Speaker 1: Three two one zero, all engine running looked off. We
Speaker 1: have a look of Welcome back to the UFO Show.
Speaker 1: My name is Ty Hildebrand, joining me as always over
Speaker 1: there in wintry Chicagoland. Actually, I guess it's not more
Speaker 1: wintry than here over in Eastern Land. Yeah, with our
Speaker 1: ten inches of snow on the ground. But mister Rubinstein,
Speaker 1: how are you?
Speaker 2: I'm fantastic. I am looking forward to this annual show
Speaker 2: that we do and reviewing. You know what, I haven't
Speaker 2: heard the term lifeblood as much as I normally do
Speaker 2: this week. Yeah, and maybe are read or heard. Maybe
Speaker 2: I'm just watching a lot less espnu I really am.
Speaker 2: Though I usually love signing Day or early signing Day,
Speaker 2: but it seemed to be kind of devoid of the
Speaker 2: usual drama, hasn't it. Because there's there's the fewer announcement ceremonies,
Speaker 2: there's fewer last second secret visits that result in flips.
Speaker 2: It just it seemed like a workmanlike early signing day,
Speaker 2: did it not.
Speaker 1: Fewer recruits actually being able to play their senior seasons. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all sorts of nuance to this recruiting cycle. And look,
Speaker 1: you know where I stand on recruiting, you often anonymously
Speaker 1: threaten prospects online. Well, outside of that, outside of I'm
Speaker 1: always looking for a new angle that can make it interesting.
Speaker 1: A wrinkle, sure, right, That's why we talk about announcement
Speaker 1: ceremonies and funny names and things of that. Ilk this year,
Speaker 1: there's more than enough to at least make it interesting.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's favorable with respect to how you
Speaker 1: recruited some of the stars of tomorrow, far from it.
Speaker 1: But given that travel has been restricted, that seasons weren't
Speaker 1: being played, that eligibility rules up and down the sport
Speaker 1: have been drastically altered.
Speaker 2: Ability to evaluate coaches in person, you know, recruiting writers
Speaker 2: not being able to be at games, and travel and
Speaker 2: camps and all American games and practices altered, very different experience.
Speaker 1: There is a lot that we need to cover with
Speaker 1: our guest d Jore. His name is Brandon Hoffman. You
Speaker 1: know him well from twenty four seven Sports. We're going
Speaker 1: to have him on momentarily. Dan. The other bit of
Speaker 1: news that I wonder show there's not a whole lot
Speaker 1: of news not going to play the sound. We had
Speaker 1: an extension for your boy Mario crystaball, we had less
Speaker 1: Miles getting a vote of confidence despite a winless season,
Speaker 1: and why not? And why not? We had a couple
Speaker 1: other schools opting out of their bowl games, which we'll
Speaker 1: talk about more as you progress through into the offseason.
Speaker 2: But I count eight at the moment, by the way, Ucla,
Speaker 2: Kansas State, Virginia Tech, Stanford, Virginia Pitt Georgia Tech, Boston.
Speaker 1: College, and Virginia Tech. I'll forget Virginia, I.
Speaker 2: Said Virginia Tech in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But the big news here is that play Winter
Speaker 1: Wonders are super secret Patreon only game is now live.
Speaker 1: We've got our first batch of questions live for participations
Speaker 1: that listing, Yeah to select, We've got a couple things
Speaker 1: going on. So each game, right, each game you pick
Speaker 1: the winner against the spread. I think it's a little
Speaker 1: bit harder, right, we do that just normally, But then
Speaker 1: it gets a little bit harder. Then we start talking about,
Speaker 1: all right, well, how many total rushing yards will app
Speaker 1: State have in their bowl game against North Texas total
Speaker 1: rushing guards m h. And then we go a layer deeper,
Speaker 1: Dan just that fantasy things layer that we I think
Speaker 1: hinted at.
Speaker 2: We start docsing athletes.
Speaker 1: No, how many times will the announcers reference app states
Speaker 1: thrilling upset of Michigan way back.
Speaker 2: When that's true, setting over under over under one and
Speaker 2: a half. I almost don't want to reveal all of
Speaker 2: these props because they could be altered. We could have
Speaker 2: inside jobs a lot of a number of announcers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we do know a lot of folks here. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna reveal that publicly, but there are more
Speaker 1: props like that. We've got the standard issue against the spread.
Speaker 1: We've got the layer deeper about specific total rushing yards
Speaker 1: or passing touchdowns, things like.
Speaker 2: Pop culture references, b roll video footage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then we get the solid verbal layer that
Speaker 1: puts a bow on all of it. Playwinterwonders dot com
Speaker 1: is where you can find all the info on how
Speaker 1: to join our special bowl pool. I also activated the
Speaker 1: Confidence pool over an ESPN dot com. I So, so
Speaker 1: you just go there and search solid verbal. Yeah, there,
Speaker 1: search socials, search for the solid verbal. If you were
Speaker 1: in the group last year, you should be able to
Speaker 1: just click rejoin. If not, just search for the soliverble.
Speaker 1: It's one of the bigger groups out on ESPN dot
Speaker 1: com and so we're going to play this Bowl season
Speaker 1: a couple different ways. The games actually start on Monday,
Speaker 1: so we'll have to talk a little bit more about
Speaker 1: that on Sunday and certainly as we go through next
Speaker 1: a week. But that's the big thing going on in
Speaker 1: our world outside of early signing Day, outside of conference
Speaker 1: championship games, which as many of you listen on Friday,
Speaker 1: are going to be taking place later tonight and all
Speaker 1: throughout the day tomorrow. Sure, very true.
Speaker 2: Did you what was your recruiting cycle as a Notre
Speaker 2: Dame fan? Like for you? I mean, you know, I
Speaker 2: come in and out of checking how Organ's doing, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera. Were you more attached less attached? You're spending
Speaker 2: more time at home in front of a laptop. You know,
Speaker 2: you can check on these things probably more often than
Speaker 2: you can when you're at the secret day job overseas.
Speaker 2: So what was your involvement level with Notre Dame's class
Speaker 2: this year and recruiting as a whole?
Speaker 1: I always follow recruiting from AFAR, so I'll check in
Speaker 1: a couple times throughout the course cycle. I certainly don't
Speaker 1: know it as well as a number of folks who
Speaker 1: listened to this show and live and die by it.
Speaker 1: But I have been particularly interested, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: ask Brandon about Tyler Buckner from California, but going to
Speaker 1: Notre Dame because a friend, Pete Sampson, wrote a nice
Speaker 1: piece for The Athletic on just some of the challenges
Speaker 1: that he faced not being able to play a senior year.
Speaker 1: I have at least paid attention on that level because
Speaker 1: this has been such a quirky season and that extends
Speaker 1: all the way through to recruiting as well. We're gonna
Speaker 1: have subjects that came up with regard to this recruiting
Speaker 1: cycle that probably won't ever happen again, and that aspect
Speaker 1: of it, at least to me, is interesting. I've enjoyed
Speaker 1: looking at what's going on and thinking about what are
Speaker 1: the longer term ramifications of all this.
Speaker 2: I just looked up would you say his name?
Speaker 1: Tyler Buckner.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's from La Mesa, California, San Diego area. If
Speaker 2: you do a Google image search for La Mesa, California,
Speaker 2: Spanish for the table doesn't look like South Bend. It's
Speaker 2: gonna be different.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Maybe he's from Indiana originally but this is holy moly,
Speaker 2: is it beautiful down there. Not to say South Bend
Speaker 2: doesn't have its own beauty. I've been, but it's not this.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, that's all gonna be very different
Speaker 2: this year. A lot of guys not spending as much
Speaker 2: time on campus during the season, you know, official visits,
Speaker 2: on official visits, and excited to talk to Brandon. He's
Speaker 2: always just the absolute best and an encyclopedia of both
Speaker 2: the you know, drilling down on the details and the
Speaker 2: big picture stuff.
Speaker 1: Totally, totally, well, let's not waste any time. Don't forget
Speaker 1: to subscribe to the show if you haven't already. Don't
Speaker 1: forget to go on out and follow us on social
Speaker 1: media if you don't already. Shall we dance, Daniel, I've
Speaker 1: been waiting joining us now to help break down the
Speaker 1: recruiting scene. It was National signing Day, early early. We've
Speaker 1: got two now.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I believe this is also the first time we've ever
Speaker 1: had someone calling in from the Last Frontier, Dan, the
Speaker 1: Land of the Midnight Sun, the Great State of Alaska.
Speaker 1: Brandon Hoffman, how are you?
Speaker 3: I can see Russias from my hotel room.
Speaker 1: Whoa how are you?
Speaker 3: Man? I'm good. How are you guys doing it?
Speaker 1: We're good? Why are you in Alaska?
