee
Speaker 2: that does need to be scrapped down to the studs.
Speaker 2: It seems are we all overreacting when we view And
Speaker 2: these are my words. I'm not putting anybody's words in
Speaker 2: your mouth or anything, but like ten See has appeared
Speaker 2: to be a more and more unwinnable place, that there
Speaker 2: are so many voices, and that the athletic department is
Speaker 2: in such chaos. You know, phil former comes in, makes
Speaker 2: a bad hire and then retires like it seems that
Speaker 2: so much needs to be rebooted, and yet here we
Speaker 2: are with yet another situation that I mean, I think
Speaker 2: the whole recruiting department was fired over what is expected
Speaker 2: to be major violations. Is is Tennessee years away from
Speaker 2: being a stable place, and whoever they end up hiring
Speaker 2: is really more of a like a table setter to
Speaker 2: just turn the aircraft carrier around or or somebody can
Speaker 2: somebody be legitimately set up for success in Knoxville in
Speaker 2: the year twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: It's, uh, you nailed it. I mean, this is the
Speaker 3: really like the whole thing's just insane to me. It
Speaker 3: really is like they fired him because he went three
Speaker 3: and seven, but they're turning themselves in for recruiting violations
Speaker 3: so they don't have to pay the full twelve plus million.
Speaker 3: But of course we all know Dan how this sport works.
Speaker 3: That they need to keep him quiet, right, so surely
Speaker 3: they need to negotiate a reduced payment because you're gonna
Speaker 3: want an NDA and so it's just a just a
Speaker 3: damn mess. The billable hours on this are going to
Speaker 3: be spectacular, they really are. I think they've you know,
Speaker 3: now they need to hire an ad who will then
Speaker 3: hire a head coach and then the two of them
Speaker 3: will have to figure out how far this whole thing's
Speaker 3: been set back. And you know, of course, like there's
Speaker 3: no you know, they haven't won the SEC since O seven.
Speaker 3: And as much as it's I can't get past the
Speaker 3: recruiting piece of this, I really can't like what you
Speaker 3: sign these really high level recruiting classes when pruit gets there.
Speaker 3: I mean, how do you think you pulled that off? Right? Like? What?
Speaker 3: Like there was a lot of talk about integrity during
Speaker 3: this press conference today and about how they're going to
Speaker 3: move forward with integrity and that that you know, they
Speaker 3: can't stand for this kind of stuff, but it's it
Speaker 3: strikes me as just insane that this Like I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: how how are you? How did you think he was
Speaker 3: doing this? Like a dos anybody? I'm just exasperated. I
Speaker 3: don't want to go down the whole road of bagman
Speaker 3: in the SEC and all that. There's there's really no
Speaker 3: need for that but right Tennessee clearly is like gonna
Speaker 3: need to figure out how to how to be successful
Speaker 3: and and they're going to like act like what what
Speaker 3: just happened over these last couple of years is is
Speaker 3: not the model. It was a bad higher. But I
Speaker 3: mean the next guy is going to try and do
Speaker 3: all the same stuff right in terms of trying to
Speaker 3: just rebuild it through the talent, through through through through
Speaker 3: high level recruiting that you know, it's going to have
Speaker 3: to be pretty squeaky clean here. And I guess we'll
Speaker 3: see what penalties come down the road from all this.
Speaker 3: But what a what an incredible mess. And I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, I guess we can go through all the
Speaker 3: usual names, right, Like I mean, if you were the
Speaker 3: head of the search committee, who who would you want
Speaker 3: to talk to for this job?
Speaker 2: Right? I mean it's Billy Napier. Any job in the South,
Speaker 2: his name is going to pop up. He's also from
Speaker 2: the state and has won, has hired well. I think
Speaker 2: his defensive coordinator this year is pretty well regarded. It
Speaker 2: was Ron Roberts before who Baylor hired away with Dave Randa,
Speaker 2: and now it's Patrick Tony, Like he seems like a name,
Speaker 2: but it's now a matter of he can choose his
Speaker 2: name is coming up with all sorts of jobs. He's
Speaker 2: clearly been extremely patient, Yes, has been extremely patient. And
Speaker 2: Tennessee for all of you know, the insults and everything,
Speaker 2: you know, the shade people want to throw at Knoxville whatever.
Speaker 2: It's a huge place that has a huge stadium and
Speaker 2: a huge commitment. The reason they're firing coaches is because
Speaker 2: they want to pay for a team to win. You know,
Speaker 2: enter your whatever recruiting jokes now. But like they're committed
Speaker 2: to figuring it out, well they do it correctly. I
Speaker 2: don't know they have a track record of not doing it.
Speaker 2: But at least you're getting that from the school that
Speaker 2: you're going to have the resources that the right guy
Speaker 2: can come in and say, this is what I want
Speaker 2: my recruiting department to look like. This is what I
Speaker 2: want the training table to look like. This is what
Speaker 2: I how I want practice to be in the facilities
Speaker 2: to be like. And Tennessee won't bok at any of that.
