Speaker 1: It was the longest July of my life. And if
Speaker 1: you don't believe Satan's at work, let me tell you,
Speaker 1: man are a seas out. There's no air circulation in here.
Speaker 1: Our system was busted when we came back in. This
Speaker 1: is why you can't take vacation, Jesse. This is why
Speaker 1: you just got to grind it out through July. But
Speaker 1: we're on air. We were not going to be kept
Speaker 1: out of here because it's Sunday, August two, the Year
Speaker 1: of Our Lord, twenty twenty six, and we need to
Speaker 1: talk jam packed high top of pulsating downtown Nashville, Tennessee,
Speaker 1: and we need to talk like old friends who haven't
Speaker 1: seen each other in a month, and who know that
Speaker 1: college football is either for Saturday days or five saturdays away,
Speaker 1: depending on how you're interpreting week zero whatever. It's right
Speaker 1: around the corner. Camps are opening up. We got coaches
Speaker 1: at the podium for press conferences. How about the quality
Speaker 1: of Lincoln Riley's camera situation out there in his new building.
Speaker 1: So we've got a jam pack show. We're three nights
Speaker 1: per week pretty much until they crown a national champ.
Speaker 1: From here on out, you know, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of unknowns, which is beautiful. You got to find beauty
Speaker 1: in the mystery. But there are a lot of unknowns
Speaker 1: around college football, and so as we kind of dive
Speaker 1: into August, I wanted to talk about that now. I
Speaker 1: wanted to let you know where my mind's at. I've
Speaker 1: listened to a lot of you. I know where your
Speaker 1: minds are at. It got some big ten sec stuff.
Speaker 1: I made my way down to media Days for a
Speaker 1: couple of days. I knew what that scene was going
Speaker 1: to be this year. Didn't love it, but there's some
Speaker 1: hard truths that have to be accepted. There's some realities
Speaker 1: that have to be faced. I want to talk about
Speaker 1: Marcus Freeman tonight. I want to address some rumors and
Speaker 1: some things that have been said about the show, but
Speaker 1: also just about me in general, about the future. There's
Speaker 1: always a fair amount of fear mongering out there, Jesse,
Speaker 1: fair amount of people saying this and that. Well, we
Speaker 1: are the source on us. It's good quote, by the way,
Speaker 1: and so I'll address it all. We got a whole
Speaker 1: lot to get to and we'll try and do it
Speaker 1: in a responsible amount of time. They're watching us in Biloxi, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: they're watching us in Seattle, Washington, Columbus, Ohio, Elberton, Georgia.
Speaker 1: Is just so good to be back, Oh so good
Speaker 1: to be back. I just want to encourage you subscribe
Speaker 1: to the channel and let your boys know and your
Speaker 1: girls know that the show's back. Strap in. It is
Speaker 1: going to be one of the more unpredictable, wildest college
Speaker 1: football seasons that we've seen. I'm going to talk about
Speaker 1: some of those reasons later, but Man, massive season ahead
Speaker 1: for us, no other way to put it. Norther agitude
Speaker 1: to use. Massive season ahead for us cannot wait. So
Speaker 1: many unknowns in college football this year, I just want
Speaker 1: to start talking. I just want to start rattling these
Speaker 1: things off. I've been sitting around in you a lot.
Speaker 1: I went to the beach, I went all over the country,
Speaker 1: and I'm just sitting there with time on my hands,
Speaker 1: thinking about what people like us think about in July,
Speaker 1: and that is, Man, how big or small is the
Speaker 1: college football playoff title bubble this year?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: How big or small is that window? You remember we
Speaker 1: played a game last year, I think it was Kublic
Speaker 1: Jesse that we had on and I told him, hey
Speaker 1: create a bubble and put as many teams as the
Speaker 1: bubble in the bubble as you need to make sure
Speaker 1: the national champ is in there. But if the national
Speaker 1: champ come seasons in as outside your bubble, you die.
Speaker 1: It was all theoretical. Obviously Cublic did not agree to
Speaker 1: the actual terms. But think about that. I mean, if
Speaker 1: your life was on the line and you had to
Speaker 1: take all the teams you think could win the national
Speaker 1: title and put him in a bubble, but you want
Speaker 1: the bubble as small as possible without having the eventual
Speaker 1: winner be outside the bubble. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: us would have perished by the way of Indiana winning
Speaker 1: it all last year. So who would I have in there? Well,
Speaker 1: I'd have Ohio State, I'd have Notre Dame, Oregon, Texas, Georgia, Indiana, Miami,
Speaker 1: pretty much those Big seven, so to speak. In some
Speaker 1: shape form or fashion, most people agree on that right now.
Speaker 1: Is Texas Tech in there? Is Ole Miss in there?
Speaker 1: Bama Oklahoma? Are they in there? As LSU going to
Speaker 1: be in there? I want to know if we get
Speaker 1: to mid November, how big that bubble looks, because you know,
Speaker 1: on one hand, you could have a team that just
Speaker 1: runs away with everything, but I think that's more and
Speaker 1: more unlikely by the year. In college football, there's another
Speaker 1: more likely scenario where two or three teams, four teams
Speaker 1: or so start to separate from the pack. But it's
Speaker 1: kind of one of those modern age deals of even
Speaker 1: though it's like Ohio State last year, even though they're
Speaker 1: a clear number one, they're still reachable. And they were
Speaker 1: and Indiana got them and Miami got them and they
Speaker 1: were done. But those kinds of teams could emerge. But friends,
Speaker 1: what if the third kind of season starts to emerge
Speaker 1: where at one point in a year, you think notre
Speaker 1: Name's the best team in the country, then you think
Speaker 1: Miami's best team in the country, then you think it
Speaker 1: maybe Indiana again, and then Texas starts to surge, and
Speaker 1: we get to December and you realistically looking around and say,
Speaker 1: I can see nine of these teams winning it all.
Speaker 1: How big is that bubble? How many bids does a
Speaker 1: conference like the ACC get the Big Twelve? If I
Speaker 1: were to put the over under it two and a
Speaker 1: half total playoff teams for the ACC and the Big Twelve,
Speaker 1: would you go over or under? You're thinking maybe Miami,
Speaker 1: maybe Texas Tech. Is there another one. Does Louisville sneak
Speaker 1: in there? Just bringing me young sneak in there? Do
Speaker 1: Miami and Texas Tech do what they're supposed to? By
Speaker 1: the way, does anyone have Indiana potential? Is there an
Speaker 1: undefeated season out there? These are the sorts of things
Speaker 1: that are on my mind this time of year. Speaking
Speaker 1: of Notre Dame, think one of the other big unknowns
Speaker 1: right now. It's a big boy question. This is an
Speaker 1: adult question here that we got to ask about Notre Dame.
Speaker 1: Is Notre Dame a big time program? Notre name a
Speaker 1: big game program that is still an unknown because as
Speaker 1: much as as much respect, as much belief, as much
Speaker 1: willingness as I have in me to maybe even rank
Speaker 1: Notre Dame number one in the preseason, if you wanted
Speaker 1: to be a skeptic, you could throw out the schedule thing,
Speaker 1: but move past the schedule thing for a second. If
Speaker 1: you wanted to be a skeptic, if you wanted to
Speaker 1: be an Irish hater, or if you wanted to just
Speaker 1: sell me on the fact that there are valid doubts
Speaker 1: about this team and maybe Marcus Freeman's ability to win
Speaker 1: a national title, you could say something like, well, what
Speaker 1: did they really prove last year? They had a shot
Speaker 1: against Miami, they lost close game, but they lost. They
Speaker 1: had a and m at home back against the Wall
Speaker 1: early in the year, and what did they do? They lost? Again?
Speaker 1: What are the big games? Did they really have? Go
Speaker 1: back to the year before, and someone like me would say,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? Just one year before they
Speaker 1: played for the national championship. You could say, yeah, but
Speaker 1: they lost that game handedly and they had this perfect
Speaker 1: runway to get to the national title game where they
Speaker 1: beat Indiana a year before Indiana was really premier Indiana.
Speaker 1: They beat Georgia without their starting quarterback. They beat Penn State,
Speaker 1: which was also a non big game program under James Franklin,
Speaker 1: so one of them had to win it. Point being,
Speaker 1: you could deconstruct the concept that is Notre Dame the
Speaker 1: national title contender if you really wanted to, and I
Speaker 1: would push back on it, but ultimately Marcus Freeman has
Speaker 1: to push back on it. Ultimately Notre Dame has to
Speaker 1: push back on it. So yeah, I guess that's kind
Speaker 1: of an unknown right now. The true nature of the
Speaker 1: SEC's Tier one is what how many teams? I think
Speaker 1: the working theory out there is oh, Josh, is Texas
Speaker 1: and Georgia. That's what the odds board says right now
Speaker 1: at FanDuel. That's what the media in the South says.
Speaker 1: And I'm not necessarily here to push back on it.
Speaker 1: I just am wondering. It's called unknowns. It's not called doubts,
Speaker 1: it's not called affirmative statements here, It's just an unknown
Speaker 1: right now. Is it really that simple? Is it really
Speaker 1: Texas and Georgia then a little bit of a separation,
Speaker 1: then this huge like hodgepodge of LSU and Oklahoma and
Speaker 1: Texas A and m Alabama whoever may end up being
Speaker 1: in there. Is that the way it works out? Or
Speaker 1: is there some other combination? There could be a world
Speaker 1: where Texas is just head and shoulders above the rest
Speaker 1: of the conference, and come late in November, Texas is
Speaker 1: buzz sawing the entire league and Texas is in a
Speaker 1: route to going undefeated and the next best team's nine
Speaker 1: to three, and we look in November say why do
Speaker 1: we overthink the room so much? In July on all this?
Speaker 1: Or Georgia could do that and Texas could falter and underachieve,
Speaker 1: and there could be all sorts of uncomfortable conversations to
Speaker 1: be had about Steve Sarkisian or this is probably the
Speaker 1: more fun of the three possibilities here, not that there
Speaker 1: were only three. What if Lane Kiffin just does it
Speaker 1: and you're one at LSU. What if all the ifs
Speaker 1: become green check marks at Alabama? What if Austin max
Speaker 1: starts gives way to Keelan Russell, Alabama takes advantage of
Speaker 1: a soft early first month of the season and then
Speaker 1: they round into form. What if Texas A and M
Speaker 1: lost all that NFL talent and still got better. What
Speaker 1: if Oklahoma can run the ball and play good offensive
Speaker 1: line this year? What if one of those things falls
Speaker 1: into place and one of those other teams elevates. What
Speaker 1: if the Tier one table is more crowded. What if
Speaker 1: it's not crowded. What if there are still two teams
Speaker 1: like you thought there would be, it's just a different
Speaker 1: combination of those two teams. That's kind of fun to
Speaker 1: talk about. And then in the Big Ten, I don't
Speaker 1: so much care about Tier one. I got no doubts
Speaker 1: about Tier one. There. What does the Tier two table
Speaker 1: in the Big Ten look like? If we are to
Speaker 1: assume which I do that some combo of Oregon, Ohio State,
Speaker 1: and Indiana make up your one, two three in the
Speaker 1: Big Ten. I don't know how you look at it
Speaker 1: any other way coming into the year, but if we're
Speaker 1: to assume that, it is my belief, maybe the biggest
Speaker 1: story in college football coming into the twenty twenty six
Speaker 1: season is the tier two situation in the Big Ten.