Speaker 3: So I have a buddy who's running a camp, and
Speaker 3: he's running a football camp that go that's of course,
Speaker 3: the Avery Huffin Foundation, and he's been doing a number
Speaker 3: of camps over a few years around the West Coast
Speaker 3: and says, hey, let's do one to Alaska, and let's
Speaker 3: do it in December. And I'm like, there's no better
Speaker 3: time a year to go to Alaska than in December
Speaker 3: where it's going to be in the teams all week.
Speaker 3: So here we are for the very first Avery Strong
Speaker 3: Alaska Showcase and there's probably about one hundred kids from
Speaker 3: Alaska all throughout the state come into this camp this weekend.
Speaker 3: So I'm going on behalf of our foundation and getting
Speaker 3: to watch these guys football. So it's gonna be And
Speaker 3: I brought my son with me, so you know, I'm
Speaker 3: going to make the most of freezing in places I
Speaker 3: didn't think I could possibly freeze.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, Mining for talent Tye because in Alaska there
Speaker 2: was a gold rush as well.
Speaker 1: That's what he does. He's a national recruiting editor for
Speaker 1: twenty four to seven Sports of course, early signing day
Speaker 1: in the books, and surprise, surprise, brand in Alabama again
Speaker 1: on track for the top class yet again. Of note,
Speaker 1: this year, they snagged four of the top ten wide
Speaker 1: receiver recruits in the class, one of which they flipped
Speaker 1: from LSU. Were like, we're so far beyond calling these
Speaker 1: classes ridiculous at this point. I guess the operative question,
Speaker 1: and we ask it every year, is which of the
Speaker 1: guys that they're bringing in have the best chance to
Speaker 1: make a real impact in the twenty twenty one cycle.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, here's what's crazy. They still might not
Speaker 3: even be done at adding to this class because they're
Speaker 3: one of the five finalists to the number one overall
Speaker 3: planned the country by twenty four seven sports jac two moowile.
Speaker 3: So if they get him, I mean that's I think
Speaker 3: we were talking about this yesterday. That would put them
Speaker 3: potentially as the highest rated class in recruiting history, at
Speaker 3: least in the twenty four to seven era. And so
Speaker 3: that's what their class still could potentially be. Ohio State
Speaker 3: second right now behind them, and they could get him,
Speaker 3: so that might close it a little bit. But the
Speaker 3: guys if they got signatures from you got JC Latham
Speaker 3: who is the number one offensive lineman of the country
Speaker 3: who you know, obviously Alix lether would graduating, You've got
Speaker 3: some other upper classmen there. He's a six six studenter
Speaker 3: pounder who can just move like a gazelle. And he's
Speaker 3: a tackle prospect that probably plays early. Maybe he doesn't
Speaker 3: start right away as true freshimon, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Speaker 3: On the other side of tackle, they got the number
Speaker 3: two tackle in the country, Tommy Brockermeyer, and that was
Speaker 3: a big blow out of Texas. That was kind of
Speaker 3: one of those first recruiting kind of losses. Tom Herman
Speaker 3: took this offseason that really started to make the always
Speaker 3: hot seat even warmer. His father played in Texas. I
Speaker 3: believe his mom went her as well, and Tommy and
Speaker 3: his twin brother, who's not as highly rated as Tommy,
Speaker 3: both signed with Alabama. Then you throw in Dallas Turner,
Speaker 3: you know, the elite pass rusher. So even if they
Speaker 3: don't get JT who's the number one strong side defensive end,
Speaker 3: then got the number one week side defensive Then coming
Speaker 3: in in Dallas Turner, you got to Quincy mckinstrey, who's
Speaker 3: an actual Alabama kid who's coming from in state and
Speaker 3: we haven't even gotten to any of the receivers yet.
Speaker 3: It was to the point yesterday where Ziger Worthy, who
Speaker 3: was a top one hundred player, ultimately chose to stay
Speaker 3: with Michigan rather than flip to Alabama because even though
Speaker 3: he's a top one hundred receiver, they had so much
Speaker 3: good receiver talent coming in that it's scaring others away.
Speaker 2: So I don't think we should go any further without
Speaker 2: kind of getting into the actual context of a very
Speaker 2: different recruiting cycle because of limitations slash no ability to
Speaker 2: go on official visits and coaches to see prospects in
Speaker 2: person for the majority of the senior years of these guys,
Speaker 2: and in home visits not being available because the dead
Speaker 2: period is still ongoing. What is this just a fully
Speaker 2: upside down recruiting cycle? Is it more similar than I'm
Speaker 2: giving it credit for. What do we need to know
Speaker 2: about the realities of this past cycle.
Speaker 3: Well, here's what you need to know, and I think
Speaker 3: you guys have probably talked about this before. The NCAA
Speaker 3: is going to vote in January about the one time
Speaker 3: transfer rule where you can transfer without sitting out penalty,
Speaker 3: which the timing couldn't be more perfect because of how
Speaker 3: many guys had to make commitments to schools, school site unseen,
Speaker 3: town unseen, campus facilities unseen. Heck, these guys haven't even
Speaker 3: seen the coaches that they sign to play for in person.
Speaker 3: They basically have done their you know, their their homework
Speaker 3: on an LCD phone screen or an iPad or a computer.
Speaker 3: On the flip side, a lot of college coaches kind
Speaker 3: of felt like they needed to fill out their recruiting classes.
Speaker 3: So if they needed to fill twenty twenty five spots,
Speaker 3: there's probably at least half of those guys they never
Speaker 3: seeing in person. They're having to rely on the video.
Speaker 3: They're having to rely on the pictures with no camp,
Speaker 3: no interest and evaluation. So I have a feeling there's
Speaker 3: going to be some regrets by both parties over the
Speaker 3: next twelve thirteen months. I anticipate a very loaded transfer
Speaker 3: portal about a year from now. But what the other
Speaker 3: thing is, I think it also took away a lot
Speaker 3: of the intriguing drama from yesterday because so many guys
Speaker 3: were worried and concerned about being left behind. There were
Speaker 3: far more earlier commitments this year than we've ever seen
Speaker 3: in the recruiting year, so more guys just secured their
Speaker 3: place at the table and then ultimately signed because they
Speaker 3: still never had that opportunity. Some guys were making reservations
Speaker 3: committed to schools with the expectation they would be able
Speaker 3: to take visits down the road, but when the business
Speaker 3: were taken off the table, they just decided, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: firm this up and then you know, we'll see how
Speaker 3: I adjust when I get there.
Speaker 2: Counterpoint, And maybe this is not based in reality at all,
Speaker 2: but is it possible that this could mean that prospects
Speaker 2: are making fewer decisions off of the emotions based around
Speaker 2: a huge win or a particularly charming head coach or
Speaker 2: position coach in his parents' living room or parties facilities,
Speaker 2: an amazing nightlife in whatever college town he's visiting. Could we,
Speaker 2: maybe in some cases anyway, be looking at actually more
Speaker 2: pragmatic decision making.
Speaker 3: One percent, guys are actually making the decision based on
Speaker 3: the relationship they're developing with this coach. Is the trust
Speaker 3: I mean, the trust on both sides is probably greater
Speaker 3: than it's ever been in this recruiting dynamic. But now
Speaker 3: there's not that last second. Jordan paytoning of a recruitment
Speaker 3: where that coach comes in to be a home for
Speaker 3: the in home visit on a Saturday night the last
Speaker 3: weekend and gets the kid who's been committed to a
Speaker 3: school for eleven months to flip you're seeing. You know,
Speaker 3: there's no intrigue with but last official visit, there were
Speaker 3: any official visits. There were hardly even unofficial visits this
Speaker 3: year taken you had, you know, the Pac twelve and
Speaker 3: the Big Ten aren't let fans in the stadium, so
Speaker 3: you had guys go to the Big twelve schools and
Speaker 3: go to SEC schools and still buy tickets to go
Speaker 3: and see those games. But when you take out twenty
Speaker 3: four schools from having any kind of person inside the
Speaker 3: game that's not playing the game, guys weren't able to
Speaker 3: use that to let the emotions kind of sway them
Speaker 3: that way. So yeah, I think you're right. I think
Speaker 3: there's a lot more trust involved, but a lot better
Speaker 3: decision making in the process, And it's not about who's
Speaker 3: got the sexiest uniforms or the best looking photo shoots
Speaker 3: or the best weekend party game day atmosphere. I think
Speaker 3: there's a lot more research that has been going in
Speaker 3: with kind of the free time that these guys have
Speaker 3: suddenly developed without being able to go to campuses.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and branded on the other side of the coin,
Speaker 1: we also have weird eligibility rules in twenty twenty for
Speaker 1: the kids who are already on campus, being so it's
Speaker 1: essentially a free year of eligibility. Has that had any
Speaker 1: impact on the recruiting trail?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? And I think what you're having is a lot
Speaker 3: of schools that basically didn't fill classes yesterday and they're
Speaker 3: not anticipating filling that class in February because there's no
Speaker 3: hard cap number that has been put down yet to
Speaker 3: know how many guys can you have on scholarship out
Speaker 3: of maximum Maybe you were planning to take twenty five
Speaker 3: this year, but you've got twenty seniors that you thought
Speaker 3: were graduating and now all of them are planning to
Speaker 3: come back. You're on the hook for those I had
Speaker 3: one pack twelve school tell me at one point, you know,
Speaker 3: we don't know how many scholarships that the NCAA is
Speaker 3: going to allow us to max out it. But we're
Speaker 3: not Alabama or LSU. We can't necessarily afford one hundred
Speaker 3: and five one hundred and ten guys on scholarship. We're
Speaker 3: on the hook for that. And so imagine now what
Speaker 3: group of five schools are at. They have a hard
Speaker 3: enough time getting to eighty five scholarships, and now they
Speaker 3: have twenty seniors that don't want to leave. So schools
Speaker 3: have basically said that, you know what, we'll just hit
Speaker 3: the portal hard instead of filling our numbers. Are filling
Speaker 3: our numbers now and wait and see what the attrition
Speaker 3: looks like after the season, after the screen. Because there's
Speaker 3: so much uncertainty with what the NCAA is going to
Speaker 3: limit or cap that number at. Nobody wants to put
Speaker 3: too many guys on scholarship because that will now have
Speaker 3: to pay for.