Speaker 2: So if they hire a professional athletic director, I know
Speaker 2: I saw like Wit Babcock, the Virginia Tech guy who's
Speaker 2: pretty well regarded his name come up. If they hire
Speaker 2: somebody who is a pro I think it goes a
Speaker 2: long way into attracting a pro coach, like a pro
Speaker 2: in that you know, somebody who is professional about his business.
Speaker 2: And it will attract Jeff when you say pro coach
Speaker 2: right exactly, it will. It will attract not maybe the
Speaker 2: biggest names, but the right names. And I think that's huge.
Speaker 2: So that that would that would to me be the
Speaker 2: silver lining with the Tennessee opening, that they can get
Speaker 2: it right with the athletic director first and foremost to
Speaker 2: sort of set up like you like to to note,
Speaker 2: a five star culture.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I I don't think it's about job. I don't
Speaker 3: And I think as long as as long and I
Speaker 3: don't know, maybe in civilized sanctions help establish a sense that, hey,
Speaker 3: we got to be patient. This is not going to
Speaker 3: happen in two years. This is going to be a
Speaker 3: build up with this next hire, and you know, especially nowadays,
Speaker 3: like we've already seen it quite a bit already. But
Speaker 3: I mean, if they just have like a ton of
Speaker 3: players going the portal too, I think that will also
Speaker 3: make it pretty clear that this is not a program
Speaker 3: that's going to win big in twenty one or twenty
Speaker 3: two that it's going to be. You have to just
Speaker 3: try and get the right guy, support them and hiring
Speaker 3: the right staff and then just let them let them
Speaker 3: do their jobs. Here for a few years, and it
Speaker 3: just seemed like folks were after a pretty like week
Speaker 3: winning streak there in was it year two or year
Speaker 3: two right with pro I mean, just a winning streak
Speaker 3: off a bunch of like not great teams. But suddenly
Speaker 3: it was like, oh crap, we're going to be incredible
Speaker 3: in year three, and it's like, no, that's not the
Speaker 3: case at all, especially with where Florida and Georgia are at.
Speaker 3: So you have to now people expect more than three
Speaker 3: and seven. And that's fair, but it you know, these
Speaker 3: jobs can just turn into such pressure cookers when you
Speaker 3: have the wrong expectations and when you think, oh, they've
Speaker 3: got all this talent, so they should be instantly good
Speaker 3: next year, right, No, that's just not going to be
Speaker 3: the case, especially in the kind of competitive environment they're in.
Speaker 3: And I guess you know what doomed there is like
Speaker 3: you know, you just can't keep getting blown out like
Speaker 3: the way they did this yere too. It's just go
Speaker 3: to they got to build a lot more competitive program
Speaker 3: that doesn't lose these G five games and doesn't have
Speaker 3: these embarrassments.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm as guilty as anybody to look at
Speaker 2: results against subpar teams and a lot of these cases
Speaker 2: as meaningful growth, right when really, if you lose to
Speaker 2: Alabama thirty one to twenty four, that's a lot more
Speaker 2: meaningful than beating a South Carolina team by two touchdowns.
Speaker 2: That the level of competition matters. And of a walk
Speaker 2: before you can run thing, you got to be able
Speaker 2: to hang with the top of the top. And that's
Speaker 2: you know, that's what Texts A and M did last
Speaker 2: year against Georgia. They were right there. A couple of
Speaker 2: bad calls went against them, but I think it was
Speaker 2: a nineteen thirteen final. Those seem to be the telltale
Speaker 2: signs of heading in the right direction. And I think
Speaker 2: it's very easy when you know Tennessee has been down
Speaker 2: in the way that they've been down these past I
Speaker 2: guess a couple decades, really to just take what you
Speaker 2: can get. But you really have to be careful. I
Speaker 2: really have to be careful to look at any program
Speaker 2: and say, you know, beating up on other flawed teams
Speaker 2: is fine, but not necessarily as much as we think
Speaker 2: it might be.
Speaker 3: I mean, the really hard thing is getting to where
Speaker 3: A and M got to where the floor is like
Speaker 3: eight and four. You know, that's a really hard thing
Speaker 3: to do in that conference year after year. In Tennessee,
Speaker 3: after one year of winning eight games, it's like, you know,
Speaker 3: you feel like you've made this progress and that you're
Speaker 3: ready to contend in that division again. And I'm not
Speaker 3: saying anybody you know in Knoxville thought they're going to
Speaker 3: win the SEC this year. But still you have to
Speaker 3: understand that it's going to be a long process. That
Speaker 3: didn't happen for Saban or anybody else in just a
Speaker 3: couple of years. They really didn't. And so I'm fast
Speaker 3: fascinating to see where they go and are you know,
Speaker 3: I think the way they framed things today, it's really
Speaker 3: hard to hire Hugh Freeze. It just really is. And
Speaker 3: so I'm sure it will be an attractive job to
Speaker 3: a lot of folks, But I'm sure the Boogeyman of
Speaker 3: the n cbl A kind of hanging over all this
Speaker 3: is going to make some people a little bit wary.