Speaker 1: Because this right here, our first paper Popper stat of
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty six season is an old stat, but
Speaker 1: that's the way it be sometimes, Jesse, do you understand
Speaker 1: that out of those Big three, Indiana, Oregon, Ohio State,
Speaker 1: they are forty eight and one against the rest of
Speaker 1: the Big Ten the last two years, so there has
Speaker 1: been such clear separation. Now a lot of folks are
Speaker 1: going to clip that out of context and claim I
Speaker 1: said what I didn't say. I didn't say anything the
Speaker 1: stat didn't say. The stat is the stat. So my
Speaker 1: whole point there is Texas was one of the best
Speaker 1: teams in the SEC last year. They lost to Florida,
Speaker 1: They got taken to the limit by Kentucky and Mississippi State.
Speaker 1: That stuff doesn't happen in the Big Ten, and that's
Speaker 1: due to a couple of factors. Number one, the top
Speaker 1: of the Big Ten is better than the top of
Speaker 1: the SEC, but number two. Because of number one, there's
Speaker 1: a lot more separation between tier one and tier two.
Speaker 1: It's nice, neat and clean in the Big Ten, or
Speaker 1: at least it has been. So what does Lincoln Riley
Speaker 1: have to say about that this year? What is Kyle
Speaker 1: Whittingham or Matt Campbell have to say about that this year?
Speaker 1: Does Jedfish have something to say about that this year?
Speaker 1: Kurt FERRYNX, Kurt Ferrence, Matt Ruhles, So you gotta say
Speaker 1: something about that this year? Maybe even Luke Fickle I
Speaker 1: could have made Wisconsin their own Big Unknown. Here. My
Speaker 1: point is, is there a little more mixing at the
Speaker 1: top of the Big Ten or is it still just
Speaker 1: this nice, neat, tidy, compartmentalized product which has been great
Speaker 1: for the league, although I would argue maybe from a
Speaker 1: pure television watchability type standpoint, it hasn't been great because
Speaker 1: the TV numbers struggle just a little bit on that front.
Speaker 1: But the Big Ten is not struggling much at all. Here.
Speaker 1: I just wonder about that, But that pales in comparison
Speaker 1: to how exciting maybe the overall quarterback picture in the
Speaker 1: country could be this year, which quarterbacks meet or exceed
Speaker 1: preseason expectations. I've been consuming this game a long time.
Speaker 1: Most of you watching this show have watched college football
Speaker 1: your entire lives. You've seen some years where the quarterback
Speaker 1: picture was really loaded. You've seen somewhere maybe a little
Speaker 1: more sparse. I would put this year's preseason quarterback picture
Speaker 1: up against almost any preseason quarterback picture that I remember
Speaker 1: in my lifetime. The depth of potential quality quarterbacks in
Speaker 1: college football this year is utterly insane, and you can
Speaker 1: get past the lead pack. So of course CJ. Carre
Speaker 1: at Notre Dame, arch Manning at Texas, Mensa Miami, Trinidad, Chambliss,
Speaker 1: Don at Ole Mess, Julian Saym, Dante Moore, Josh Hoover
Speaker 1: is headed to Indiana, Gunner Stockton's at Georgia. You could
Speaker 1: get through that group, and then you've still got Mayava
Speaker 1: at usc whoever wins the job at Bama, because they
Speaker 1: probably have two guys that could end up playing at
Speaker 1: a high level. You've got Sam Levitt having transferred to LSU.
Speaker 1: Byron Brown goes with Alex Golish to Auburn, Rock Obeck,
Speaker 1: ditto with Matt Campbell to Penn State. Bryce Underwood is
Speaker 1: in his second year as a starting quarterback. We didn't
Speaker 1: mention Kevin Jennings at SMU in either of those groups.
Speaker 1: We didn't mention Noah Fafida, Austin Simmons, man Like this
Speaker 1: time last year, it was Lane Kiffin proudly like hitching
Speaker 1: his wagon to Austin Simmons as his starting quarterback, and
Speaker 1: now a year later, Eli Drinkwitz has done the same
Speaker 1: thing because Austin Simmons transferred to Missouri. That's not an
Speaker 1: exhaustive list. I didn't even get through it all, man. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think there are some guys that we haven't
Speaker 1: even listed. Like Leonora Sellers wasn't even listed here, Jesse.
Speaker 1: I feel like I just listed twenty guys and I
Speaker 1: didn't even say Leonora's Sellers. So the point there, obviously
Speaker 1: is not everyone's going to deliver here. You'll have some
Speaker 1: guys get hurt because it sucks, but it happens every year.
Speaker 1: You'll have some guys just underachieve. You'll have a couple
Speaker 1: of guys come out of nowhere to make up for
Speaker 1: the guys that underachieved. But just think, if a critical
Speaker 1: chunk of those names live up to or slightly exceed
Speaker 1: whatever the expectation is, you're talking about an insane year,
Speaker 1: because that leads to a lot of volatility, because if
Speaker 1: you're getting pretty good quarterback play, a lot of teams
Speaker 1: could beat a lot of other teams. You don't have
Speaker 1: this like defined class system down the stretch like we
Speaker 1: do some years. And then the other part, which is
Speaker 1: not fun to talk about for me, although I think
Speaker 1: some of you in a more sick kind of way,
Speaker 1: I think some of you have a lot of fun
Speaker 1: talking about this anytime of year. The hot seat had
Speaker 1: a real quick trigger last year. I mean, Hugh Freeze,
Speaker 1: who else, Billy Napier, Brian Kelly. I think obviously when
Speaker 1: you look at what happened with James Franklin at Penn
Speaker 1: State last year, those guys not only lost their jobs,
Speaker 1: they lost them early. By Halloween was a disaster, and
Speaker 1: a lot of athletic departments had a quick trigger. So
Speaker 1: what happens at Wisconsin this year if it goes bad early,
Speaker 1: which I by the way, have some different theories on
Speaker 1: what may be in the cards for Luke Fickle and
Speaker 1: Wisconsin this year and then the rest of America does.
Speaker 1: But let's say I'm wrong, and for the time being,
Speaker 1: let's say you're right, and let's say they lose some
Speaker 1: games early. Is there a quick trigger? There? Is there
Speaker 1: a quick trigger at Florida State? What about dave A
Speaker 1: Randa at Baylor? What if it goes bad early for
Speaker 1: Lincoln Riley at USC Again, you could differ. You could
Speaker 1: think one or more of these guys are going to
Speaker 1: make the playoff and therefore it's a point. But I'm
Speaker 1: saying worst case scenario. What if it goes sideways? What
Speaker 1: if Shane Biemer were to get off to a really,
Speaker 1: really bad start. What could theoretically happen if we have
Speaker 1: an off the rail season like we had with Clemson
Speaker 1: and Penn State and LSU last year, like some stuff
Speaker 1: that was really hard to see coming. What if that
Speaker 1: happens this year? What if it goes just really bad
Speaker 1: for like a Tennessee I think it's irresponsible to even
Speaker 1: talk about it. I don't even like talking about this
Speaker 1: because this gets into the lane where if you ask
Speaker 1: me who would be most likely to be this year's
Speaker 1: James Franklin, I don't think there's an answer to that,
Speaker 1: because the answer last year wasn't James Franklin up until
Speaker 1: the point where it actually happened. The whole crazy part
Speaker 1: about that is it's impossible to see coming. So if
Speaker 1: there was a this year's James Franklin, by saying that,
Speaker 1: you're insinuating, oh, there's a preseason top ten or top
Speaker 1: five team that's going to lose its coach for merit
Speaker 1: based reasoning by Halloween, I don't know how you find that.
Speaker 1: So I was trying to come up with the craziest
Speaker 1: scenarios like sark at Texas or something like that, where
Speaker 1: no one would have seen it coming. I don't even
Speaker 1: know how you responsibly talk about that, and therefore we
Speaker 1: will not. Those are some big unknowns for the year.
Speaker 1: So another unknown, which will be known in the not
Speaker 1: too distant future, I hope, is some of the rumors. Jesse,
Speaker 1: you've seen this. You got internet. I assume I don't
Speaker 1: know what you did on vacation, but you looked tand
Speaker 1: well rested, different hair. But a lot of people were
Speaker 1: talking while we were on break. This is what happens
Speaker 1: when we can't address our people. Every forty eight or
Speaker 1: seventy two hours. So Nathan in Stanford, Connecticut hit us
Speaker 1: up and he said, great appearance on the bus, thank you.
Speaker 1: Busting with the Boys hit him up last Monday. Will
Speaker 1: Compton was strapped positive and couldn't be there, but he
Speaker 1: got the vaccine, so he is fully vaccinated against strap
Speaker 1: now and he's back. He's back on his feet and
Speaker 1: happy to report that he's back amongst us. But in
Speaker 1: the absence of Will Compton, I went and filled in
Speaker 1: on Busting with the Boys, and I think we went
Speaker 1: like two and a half hours. It was pretty crazy.
Speaker 1: He's like a TimewARP. So Nathan said, great appearance on
Speaker 1: the bus, Thank you, Nathan. He continues, Can you comment?
Speaker 1: This is where it gets a little murky. Can you
Speaker 1: comment on the whispers and rumors about you guys and
Speaker 1: ESPN or is it just a fun rumor you guys
Speaker 1: are starting. Look, as I always say, when I can
Speaker 1: talk about such things, I'll talk about such things. All
Speaker 1: I'll say right now is the same thing that I
Speaker 1: said back in January and February. We kind of talked
Speaker 1: about this a couple of times. I liked what we
Speaker 1: did with ESPN last year. We got a really relationship
Speaker 1: with the ESPN, there has been motivation on both sides
Speaker 1: to broaden and expand that relationship. Now here has always
Speaker 1: been my stance. I am not someone whoever calls an
Speaker 1: agent or something and says, go get me this, because
Speaker 1: that'd be stupid, because that's asking someone to force feed
Speaker 1: the audience something that the audience is not asking for.
Speaker 1: So on the other lane, if you feel like the
Speaker 1: audience is asking for something, or if you feel like
Speaker 1: there's an absence in the marketplace for something and you've
Speaker 1: got a good idea or someone else has a good
Speaker 1: idea and you think it would work, well, it's a
Speaker 1: different thing. So yeah, we've had some conversations like that,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure in the not too distant future we'll
Speaker 1: be able to talk more on it. But broad strokes
Speaker 1: purposes Nathan through the paper down already. I think it's
Speaker 1: going to be a really good year for college football
Speaker 1: content this year. And my general thirty thousand foot view
Speaker 1: on this has been for a long time. If this
Speaker 1: is the number two sport in the country, my number one,
Speaker 1: it needs to be covered and discussed accordingly. And I
Speaker 1: have felt for a long time on the national landscape
Speaker 1: the college football has not been covered appropriately. They've done
Speaker 1: a great job broadcasting the games, but college football itself,
Speaker 1: just as an entity, as a Sunday through Friday concept,
Speaker 1: has not been treated nearly the way it should. So
Speaker 1: that could change one of two ways. It could be
Speaker 1: covered by the wrong kinds of people, or hopefully it
Speaker 1: could be covered by the kinds of people. I, in
Speaker 1: some small way, hope I'm the right kind of person
Speaker 1: that can help broaden and expand the horizons of college
Speaker 1: football conversation for the better in this great country of ours.