Speaker 1: All those guys, right, I mean, it's just it's such
Speaker 1: a different year with regard to everything, especially recruiting. I
Speaker 1: think of a guy like a Tyler Buckner, who was
Speaker 1: the big quarterback recruit for Notre Dame. You know, in
Speaker 1: a normal year, we're potentially talking about him starting as
Speaker 1: a true freshman ahead twenty twenty one. But it's not
Speaker 1: been a normal year for those kids either, Right, Like,
Speaker 1: first off, eam book could come back if you wanted,
Speaker 1: and too Tyler Buckner couldn't play his senior season because
Speaker 1: of the virus. Our friend Pete Sampson over at The
Speaker 1: Athletic wrote about this. I know you guys over at
Speaker 1: twenty four to seven did as well, but like, how
Speaker 1: does this odd year where maybe we didn't have that
Speaker 1: extra year of development for some of these top recruits
Speaker 1: affect your expectations about how they perform as a freshman,
Speaker 1: or even how they develop as a college recruit in general, or.
Speaker 2: How you compare them to people who do play right.
Speaker 3: And that's the thing. So you look at a guy
Speaker 3: like Jackson Dark who signed with USC yesterday. You know
Speaker 3: they say a lot of times you're abilities availability, Well,
Speaker 3: what did Jackson Dark do this season? He played fourteen games.
Speaker 3: You know, that's more games than most states that were
Speaker 3: playing their seasons. He can played. He got a full
Speaker 3: fourteen game schedule and he went off this season. I
Speaker 3: think he had forty touchdown passes, like four interceptions, ram
Speaker 3: for about fifteen touchdowns. He took over at the same
Speaker 3: school as Zach Wilson played his high school ball, so
Speaker 3: leads into a state championship. He had I think a
Speaker 3: Utah State offer going into the season, By the time
Speaker 3: that got down to it, he was decided between USC UCLA,
Speaker 3: going to BYU, going to Arizona State. He had plenty
Speaker 3: of options and kind of bet on himself and became
Speaker 3: one of the hottest commodities. Then you get a guy
Speaker 3: like a Tyler Buckner, who there was the question how
Speaker 3: good is he really? He's tearing up lower level San
Speaker 3: Diego football, so he makes the transfer to Helix High School,
Speaker 3: the same school Reggie Bush and Alex Smith played that
Speaker 3: jumping from the lowest division in San Diego to the
Speaker 3: highest division in San Diego. But now he'll never have
Speaker 3: that opportunity. Another good example in their kid in Portland,
Speaker 3: Nithon Rollins Kbanji, who's the number two player in the
Speaker 3: state of Oregon who's committed a Oklahoma. At one point
Speaker 3: in his high school career, he was committed to play
Speaker 3: basketball Washington State. His head coach at Jefferson High School
Speaker 3: at the time, Don Johnson Junior, who's now the director
Speaker 3: of high school relations at Oregon, convinced him to come
Speaker 3: play football. Said, you can go play pack what basketball
Speaker 3: is a six to six forward, or you can go
Speaker 3: play in the NFL as a six to sixth defensive end.
Speaker 3: He comes out for football, plays ten games last year,
Speaker 3: has offers from all over the country, but then decides
Speaker 3: he's going to enroll early at Oklahoma. So now you've
Speaker 3: got a six to sixth pass rusher who is really
Speaker 3: a basketball player who's showing up at Oklahoma, which has
Speaker 3: all the worry of the world over time to say, hey,
Speaker 3: we get these defensive players that they have federally can't
Speaker 3: tackle in the biggest games of the year. Here's the
Speaker 3: guy who's going in and he literally has ten high
Speaker 3: school football games under his belt because he doesn't play
Speaker 3: his senior season. So you have the expectations thinking he's
Speaker 3: going to develop from his junior to senior year. Now
Speaker 3: that senior year's gone, he shows up to campus in
Speaker 3: the middle of January. How did you know Oklahoma's going
Speaker 3: to have to get him ready to play? Maybe he
Speaker 3: didn't play right away, but that's what you're talking about.
Speaker 3: You have a lot of guys that they still haven't
Speaker 3: even learned a game, and now they're on scholarship at
Speaker 3: a major university who has expectations We need you to contribute.
Speaker 2: I want to go back to quarterbacks for a second,
Speaker 2: and I guess, if anything, recent history has told us
Speaker 2: that even though we look at this what looks to
Speaker 2: be a pretty good roster of class of twenty twenty
Speaker 2: one quarterbacks, history tells us this is not going to
Speaker 2: be their final stop playing college football. How good a
Speaker 2: job I guess as a whole? Do you see this
Speaker 2: class of quarterbacks doing in terms of finding a good fit?
Speaker 2: Because sometimes there are years you're like this, it doesn't
Speaker 2: make sense why this guy's going to Florida State or
Speaker 2: cal or Texas or whatever and he's going to be gone.
Speaker 2: Do you see this as a good fit year? Or
Speaker 2: do you see history continuing, trends continuing?
Speaker 3: Man, I mean, I saw a tweet you guys had
Speaker 3: this week about the twenty twenty college football quarterbacks in
Speaker 3: all the different paths, and as I'm looking at it,
Speaker 3: you can see that playing out with this class. I mean,
Speaker 3: you take the two guys that are the number one
Speaker 3: quarterbacks that they're respected positions. Caleb Bullen, who's the number
Speaker 3: one duel threat. He's going to show up at Oklahoma
Speaker 3: next year most likely. Spencer Raders holding onto that job
Speaker 3: for at least another year, if not two years. Maybe
Speaker 3: he got Sam Hue who's coming in, who's ran air
Speaker 3: raid for four years or three years, hopefully he's playing
Speaker 3: his fourth year out Kennedy Catholic. Now he's going to
Speaker 3: Washington where his head coach is wearing hats to the
Speaker 3: press conference to say run the damn ball. So is
Speaker 3: Sam Hure going to come in and pass up Dylan Morris,
Speaker 3: who's doing a fine job, helped Washington win the pack
Speaker 3: twelve Northes, you know, in a shortened season. But does
Speaker 3: he come in or does he wait? Maybe as an
Speaker 3: air raid quarterback, he's not the great fit for the
Speaker 3: Washington offense, or maybe the Washington offense is waiting to
Speaker 3: open things up when he gets there. But you look
Speaker 3: at those situations, and so you look at a guy
Speaker 3: like dj Undale last year, he knew he was going
Speaker 3: to back up Trevor Lawrence, had no problem going to president,
Speaker 3: whereas Bryce slips that commitment when it becomes clear too
Speaker 3: of leading. And then Matt Jones happened. So now you
Speaker 3: may I'm not saying that bright Stone is going to transfer,
Speaker 3: but I'm saying now that worry is very real because
Speaker 3: is mac Jones a great college quarterback or see an
Speaker 3: NFL prospect. Does he use this season the springboard of
Speaker 3: the NFL next year? Does he come back to play
Speaker 3: next fall? You know, so the fits look good on
Speaker 3: paper until you start looking at depth truck and with
Speaker 3: the ability to use this season is essentially a redsher
Speaker 3: year for everybody. There could be some death trucks that
Speaker 3: look much different than when the coach was pitching it
Speaker 3: to that that respective quarterback to you try to get
Speaker 3: him to commit.