Speaker 3: Not to mention just all the drama that comes with Tennessee.
Speaker 2: Now, also important to note if Tennessee does want to
Speaker 2: hire Hugh Freeze, they're just gonna that's I mean nothing
Speaker 2: like college football teams do what they want to do,
Speaker 2: And I don't think optics are as important as we
Speaker 2: all may think. Like these programs are just going to
Speaker 2: do what they want to do and hope for the best.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The only hang up there is just like is
Speaker 3: you know, is is there? Just does Greg sink? He
Speaker 3: just not let the schools in his league fins right now?
Speaker 3: You know? And that's I guess that's possible. But are
Speaker 3: you gonna be It's gonna be? And and by the way,
Speaker 3: like should we throw Gus in there as a just
Speaker 3: candidate for this job? Like wouldn't that be a totally
Speaker 3: acceptable outcome?
Speaker 2: Seems like a professional head coach was available for head
Speaker 2: coaching jobs. Are you a Brett Bielam a believer in Champagne?
Speaker 2: I'm I'm, I'm into it. I'm I'm I'm I'm pretty intrigued.
Speaker 2: I think, Uh, I've kind of I wouldn't say I've
Speaker 2: missed a ball, but I'm good with seeing it again
Speaker 2: that the Illinois football program has been a very interesting
Speaker 2: experiment in trying to like it was wild to watch
Speaker 2: Lovey just like try to build a team through the
Speaker 2: transfer portal and uh, you know, with with some some results,
Speaker 2: but you know, we're going back to the old roots
Speaker 2: here of here's how you try to try to win
Speaker 2: in that division of the Big Ten. Yeah, I feel
Speaker 2: I feel as if he can find decent enough lignemen
Speaker 2: in the Midwest. It's a big school. You'll play on
Speaker 2: national TV. I mean, you'll play on the Big Ten network,
Speaker 2: And it's a matter of to me, it's just going
Speaker 2: all in. I guess Lovey's identity was transfer Portal one,
Speaker 2: but just saying okay, and we're going to run the
Speaker 2: hell out of the ball and we're going to be
Speaker 2: this power team like he was at Wisconsin in the
Speaker 2: beginning of Arkansas and then they threw the hell out
Speaker 2: of the ball near the end of his time at Arkansas.
Speaker 2: I think that's just especially for whatever reason, in the
Speaker 2: Big Ten, there is something about we're an RPO team,
Speaker 2: We're a power running team, we are a ball control
Speaker 2: and defense team. I think that's gonna be key for Bilama.
Speaker 2: Just just recruit to a specific identity and roll with it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, and it's he shows up an interesting time
Speaker 3: because you've got obviously Northwestern rolling right now, you know,
Speaker 3: with their bounce back year. You have you know, you
Speaker 3: have you have Minnesota. It's still really competitive. Yeah, Iowa,
Speaker 3: who had had a great year. You've got Wisconsin, and
Speaker 3: you got uh, you got Nebraska, who's who's still struggling.
Speaker 3: So it's and and I'm leaving some people out. I
Speaker 3: don't mean to, but it's, uh, he shows up at
Speaker 3: a very competitive time and it's going to be I
Speaker 3: look forward to the uh, you know, six foot eight
Speaker 3: men that he finds in the Midwest to to build
Speaker 3: this thing on.
Speaker 2: You know, you mentioned Nebraska that is your local team.
Speaker 2: I had mentioned with your coworker Andy Staples that Notre
Speaker 2: Dame was on sort of a treadmill of very good
Speaker 2: but not great. Nebraska would happily take that treadmill, right, Yes, yes,
Speaker 2: that's right. They could not throw the football too wide
Speaker 2: receivers last year and have not been able to since
Speaker 2: maybe that Adrian Martinez game against Ohio State. My question is, yeah,
Speaker 2: our wide receivers are good. They could definitely use some
Speaker 2: wide receivers they especially now after losing their best wide
Speaker 2: receiver to Kentucky and Wandelle Robinson. Nebraska has now reached
Speaker 2: a point where Scott Frost bringing what worked at UCF
Speaker 2: to Lincoln is not a reality. Maybe something else is,
Speaker 2: maybe some other way of succeeding. But in terms of
Speaker 2: the coaching changes, in terms of the players leaving and
Speaker 2: coming in, is there any single reason for hope that
Speaker 2: Scott Frost has turned a corner, has cracked some sort
Speaker 2: of code to get this Nebraska team not to a
Speaker 2: really impressive place. But yeah, they're definitely better than Illinois.
Speaker 2: Northwestern can hang with Iowa, and I know the games
Speaker 2: have been close with Iowa recently, but that for four quarters,
Speaker 2: Nebraska players and coaches are going to bring everything they
Speaker 2: possibly have in a sensical, impressive way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's going to be a no for me. It's
Speaker 3: a big set of there.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: I think this is an off season of of real
Speaker 3: soul searching. I think for for Scott Frost and Nebraska,
Speaker 3: after you know, getting getting dunked on on Twitter, all
Speaker 3: all fall along by everybody. I think it's certainly right now.