Speaker 1: So I say all that to say, stay tuned. I
Speaker 1: think some stuff's coming around the corner. Nathan. We move on.
Speaker 1: Oh boy again, July interesting month. Some stuff happened, Jesse,
Speaker 1: some media days happened, some press conferences happen. So our
Speaker 1: buddy Jackson in Chicago, he was just asking me about
Speaker 1: the shots back and forth over the past month or
Speaker 1: so between the SEC and the Big Ten, and did
Speaker 1: I have any thoughts on it? And I got to
Speaker 1: tell you, guys, yeah, I've got thoughts. None of the
Speaker 1: thoughts are particularly new. I'm tired of talking about it.
Speaker 1: But since I haven't spoken to you in the better
Speaker 1: part of a month about these sorts of things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I got some thoughts about it. My thoughts
Speaker 1: are until further notice, the Big Ten gets to say
Speaker 1: what what ever it wants, and the SEC needs to
Speaker 1: keep his mouth shut. Those are about the long and
Speaker 1: short of my thoughts on this whole situation. I don't
Speaker 1: really care what your hypothetical scenarios are. Hypotheticals only matter
Speaker 1: in the absence of reality. But we've got reality. We
Speaker 1: got results on the field. I watched the Rose Bowl
Speaker 1: last year. Now, I don't care so much about non
Speaker 1: playoff bowl results, by the way, and I've always held
Speaker 1: that stance, including when the SEC used to dominate. Like
Speaker 1: to me, the SEC could prove they were the premier
Speaker 1: conference in college football for a long time without using
Speaker 1: bowl results as a bad faith weapon in their argument.
Speaker 1: The Big Ten's the same. The Big Ten does not
Speaker 1: need to tell me that they beat Vanderbilt with Eli
Speaker 1: Stouers opting out to prove they're the best conference of
Speaker 1: college football right now. You prove you're the best conference
Speaker 1: in college football very simply because you've got the most
Speaker 1: championship caliber teams in college football right now. Well, Josh,
Speaker 1: now I guess that boils down to how you define best,
Speaker 1: doesn't it? Yes, I guess it does, so I guess
Speaker 1: I owe it to you to define how I define best,
Speaker 1: And mine's very simple. My system is not too complex.
Speaker 1: My system for defining the best conference college football is
Speaker 1: simply which one of you has the most teams that
Speaker 1: can win the national title. And if you choose to
Speaker 1: view it a different way, you can choose to view
Speaker 1: it a different way. That's fine. That's why it's kind
Speaker 1: of subjective here. I would just say, if all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, you live in Jonesboro, Arkansas, or you live
Speaker 1: in Montgomery, Alabama, and you're deciding to judge conferences based
Speaker 1: on overall depth rather than championship caliber teams. Were you
Speaker 1: singing that tune in twenty sixteen or seventeen and if
Speaker 1: you were more power to you. It doesn't really matter,
Speaker 1: does it. But since you asked me, Jackson, I will
Speaker 1: tell you that I look at Ohio State, I look
Speaker 1: at Michigan, I look at Indiana and then running off
Speaker 1: boom boom boom, and Oregon being very much in the
Speaker 1: mix to maybe make it a fourth unique team in
Speaker 1: four years into Big Ten. I look at that caliber
Speaker 1: team actually teams plural, and I say, the SEC doesn't
Speaker 1: have that right now, and by the way, there's no
Speaker 1: guarantee that changes this year. And so I was down
Speaker 1: at SEC media Days for a couple of days in Tampa.
Speaker 1: I think Saban got some headlines for talking about schedule
Speaker 1: and there's this whole debate right now about strength of schedule. Oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, is that the same thing as strength
Speaker 1: of record? No, it's not spoiler alert. What should we
Speaker 1: go on? Should we go on strength of schedule? Should
Speaker 1: we go on strength of record? You know my thoughts
Speaker 1: on that, or if you're new around here, I will
Speaker 1: say I have thoughts on that that are nuanced and
Speaker 1: you can never know what they're going to be until
Speaker 1: the season's played out. RHT. Lastly, I was having some
Speaker 1: fun with him the other day. I was talking to
Speaker 1: him because he spoke up and he said, why are
Speaker 1: we talking about preseason FPI and strength of schedule when
Speaker 1: no games have been played? This is just poisoning the well.
Speaker 1: And I text him, Jesse, and I said, I don't
Speaker 1: care what you think right now. I'm counting on your
Speaker 1: full endorsement when the JP pole drops, which will happen
Speaker 1: in the next couple of weeks. He did agree to
Speaker 1: still endorse the j people, but his point was taken,
Speaker 1: and his point was, how do we know how strong
Speaker 1: someone's schedule is in July? Maybe we have a best guess,
Speaker 1: But doesn't that best guess also serve to unfairly pre
Speaker 1: shape what the narrative will end up being once the
Speaker 1: games have actually started to happen. And the answer is yes,
Speaker 1: And the answer is maybe you're gonna get preseason credit
Speaker 1: in the SEC for some teams that have historically been
Speaker 1: really hard to play being on your schedule. But then
Speaker 1: at the end of the year you look back and
Speaker 1: you say, wow, that team kind of sucked this year.
Speaker 1: Remember when we thought it would be a big deal
Speaker 1: that so and so was playing them, but then it
Speaker 1: turned out it wasn't. That's there on one side of
Speaker 1: the coin. On the other side of the coin, I
Speaker 1: one thousand percent believe the average league schedule that you'll
Speaker 1: play in the SEC is unequivocally tougher than the average
Speaker 1: league schedule you'll play in the Big Ten. But here's
Speaker 1: where that's irrelevant. Here's why that's totally irrelevant. If Alabama
Speaker 1: plays a tougher league schedule by a moderate amount in
Speaker 1: the SEC, and Indiana plays whatever schedule they play in
Speaker 1: the Big Ten, which is still going to be pretty tough,
Speaker 1: and they play in Indiana rips Alabama spying out. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. Indiana was the better team. That's just like
Speaker 1: if I took the Seahawks and I had them to
Speaker 1: send to college football and play in the Sun Belt
Speaker 1: this year, they'd still be the Seattle Seahawks that probably
Speaker 1: go undefeated. Their strength of schedule wouldn't be all that great.
Speaker 1: What kind of quality team would they be? There is also,
Speaker 1: and this is again in the nuance the devil in
Speaker 1: the details here, I think there's a little bit of
Speaker 1: validity to not talking so much about how strength of
Speaker 1: schedule slash strength of record impacts whether or not you
Speaker 1: can win a national title, but rather the fringe of
Speaker 1: the playoff bubble. To me, that's where the rubber meets
Speaker 1: the road. More on this, because to me, really what
Speaker 1: it boils down to is, is there an nine and
Speaker 1: three team from the SEC or maybe even the Big
Speaker 1: Ten that we think played a really hard schedule and
Speaker 1: they're being compared to an eleven to one team that
Speaker 1: played an infinitely softer schedule, and we're trying to figure
Speaker 1: out who's going to be the nine seed or something
Speaker 1: like that, like we're we always I say we. I've
Speaker 1: noticed a lot of people automatically attach the whole strength
Speaker 1: of schedule debate and if you play in the SEC,
Speaker 1: does the body blow theory catch up to you? And
Speaker 1: they immediately attached that to the national title. That to
Speaker 1: me is not where the rubber meets the road on
Speaker 1: this and I don't know that it meets the road, period,
Speaker 1: but if it does meet the road, it's Texas. Last year.
Speaker 1: I happened to disagree with their argument. But the Texas
Speaker 1: argument last year was we went nine to three. We
Speaker 1: voluntarily went and played Ohio State, hard fought game early
Speaker 1: in the season, we lost, and then we played a
Speaker 1: league schedule that was difficult eight games but still difficult,
Speaker 1: and we lost a couple more games, and had we
Speaker 1: just scheduled a cream Puff instead of Ohio State, we
Speaker 1: would have been in. That's our gripe. I disagreed that
Speaker 1: they should have been in, but that was their argument.
Speaker 1: If you want to make that argument that at the
Speaker 1: end of the year, you got a nine to three
Speaker 1: Texas and then you got like an eleven to one
Speaker 1: team like last year. I think JM you we were
Speaker 1: talking about how their strength of schedule at the end
Speaker 1: of the year they had lost against Louisville, right press,
Speaker 1: they lost against Louisville, and we didn't have them in
Speaker 1: our own internal metrics having played another team in the
Speaker 1: top fifty, and yet you had the whole win loss
Speaker 1: vultures out there that were like, well, you are what
Speaker 1: your record says you are. If you want to talk
Speaker 1: about it in that context, okay, but I don't really
Speaker 1: attach it to whether or not you're capable of winning
Speaker 1: a national title. It'll happen with Notre Dame this year.
Speaker 1: I guarantee you if if Notre Dame plays the schedule
Speaker 1: that they're set to play this year and they play
Speaker 1: Miami in South Bend and they were to lose by seven,
Speaker 1: you'll have some folks arguing NOME shouldn't be in and
Speaker 1: or that proved that they're not capable of winning a
Speaker 1: national title and they don't deserve to get in because
Speaker 1: their schedule did not meet the minimum baseline resistance that
Speaker 1: you should have to face to go to the playoff.
Speaker 1: There's conversation to be had. You got to watch the
Speaker 1: season play out. Though. The worst part about all this
Speaker 1: and why I hate talking about it, is because it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what you say. There is a pretty sizable
Speaker 1: vocal group out there who just doesn't listen. I had
Speaker 1: this happen to me twice last week because I listened
Speaker 1: to a lot of college football content in July because
Speaker 1: it's the only time of year that I really have
Speaker 1: to check out what other people are doing. And are
Speaker 1: a couple of different shows in the past week that
Speaker 1: were discussing me. I don't know how I came up.
Speaker 1: I've had my mouth closed for a month, but point
Speaker 1: blank said, man, he's running around talking about how the
Speaker 1: SEC superior to the Big Ten and Jesse, have we
Speaker 1: not sad? I'll do it one more time in just
Speaker 1: a second. Have I not sat here and said the
Speaker 1: exact opposite month after month after month. I'll do it again.
Speaker 1: Here's what it sounds like. The Big Ten is superior
Speaker 1: to the SEC right now? Period? Was that pretty clear?
Speaker 1: But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you actually say,
Speaker 1: which is why I kind of hate talking about it
Speaker 1: on the show. But I will say this week two
Speaker 1: is coming this year so I go back to my
Speaker 1: point that I made a little while ago. There's no
Speaker 1: guarantee that this is going to rectify itself for the SEC.
Speaker 1: It's probably more likely than not the Big Ten ends
Speaker 1: up being better than the SEC at the top. Again
Speaker 1: this year, it may be more likely than not that
Speaker 1: the SEC, let's say, has one national title caliber team.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll just see and the Big Ten has like
Speaker 1: three or four or something like that. Now, of course
Speaker 1: it could go your way, but I'm not looking towards
Speaker 1: the end of the year. I'm interested in Week two
Speaker 1: because Week two it's not a press conference. Week two
Speaker 1: is not media days. Week two is not a war
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Week two is when Ohio State goes to Texas.