Speaker 2: It's true, and then there aren't a number of surprises
Speaker 2: at the top. You talked about just how crazy deep
Speaker 2: Alabama's class is, but I mean, I guess, outside of
Speaker 2: swapping in Oregon for USC within the top ten, what
Speaker 2: are the actual surprises to you in both impressive and
Speaker 2: disappointing fashion when you look across the sport.
Speaker 3: Well, I think, you know, probably the most surprising is
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know why we should be too surprised,
Speaker 3: because you know, we kind of expected this because he's
Speaker 3: always been a good recruiter. But despite having a horrible
Speaker 3: year on the field, Michigan's there at number twelve. I
Speaker 3: mean that kind of surprises me. When you would have
Speaker 3: thought Michigan was bleeding everybody. They did lose a kid yesterday,
Speaker 3: the defensive lineman who'd been committed to him for six
Speaker 3: months put to UCLA on signing Day. But it's still
Speaker 3: kind of surprised that even with all the uncertainty of
Speaker 3: Jim Harbaugh, they still have a top twelve class. You know.
Speaker 3: The other surprise again, you got a school like Tennessee
Speaker 3: where they've had a disappointing season if they still have
Speaker 3: a top fifteen class and Jerry Cruit and the staff
Speaker 3: are still getting it done. But the recruiting is probably
Speaker 3: the only team that's saving him at this point because
Speaker 3: the results need to follow. So I think it's kind
Speaker 3: of surprised that two programs that are kind of in
Speaker 3: year three or in the case of Harbor, year five
Speaker 3: or six, they're able to get past some of the
Speaker 3: on field results with still good recruiting class. On the
Speaker 3: flip side, I think all miss fans are probably excited
Speaker 3: to see them back in the top twenty in the
Speaker 3: recruiting rankings. And nobody at this point at least has
Speaker 3: accused them of doing anything to have a top twenty class.
Speaker 3: They just all say, hey, Lane Kiffin, he makes guys
Speaker 3: want to come play for him. What I love about
Speaker 3: Lane Kiffin is he was retweeting a kid that he
Speaker 3: flipp from Mississippi State. He retweeted one of his tweets
Speaker 3: that can when he committed to Mississippi State. I mean,
Speaker 3: the troll level of Blane Kiffin is not a surprise.
Speaker 3: The surprises that old myth is shown under year one
Speaker 3: that you know Kiffin's going to be able to recruit
Speaker 3: at that level. But the one that really sticks out
Speaker 3: to me, I mean, well, there's actually two pit at
Speaker 3: twenty three in call at twenty five. We don't necessarily
Speaker 3: think Pitt and Caw. We think players from Pittsburgh. We
Speaker 3: think players from California, but we don't necessarily think Pitt
Speaker 3: and Cal has top twenty five recruiting classes and two
Speaker 3: coaches that are defensive guys at the heart, but they've
Speaker 3: done a really good job in their region local league.
Speaker 3: I think was the most impressing about Cal. You know
Speaker 3: Dando as a PAC twelve guys. One of the biggest
Speaker 3: problems Sunny Dykes had was recruiting northern California and could
Speaker 3: not get it done. He inherited Jared Gofrom Jeff Tession,
Speaker 3: but he couldn't recruit the Bay recruiting are in the California.
Speaker 3: Justin Wilcox comes in, He's got eight guys from Sacramento,
Speaker 3: from the East Bay, and that's what COUNT needs to
Speaker 3: do to stay competitive in the PAC twelve. So I
Speaker 3: used to see in you know, Pitton count the top
Speaker 3: twenty five. Those of the two that probably are the
Speaker 3: biggest surprise. I think the you know on the flip side,
Speaker 3: probably the one that's the most disappointing is the kind
Speaker 3: of day that Mississippi State ended up having. And I
Speaker 3: think also looking at what Stanford did, I mean, we're
Speaker 3: used to seeing Stanford with top ten, top fifteen classes.
Speaker 3: It wasn't but three years ago that they landed three
Speaker 3: of the top five players in the country. Now they
Speaker 3: had the sixty first ring class in the country. So
Speaker 3: were the grad transfers last year speaking to a bigger
Speaker 3: issue that was going on in Stanford. This recruiting class
Speaker 3: doesn't really reflect those early David Shaw classes.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the state of California for a second.
Speaker 1: Your website twenty four to seven has USC on the
Speaker 1: front page. Is one of the winners of National Signing Day.
Speaker 1: That's in pretty stark contrast. Brandon two last recruiting cycle
Speaker 1: when finished like dead last in the PAC twelve. Is
Speaker 1: there a turnaround story here that we should be telling.
Speaker 1: Was last year just an outlier? What's the deal with USC?
Speaker 3: Well? I think there was a couple of things at play. First,
Speaker 3: they replaced the entire defensive staff. So you bring in
Speaker 3: three coaches, well four coaches at that, two that have
Speaker 3: Southern California times. Vic Soso, who they hired away from
Speaker 3: Virginia as the San Diego native, and Dante Williams, who
Speaker 3: is an LA guy, had been at Arizona, had been
Speaker 3: in Nebraska, Ben at Oregon. He shows up at USC
Speaker 3: all of a sudden they're DV recruiting improved. But the
Speaker 3: big thing was really Todd Orlando and Craig Nivarc coming
Speaker 3: in and just kind of jolting in that defensive staff
Speaker 3: where you get away from kind of the you know,
Speaker 3: the I don't know how to describe Clancy Pendergat, but
Speaker 3: they an exciting recruiting that Clancy tender Gat did over
Speaker 3: the years. And you have this entire offseason where USC
Speaker 3: he's not playing, and then you get on the field
Speaker 3: and they're winning seeing games. They're kind of winning an
Speaker 3: exciting fashion, and they just really seemed up kind of
Speaker 3: their energy level, even in a year where they weren't
Speaker 3: able to get on the road, they weren't able to
Speaker 3: get kids to come to campus. They did have a
Speaker 3: little Genia Day about four days before the pandemic cappened,
Speaker 3: and we're able to get a few guys to come
Speaker 3: to campus before the NCAA shuttings down. But I also
Speaker 3: think they benefited a lot from more guys in California,
Speaker 3: probably staying closer to home because of the pandemic. Naturally,
Speaker 3: the USC always becomes an attractive option, so I think
Speaker 3: there's you know, last year, there were so many questions
Speaker 3: coming off twenty eighteen season about play help. This year
Speaker 3: there were less questions, and then he kind of reshifted
Speaker 3: that staff around so you could see the success. But
Speaker 3: I think that the tactful championship game could go a
Speaker 3: long win, really determining organ or USC recruiting and dominics
Speaker 3: over the next five to six years.
Speaker 2: You mentioned guys staying closer to home in California, probably
Speaker 2: because of the pandemic, but still you look at the
Speaker 2: best players in California, you see LSU, Notre Dame, Ohio, State, Clemson, Georgia,
Speaker 2: like they're continuing a trend that you know, last year
Speaker 2: was highlighted by DJ Uyangalo and CJ. Stroud, guys like that,
Speaker 2: leaving the West coast footprint. It's I guess it's very
Speaker 2: easy to say, well, Pac twelve teams are down and
Speaker 2: they're not playing exciting football, they're not playing on the
Speaker 2: national stage, and when they do, they're not performing. I
Speaker 2: think that's right. But also when you look at those staffs,
Speaker 2: I guess, like us, how USC was. But you look
Speaker 2: at UCLA, you look at you know, even though an
Speaker 2: improved cal. You look at Stanford, you look at you know,
Speaker 2: Washington State going through what they've gone through. Is it
Speaker 2: also an element of the recruiting killers that existed at
Speaker 2: some of these schools are elsewhere and that they're just
Speaker 2: not staffed with guys who are as I guess dogged.
Speaker 2: Is that an element to this?
Speaker 3: No? I think that that's true. I also think you
Speaker 3: look at say what happened to Colorado where mil Tucker
Speaker 3: Lee's right before signing day, So Carlin will comes in
Speaker 3: in mid February. Oh, I'm going to use March to
Speaker 3: have kids come to campus and then March twelfth, everything
Speaker 3: shuts down for the next nine months, saying with Nick Rolovich,
Speaker 3: he gets tired of me. In January has to finish
Speaker 3: putting together the final touches in the twenty twenty class.