Speaker 3: I think it around here, it certainly feels like the
Speaker 3: first off season where people are kind of like willing
Speaker 3: to kind of go there and kind of questioned Scott
Speaker 3: Frost and kind of question like, wait, you know, is
Speaker 3: there is there a blueprint where this is about to turn?
Speaker 3: Because I think that clearly the you know, the magic
Speaker 3: of UCF has been really, really difficult to recreate in Lincoln, Nebraska,
Speaker 3: and there's a ton of reasons for that. But I
Speaker 3: think that you know, like frequently in the twenty nineteen season,
Speaker 3: he's like, you know, Scott Frost would tell, you know,
Speaker 3: publicly say like this thing's about to turn, and when
Speaker 3: it's going to turn, it's it's happened really fast, and
Speaker 3: it's going to be huge, and it just look twenty
Speaker 3: twenty was tough in a ton of ways, and uh,
Speaker 3: you know, anyone can can choose to make excuses about
Speaker 3: that if they want to. It makes sense. But the
Speaker 3: fact that you know, Wandelle Robinson is leaving is a
Speaker 3: pretty disconcerting signal about where Nebraska's at right now. And
Speaker 3: just like the morale and you know, they don't they
Speaker 3: don't have the playmakers now they're two best ones for
Speaker 3: him and and JD. Spielman, who transferred to TCU within
Speaker 3: the last year. You know, I like it's unclear if
Speaker 3: he's going to be making a bunch of staff changes.
Speaker 3: It's you know, uh, the recruiting is is solid right now,
Speaker 3: but you know, is this team, you know, and they've
Speaker 3: got everybody like pretty much everybody coming back on defense
Speaker 3: next year, which I think makes that side of the
Speaker 3: ball like slightly uh, you know, encouraging. But it's just
Speaker 3: bizarre to say that after after a few years and
Speaker 3: at Nebraska, Scott Frost like hasn't figured out the offense.
Speaker 3: I didn't really and you've watched his offenses at Oregon planning,
Speaker 3: and like, I never really thought that would be like
Speaker 3: the question mark after a few years of.
Speaker 2: This something I think Oregon fans know very very well
Speaker 2: that Nebraska fans may not or have come around to
Speaker 2: Scott Frost hasn't been the best quarterback evaluator. When he
Speaker 2: passed on Tua, he had a kid in Arizona like that.
Speaker 2: His record for identifying quarterbacks of the future, like this
Speaker 2: is my guy. I have watched him throw, This is
Speaker 2: who we need to build our program around is not
Speaker 2: super great. Is not all that impressive, especially when you watch.
Speaker 3: This sea he took like Burmaster over toa he.
Speaker 2: Didn't take Burmeistrover to a Burmestro I believe was a
Speaker 2: late Willie Taggart.
Speaker 3: It was okay.
Speaker 2: He he had recruited Ryan Kelly out of Arizona. That
Speaker 2: was his guy who eventually decommitted and went to Arizona State.
Speaker 2: He slow played Justin Herbert, if that is an indicator,
Speaker 2: the greatest ricky quarterback of all dead, who was in
Speaker 2: his backyard, who was like he had to be convinced
Speaker 2: a legend that Justin Herbert was of Oregon quality. And
Speaker 2: so I think there is some sentiment within the uh
Speaker 2: the Oregon community that Scott Frost is more of a chip.
Speaker 2: Kelly struggled with, you know, quarterback of the future identification
Speaker 2: as well a lot of like four star kids who
Speaker 2: did not pan out. And then you watch Nebraska football
Speaker 2: this year and it was pretty clear that Luke McCaffrey
Speaker 2: was not a big ten quarterback. Make he can run
Speaker 2: the ball well, right, but it seemed like, oh this,
Speaker 2: this doesn't seem like the answer for somebody who can
Speaker 2: throw the ball thirty times against Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Wisconsin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it was it was confusing this season where
Speaker 3: you know, Adrian Martinez was able to come back and
Speaker 3: at times kind of regained some of his confidence. And
Speaker 3: you know, they they went with McCaffrey at one point,
Speaker 3: and then they bench McCaffrey for Martinez, but they said,
Speaker 3: just to be clear, McCaffrey's the future of the program.
Speaker 3: But then men Martinez kind of finished it out. And
Speaker 3: now you go through this offseason where inevitably, just like
Speaker 3: with any of these, you know, any of these programs
Speaker 3: around the country, like you kind of have to pick
Speaker 3: one because the other guy's probably gonna kind of want
Speaker 3: to leave, you know, And so we'll see kind of
Speaker 3: who they bet on here and if or if you
Speaker 3: can try and find a way to you know, placid
Speaker 3: them and keep them both. But you've got to you've
Speaker 3: got to make that really critical decision. And you know,
Speaker 3: just early on in the tenure here, I mean in
Speaker 3: terms of what they inherited and where they started, just
Speaker 3: they've had a couple of years of in in you know,
Speaker 3: sixteen seventeen eighteen, a couple years of just really really
Speaker 3: poor recruiting, just classes that did not pan out at all,
Speaker 3: and that's where you see the weaknesses this year, and
Speaker 3: where you try and you know, they're gonna have to
Speaker 3: add transfers to try and cover that up a little bit.