Speaker 1: Week two is when Oklahoma goes to Michigan. And you
Speaker 1: know what else happens in Week two. Very interesting game
Speaker 1: no one's talking about. Mississippi State goes to Minnesota. I
Speaker 1: don't care about bowl games as it relates to measuring
Speaker 1: conference against conference. I love watching bowl games. I don't
Speaker 1: learn a thing about conference superiority in bowl season, not now,
Speaker 1: not back when the SEC dominated it. To me, you
Speaker 1: can tell which conference is better before bowl season. But
Speaker 1: if you need the cross conference analysis. If you need
Speaker 1: those cross conference data points, they need to be regular
Speaker 1: season games because the dynamics in regular season games are
Speaker 1: obviously way different in bowl games. There's a game outside
Speaker 1: of those big two which are obvious. There's another game
Speaker 1: that happens in Week three or week two. It's Mississippi
Speaker 1: State at Minnesota. These kinds of games fascinate me because
Speaker 1: we don't get a whole lot of them. I'm a
Speaker 1: big believer in SEC Big Ten Challenge Week should happen
Speaker 1: every year, but I'm not the commissioner yet. But think
Speaker 1: about this. The reason I don't care about bullseason is
Speaker 1: there's unequal motivation, there's opt outs, and it's not equally seeded.
Speaker 1: So if the Big Tens number four team beats the
Speaker 1: SEC's number eight team by three, I didn't really learn
Speaker 1: anything there. Similarly, if the SEC's number three beats the
Speaker 1: Big Tens number seven by three, I didn't learn anything.
Speaker 1: But if you could ever get me roughly equally seeded
Speaker 1: matchups with equal motivation, no opt outs, got to be wonderful.
Speaker 1: We kind of sort of have a little version of
Speaker 1: that here. Now Mississippi State will be ranked lower in
Speaker 1: the SEC than Minnesota, but still they're lower half teams
Speaker 1: in their conferences, and it's on the road, it's in
Speaker 1: a Big Ten venue. That kind of game's just interesting
Speaker 1: to keep an eye on, is all I'm saying. But
Speaker 1: Ohio State, Texas and Oklahoma Michigan, of course, bottom line,
Speaker 1: win some games on the field, man, then you can
Speaker 1: talk in the SEC. Until then, I don't really care
Speaker 1: about the rest of the excuses. Okay, I don't know
Speaker 1: what you guys did in July. I had a fun July.
Speaker 1: The way my July works is I put everything off
Speaker 1: until that month, So starting in January, basically, when everyone
Speaker 1: requests a meeting or an appearance or hey, can can
Speaker 1: we record this, I always tell them hit me up
Speaker 1: in July. And then July gets here and I realize, oh,
Speaker 1: like a million different obligations. I passed most of them
Speaker 1: off to Jesse and then I do a few of
Speaker 1: them myself, and I did one of them last week.
Speaker 1: People saw that I was flying to Chicago, they thought, oh,
Speaker 1: going to Big ten media days, psych But I did
Speaker 1: go to Chicago on business and I can't pretend that
Speaker 1: I haven't seen this. So those of you who were
Speaker 1: perusing social media A couple of days ago. I let
Speaker 1: you know because I want to be honest and transparent
Speaker 1: with you guys. I let you know there's something coming.
Speaker 1: I wanted you to hear it from me first. I
Speaker 1: don't regret it, but I may one day. And that
Speaker 1: is my stance now, and the thing has since become public.
Speaker 1: I went to Chicago the other day. I marched right
Speaker 1: into Barstool headquarters and I sat down for the better
Speaker 1: part of two hours with what some are calling Burger
Speaker 1: king Brand. And he's Brandon Walker and me, and we recorded.
Speaker 1: We just hit go, took a bathroom break in the middle,
Speaker 1: but we recorded. It's the first time we've ever sat
Speaker 1: down together, period, much less to record anything. I've never
Speaker 1: appeared with him before. He has never appeared with me before.
Speaker 1: Been kind of a cold war, so to speak. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people see the optics of this
Speaker 1: and they think, man, we got played the whole time.
Speaker 1: Someone even said k Fabe is dead Jesse. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: let you guys be the judge. This will air tomorrow night.
Speaker 1: Brandon Walker's College Football Show, brought to you by Josh Bayton.
Speaker 1: Brandon Walker will debut tomorrow night, Monday night. So if
Speaker 1: you're listening Sunday, it's tomorrow. I'll let you judge for yourself.
Speaker 1: You let me know if k Fabe is dead after this.
Speaker 1: It's pretty spirited. I'll just say he screamed multiple times,
Speaker 1: stomped his feet multiple times. I don't think I did
Speaker 1: either of those things, you know, because I'm a full
Speaker 1: grown adult with a you know, fully functional life and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. But it was it was fun. I
Speaker 1: think it's very productive, and it was the first half
Speaker 1: of a home and home. And that's all I'll say
Speaker 1: on that matter, other than we really need to work.
Speaker 1: We need to really work on our furniture situation here
Speaker 1: before the back half of that home and home is
Speaker 1: fulfilled from one, you know, from one situation that's a
Speaker 1: little regrettable to another situation that's a little regrettable. I
Speaker 1: was going to say some other things, but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be nice. I'm not going to start the season throwing
Speaker 1: shots at everyone. Jesse. I'm gonna be nice. What's happening
Speaker 1: at North Carolina had an inbox full of this last week,
Speaker 1: and I said, look, if you think I'm breaking into
Speaker 1: our vacation month to talk about Michael Lombardi being placed
Speaker 1: on administrative leave. You are high. So North Carolina football
Speaker 1: is in a state of disrepair right now, most predictable
Speaker 1: thing in the world. There's a new athletic director in charge,
Speaker 1: Steve Newmark, who inherited this. It won't be his mess
Speaker 1: for long, but it is a mess right now. He
Speaker 1: does have to clean it up. I got to tell you,
Speaker 1: and I forgot to tell this story. I think I
Speaker 1: don't remember telling the story on air. A few months ago.
Speaker 1: I was talking to someone pretty important in the media
Speaker 1: world who has a kid who had toured some of
Speaker 1: the schools, and he had toured North Carolina, and he
Speaker 1: had also toured some of the other big time schools,
Speaker 1: and he was just talking about how dysfunctional the visit
Speaker 1: was at North Carolina, how unorganized the visit was compared
Speaker 1: to these other places, and the way he summarized it
Speaker 1: so perfectly fits what pretty much everyone is heard who
Speaker 1: knows anyone under North Carolina and it is. They almost
Speaker 1: acted like it was doing you a favor to have
Speaker 1: you there, even though they're supposed to be the one
Speaker 1: trying to recruit you and convince you to play for them.
Speaker 1: There was a fundamental disconnect from the word go from
Speaker 1: not only Bill Belichick but also the people in his
Speaker 1: camp about what it was ever going to take to
Speaker 1: win in college football. They didn't win last year. They're
Speaker 1: not going to do any better this year. In fact,
Speaker 1: their shot was last year if you understand schedule making.
Speaker 1: But just want to remind everyone as we get into this,
Speaker 1: how badly they screwed themselves and the opportunity they had.
Speaker 1: We talked about this at the time, So this is
Speaker 1: not sour grapes. This is not revisionist history. I'm going
Speaker 1: to play some sound for you in just a second,
Speaker 1: but I want you to remember when Mac Brown got fired,
Speaker 1: they could have had John Sumrall, and John Sumrral had
Speaker 1: a quarterback down there named Darien Mensa who was about
Speaker 1: to transfer to Duke. But in this world where North
Speaker 1: Carolina is able to get out of its own way
Speaker 1: and let a coaching search be run properly, John Somerl's
Speaker 1: hired Darien Mensa, And best number I've gotten is well
Speaker 1: over a dozen two lane players are coming with some
Speaker 1: roll to North Carolina. Now that's option A. Option B
Speaker 1: is a pile of crap you have in your lap,
Speaker 1: right now, so understand what we could be talking about
Speaker 1: right now. We could be talking about entering the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty sixth season. Some are all entering year two with
Speaker 1: Darien Mensa as his starting quarterback at North Carolina. You
Speaker 1: could have had that, or you'd have what you have
Speaker 1: right now, which is a complete torpedoing of your brand,
Speaker 1: which is resilient and will still survive. But also this
Speaker 1: sort of like freak show experiment. I don't know house
Speaker 1: to describe this. It's like a star doing everything it
Speaker 1: can to implode in on itself in the twilight of
Speaker 1: its career and doing it on your dime. It's like
Speaker 1: North Carolina or enough powers that be at North Carolina
Speaker 1: decided we want to take our brand, our IP, our platform,
Speaker 1: and we want to pay you a bunch of money
Speaker 1: to do this on our dime. Crazy. So remember this
Speaker 1: is really important. Remember I'm not telling you this now.
Speaker 1: I told you this during the search the Dave Belichick
Speaker 1: got hired. As a matter of fact, we came on
Speaker 1: the air and I had been as transparent as I
Speaker 1: could during the surge, but once the search wrapped up,
Speaker 1: I was trying to be really transparent and explaining why
Speaker 1: I didn't think it was going to work. Let's take
Speaker 1: you back to that day. This was a massive power
Speaker 1: struggle in Chapel Hill. Massive. I think you saw some
Speaker 1: headlines out there. I think some of the national guys
Speaker 1: reported that at various points those that were involved on
Speaker 1: the coaching side and the didn't really know who was
Speaker 1: running the search. They're right about that, because there were
Speaker 1: multiple searches being run. You had the administration, Bubba Cunningham
Speaker 1: the ad there and the administration running a search, and
Speaker 1: then you had Board of Trust steam members and big
Speaker 1: money folks, not a bunch of them, but a few
Speaker 1: of them running searches, and the latter got their way
Speaker 1: and the former did not. So it was an embarrassment
Speaker 1: from day one. And now there's no reason to really
Speaker 1: hide anything anymore. Bubba Cunningham's not the athletic director there.
Speaker 1: It was just so stupid to see Bubba Cunningham on
Speaker 1: stage with Bill Belichick at that introductory press conference, knowing
Speaker 1: full well Bubba Cunningham got like hip checked out of
Speaker 1: the way because rogue Board of Trust Steam members and
Speaker 1: administrative types at North Carolina were running a congruent like
Speaker 1: ghost search under the cloak of night to try and
Speaker 1: hire Bill Belichick, who had no other options out there.
Speaker 1: By the way, Jesse, you know the NFL market better
Speaker 1: than I do. I don't think there was anything there,
Speaker 1: and so you could have had John summerl but instead
Speaker 1: we choose Bill Belichick. We're going to be the thirty
Speaker 1: third INFL team. Well, I'm gonna say again, North Carolina's
Speaker 1: mess notwithstanding like it should have never been allowed to happen,
Speaker 1: but it was allowed to happen. But even on the
Speaker 1: other side of that, once it's allowed to happen, what's
Speaker 1: blown my mind the most is not that North Carolina
Speaker 1: screwed up their search and there were too many cooks
Speaker 1: in the kitchen, because that's kind of the way college athletics,
Speaker 1: in college football and basketball searches happen. Sometimes. What's blown
Speaker 1: my mind is, let's give credit where it's due. Bill
Speaker 1: Belichick has one of the great Wikipedia pages in history,
Speaker 1: one of the great legacies in the history of coaching.