Speaker 3: All use February to you know, start to build relations
Speaker 3: with these guys and then in Marshall have them come
Speaker 3: to campus. Same thing happens. So you get some coaches
Speaker 3: that have more energy on the recruiting trail, have better recruiters,
Speaker 3: but they weren't ever able to turn loose or they
Speaker 3: weren't ever able to host guys on campus. But then
Speaker 3: you have other schools where you know it, they don't
Speaker 3: have the coaches that necessarily have that bull dogmentage. There's
Speaker 3: not a Dante Williams on the recruiting chail. You know,
Speaker 3: there's not the guys that you know, you see Mario Christiball,
Speaker 3: I mean, Mario Cristiball is turning into the West Coast
Speaker 3: version of Nick Saban in terms of he is becoming
Speaker 3: the face of Oregon recruiting. And when you look at
Speaker 3: a lot of schools in the country, they have an
Speaker 3: assistant who's kind of the face of the recruiting and
Speaker 3: that's why recruiting is so successful. But when you look
Speaker 3: at Alabama, you have Saban who's that closer. And that's
Speaker 3: what Mario Christinball is able to do is close up
Speaker 3: a lot of these guys that's out ever even getting
Speaker 3: the chance to see them. And his staff knows they've
Speaker 3: got to recruit the same energy and vigor that their
Speaker 3: head coach does. But when you have other coaches in
Speaker 3: the Pac twelve that and I think we know one
Speaker 3: in particular, Damn that You've got a long history of
Speaker 3: following Chip Kelly. When recruiting isn't the most important thing,
Speaker 3: that trickles down to the rest of the assistance and
Speaker 3: then your class ends up where it does because you
Speaker 3: don't have that top down philosophy of get out on
Speaker 3: the road and go recruit. And I think you see
Speaker 3: that a lot in the Pac twelve right now with
Speaker 3: the schools that have been recruiting, well, they have head coaches.
Speaker 3: I mean, for all the crud that Clay Helton deals with,
Speaker 3: he still is a really good recruiter. And kids love
Speaker 3: Clay Helton. Kids when they go on their visits, they
Speaker 3: talk about how they really connect with him, how their
Speaker 3: family connects with him. He does a great job of recruiting,
Speaker 3: and so you're seeing that maybe last year was an anomaly.
Speaker 3: But when you have guys on your staff that really
Speaker 3: recruit energetically and the head coach himself does that, that's
Speaker 3: where you have this wide gap between some of the
Speaker 3: top schools in the PAC twelve and really with the
Speaker 3: rest of the PAC twelve.
Speaker 1: Brandon, I'm fascinated by your breakdown of what's going on
Speaker 1: in the Big Ten. So we talked about Ohio State.
Speaker 1: Ohio State obviously cream of the crop. Michigan, all things considered,
Speaker 1: did pretty well. But within the Big Ten itself, I'm
Speaker 1: looking at the twenty four to seven rankings. We've got
Speaker 1: Wisconsin at third, which is a pretty good cycle for them.
Speaker 1: We've got Maryland at fourth. Maryland did really well, keeping
Speaker 1: guys close to home, flipping a kid from Michigan to
Speaker 1: come to Maryland. We've got Penn State at fifth. We've
Speaker 1: got Nebraska all the way down at seventh. Is there
Speaker 1: any kind of like tectonic shift to foot here where
Speaker 1: we've got programs out performing? What does this cycle tell
Speaker 1: you about where the Big Ten's going over the next
Speaker 1: couple seasons, Well.
Speaker 3: It tells you one thing that it's going to keep
Speaker 3: going to Columbus, and that's where the players seem to
Speaker 3: come and want to play. I mean, let's just talk
Speaker 3: about Ohio State for a second, because you look at
Speaker 3: last year they signed the number one receiver in the country,
Speaker 3: the number three receiver in the country, the number five
Speaker 3: receiver in the country, and then another top ten receiver.
Speaker 3: This year they get the number one receiver in the country.
Speaker 3: They've already got a commitment from the number and receiver
Speaker 3: in the country for the twenty twenty two class. So
Speaker 3: you've got this full receiver room and nobody's running away.
Speaker 3: It reminds me of the running back room at USC
Speaker 3: under Pete Carroll. You have all this talent and guys
Speaker 3: aren't fearing it. But then you also look at the
Speaker 3: quarterback room. You've got to justin field. You've got a CJ.
Speaker 3: Stroud who set to maybe take over for him next year.
Speaker 3: But then could CJ. Stroud become Ohio State Kelly Bryant
Speaker 3: In that quinn Ewers maybe the highest rated quarterback over
Speaker 3: the last four years since Trevor Lawrence. He's committed in
Speaker 3: the twenty twenty two classes. CJ. Strouds start in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty one because I got assumed Justin Fields is gone.
Speaker 3: But then quinn Ewers comes in twenty twenty two. So
Speaker 3: Ohio State is just recruiting at a whole different level
Speaker 3: than the rest of the Big ten. So now it's
Speaker 3: a matter of what are we recruiting for second? And
Speaker 3: you still it's not a surprise to see Michigan there
Speaker 3: at number two. But Wisconsin, I mean, they do such
Speaker 3: a good job of evaluating guys early on. And case
Speaker 3: in point Santa Barbara High School quarterback Deacon Hill committed
Speaker 3: to Wisconsin a year and a half ago when he
Speaker 3: had only started two games as the sophomore took over
Speaker 3: when this quarterback got injured and became the starter. Paul
Speaker 3: Chris offers him in the summer. He commitsed just by
Speaker 3: having three sisters that played Water Public UCLA and his
Speaker 3: brother in law who played football at UCLA. That was
Speaker 3: his dream school. UCLA doesn't offer him. He commits Wisconsin
Speaker 3: a year later. Tchip Kelly tries to flip them. He said,
Speaker 3: where were you guys a year ago? He's stick switched
Speaker 3: and now he's grown into one of the top ten
Speaker 3: Pro style quarterbacks in the country. So you look at
Speaker 3: where Graham Mert they'd bring him in, and they they
Speaker 3: don't bring in a quarterback in the next plat then
Speaker 3: they go get a Deacon Hill. I mean, when Paul
Speaker 3: Chris hits on a quarterback, it usually works. But it's
Speaker 3: because they do such a good job of developing but
Speaker 3: evaluating those guys. Early Maryland were not surprised Mike Watson
Speaker 3: can recruit. But I think the surprise is not just
Speaker 3: Nebraska down there at seven, but we've been used to
Speaker 3: kind of seeing Minnesota recruiting picked up a lot over
Speaker 3: the last couple of years under Pga Flack, and they're
Speaker 3: kind of at a you know, number eight spot where
Speaker 3: we're not expecting them to be that low. You would
Speaker 3: have thought with the season they had in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 3: they would see the bump in the twenty twenty one class,
Speaker 3: and it was kind of to the contrary, it wasn't
Speaker 3: nearly as strong of the class as maybe we expected
Speaker 3: it to be. So there's a couple of schools that
Speaker 3: finally had some momentum and yet this class kind of stagnated.
Speaker 3: Then of course you go look and you see an
Speaker 3: Illinois at the bottom. Well, they've had coaching turnover, you
Speaker 3: see Northwestern. I mean Patris Dreil is probably excited that
Speaker 3: he's not in the top ten for the Big Ten
Speaker 3: because he uses that to motivate his team every single year. Indiana,
Speaker 3: and again we talk about this every year. The bump
Speaker 3: in recruiting usually comes in the class after your season.
Speaker 3: So I don't think Indiana's class right now at number
Speaker 3: twelve is anything to worry about. I think you'll see
Speaker 3: Tom Allen's class really improved in twenty twenty two, where
Speaker 3: they've had this whole season season to really kind of
Speaker 3: burn Indiana into the mind of a lot of these recruits.
Speaker 1: And I guess, on a similar note, if we could
Speaker 1: shift over to the ACC for a second, the ACC
Speaker 1: in a similar position. Right, we've got one team at
Speaker 1: the top, Clemson, far and away better than the competition.
Speaker 1: We do have some other teams that are trying to
Speaker 1: close that gap.
Speaker 2: And we're not counting Notre Dame in this question, right,
Speaker 2: We're not counting Notre Dame question not a full longtime
Speaker 2: ACC standout, not a.
Speaker 1: Full paying member of the ACEC. But we've got some
Speaker 1: other schools now in the form of Miami, North Carolina
Speaker 1: perhaps trying to chase down the Clemson Tigers. That's part
Speaker 1: one of the question, how are they doing? Part two
Speaker 1: of the question is how about a school like a
Speaker 1: Florida State Because Mike Norvell's had a ton of challenges
Speaker 1: to deal with and his very young tenure in Tallahassee,
Speaker 1: and we know that they're getting Mackenzie Milton via the
Speaker 1: transfer portal, but he is trying to rebuild something there.
Speaker 1: And we have a lot of Florida State fans to
Speaker 1: listen to this show. So A, is the gap closing
Speaker 1: on Clemson at all? And B, how's Florida State looking well?