Speaker 3: But you go back and look under the hood there
Speaker 3: a little bit. There's just a lot of classes that
Speaker 3: did not pan out, and that makes for a lot
Speaker 3: of guys in the starting lineup who you're wondering, is
Speaker 3: this is this really like a first team Big ten
Speaker 3: kind of guy? Right So it's going to be, like
Speaker 3: I said, I think Scott Frost is, I'm sure going
Speaker 3: to do a lot of thinking this this offseason about
Speaker 3: what is our identity, what do we hang our hat on,
Speaker 3: what can we where do we need to get better
Speaker 3: to be you know, more competitive in this in this conference,
Speaker 3: because it's all like it's all worthy of like being
Speaker 3: questioned right now.
Speaker 2: When you look at the transfer market right now as
Speaker 2: it stands, a lot of big name quarterbacks, a lot
Speaker 2: of you know, you mentioned won Dale Robinson, he goes
Speaker 2: back home to Kentucky. Were there names that surprised you
Speaker 2: when you look at like, Okay, this guy is going
Speaker 2: to this school now, or this guy is on the market.
Speaker 2: This has has parked my interest, has piqued my interest
Speaker 2: as somebody like okay, this is somebody who is going
Speaker 2: to affect how we perceive the twenty twenty one season.
Speaker 2: Who have been your eye openers on the transfer market.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's been a bunch. I mean, I think probably
Speaker 3: for most people and certainly for you know, for your
Speaker 3: co host, probably Jack Cone to Notre Dame is probably
Speaker 3: the headliner in terms of affecting the national picture. Really
Speaker 3: curious to see kind of how that how that works,
Speaker 3: and certainly, you know, there's enough pieces around him that
Speaker 3: you would think he'd be set up to succeed. I
Speaker 3: thought I thought Jared Guarantana going to Washington State was like,
Speaker 3: to me, kind of like Wilton Spate going to play
Speaker 3: for Chip Kelly. It was kind of like that, that
Speaker 3: that kind of a fit. I'm like, yeah, interesting, Okay,
Speaker 3: we'll see. Like he's never he's never really been. I mean,
Speaker 3: he's a four year starter, but he's never been like
Speaker 3: better than like a sixty two percent passer. So does
Speaker 3: that make sense in Rollo's offense. I'd probably rather invest
Speaker 3: in Jane Delora, So we'll see about that. You know,
Speaker 3: Janye Morris from Tennessee just committed to Oklahoma today. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it's not you know, it's not super often that
Speaker 3: a sec starting left tackle and former freshman All American
Speaker 3: with three more years to play, just sort of pops
Speaker 3: up on the market. So Oklahoma, you know, getting better
Speaker 3: and better on the offensive line. That's that's the rich
Speaker 3: getting richer for sure. Have you noticed what Utah has
Speaker 3: been doing this offseason?
Speaker 2: I noticed that what Jake Bentley's gone, he went to
Speaker 2: South Alabama. I don't who is Utah added? So Utah
Speaker 2: added Charlie Brewer from Baylor. Yes, that's right. All they
Speaker 2: added Chris Curry, the big Lis, Chris.
Speaker 3: Curry, the future Marshawn lynch Is as Coacho once called him.
Speaker 3: And also TJ Pledger from Oklahoma running back and also
Speaker 3: a very good young quarterback in Jaquinn and Jackson from
Speaker 3: Texas to compete with Charlie Brewer and Cam Rising there.
Speaker 3: So Utah just like totally remaking their offense in the
Speaker 3: portal so far, I think is pretty cool. We're still
Speaker 3: waiting on a decision from Eric Gilbert, which is going
Speaker 3: to be a huge deal because that might be like
Speaker 3: a Georgia versus Florida battle now, and you know, pretty
Speaker 3: pretty consequential. Florida States added a bunch of interesting players
Speaker 3: in the course of this, including of course Mackenzie Milton
Speaker 3: and how awesome would it be if he can he
Speaker 3: can get back the best and then Miami, you know,
Speaker 3: trying to win another portal title this year, as they
Speaker 3: tended to do under many dias with Charleston Rambo from
Speaker 3: Oklahoma and Tyreek Stevenson from Georgia, DeAndre Johnson from Tennessee,
Speaker 3: and then the under the radar one I'm loving. Are
Speaker 3: you familiar with ba Bailey Zappi?
Speaker 2: Dan, No, I guess I put all my Bailey eggs
Speaker 2: into the Bailey Hawkman basket? Who I think is going
Speaker 2: to Middle Tennessee? Who's Who's Bailey zapp.