Speaker 1: The sport may never be matched. And so if I
Speaker 1: were to get this greense board, there's one right over
Speaker 1: here in the studio. If I were to get this
Speaker 1: grease board and I were to have Bill Belichick go
Speaker 1: to work, explaining defensive football to us, explaining organizational structure
Speaker 1: to us, explaining psychology of the game to us. It
Speaker 1: would make your head spim and a guy that smart
Speaker 1: so badly miscalculated the situation of what it would take
Speaker 1: to win in college football. It blows my mind because
Speaker 1: I saw it, and I think to myself, if it's
Speaker 1: football related, and I could see it and most everyone
Speaker 1: else could see it, how is Bill Belichick blind? And
Speaker 1: I'm not saying, oh, Bill Belichick shouldn't have taken the job.
Speaker 1: If someone's going to offer you the job of North Carolina,
Speaker 1: if they're stupid enough to do it, yeah, I take it.
Speaker 1: My point is I can't believe they were dumb enough
Speaker 1: to think winning in college football was going to be
Speaker 1: easier than winning in the NFL. But I think that's
Speaker 1: the arrogance a lot of guys who coach in the
Speaker 1: NFL for a long time have when they look at
Speaker 1: college football, they think, well, this is professional football. That's
Speaker 1: college that's like a light version of what we do.
Speaker 1: Those are the minor leagues down there. I'll tell you this.
Speaker 1: If you go to Georgia, you go to Ohio State,
Speaker 1: you go to Notre Dame to Texas. Yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 1: could certainly make the argument it's easier to win there
Speaker 1: because relative to whatever the baseline is, you're above and
Speaker 1: beyond from a resource standpoint. So you're coming from a
Speaker 1: world in the NFL where everything is built to cram
Speaker 1: you into the middle and all the resources are equal,
Speaker 1: and no one really is working at a disadvantage from
Speaker 1: or an advantage from the jump to a world in
Speaker 1: college where there is huge disparity between haves and have nots.
Speaker 1: Even in the Portland Nil era there's huge disparity. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: if Belichick were to have come to Texas, he would
Speaker 1: have been right to think it's going to be easier
Speaker 1: to win in college than the NFL. But he didn't
Speaker 1: come to Texas. He came to North Carolina, where relative
Speaker 1: to the halves, he was going to be working at
Speaker 1: a disadvantage. So everything about his logic was actually working
Speaker 1: against him. And then they thought to themselves once they
Speaker 1: got here, they thought, man, we're going to have to
Speaker 1: beat kids off with a stick about our reputation and
Speaker 1: think about how enviable it'll be to play at North Carolina.
Speaker 1: And that's just not the world. It was never going
Speaker 1: to be the world. I can't believe they thought it
Speaker 1: was going to be the world. And the arrogance and
Speaker 1: the humorous and stupidity, I guess is a better word
Speaker 1: to throw around the thirty third NFL team. It got
Speaker 1: laughed at, guys, It got laughed at from pretty much
Speaker 1: everyone whose opinion I even remotely trust in college football.
Speaker 1: From day one, I remember just getting immediate feedback in
Speaker 1: some cases from guys who were going to have to
Speaker 1: face him or get to face him, and in other
Speaker 1: case is just people who have been around the game
Speaker 1: a long time, and every one of them, to a man,
Speaker 1: was he doesn't have the slightest clue what he's getting into.
Speaker 1: And that was pretty prophetic, not hard to see coming.
Speaker 1: And it's an experiment that's happened on North Carolina's dime,
Speaker 1: and they ought to be ashamed of themselves for letting
Speaker 1: it happen. But I will say this, it hasn't wrecked
Speaker 1: the brand. I got asked yesterday last night. I was
Speaker 1: at an event down in Fair Hope, Alabama, and someone
Speaker 1: said this, this this just wreck North Carolina for the future. No, Nope,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. I think they will wash their hands of
Speaker 1: this entire experiment. At some point this year, I think
Speaker 1: that'll happen, and I think the North Carolina job will
Speaker 1: be open. I don't know how else to tell you this.
Speaker 1: I know some people who would want the job right now,
Speaker 1: who would probably be on the short list. It's still
Speaker 1: a desirable position. In fact, it's probably going to be
Speaker 1: looked at as a position that is really desirable for
Speaker 1: the first time in a long time, because you flushed
Speaker 1: some of Slash, a lot of what needed to be
Speaker 1: flushed out of the athletic department out. I don't mean
Speaker 1: Bubba Cunningham. I mean the entire mess that prevented him
Speaker 1: from doing his job effectively. And I think also this
Speaker 1: was the medicine that was needed. A lot of people
Speaker 1: needed to have their eyelids staple to the top of
Speaker 1: their forehead and forced to watch this play out. This
Speaker 1: is your freak show. Okay, we did it your way
Speaker 1: and this is what we get. Now we're going to
Speaker 1: do it the right way and watch what happens. North
Speaker 1: Carolina can still be a winner. North Carolina is one
Speaker 1: of I've said it for a long time, and I
Speaker 1: know it gets old. I've said it about A and
Speaker 1: M for a long time, and I still believe it.
Speaker 1: You can win a national championship at this place. It
Speaker 1: just takes alignment. It's as easy and as complicated as that.
Speaker 1: It just takes alignment. They're watching us in Austin, Texas, Waterloo, Iowa, Jackson, Tennessee.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much. I got to remind everyone
Speaker 1: you may be joining throughout the stream. We're back. We're back,
Speaker 1: so happy. This is all we do around here. We
Speaker 1: don't cover any other sport, we don't cover any other topics.
Speaker 1: It's just college football year round except for July. And
Speaker 1: we're back. So we were sitting around earlier today trying
Speaker 1: to make sure all the equipment worked. And then after
Speaker 1: we were trying to make sure all the equipment worked,
Speaker 1: we said, hey, we've got room for one more thing,
Speaker 1: probably in the show, even though this is not the
Speaker 1: end of the show, but we had room for one
Speaker 1: more thing. I'm just sitting around here, and here's a
Speaker 1: good endpoint for you. Pres I'm just sitting around thinking, like,
Speaker 1: you know how awesome saturdays are, And I feel so
Speaker 1: bad for people who don't love college football and they
Speaker 1: don't really know what we're talking about. Maybe that's you
Speaker 1: and maybe this is the year you dive in and
Speaker 1: I'll sell you. I will recruit you for college football
Speaker 1: by explaining to you the magic of Saturdays. There's nothing
Speaker 1: like a college football Saturday. The entire concept of what
Speaker 1: it is that doesn't exist in American sports anywhere else, pro, college, whatever.
Speaker 1: The feeling of waking up on a Saturday. You know
Speaker 1: this feeling now, you know going to bed Friday night
Speaker 1: and then waking up. First thing, first five seconds are
Speaker 1: what day is it? The next five seconds are, oh,
Speaker 1: it's Saturday. And then that ten to fifteen second period
Speaker 1: after you're aware that you just woke up of realizing,
Speaker 1: oh my god, goodness, it's Saturday. It's week four. We
Speaker 1: got four top twenty five matchups today, we got that
Speaker 1: game that I've circled as an upset alert all week.
Speaker 1: How am I structuring my morning? Maybe you're going to
Speaker 1: a game, maybe you've got errands to run, but the
Speaker 1: morning buzz, just the energy you have about yourself on
Speaker 1: a Saturday morning. When I was not going to games
Speaker 1: back in my youth, I would go work out. I
Speaker 1: would say I got to get myself to ten o'clock,
Speaker 1: and this is Eastern time at that point, and then
Speaker 1: from ten to eleven thirty, I'll be going. If I
Speaker 1: can get myself to ten, it's basically kickoff, because working
Speaker 1: out feels like kickoff. And then eleven thirty, it takes
Speaker 1: me fifteen minutes to drive home. I'm going to get
Speaker 1: food on the way, and then I don't blink for
Speaker 1: twelve hours or more. Off, Hawaii's playing a home game
Speaker 1: that night. I can't put that in context vivid enough
Speaker 1: for you to feel until you feel it yourself. But
Speaker 1: I want to tell you if you can ever get
Speaker 1: to that point, especially on that first Saturday post September
Speaker 1: cold front happens every year, happens every single year. The
Speaker 1: first couple of weeks is still hot, but eventually there's
Speaker 1: going to be a real broad, sweeping cold front through
Speaker 1: like the eastern two thirds of the United States. And
Speaker 1: it sometimes happens late in the week fingers crossed, and
Speaker 1: you wake up. It could be a Friday morning, but
Speaker 1: maybe it's a Saturday morning and you step outside and
Speaker 1: you can feel it. You can feel college football in
Speaker 1: the air. The due point has plummeted. Are those leaves
Speaker 1: changing colors? Wow, I've actually got to put a coat
Speaker 1: on to walk out here. It's an unbelievable feeling. I
Speaker 1: wish everyone could experience it. There's some people who are
Speaker 1: really sad in life right now, and they think, man
Speaker 1: if I could just get a better job, Man if
Speaker 1: I just had more friends. No, forget that, your job's fine.
Speaker 1: A friend in need is a pest. No, what you
Speaker 1: need is college football. That's all you need, That's all
Speaker 1: you really need. Urgency is a word that we use
Speaker 1: a lot in college football and those Saturdays. The urgency
Speaker 1: that I feel that most people who love this sport,
Speaker 1: the urgency that you feel on Saturdays again is unmatched
Speaker 1: anywhere else in the American sporting landscape. And I'm talking
Speaker 1: mainly to people who can't relate yet to what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about, kind of trying to invite you to experience this.
Speaker 1: You talk to someone who has lived college football their
Speaker 1: whole life, most of them watch other sports. I do.
Speaker 1: I watch the NFL, believe it or not. I even
Speaker 1: dabble in some NBA. Told the Knicks had a great
Speaker 1: year this year. Jesse. Major League baseball grew up. It
Speaker 1: was my favorite sport and next to college football growing up.
Speaker 1: So I know the flavor of all the other sports.
Speaker 1: I know that there's nothing like a college football Saturday,
Speaker 1: specifically the urgency. You can wake up utterly terrified on
Speaker 1: a Saturday. You remember when Oregon came to Penn State
Speaker 1: last year, Yes, you do, Jesse. You remember the feeling
Speaker 1: you had that morning. You remember you remember, Hey man,
Speaker 1: it comes down to one or two games for us
Speaker 1: this year. We think we got everything we need. And
Speaker 1: it's like you're holding a little balancing rod and you're
Speaker 1: looking at the tightrope in front of you. You know,
Speaker 1: you got to walk that thing today. And the thing
Speaker 1: about it is a tightrope walk with a giant safety
Speaker 1: net under you and whatever. The college football is a
Speaker 1: tightrope walk in a lot of cases where there's either
Speaker 1: no safety net or there is a safety net, but
Speaker 1: it's like one hundred feet below you, so you're gonna
Speaker 1: get hurt no matter if that thing catches you or not.
Speaker 1: And the way that makes you feel it's so exciting,
Speaker 1: it's so terrifying. It's like riding a roller coaster for
Speaker 1: the first time. It's like, I don't know how else
Speaker 1: to describe it again, because there's no other comparison. You
Speaker 1: have to live college football to understand what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: That's also why some of us get really really aggressive
Speaker 1: when you talk about expanding the playoff, because you're talking
Speaker 1: about doing it at the expense of taking that word
Speaker 1: and devaluing it urgency. I think the campus scene, obviously,
Speaker 1: if you can get to it campus or camp i
Speaker 1: which is the plural of campus, get to several of
Speaker 1: them on a Saturday, that's amazing. And I don't really
Speaker 1: think if you've ever experienced that, I need to sell
Speaker 1: you on that that much. But it's also there's specific
Speaker 1: things that happen above the sites and the sounds and
Speaker 1: the smells and the community and the relationships, all of
Speaker 1: those things, the coming together of people with radically different
Speaker 1: political views religious views, but yet they're all wearing the
Speaker 1: same colors on Saturday, and so it's cool. We just
Speaker 1: put all that stuff on the shelf for a day.