Speaker 3: Florida State pass Again, when we talk about schools that
Speaker 3: you're not used to seeing, maybe in a particular spot
Speaker 3: in Florida State at number six wouldn't be a surprise
Speaker 3: if that was nationally, That's not where you expected to
Speaker 3: see them in the ACC. Like last year we saw
Speaker 3: USC at tenth in the PAC twelve tenth in the
Speaker 3: country would still be low by USC standards, but Florida
Speaker 3: State it's clearly, you know, kind of getting I wouldn't
Speaker 3: say lap, but you have more stability at Miami with
Speaker 3: many das you have more stability be at Florida with
Speaker 3: Van Mullyan. So now you've got your third coach in
Speaker 3: four years of forda state. I think Norvelle Novel is
Speaker 3: going to be able to get things going there at
Speaker 3: some point, But right now, maybe the class doesn't appear
Speaker 3: as sexy as some of these other classes, where you know,
Speaker 3: Florida and Miami are both showing size life. Obviously, Miami
Speaker 3: is having a great year and not having to hit
Speaker 3: the transfer portal as hard. I mean, so many of
Speaker 3: their star players on their team are transfers to Jalen
Speaker 3: Phillis and d r Keing. But I know Manny Diaz
Speaker 3: would really rather build his program with high schoolers. And
Speaker 3: so you look at this class and it is a
Speaker 3: top ten class. It's the number two class in the ACC.
Speaker 3: That's where you expect Miami to be. North Carolina at
Speaker 3: number three with the most remarkable thing about North Carolina classes,
Speaker 3: there's actually two things. It's one how many of their players,
Speaker 3: their top players are kids from North Carolina, a state
Speaker 3: that used to kind of bleed to the rest of
Speaker 3: the SEC and the ACC. Now mac Brown's keeping those
Speaker 3: guys just like he used to do with Texas. But
Speaker 3: I think the other most remarkable thing is that they
Speaker 3: finished with a class that was number three in the
Speaker 3: ACC and then if you look at it nationally, there's
Speaker 3: number fourteen after they lost their number one recruit who
Speaker 3: reclassified to the twenty twenty class and twenty grave and
Speaker 3: played this year for North Carolina. I mean, that's when
Speaker 3: you know you're living right and you're recruiting well when
Speaker 3: you can afford a loser recruit because he wanted to
Speaker 3: get to campus a year earlier to go play. And
Speaker 3: then you look at this class and it's North Carolina,
Speaker 3: North Carolina, North Carolina, a bunch of in state kids
Speaker 3: that got a five star defensive linemany Keisha on Silver.
Speaker 3: They got Drake Mays, who's the younger brother of former
Speaker 3: Carolina hooper Loop May. So they've got guys that have
Speaker 3: ties to the Tar Hills. And Matt Brown knows how
Speaker 3: to recruit better than most coaches in college football and
Speaker 3: certainly knows how to recruit his backyard better than most
Speaker 3: coaches do. And North Carolina is seeing that. So you know,
Speaker 3: North Carolina is showing with Mack Brown the complete just
Speaker 3: rejuvenation of that program, but also the rejuvenation of North
Speaker 3: Carolina favor with the in state recruits.
Speaker 2: When you look at the Big twelve, normally it's a
Speaker 2: question of like who comes after Oklahoma and Texas because
Speaker 2: Oklahoma and Texas have cleaned up, I'd say kind of
Speaker 2: a down year from Texas, I'm sure surrounding some of
Speaker 2: the uncertainty around Tom Herman's future. Oklahoma seems to keep,
Speaker 2: you know, having a national presence, obviously bringing in top receivers,
Speaker 2: bringing in, you know, the top quarterback in the country
Speaker 2: from you know, thousands of miles away. Are you worried
Speaker 2: about Texas long term even given the advantage that advantages
Speaker 2: that they have, and also who is who is that
Speaker 2: team chasing those two teams? Just in terms of talent acquisition.
Speaker 3: I'm worried about Texas because not only are they losing
Speaker 3: in state kids that you would have thought they got,
Speaker 3: they're losing him to Ohio State. So now, Texas, we
Speaker 3: thought when Texas, A and M went to the SEC
Speaker 3: that the se cecils were going to thrive in the
Speaker 3: state of Texas. Ohio State's the one that's thriving in
Speaker 3: the state of Texas. And it all kind of started
Speaker 3: with Garrett Wilson a couple of years ago. I mean,
Speaker 3: he can even go back to recruse before that, but
Speaker 3: Garrett Wilson was the one that really shifted the paradigm
Speaker 3: I think in the state of Texas towards Ohio State
Speaker 3: and with the Horns because jim Ywers was a Texas
Speaker 3: commit and then he flipped to Ohio State. Then Caleb Burton,
Speaker 3: who was an in state kid, is going to Ohio State.
Speaker 3: So Texas is having a hard enough time teching Oklahoma,
Speaker 3: but now Ohio State's stealing guys that you would have
Speaker 3: thought would have been a lot with little Horns at
Speaker 3: one point. So I think they're you know, it's not
Speaker 3: just the questions about Tom Herman, it's why is Texas
Speaker 3: losing so many of these players the state to out
Speaker 3: of state, out of conference schools. And that's an issue
Speaker 3: that California is very familiar with and Texas is now
Speaker 3: starting to experience. And at the same time, I think
Speaker 3: that hurts the rest of the Big twelve when the
Speaker 3: Big ten, the SEC see the acc are even planting
Speaker 3: in the state of Texas and grabbing guys. But the
Speaker 3: one that I think is probably the biggest surprise here
Speaker 3: in terms of where they're rated is West Virginia. They're
Speaker 3: at number four. They actually had a really good class
Speaker 3: year with three four star players. But I really like
Speaker 3: what Neil Brand did with this class. And then I
Speaker 3: think I see earlier this week that his name's being
Speaker 3: linked to the Auburn job. I mean, it's one of
Speaker 3: those where you finally start getting some a mend and
Speaker 3: he's starting to get his own blood in there, and
Speaker 3: yet now schools want him. So can West Virginia sustain
Speaker 3: it where they can be a top four, top five
Speaker 3: class in the Big Twelve given their geographical disadvantage. If
Speaker 3: they can, they're going to be competing for Big Twelve
Speaker 3: championships or at least for a shot there. I like
Speaker 3: what Baylor has done. I mean, considering when dave A.
Speaker 3: Randa got started there and how late it was in
Speaker 3: the process and really losing again like Carl Durell and
Speaker 3: Nick Rolovich, losing the opportunity to get those kids to
Speaker 3: come to campus and meet with them as a new coach.
Speaker 3: I still kind of like what Baylor did in this class,
Speaker 3: and I think given a full year and more kind
Speaker 3: of a return to normalcy Baylor's going to have a
Speaker 3: really good recruiting class. What probably the biggest surprise though,
Speaker 3: is we've seen TCU have some great classes. We've seen
Speaker 3: TCU signed some really great players, but this year was
Speaker 3: not that year. And I think there's some concern about
Speaker 3: the TCU. For only two four stars total and only
Speaker 3: thirteen commits, they have the smallest class in the Big twelve.
Speaker 3: We know that Garykatshon can coach those guys up, but
Speaker 3: you know what's happening this year again, it's another case
Speaker 3: of those kids that TCU in years past may have gotten.
Speaker 3: Now they're going to other Big ten schools, or they're
Speaker 3: going to other ACC or SEC schools. That state has
Speaker 3: opened the floodgates to other programs outside of Texas.
Speaker 2: I hate to group G five teams together because it's
Speaker 2: a wide swath of teams that very different schools all
Speaker 2: across the country, But I'm doing it anyway because it's
Speaker 2: my show and I'm allowed to. Largely, the American of
Speaker 2: the G five conferences is the conference that dominated recruiting
Speaker 2: by teams you'd expect to dominate just on a national scale, Cincinnati, SMU, Memphis.
Speaker 2: It's just UCF has looks like they have at least
Speaker 2: a pretty good class. Which of those or any school
Speaker 2: across the country not playing in a Power five conference,
Speaker 2: or I guess Notre Dame has jumped out to you
Speaker 2: as doing impressive things on the recruiting trail all things considered.
Speaker 3: Well, I like what Cincinnati did. They may not have
Speaker 3: any four stars in this class, but they all have
Speaker 3: really high level three stars. And that's really where your
Speaker 3: recruiting class is. May I mean, yes, you want the
Speaker 3: five stars, you want the four stars, although some coaches
Speaker 3: may say they don't. You still want those top tier guys,
Speaker 3: but so much of your class has made on that
Speaker 3: second tier guys. And that's what Cincinnati's class ends up
Speaker 3: being the best in the AAC despite not having a
Speaker 3: four star. It's like all twenty five guys are just
Speaker 3: solid players that really kind of that Luke Ficklin and
Speaker 3: stat to see as guys that can keep that momentum
Speaker 3: that Cincinnati has built over the last couple of years.