Speaker 3: Bailey Zappi quarterback from Houston Baptist, Okay at the at
Speaker 3: the FCS level this year, Houston Baptist decided that they
Speaker 3: wanted to play a mini season instead of sitting out
Speaker 3: in the fall, and so they scheduled a bunch of
Speaker 3: games against FBS teams.
Speaker 2: Uh. They almost upset Texas Tech in Lubbock. Yes, they
Speaker 2: put six hundred plus yards on Tech. Yeah, yes, correct.
Speaker 3: And their quarterback Bailey Zappi really really talented dude. His
Speaker 3: OC there is Zach Kittley, a guy who came up
Speaker 3: under of Kingsbury at Texas Tech and Western Kentucky hired
Speaker 3: Zach Hitley, and Zach Hitley brought with him Bailey Zappy
Speaker 3: and their two best receivers from HBU to go to
Speaker 3: Western Kentucky. And so pretty pretty interesting to see what
Speaker 3: that looks like. Because he was Zapi was the nation's
Speaker 3: leading passer in terms of the four game season he
Speaker 3: played among FBS quarterbacks even though he was an FCS. Dude.
Speaker 2: Wow, Okay, I can't think of a better way to
Speaker 2: end all of this than talking about.
Speaker 3: Bailey's appy awareness. It's what Bailey Zappy aware.
Speaker 2: I'm on the transfer the twenty four to seven transfer
Speaker 2: portal page, and Bailey Zappi's recruiting profile in the class
Speaker 2: of twenty seventeen was nobody knows who he is. That's right.
Speaker 2: He is just na across the board. There seemed to
Speaker 2: be interest from Houston lamar Rice and SMU, but only
Speaker 2: an offer from Houston Baptist. So I hold it work out.
Speaker 2: He's a kid that I wrote about in this fall.
Speaker 2: He's a kid that went around to Texas Tech and
Speaker 2: Baylor and A and M and Texas and all these
Speaker 2: places for camps and just couldn't get anybody's attention because
Speaker 2: they were all kind of, you know, set on the
Speaker 2: guys they were going to take. And so he got
Speaker 2: his shot and he's he's a pretty. It's it's a pretty,
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's always good when you can hire
Speaker 2: people that know Cliff Kingsbury or Sean McVay or anything
Speaker 2: like that. And so shout out to Western Kentucky for
Speaker 2: taking that plunge. But I think Zach Hilly's a stud
Speaker 2: and I think that's a that was a sneaky, great
Speaker 2: hire they made. And so when you can just import
Speaker 2: an offense over from from a school like that, it's
Speaker 2: gonna be pretty cool to watch, all right. Final question
Speaker 2: is not having to do with football at all. I
Speaker 2: looked onto your Twitter feed and I searched the word pizza.
Speaker 3: And oh, I'd love to talk about pizza.
Speaker 2: I have all sorts of interesting tweets about you and pizza.
Speaker 2: December fourth, two thousand and nine. No longer eating Toby
Speaker 2: Keith for dinner. We're at some dirty pizza place. Now, Oh,
Speaker 2: how you underwhelm me? Oklahoma City. Zero retweets, zero likes.
Speaker 3: Wow, digging up my college tweets.
Speaker 2: Thanks Man twenty ten, Awesome evening in Kansas City, H
Speaker 2: and M, California, Pizza kitchen toy story three in three
Speaker 2: D next. Unfortunately I'm missing Entourage, but I'll live. What
Speaker 2: see you painted?
Speaker 3: Is there an app that you can just delete all
Speaker 3: tweets prior to like twenty twelve or something? You know,
Speaker 3: Can I just delete it? Tell you that tweets in
Speaker 3: one fell sweet?
Speaker 2: There is?
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, there absolutely is some deep cuts. I
Speaker 3: was going to ask you. You know, I've been I've
Speaker 3: been closely watching all of your pizza tweets lately and
Speaker 3: and googling you know, these uh these pizza stones, and wondering.
Speaker 3: You know, I love I love the outcomes that you're
Speaker 3: getting there. I don't love working with Doe, Okay, I
Speaker 3: feel like you. I say, hey, that's actually really easy.
Speaker 3: You get the hang of it quickly and all that stuff.
Speaker 3: But I'm very intrigued by this lifestyle that you're embracing,
Speaker 3: of being pizza man, and i'd i'd love to give
Speaker 3: it a try. If it's not too expensive to get
Speaker 3: into the pizza pizza steel, it's.
Speaker 2: Not at all, so I have. I think the thing
Speaker 2: I have it it's a baking steel. It's made by
Speaker 2: a company. There is a company called Baking Steel, but
Speaker 2: I think the one I got it from is called
Speaker 2: nerd Chef. And it's a basic square, maybe sixteen by
Speaker 2: sixteen inch piece of steel. You just stick in your
Speaker 2: oven and you preheat it for an hour and it
Speaker 2: conducts seed very well. And when I turn the.
Speaker 3: Broiler on it at the end, it gets to really, what
Speaker 3: do you what do you set the oven to?