Speaker 1: Despite all that, which is magical, believe me. But despite
Speaker 1: all that, if you've ever been on a big time
Speaker 1: campus on a big time Saturday, you're at LSU, Texas
Speaker 1: is in town. It's a seven thirty eastern, six thirty kickoff.
Speaker 1: Think about what it's like two point fifteen in the
Speaker 1: afternoon tailgate scene's already packed. But you know, any given Saturday,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have some big stuff that happens that you
Speaker 1: didn't expect. It's always that's funny if you're on that campus,
Speaker 1: to watch how the word of an upset alert kind
Speaker 1: of reverberates around campus. It's like word of mouths, like, you, guys,
Speaker 1: see what's happening in this old miss game. You guys
Speaker 1: seen his score in this USC game, And watch how
Speaker 1: that just kind of makes its way around a huge, packed,
Speaker 1: fifty thousand deep tailgate scene. I always love that. I
Speaker 1: always also love the clearing of the mechanism. This may
Speaker 1: be my favorite aspect. Actually, this is what I always
Speaker 1: sell people on. Clearing of the mechanism happens on fall Saturdays,
Speaker 1: in games on fall Saturdays. I'll tell you what I
Speaker 1: mean by it. It comes from For Love of the Game,
Speaker 1: which is a baseball movie, Kevin Costner's nineteenth baseball movie.
Speaker 1: All of them are good. He's pitching, Billy Chappel pitching
Speaker 1: for the Detroit Tigers. He's in the latter stage, is
Speaker 1: in the twilight of his career, and he is narrating
Speaker 1: his own game. And there's a point where he's pitching
Speaker 1: in Yankee Stadium and he's trying to lock in and
Speaker 1: he's telling himself, clear the mechanism, Clear the mechanism, and
Speaker 1: he can't. He's hearing crowd noise. There's like an individual
Speaker 1: guy just roasting him on the second row above the
Speaker 1: first base dugout, and he cleared the mechanism, and finally
Speaker 1: all the ambient noise stops. It's totally silent, and that's
Speaker 1: you hearing what it's like in his mind as a
Speaker 1: big league pitcher. Once the mechanism's cleared, Once the mechanism's cleared,
Speaker 1: all the outside noise is cut out, and all that
Speaker 1: matters is him and the batter sixty feet six inches
Speaker 1: away from him. On college football Saturdays, there are moments.
Speaker 1: There will be a moment in Week one of this
Speaker 1: year where ole Miss is playing Louisville, or LSU's playing Clemson,
Speaker 1: or Auburn is playing Baylor, and it'll be a tight game.
Speaker 1: This is how you know whether college football is still
Speaker 1: college football or not. You answer this question for me,
Speaker 1: it's LSU Clemson, it's the middle of the fourth quarter,
Speaker 1: it's twenty six to twenty three. LSU's up. Clemson's got
Speaker 1: the ball. It is fourth and four on the LSU
Speaker 1: thirty one yard line. New offensive coordinator Chad Morris and Deblos.
Speaker 1: When you have opted to go for it games on
Speaker 1: the line, Here comes Chris Phizine into the line of
Speaker 1: scrim is changed into play Tiger stadiums at full throat.
Speaker 1: It's a primetime game Saturday night in Death Valley. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to college football. Play clocks at eight seven, six,
Speaker 1: five four. Are they going to get the playoff three?
Speaker 1: To hit paulse right now? Are you thinking about a
Speaker 1: senate bill? Are you thinking about nil or the portal?
Speaker 1: Are you paying attention to how much any of the
Speaker 1: players on the field are making Are you concerned with
Speaker 1: rule changes, conference realignment, all the stuff you get so
Speaker 1: sick of in the spring and summer. Are you thinking
Speaker 1: about any of it? The answer is no, because your
Speaker 1: mechanism is cleared locked inn College football features that unlike
Speaker 1: any other sport in the world to me, which is
Speaker 1: why I love it. There are pinball windows about Saturdays.
Speaker 1: It happens multiple times per year. I won't say it
Speaker 1: happens every Saturday, because that'd be taking it a little
Speaker 1: bit too far, but they're gonna be like six, seven,
Speaker 1: eight Saturdays out of the year where I call them
Speaker 1: pinball windows, And that's like a thirty minute chunk of
Speaker 1: time on a Saturday. Normally it's it's when a bunch
Speaker 1: of games are ending at the same time, and the
Speaker 1: pinball window is the window where like five things happen
Speaker 1: in the span of twenty five minutes that just put
Speaker 1: your jaw on the ground and you can't even keep
Speaker 1: up with it all. And your phone's going crazy if
Speaker 1: you're doing you know, the thing where you scroll social
Speaker 1: media constantly is going crazy. Some of the worst places
Speaker 1: to be when this is happening are in stadiums because
Speaker 1: you don't know. Because I think for all the advancements
Speaker 1: in technology, most of these places still are terrible at
Speaker 1: keeping you updated what's happening in the outside world, which
Speaker 1: is an easy fix. By the way, it's kind of inexcusable.
Speaker 1: But those pinball windows, see this happens in the NFL.
Speaker 1: It happens a lot because the NFL is built to
Speaker 1: do this. Every Sunday, the NCAA Tournament, the first two
Speaker 1: days of March Madness, they provide pinball windows. A college
Speaker 1: football pinball window especially in a year like this where
Speaker 1: there may be no defined preseason favorite, there may be
Speaker 1: a bunch of high level quarterbacks. I think our pinball
Speaker 1: windows are going to be at a premium this year,
Speaker 1: actually not at a premium. I think they're going to
Speaker 1: be plentiful this year. And then well after the pinball windows,
Speaker 1: it comes the aftermath window. The pinball windows cousin. The
Speaker 1: aftermath window is the feeling that you have. It's probably
Speaker 1: one am Eastern Standard time after the last games, after
Speaker 1: the late window games have come to a close, and
Speaker 1: the dust is settled, and you have had sensory o
Speaker 1: load for fourteen hours. You have not moved. There's food
Speaker 1: all over the place. Your living room is a disaster,
Speaker 1: and sometimes you're sitting by yourself because your loved ones
Speaker 1: have gone to bed. Good for them, you need to
Speaker 1: be left alone anyway, and you're just kind of like
Speaker 1: you're just kind of in in a coma a little bit,
Speaker 1: and you just lean back terrible posture sitting on the
Speaker 1: couch and you're just trying to process what just happened.
Speaker 1: This isn't every week thing. It's so beautiful. The pinball
Speaker 1: windows are beautiful. The aftermath window is beautiful. The campus
Speaker 1: scene is beautiful, urgency is beautiful, the clearing of the
Speaker 1: mechanism Jesse is so beautiful. And it all starts with
Speaker 1: waking up on a fall Saturday. Guys, we only get
Speaker 1: twelve of them per team, guaranteed. And if you want
Speaker 1: to know why we take such a strong stand against
Speaker 1: fall weddings on this show, it's because I have never
Speaker 1: been to a fall wedding that delivers those things. Just
Speaker 1: sitting over here. That's why I randomly looked over there.
Speaker 1: If I go to a fall wedding that delivers that,
Speaker 1: I'll be happy to endorse fall weddings. None of you
Speaker 1: are capable of that. Don't try. Don't try get married
Speaker 1: in the spring, or get married on Friday. Don't try
Speaker 1: and put people through that. Don't put your friends in
Speaker 1: a position where they got to choose your wedding, not
Speaker 1: your marriage, your wedding or this, because this is going
Speaker 1: to win every time. And if they tell you otherwise,
Speaker 1: they're lying to you. They're they're under secret protest. Better
Speaker 1: them than me. You know, we're gonna be on the
Speaker 1: road every Saturday this fall. Some say we're going to
Speaker 1: be on the road before Saturday this fall. But who knows.
Speaker 1: At the very least, we're gonna be on the road
Speaker 1: on Saturdays this fall, Jesse. Ever since twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: we didn't go on the road during twenty twenty I
Speaker 1: don't know. Something happened, they tell me. But twenty twenty one, two, three,
Speaker 1: four and five we've gone on tours. We've named those tours.
Speaker 1: There was the Every Given Saturday tour. We had the
Speaker 1: Fall Not Lie Tour last year, the Once upon a
Speaker 1: Saturday tour. I was big into fairy tales for a
Speaker 1: couple of years there. People were asking me as recently
Speaker 1: as today, or we're gonna have a tour this year? Oh? Friends, yes, Oh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have a tour this year. And I am
Speaker 1: gonna say, Jesse, what about Thursday this week? Let's announce
Speaker 1: it on Thursday this week. Tentatively, we got a tour name.
Speaker 1: It's my favorite tour name of any tour name we've had.
Speaker 1: It's my favorite logo of any tour logo we've had.
Speaker 1: I am going to tell you Alex is working feverishly
Speaker 1: to get the teas uploaded in the store paystatematerial dot com.
Speaker 1: My suggestion is just go ahead and set some money
Speaker 1: aside because I know our audience and I think very
Speaker 1: few of you are going to look at this concept
Speaker 1: and say, nah, I can do without that one. This
Speaker 1: one's going to be pretty universally praised. So we got
Speaker 1: a tour name. We'll debut it later this week, probably Thursday.
Speaker 1: I would say the Truth Teller series continues. It's something
Speaker 1: we like to do on the show, you know, tell
Speaker 1: the truth. But what we like to do is we
Speaker 1: specifically like to point out someone something, well, let's tell
Speaker 1: the truth about this someone or something. Tonight it's Marcus Freeman.
Speaker 1: I think the truth about Marcus Freeman is pretty clear.
Speaker 1: I think he's a top five head coach currently. I
Speaker 1: could easily see us calling him the number one coach
Speaker 1: in the country in the not too distant future. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have to win a national title, I think, obviously.
Speaker 1: But everything that needs to be done to win a
Speaker 1: national title, all the ingredients that we know it takes
Speaker 1: to win a national title, they're all there, and so
Speaker 1: they're certainly headed in the right direction. I think two
Speaker 1: things stand out to me about what Marcus has done
Speaker 1: at Notre Dame. Firstly, it's just that he's the right
Speaker 1: guy they needed at the right time. And that sounds
Speaker 1: so common sensical, but really, if you think about it,
Speaker 1: they were really good under Brian Kelly. They were in
Speaker 1: a good position. They were rattling off good, solid seasons.
Speaker 1: I don't know what they were winning on average. It
Speaker 1: felt like nine and a half or ten games per
Speaker 1: year on average for a stretch there. Now, the trade
Speaker 1: off was we understood they were beneath that of a
Speaker 1: national championship caliber winning program, but they were good. They
Speaker 1: were really good. And then Brian Kelly left and the
Speaker 1: messaging from him on why he left, even though he
Speaker 1: disputes this today, but I think everyone understood at the
Speaker 1: time was I think I've done all I can do here.