Speaker 3: And I think what's being the most impressive is I mean,
Speaker 3: this is a guy whose name has been mentioned for
Speaker 3: a number of jobs over the last two years. We
Speaker 3: saw this with Boise and State when Chris Peterson was there.
Speaker 3: Every year, Chris Peterson's name was mentioned for some big
Speaker 3: job every year. Boise States still brought in a good
Speaker 3: class because you could see the commitment that Cincinnati has
Speaker 3: to replace the Tommy Tyvergill. Notwithstanding, Cincinnati over the last
Speaker 3: fifteen years has done a good job with their head
Speaker 3: coaching hires, and so even if Sickle does leave, he's
Speaker 3: built or he's continued to build on that great program,
Speaker 3: and so it makes it easy to sell that program SMU.
Speaker 3: I think we've talked about it a little bit earlier
Speaker 3: on the show about Sunny Dykes's lack of success in
Speaker 3: the state of California, and he was at cal because
Speaker 3: he's a Texas guy. His Willhouse is in Texas, His
Speaker 3: Willlhouse is inside the Texas High school football being a
Speaker 3: Dikes there in the state of Texas, all the connections
Speaker 3: and now you see at SMU. Remember there was a
Speaker 3: little bit of a time there when June Jones was
Speaker 3: the head coach at STU where they were recruiting nationally
Speaker 3: and he was from Hawaii, he was from the West Coast,
Speaker 3: was coaching in Hawaii, but they were hitting the West Coast.
Speaker 3: They were hitting the East Coast hard. Now you're seeing
Speaker 3: SNU really build on this class locally, but it's becoming appealing.
Speaker 3: At the same time as TCU may be trending down.
Speaker 3: From a recruiting standpoint, SNU seems to be trending up.
Speaker 3: So Sundy Dykes has found his sweet spot. That's where
Speaker 3: he needs to be. That's what he's recruiting. A Texas
Speaker 3: kids a lot easier to get every go to s
Speaker 3: and U than it is to Berkeley. So those are
Speaker 3: the two. And then of course you go to the
Speaker 3: Mountain West. I mean they have seven schools, the top
Speaker 3: six schools in the Mountain West. Five had new coaches,
Speaker 3: so they had a lot of excitement, a lot of
Speaker 3: things to sell. Heck, UNLV's got the number two class
Speaker 3: in the Mountain West because they were selling Marcus Arroyo
Speaker 3: and his rose ball and they were selling the new
Speaker 3: stadium with the Raiders and then they went off horrific
Speaker 3: what owen whatever this year. But they do have the
Speaker 3: number two class. Yet what hasn't changed. Poise State still
Speaker 3: has the number one class. This doesn't have a lot
Speaker 3: of commitment. It's got the second smallest class in the
Speaker 3: Mountain West. Or third smallest class in the Mountain West.
Speaker 3: And yet there they are again with the best class,
Speaker 3: highest average rating of recruit highest point total of the conference.
Speaker 3: I mean Brian Harson. His name is now being mentioned
Speaker 3: again like Chris Peterson, not what the same fervor that
Speaker 3: Peterson was, but Harson's name, Mike Sickle is mentioned with
Speaker 3: a lot of jobs a get Boise State coaches keep
Speaker 3: chucking along and bringing in good classes.
Speaker 2: You haven't physically seen as many players and how they
Speaker 2: look today, how do they physically look in a camp
Speaker 2: or during games, or you haven't seen as many as
Speaker 2: you normally do by this time of year, especially with
Speaker 2: the All American Games and the practices beforehand. But if
Speaker 2: you had to group a few guys across the country
Speaker 2: that purely reflect how you react to reacted to seeing
Speaker 2: like a Sean Robinson or Trevor Lawrence, guys that you
Speaker 2: can't believe are still in high school, that are so
Speaker 2: clearly physically ready and technique ready for college football. Who
Speaker 2: are those guys that are like, oh, this this gentleman
Speaker 2: looks like a twenty five year old. Who are those
Speaker 2: physically beyond ready guys in this class?
Speaker 3: I remember seeing James Williams, who is the number one
Speaker 3: safety in the country. He's committed to Miami. He's been
Speaker 3: committed to Miami for I think three years. Saw at
Speaker 3: the end of his sophomore year at a seven on
Speaker 3: seven tournament in Las Vegas, and he was playing with
Speaker 3: his team Death Coon. And at the time I didn't
Speaker 3: know where Deathcon was from, so but you can you
Speaker 3: could hear this kid. He was loud, he was energetic,
Speaker 3: he was found like, this has got to be a
Speaker 3: team from Florida. Sure enough it was, and here he is.
Speaker 3: He was sixty five, two hundred and fifteen pounds as
Speaker 3: a sophomore. He'd be playing corner one play, he played
Speaker 3: linebacker the next play, he played safety in the next play.
Speaker 3: And we had him as a top fifty guy already
Speaker 3: in this class. But you could have convinced me in
Speaker 3: whatever that was February of twenty nineteen that he could
Speaker 3: go play at Miami right away, but he wasn't going
Speaker 3: to get there for two more years. So he was
Speaker 3: the one guy that I'm like, two years ago he
Speaker 3: could go. The other one that I probably thought. You know,
Speaker 3: obviously I've been a big fan of JP two Mololow
Speaker 3: since he first started. But I remember seeing Corey Forman
Speaker 3: as a sophomore, and then he goes to the Opening
Speaker 3: Finals as an underclass I think he was the only
Speaker 3: underclass defensive lineman that was at the last Opening Finals
Speaker 3: in Texas in twenty nineteen, and he won the MVP dominated.
Speaker 3: I mean, Brian Rizzi was there that day and Corey
Speaker 3: Former was the one who left with the MVP. And
Speaker 3: he still had two more years of high school football
Speaker 3: that he had. And then I remember seeing a mecha
Speaker 3: Guka for the first time when he was a ninth grader,
Speaker 3: and then I got to see him again in that
Speaker 3: winner when he was in a seven on seven tournament,
Speaker 3: and you can just see that this kid had the
Speaker 3: makings of a special receiver. Even as a sophomore. He
Speaker 3: goes around was a four to four to two laser
Speaker 3: forty at the Army Combine in January of his sophomore year.
Speaker 3: Over the course of the next forty eight hours, he
Speaker 3: and his father are in his stepdad were on my
Speaker 3: flight home. I think he landed about fifteen offers from
Speaker 3: Friday afternoon until Sunday night. We landed back in Seattle,
Speaker 3: and you could have told me then he could go
Speaker 3: play two years and he could go to college right now.
Speaker 3: But he is two more year of high school football.
Speaker 3: There was a reason that he was the National Junior
Speaker 3: of the Year last year. Just a grown man playing
Speaker 3: a grown man's sport, but against high schoo kids. And
Speaker 3: that's why I think he's going to have an opportunity
Speaker 3: to play, even though it's a loaded receiver room at
Speaker 3: Ohouse State. I think he'll play as a true freshman
Speaker 3: next year because he is more than.
Speaker 2: College ready, something I've always been curious about, and it
Speaker 2: changes every year. But a lot of the dirty work
Speaker 2: in recruiting, and I don't say that to imply anything more.
Speaker 2: The tiring, day to day minutia of college football recruiting
Speaker 2: is done by support staff at these various programs, with
Speaker 2: the biggest schools investing in the biggest staffs in that department.
Speaker 2: What does that dirty work involve? What is that daily
Speaker 2: grind that people way way down on that athletic athletic
Speaker 2: staff directory on the web page. What are they doing
Speaker 2: and how much is what they're doing versus how much
Speaker 2: of what coaches are doing is sealing these deals?
Speaker 3: I would say that coaches do a good job in
Speaker 3: recruiting when they do the recruiting, because the majority of
Speaker 3: the recruiting is being done by the twenty three year
Speaker 3: old staffer who's got access to the head coach's phone,
Speaker 3: who's got access to the offensive coordinators Twitter, who's got
Speaker 3: access to the defensive coordinators Instagram, and sends those messages
Speaker 3: as that coach. But it's not that coach is sending it,
Speaker 3: and he's the one that's building the relationship. And then
Speaker 3: when they go on and in home visible doing them miscycle.
Speaker 3: But when a coach is getting ready to go on
Speaker 3: an in home visit, that twenty three year old staffer
Speaker 3: is on the phone basically saying, Okay, coach, these are
Speaker 3: the main bullet points that you don't know because you've
Speaker 3: never recruited this kid. Go close the deal on it
Speaker 3: by telling this that that complimenting mom, complimenting grandma. Those
Speaker 3: guys work their tails off. I was text with a
Speaker 3: few yesterday. They're in the office at three am yesterday.