Speaker 2: My oven goes to five point fifty, But then I
Speaker 2: turned the broiler on the last few minutes and it
Speaker 2: gets five to eighty somewhere in there. Okay, Wow, working
Speaker 2: with dough is great. I have become a big fan
Speaker 2: of because I work from home. My wife works from home.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm building toys all the time. I'm playing
Speaker 2: with my kid all the time. I like activities where
Speaker 2: I can zone out and just listen to a podcast.
Speaker 2: So you know, I'm building dressers for you know, my
Speaker 2: kids room and like that. So I like those activities.
Speaker 2: And so when it got cold here and I was
Speaker 2: going outside less and I still try to go outside
Speaker 2: for a run, but I wanted an indoor activity that
Speaker 2: I could just zone out doing. And I'm a big,
Speaker 2: big believer and even like micro accomplishments. Just find something
Speaker 2: that you wanted to get a little bit better at,
Speaker 2: or find something that you've never been able to do well,
Speaker 2: or you just are curious about, and just dive in.
Speaker 2: Just become healthily obsessed with something new because it's you know,
Speaker 2: the world is burning and it's good to find something small.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: That's funny, you say, my former colleague Jake Trotter was
Speaker 3: always very good at this. That he would pick a
Speaker 3: new thing every off season and just become like an
Speaker 3: expert of that. And when he told me that, and
Speaker 3: he told me the things you do, I was like,
Speaker 3: I've never considered that I could just like pick things
Speaker 3: and become good at them. You know, that's a that's
Speaker 3: a strange thing to think about doing each year, but
Speaker 3: it makes it it's so obvious.
Speaker 2: It's completely obvious. And it can be food, it can
Speaker 2: be learning a language, it can be increasing your five
Speaker 2: K time, it can be I don't know, whatever, you like,
Speaker 2: getting good at photography. I mean there's some hobbies that
Speaker 2: are more expensive than others. I listen to all that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I listen. If you've always wanted to learn how to
Speaker 2: how to sew, you just learn how to sew, like
Speaker 2: it's you can do it. If you wanted to grow
Speaker 2: an herb garden, grow an herb garden. I listened to
Speaker 2: an NBA show and one of the hosts is Ben Golliver,
Speaker 2: writer for the Now Washington Post, and he does this
Speaker 2: and his project in twenty twenty one, He's like, I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna hammer my core. I'm just going hard literal
Speaker 2: hard COREA. I admire the hell out of that, and
Speaker 2: I'm going to the opposite direction with my hobby. But
Speaker 2: making dough is not difficult, and there are obsessive message
Speaker 2: boards on the Internet and there's a million recipes and
Speaker 2: you can get as nerdy as you want. And pizza
Speaker 2: making is essentially delicious science because pizza people like to
Speaker 2: say pizzas alive, because technically your dough is alive. It's
Speaker 2: formed by you know, microbes, living organisms in yeast, and
Speaker 2: so it's you throw together some flour and some water
Speaker 2: and some salt and you mix it with your hands
Speaker 2: and you just throw it in the fridge and then
Speaker 2: a couple days later you pull it out and you
Speaker 2: form it into bowl to balls, and you let those
Speaker 2: hang out for a couple hours. Then you smear it
Speaker 2: into a bigger piece and you throw sauce and cheese on.
Speaker 2: You throw it in the oven like it's it's make
Speaker 2: it sound so simple, it really do. I can't recommend
Speaker 2: it enough. It's extremely fun. I just I want to
Speaker 2: make pizzas as often as possible, not because I want
Speaker 2: to eat them, which I do, and I just give
Speaker 2: them away to friends and it's a in a weird
Speaker 2: social time. It's been pretty fun.
Speaker 3: I do have a novice question for you. Here can
Speaker 3: you explain to the people if you haven't already, I'm
Speaker 3: sure you have already. Why is it important that the
Speaker 3: public sees the bottom of the pizza?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, So you wanted a dough that turns intwo
Speaker 2: So a dough is only when it's uncooked, but you
Speaker 2: want a crust that's completely cooked through. And it depends
Speaker 2: on how hot you can get your oven. And so
Speaker 2: if you look at the bottom of like a Dominoes pie,
Speaker 2: Dominoes is fine. This is not a slighte against dormenoes.
Speaker 2: But they're cooking them so quickly and they're putting them
Speaker 2: on these like mesh discs, that you don't want it
Speaker 2: to be too soft, like people like crispy food. And
Speaker 2: so there's something that's very nice about a fully cooked
Speaker 2: through pizza because a fully cooked through pizza means that,
Speaker 2: like the inside, you want the inside to be airy.
Speaker 2: You don't want it to be dense. And so when
Speaker 2: the bottom is crispy and the middle of it is
Speaker 2: is cooked through an airy and there's you know, you
Speaker 2: see space between the gluten strands or whatever, there is
Speaker 2: something balanced about the soft inside and the crispy bottom.
Speaker 2: And so what's called this is the this is the
Speaker 2: fun term. The leopard spotting on the bottom and along
Speaker 2: the crust, the edge crust is an indicator that you
Speaker 2: have a good The goal is always the crisp outside
Speaker 2: with the soft inside.