Speaker 1: And that wasn't him saying he can't do anymore. Read
Speaker 1: between the lines. It was kind of him saying, I
Speaker 1: can't do anymore with Notre Dame, so I need to
Speaker 1: go to LSU. LSU will afford me the opportunity to
Speaker 1: do more than I could have ever done at Notre Dame.
Speaker 1: And good can be the enemy of great sometimes, and
Speaker 1: it would have been. It would have been. It's a
Speaker 1: huge fork in the road moment for Notre Dame. You
Speaker 1: knew it at the time. You don't need the benefit
Speaker 1: of hindsight. But I think the fork in the road
Speaker 1: moment at Notre Dame, it could have gone so radically
Speaker 1: a different way. But instead they did not let good
Speaker 1: be the enemy of great They had greatness, they had
Speaker 1: it in their own building. And then they elevated him
Speaker 1: and Marcus lost some inexplicable games early too, stuck with him.
Speaker 1: No one even talks about this stuff anymore, by the way,
Speaker 1: and now he's unequivocally elevated the program. I mean's elevated
Speaker 1: the standard. And it's easy to elevate the standard when
Speaker 1: the standard's crap. But that wasn't where the bar was there.
Speaker 1: The bar wasn't really good, and he took it and
Speaker 1: just said, nope, we're going to make it greatness. That'll
Speaker 1: be the standard around here. And then I think after that,
Speaker 1: so we're a couple of years later now after that
Speaker 1: coming out of last year was really important because they
Speaker 1: had a year last year. I don't really I don't
Speaker 1: want to relitigate what you thought about whether or not
Speaker 1: Notre Dame should have made the playoffs. Everyone has spoken
Speaker 1: their peace on that. Some people thought they should have
Speaker 1: been in. Some people didn't think they should have been in. Whatever.
Speaker 1: What's important to me is what they did with it.
Speaker 1: They thought they deserved to me in the playoffs. They
Speaker 1: thought the Committee shafted them. They had every reason to
Speaker 1: think that because of the way the Committee handled the
Speaker 1: entire process. But that's neither here nor there.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: What I want to remind you about is what the
Speaker 1: reaction's been there. And I think it's been very mature,
Speaker 1: and I think it's been very beneficial. And we were
Speaker 1: up there a couple of months ago. I talked to
Speaker 1: him about this. Here's what he had to say. I
Speaker 1: try and envision you walking around this building at the
Speaker 1: end of last year. You're mad because you didn't make
Speaker 1: it to the playoff. Externally, internally, I picture you walking
Speaker 1: around saying, that's what you get when you leave it
Speaker 1: in the Committee's hands. Right, You can't leave it in
Speaker 1: their hands. You got to leave no doubt.
Speaker 2: I think at first my default was the same as
Speaker 2: many other people.
Speaker 1: You blame somebody else.
Speaker 2: That's what default is is you're just gonna blame It's
Speaker 2: not my fault, it's it's the committee's fault. It somebody
Speaker 2: else's fault. We should have been in the playoffs. But
Speaker 2: if you continue to have that mindset, you can't use
Speaker 2: that negative experience. In order to learn from those inside
Speaker 2: lessons and improve and be better. You have to own it.
Speaker 2: You have to own the fails, you have to own
Speaker 2: the situations. You have to own that you sleep in
Speaker 2: the bed.
Speaker 1: You make and that's how you learn from that. If
Speaker 1: you blame somebody else, you lose it.
Speaker 2: And so my job is every day is remind everybody
Speaker 2: and myself that everything that happens to you in life,
Speaker 2: you have to own it so we can use it
Speaker 2: to improve from it. I always often say, like the
Speaker 2: pain of a loss is it's tough, it's hard, but
Speaker 2: it's there to help you grow. It's no different than
Speaker 2: the pain from a physical wound, right scabs, you have pain,
Speaker 2: you want to make the pain go away. Well, the
Speaker 2: inside pain from a loss or a failure, it's there
Speaker 2: so you can grow from it. You want to make
Speaker 2: it go away. The only way to make it go
Speaker 2: away is continue to learn from and grow from it
Speaker 2: and use it. And so I don't want to lose
Speaker 2: some of those negative experiences. Yes, not making a playoffs,
Speaker 2: there's one, but there's plenty of them in our past.
Speaker 2: There's ones that we all have as individuals and some
Speaker 2: of these that we have as a team in a program.
Speaker 1: But I want to use them to make us better.
Speaker 1: That's it. You can't do anything about last year. All
Speaker 1: you can do with it is weaponize it for this year.
Speaker 1: I can easily see him win in the national title
Speaker 1: this year. But the thing about it is he's in
Speaker 1: no rush to leave, which is refreshing. He had an
Speaker 1: opport unity last year. He's been very transparent about that,
Speaker 1: which I appreciate. He's going to have opportunities that's not
Speaker 1: going away. I think Notre Dame one of the one
Speaker 1: of the most under appreciated aspects of what's happening there
Speaker 1: is he's given Notre Dame everything he's got. Notre Dame's
Speaker 1: given him everything they're willing to give to and full
Speaker 1: credit to Notre Dame, they have bent over as backwards
Speaker 1: as Notre Dame's going to on things like academic calendar
Speaker 1: at missions. Again, it's not going to be a diploma mill.
Speaker 1: But like Notre Dame has been pretty rigid about this
Speaker 1: sort of thing in the past, and maybe just maybe
Speaker 1: they've shaved the corners and the edges of the rigidity
Speaker 1: off a little bit. That's good. It needs to be mutual,
Speaker 1: and that's absolutely I think the situation. That's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why it's like a whole new frontier up there.
Speaker 1: Certain things out of Notre Dame's control have changed to
Speaker 1: their benefit, and then the things within Notre Dame's control
Speaker 1: they're also changing to their benefit. But he gets it,
Speaker 1: they get it. I don't know in my lifetime that
Speaker 1: there's ever been a better period to be a Notre
Speaker 1: Dame fan over the next five years than where we
Speaker 1: sit right now. So that's the truth about Marcus Freeman.
Speaker 1: A few years ago. There's so much good news in
Speaker 1: the stack of papers tonight. Few years ago, we were
Speaker 1: starting to get some attention from brands that wanted to
Speaker 1: advertise on the show, and I just said no to
Speaker 1: most of them because what they wanted to do is
Speaker 1: they wanted to purchase some time, and they wanted to
Speaker 1: put a piece of paper in my hand and read
Speaker 1: this forty five second ad read And I thought to myself,
Speaker 1: when that stuff happens on shows I listened to, I
Speaker 1: just fast forward, and so I'd rather just not have
Speaker 1: that kind of partnership. But I did say, if you
Speaker 1: guys want to be unique, and you guys want to
Speaker 1: integrate yourself fully into the show where there's no separating
Speaker 1: us in you, we'll talk. Then gas Station Recruiting Wars happened,
Speaker 1: and if you're new around here, I think it's time
Speaker 1: to refresh your memory. It's just I wanted to set
Speaker 1: the tone for what partnering with our show was going
Speaker 1: to be. We really embed brands. We don't get in
Speaker 1: bed with many of them, but the ones we do
Speaker 1: partner with, we partner with and there is no separation
Speaker 1: between your brand and this show. And we had gas
Speaker 1: Station Recruiting Wars because I thought we had three of
Speaker 1: them that were really picking up what we were putting down.
Speaker 1: And so we did exactly what it sounds like we did.
Speaker 1: We sort of had a reverse recruitment where we allowed
Speaker 1: these massive companies to recruit us because truthfully, we had
Speaker 1: like three of them that wanted to be on the show.
Speaker 1: And I went through an entire recruitment, met with each team,
Speaker 1: and then it came time decision day. And I don't
Speaker 1: know how it's to explain it. I'm going to show
Speaker 1: it to you here's what it ended up looking like
Speaker 1: when I committed to conclude gas station recruiting wars. Okay, Josh,
Speaker 1: hear me, Hey, hey, quite that shut up? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: can hear you. I can hear you. Okay. This has
Speaker 1: been one of the wildest recruitments that I personally can
Speaker 1: remember in the modern era. Knowing you like I think
Speaker 1: I do, this cannot have been easy for you. It
Speaker 1: hasn't been easy, Josh, it has not been easy. In fact,
Speaker 1: this is one of the hardest things I've ever done
Speaker 1: in my life. I haven't lived a very hard life.
Speaker 1: You know, I got to thank God. I got to
Speaker 1: thank my family. I got to think racetrack and quick
Speaker 1: Trip and pilot flying Jay and loves for even making
Speaker 1: this possible. You know, we wouldn't be here today without them.
Speaker 1: It's amazing to be recruiting. This is just amazing to
Speaker 1: be able to be in a position to give everyone
Speaker 1: gas this fall. If we can give everyone gas this fall,
Speaker 1: then our mission has been accomplished. You know, I couldn't
Speaker 1: have said it better myself. You've always had a way
Speaker 1: with words. I appreciate that about you. Okay, moment of truth.
Speaker 1: Someone's life's about to change. Who's it going to be.
Speaker 1: It's a big moment. We've waited a long time. I
Speaker 1: got four really great companies here in front of me.
Speaker 1: It's Quick Trip. We're going with Quick Trip. It's Quick Trip. Well, Misty,
Speaker 1: I get emotional thinking about it, Jesse. Quick Trip is back.
Speaker 1: That's the whole reason I teed that up and I
Speaker 1: showed it to you. Quick Trip is back for another season,
Speaker 1: like they ever left, like there was ever a doubt here.
Speaker 1: We just need to update the graphic basically, so we're
Speaker 1: gonna be on the road a whole lot this fall.
Speaker 1: Quick Trip is there. They've been with us every step
Speaker 1: of the way. I am still talking to Quick Trip
Speaker 1: Joe about what we can do about fully function and
Speaker 1: Colebrew machines, mainly because I want one in the studio.
Speaker 1: There's some codes and regulations that we're trying to get around,
Speaker 1: and who knows how much red tape there is on that.
Speaker 1: But Quick Trip is back. We are happy that they're
Speaker 1: back because they get it. They get it, and we
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Jamison in Knoxville, Tennessee, can you tell me
Speaker 1: what's happening with the Senate bill? First, everyone's saying it
Speaker 1: won't happen. Now, maybe it will. I need you to
Speaker 1: weigh in. Yeah, So here's what I'm going to say
Speaker 1: about this. My calculus on this is when something major changes,
Speaker 1: I'll be willing to do a segment on it on
Speaker 1: the show. Now. I know over the past week a
Speaker 1: lot feels like it changed, but it really didn't for
Speaker 1: me because I expected the SEC and the Big ten
Speaker 1: to come around on this, and I expected this thing
Speaker 1: to get on the floor of the Senate, and I
Speaker 1: expected it to pass the Senate. I told you this
Speaker 1: months ago. Nothing's changed in my mind. So I think
Speaker 1: it is going to pass the Senate. The challenge I
Speaker 1: will say, since they've pushed this thing to the eleventh hour,
Speaker 1: is make sure it gets on the floor. But I
Speaker 1: don't think they fought this hard not to get it
Speaker 1: on the floor. And I think it'll pass, and I
Speaker 1: think it'll pass comfortably, like seventy five plus votes comfortably.
Speaker 1: It needs sixty. I've always thought that and I still
Speaker 1: think that, And if it does that, I think there'll
Speaker 1: be immense pressure on the House. And so my best
Speaker 1: guess is still that it passes. Apparently I'm still in
Speaker 1: the minority on that, but I think it'll pass. If
Speaker 1: something changes, that's when I'll do a segment on it.