Speaker 3: Uh huh, that's the goal. See, so you post them
Speaker 3: to show the leopards. I just assume you're posting them
Speaker 3: to show like, look, guys, it didn't burn the hell
Speaker 3: out of the bottom of it or something. I mean, no,
Speaker 3: there's actually it's it is a baking thing of like,
Speaker 3: look at the we achieve something on the bottom of
Speaker 3: this as well.
Speaker 2: So the next step if I were truly to become
Speaker 2: a pizza artisan. You can get a pizza, you can
Speaker 2: build a pizza oven, or you can now buy consumer
Speaker 2: grade pizza ovens. You just have to pay a lot
Speaker 2: closer attention during the bake because it's really easy to
Speaker 2: burn pizza because you know, a real pie or a
Speaker 2: real Neapolitan style pie, you're talking eight nine hundred degrees
Speaker 2: in the oven. So that's when you you really have
Speaker 2: to It's basically like driving stick, like you really have
Speaker 2: to be riding the clutch, the pizza clutch, if you're
Speaker 2: going to do it right. So no, I'm not worried
Speaker 2: about burning because I don't think.
Speaker 3: You have you messed with these oonies?
Speaker 2: You do? You know that's what I'm talking about. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I have not. I'm curious though. You can get
Speaker 2: an Oonie twelve or Annie sixteen, depending on the size
Speaker 2: of the pie you want. Are you curious? I've seen them.
Speaker 2: They look pretty I mean especially, yeah, they do. They
Speaker 2: look pretty badass as just like a thing to have around,
Speaker 2: especially if you're embracing that lifestyle. I should add that
Speaker 2: I would probably be almost more interested in not to
Speaker 2: suck up.
Speaker 3: Do you hear anything? I would almost be more interested
Speaker 3: in taking taking a run at your Detroit style recipe.
Speaker 3: Results there look incredible.
Speaker 2: I would what I would do. So the recipe I used,
Speaker 2: you can google it. It's J Kenji Lopez Alt is
Speaker 2: the name of the author.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, okay, yeah, so if you've heard of I'm
Speaker 3: a subscriber to All Things.
Speaker 2: So it's J. Kenji Lopez is Alt Lopez Alt's recipe.
Speaker 2: It's it's a one day recipe. You can literally throw
Speaker 2: everything into a food processor. The sauce is quite easy.
Speaker 2: You can do it with Mozzarelli. I mean, the real
Speaker 2: Detroit cheese is called brick cheese. But it's one of
Speaker 2: the easiest recipes you can do. It's basically mix it
Speaker 2: in a food process or throw it on the bottom
Speaker 2: of a pan. Let it hang out, spread it, let
Speaker 2: it hang out, spread it some more. Top it with
Speaker 2: cheese and whatever toppings you want, top it with sauce,
Speaker 2: throw it in the oven like it's it's basically making lasagna. Okay,
Speaker 2: it's quite easy. That's very encouraging. There was a place
Speaker 2: down in Austin we love via three to one three
Speaker 2: that ace this and have been missing that for sure.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, I would I would do I via
Speaker 2: three one three is on my list. I haven't been
Speaker 2: spent a lot of time in Austin, but I've heard
Speaker 2: great things about it. You can make and I wouldn't
Speaker 2: recommend doing it often because it's just a heavy pie.
Speaker 2: But if you're in the mood, you could go to
Speaker 2: the store tonight, get the ingredients necessary, and make it
Speaker 2: tomorrow with zero pizza experience and it would be delicious.
Speaker 3: Wow. Maybe this is you know, as we start twenty
Speaker 3: one here, it's time to think about, you know, self actualization.
Speaker 3: You know, be the.
Speaker 2: Best Max Olson that you can possibly be, and be
Speaker 2: the best solid verbal listener you can possibly be. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna recommend it again. Micro accomplishments. That's that's the name
Speaker 2: of the game to me. That's it.
Speaker 3: That's that's fantastic. I've learned a lot here, Thank you, sir.
Speaker 2: Oh I'm doing my best, all right. Max Olson read
Speaker 2: all of his work at the Athletic. I don't know
Speaker 2: if he has a promo code to get you some
Speaker 2: sort of you know, dollars off the Athletic subscription, but
Speaker 2: I can tell you this. I purchased an Athletic subscription
Speaker 2: for myself when the company launched, and especially when the
Speaker 2: college football team was built out. I use it every day.
Speaker 2: They're not a sponsor, they're not paying me to say this.
Speaker 2: It is a very worthwhile investment. And you get to
Speaker 2: read Max Olsen during the season, during the off season
Speaker 2: alongside all sorts of great people like your friends, Bruce Feldman,
Speaker 2: Andy Staples, Stewart Mandel, Nicole Auerback, you name it, they're there,
Speaker 2: all sorts of team people. Max Olsen, thank you very
Speaker 2: much for your time.
Speaker 3: Thank you man anytime.