Speaker 1: But frankly, this is not May anymore. Okay, we're not
Speaker 1: eating up precious time on this show talking about a
Speaker 1: Senate bill that frankly, should have already been wrapped up
Speaker 1: one way or the other. I want to talk about
Speaker 1: college football. So it's here. I mean, we're looking at
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the board right now. Actually now I'm
Speaker 1: looking at the board over here on fandel The futures
Speaker 1: market is incredible. We've got games of the year over
Speaker 1: on FanDuel right now. You've got whether or not teams
Speaker 1: make the playoff. You've got highsman, you got all this stuff.
Speaker 1: I want to put a time out on all that
Speaker 1: none in order to remind you guys, as a lot
Speaker 1: of you start to refresh your accounts, start to replenish
Speaker 1: your accounts this year, you put deposits in there. We
Speaker 1: have a partnership with FanDuel where I entered into it
Speaker 1: with them and I said, you're going to have to
Speaker 1: give me some rope to do some responsible gaming stuff
Speaker 1: every now and then. So tonight's one of those nights.
Speaker 1: There's been some stuff just in the past six months
Speaker 1: in college football, where we've had really uncomfortable conversations and
Speaker 1: really uncomfortable headlines related to, in this case, illegal sports betting.
Speaker 1: But even if you're doing it legally, if you're not
Speaker 1: doing it responsible, you're setting yourself up for failure and
Speaker 1: maybe even worse. And I'm just begging you, guys, don't
Speaker 1: do that. Please don't do it. Please be responsible with
Speaker 1: this stuff. And here's how you can know if you're
Speaker 1: being responsible with it. If you have even the slightest
Speaker 1: question about whether or not you can afford to bet
Speaker 1: on a game, the answer is you can't, so don't.
Speaker 1: And I would also strongly encourage you guys, if you're
Speaker 1: on FanDuel, make sure you look at the my spend dashboard.
Speaker 1: It's a really good tool. I use it every week.
Speaker 1: It's a really good tool. It's no different than looking
Speaker 1: at your bank account. If you're halfway responsible financially, you're
Speaker 1: looking at that every time. And if you see more
Speaker 1: cash coming out than going in, something's got to change.
Speaker 1: Something's got to change now in my bank account. That
Speaker 1: means something's got to change, or I'm in trouble in
Speaker 1: this world. It means you can just take a break.
Speaker 1: It means you can hit the brake pedal. So I
Speaker 1: don't want you guys getting in that situation. So please
Speaker 1: make sure you understand the difference between entertainment and desperation,
Speaker 1: the difference between the entertain the entertaining nature of this
Speaker 1: and the addictive nature of this. And don't skirt the line.
Speaker 1: That's like rule number one about any kind of matters
Speaker 1: along these lines that we talk about on this show.
Speaker 1: We have fun with it, and you can have fun
Speaker 1: with it. Please have fun with it, please be responsible
Speaker 1: with it. Sign up for FanDuel at FanDuel dot com
Speaker 1: backslash CFB promotion must be twenty one plus and present
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Speaker 1: real money wager only ten dollars first deposit required. Bonus
Speaker 1: issued is non withdrawable bonus bet that expires seven days
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Speaker 1: in Connecticut, or visit MD gamblinghelp dot org. In Maryland,
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Speaker 1: eight hundred three two seven fifty fifty for twenty four
Speaker 1: seven support in Massachusetts, or call one eight seven seven
Speaker 1: eight Hope, n Y. Or text h O P E
Speaker 1: n Y in New York. I wanted to wrap up
Speaker 1: tonight with this thing. I asked you guys a little
Speaker 1: while ago. I kind of said, if you had a
Speaker 1: time machine and you went to January and you kind
Speaker 1: of saw what was going to happen this year, and
Speaker 1: you came back to tell us, what do you think
Speaker 1: the craziest, most unbelievable thing is that you have seen
Speaker 1: in January in the future that you could come tell
Speaker 1: us and three of you submitted things and look again,
Speaker 1: last year, James Franklin got fired before Halloween, Indiana, went
Speaker 1: sixteen to oer and killed everybody, And so, yeah, there
Speaker 1: were some unbelievable things that happened last year that if
Speaker 1: you told people that, if you told people Brian Kelly
Speaker 1: was going to be out of a job before Halloween,
Speaker 1: like it would have been pretty unbelievable. He was a
Speaker 1: preseason top ten team. We got some here. Set who
Speaker 1: do you think is set Cet from Florida. One of
Speaker 1: his that he came back from January and told us
Speaker 1: about was John Summer all one coach of the Year
Speaker 1: and Florida was in the playoff and that is notable,
Speaker 1: very notable. If I guess if they get good lid
Speaker 1: a scrimmage play, anything's possible there because there's pretty much skill.
Speaker 1: I think obviously if this happens, that means the QBOC combo.
Speaker 1: That means bringing Buster Faultoner in and having an Aaron
Speaker 1: Filo who I assume started at quarterback in this scenario,
Speaker 1: having them there, it just immediately was a rocket ship.
Speaker 1: And then you got to ask yourself, well, if Florida
Speaker 1: made the playoff and some are all as coach of
Speaker 1: the year, who did they do it at the expense
Speaker 1: of I mean, they played Georgia in Atlanta inexplicably this year.
Speaker 1: You know that Jacksonville game's on hold for two years,
Speaker 1: so they had the opportunity to play a home at home. Naturally,
Speaker 1: like we do with every opportunity scheduling wise in college football,
Speaker 1: we screw that up and we're not going to play
Speaker 1: it in Athens in Gainesville, but rather Atlanta and Tampa. Awesome?
Speaker 1: So did John somerl beat Kirby in year one? Here
Speaker 1: did he beat Pete Golding and Old Miss? What did
Speaker 1: Florida do? Who is Florida victimized? I think John Somerral's
Speaker 1: got a Coach of the Year in his future at
Speaker 1: some point. Is it year one? Don't know? How about
Speaker 1: this one out of the three, I think this would
Speaker 1: be the most shocking. Will Hammond won the Heisman and
Speaker 1: Texas Tech won the national title. So I was talking
Speaker 1: to someone about the Texas Tech situation the other day
Speaker 1: and I said, you know, everyone's assumption is well, once
Speaker 1: Brendan Soresby's out of there, Texas Tech is beneath that
Speaker 1: of a title caliber team if they ever were won.
Speaker 1: But I remember last year, if I were to have
Speaker 1: told you Austin Simmons he'ing gonna be the guy for
Speaker 1: All Miss, you would have thought ol Miss was cooked.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't have even known who their backup quarterback was.
Speaker 1: It's not your fault. Half the teams on their schedule
Speaker 1: didn't know who Trinidad Chambliss was. But then Trinidad Chambliss happened,
Speaker 1: and it was the best thing that ever happened for
Speaker 1: all miss And my point is you could have never
Speaker 1: predicted that. So just cause it sounds crazy that Will
Speaker 1: Hammond takes Texas Tech further than, for instance, Baron Morton
Speaker 1: took him last year, maybe he's capable of taking him
Speaker 1: further than Brendan Soresby was going to take him this year.
Speaker 1: Just because that sounds crazy doesn't mean it's impossible. That's
Speaker 1: the entire nature of unpredictability. But Texas Tech went in
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Look, I'm not gonna shoot it down.
Speaker 1: There are no crazy predictions. But that would be back
Speaker 1: to back years of the most unbelievable college football stories
Speaker 1: that I've seen in my lifetime. We had Indiana last
Speaker 1: year win it all, which you could sell me on
Speaker 1: being the best story ever. And then you have Texas
Speaker 1: Tech lose the one key piece that we all thought
Speaker 1: they needed to get. They got to upgrade at quarterback.
Speaker 1: We all watched the Oregon playoff game. They got an
Speaker 1: upgrade at quarterback or they got no shot. Then the
Speaker 1: upgrade at quarterback. But then he's gone. And now Will Hammond,
Speaker 1: if he is healthy enough is going to be a
Speaker 1: guy probably is not good enough, and they'll probably be
Speaker 1: good enough to win the Big Twelve, but nothing more
Speaker 1: and whoops, wrong miscalculation. They just go win the whole thing.
Speaker 1: What a story that would be. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you think it would be good or bad for college football, indifferent,
Speaker 1: But if Texas Tech Jesse puts on the heel mask
Speaker 1: in spring and then they go win the whole thing.
Speaker 1: I don't like character arcs. I don't like talking like
Speaker 1: that in sporting terms, but Buddy, that would be one
Speaker 1: of the great heel runs in recent memory. And then lastly,
Speaker 1: Dustin said he just came back from January and Lincoln Riley,
Speaker 1: Florida State or so USC, Florida State, and Tennessee all
Speaker 1: have coaching changes. I assume he means they all got fired,
Speaker 1: but technically we have to leave room for something else
Speaker 1: to happen here. Tennessee would be crazy to me. I
Speaker 1: can see USC, I certainly see Florida State. What had
Speaker 1: to happen at Tennessee for Josh? Did Josh I believe
Speaker 1: did you just quit? Was there some extenuating circumstance? Was
Speaker 1: there scandal? Or did they just fire him? Now again,
Speaker 1: we're talking about crazy headlines here, and I will admit
Speaker 1: to you, certainly this time last year, if you said, hey,
Speaker 1: I've seen the future, you know James Franklin, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: what about HM? Is he gonna win a national title? No? No, no,
Speaker 1: he's gonna get fired early in the year, by the way,
Speaker 1: no scandal, no anything, it's just not good enough. I
Speaker 1: would have said, you're crazy. I would have said there's
Speaker 1: a zero point one percent chance of that. And then
Speaker 1: if you said, oh, that's not all. Kelly's gone to Brian.
Speaker 1: Kelly's out too, I would have said, like zero point
Speaker 1: zero one percent. Yet it happened, So I guess technically
Speaker 1: it could happen. I just don't know how I feel
Speaker 1: so good about Tennessee in twenty twenty seven. Don't do it, guys,
Speaker 1: now USC Florida State. Florida State would just be Mike
Speaker 1: Norvel getting fired USC peculiar. Of course, there's a world
Speaker 1: where they go eight and four, seven and five and
Speaker 1: they're done with Lincoln could easily see that. Is there
Speaker 1: any world where he leaves? I don't know, because Dustin
Speaker 1: didn't tell us all that. Guys, that feel so good
Speaker 1: to be back I'm so happy. I ask you, I implore
Speaker 1: you do this one thing for us. Subscribe to the
Speaker 1: channel because it's free and it doesn't sign you up
Speaker 1: for anything. And tell every one of your friends who
Speaker 1: complain about lack of college football covers and there's no
Speaker 1: good shows to watch. Well, we do this one Sunday
Speaker 1: Tuesday Thursday, every single Sunday Tuesday Thursday from now until
Speaker 1: well into January. We're here. This is all we do.
Speaker 1: We're so happy to be back. We appreciate it. For
Speaker 1: a producer, Jesse, I mean, Prez had to be in
Speaker 1: studio today, Mitch has a huge task on his hands.
Speaker 1: Bradley is shockingly easy job today for technically related reasons,
Speaker 1: which will hopefully we'll have right to five Tuesday. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter to you. We're back. We appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Take care, We'll see you Tuesday night. Until then, God Bless.
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