Speaker 3: And assistant coaches, you know, they get their two or
Speaker 3: three cop And that's not all assistant coaches, but there
Speaker 3: are some that they're clearly there for their exes and
Speaker 3: ose ability and not for their recruiting chops. They get
Speaker 3: their two commits in June and they're done. And yet
Speaker 3: it's the twenty five year old staffer who's maintaining that
Speaker 3: relationship for seven months after the kid commits in May
Speaker 3: to ensure that the kids still signs with that school
Speaker 3: and that he's not being ghosted by the coach who
Speaker 3: recruited him. So those guys work their tails off and
Speaker 3: don't get any of the credit. They don't get any
Speaker 3: of the glory. When there's a National Recruiter of the
Speaker 3: Year nand or a Conference Recruit of the Year, it's
Speaker 3: usually an assistant coach. Usually that assistant coach does do
Speaker 3: his own recruiting, but so much of the groundwork is
Speaker 3: laid by the staffers and by the ADA and staff.
Speaker 3: And that's why we saw last year USC really kind
Speaker 3: of talk about, well, the part of the reason our
Speaker 3: class is down is because we don't have the admin
Speaker 3: ers of support staff like the SEC schools do. So
Speaker 3: what does USC do. They hire three or four new
Speaker 3: administrators in the football Recruiting office to ramp up their efforts.
Speaker 3: They hire new media guys from LSU to get all
Speaker 3: hands on deck. Because so much of the work is
Speaker 3: done by those guys rather than the assistant coaches who
Speaker 3: they're trying to coach during the season.
Speaker 1: Brandon I got two questions before we let you go again.
Speaker 1: He is the national recruiting editor for twenty four to
Speaker 1: seven Sports. One topic that we haven't covered here, I'm
Speaker 1: sure we will cover more in the future is this
Speaker 1: whole name, image and likeness legislation that seemingly is closer
Speaker 1: now than ever before to becoming any kind of reality.
Speaker 1: Is that something that recruits or even recruiters are broaching
Speaker 1: at all, either amongst themselves or with people such as yourself.
Speaker 3: No question. And I think Oklahoma kind of showed a
Speaker 3: stink preview of that a year ago when if you
Speaker 3: remember at siny Ad last year, they had each recruit
Speaker 3: that signed had his own logo, his own branding done,
Speaker 3: and had his own logo designed as part of his
Speaker 3: announcement when he when Lincoln Riley got the letter of
Speaker 3: intent in, they would tweet this kid's own personal logo.
Speaker 3: And so there's schools that realize this is going to
Speaker 3: be a hot button issue. You're going to have some
Speaker 3: of your old school schools that are going to still
Speaker 3: try to fight it. But then you have the schools
Speaker 3: that realize we can benefit from this if we just
Speaker 3: get out in front and say, hey, we're going to
Speaker 3: help you with your branding, We're going to help you
Speaker 3: with your name, with your marketing, and this is what
Speaker 3: we can do for you. We saw USC about a
Speaker 3: month and a half of two months ago do a
Speaker 3: campaign ultimately got taken down by their own Twitter, but
Speaker 3: at one point it was up there with the with
Speaker 3: the boulevard that they were pushing and you know why.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm sorry Hawaii, Hollywood. And one of the
Speaker 3: key recruits in this class who didn't sign yesterday was
Speaker 3: Cier Wright, who is one of the top one hundred
Speaker 3: players in the country. He's a corner at Loyola High
Speaker 3: School Lost Angelis. He's going to star in Space Jam
Speaker 3: Shoot Too next year as Lebron James sunt Well. USC
Speaker 3: has been pushing hard for him, and it's hard to
Speaker 3: think that a kid who's going to start and what's
Speaker 3: probably going to be a billion dollar movie if we
Speaker 3: were allowed to go to the movies in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: he's going to leave Hollywood where his name, image and
Speaker 3: likeness as a football player is only going to enhance
Speaker 3: his brand. But you're going to see more and more
Speaker 3: schools in corporate and we've seen that over the last
Speaker 3: two signing days where more and more schools have incorporated
Speaker 3: the branding. When in Ohio State would announce the recruit yesterday,
Speaker 3: they would announ that's where the kid was from, his
Speaker 3: position is, height and weight, and then they would also
Speaker 3: put his Twitter and his Instagram to build up his
Speaker 3: brand and build up his social media presence. And more
Speaker 3: and more schools are going to do that, and I
Speaker 3: think as soon the sooner they adapt to that and
Speaker 3: understand that this is going to be what helps them
Speaker 3: in recruiting. Gone in the days where a photo shoots
Speaker 3: the most important thing, it's now how can you improve
Speaker 3: my brand?
Speaker 1: Final question, perhaps the most important question. There was a
Speaker 1: player in this class who goes by the name of
Speaker 1: Sam Jackson Brandon. We've been doing the name game here
Speaker 1: on the show for a long time. Never have we
Speaker 1: had a Sam Jackson before. I'm wondering if there are
Speaker 1: any other names that rise to that level in this
Speaker 1: year's class.
Speaker 3: I was prepared for this one this year because usually
Speaker 3: every year I get thrown off and I always have
Speaker 3: the name and then I forget them, fund it. I mean,
Speaker 3: Dabo's got a quarterback coming in named Bubba. If there
Speaker 3: is not a more perfin just cage between a head
Speaker 3: coach and a quarterback, Dabbo and Bubba pretty much checks
Speaker 3: every box. I like what us he's getting out of
Speaker 3: a kid. I wrote about him this week because he
Speaker 3: got invited the All American Ball Prophet Brown. Yeah, he
Speaker 3: is as a corner you know, his ability to anticipate
Speaker 3: and get a good break on that pass from the
Speaker 3: quarter of the future is going to allow He's going
Speaker 3: to see the future. He's going to know how to
Speaker 3: jump routes. So that's probably I love profit, but I mean,
Speaker 3: come on, Bubba and Dabbo, are we really going to
Speaker 3: try to find something better than that? But I do
Speaker 3: have two more because I've been on the uh you know,
Speaker 3: pounding the trains for the last couple of weeks that
Speaker 3: in my opinion that the best quarterback, I'm sorry about
Speaker 3: the best quarterback the best receiver in college football is
Speaker 3: Devonte Smith. Well, guess what, Alabama's got another Davonte Smith
Speaker 3: coming in. He's playing cornerback this time, so you know
Speaker 3: it's we say Alabama every year they reload, I mean
Speaker 3: they literally reload where they get the same name players
Speaker 3: coming in every single year. And then I got to
Speaker 3: throw a now to you, Dan, because we can't have
Speaker 3: a class with a guy named Kingsley and not talk
Speaker 3: about a Boston's lineman named Kingsley. The last name is
Speaker 3: not always the easiest to pronounce. When you have a
Speaker 3: name like Kingsley, we don't talk about your last name.
Speaker 2: I am pretty does Oregon not have future bookends of
Speaker 2: Kingsley and Bram Is that?
Speaker 1: Is that true?
Speaker 3: Graham Walden and a center named Jackson Light who is
Speaker 3: not light at all? Oh?
Speaker 1: I like that.
Speaker 2: Here's here's the actual tradition that we have other than
Speaker 2: the great names. Is uh, let's just be very vain
Speaker 2: and self serving. Go deep on Notre Dames class and
Speaker 2: go deep on Organs class. Not a question of command,
Speaker 2: Notre Dame class.
Speaker 3: Hey, I like what Notre Dame did? They got a
Speaker 3: couple of kids. First of all, anytime you go into
Speaker 3: the eight oh five where we all know the best
Speaker 3: football in the world, actually, Dan, they you do know that,
Speaker 3: So you know you'll be excited when I hear that.
Speaker 3: You know, Devin op who is one of the top
Speaker 3: players in Ventura County in this class. He was a
Speaker 3: long time committed to UCLA and they flipped him a
Speaker 3: week ago. What I like here is that we're seeing
Speaker 3: with Notre Dame's classes, we're continuing to see the man
Speaker 3: Tito with that we sought last year when they got
Speaker 3: Jordan Botello. This year they were able to get Kahanu
Speaker 3: Kia from Prunojo. And this is a kid who was
Speaker 3: originally talking about taking his mission and going and serving
Speaker 3: his LDS mission right away and Nebraska Utah his dad
Speaker 3: played at Utah Utah thought that they were going to
Speaker 3: get him and he was going to go service mission,
Speaker 3: come back in twenty twenty two. And then Brian Pollyan
Speaker 3: did what he does. He goes into Hawaii and he
Speaker 3: gets a linebacker. So you look at Notre Dames class
Speaker 3: and obviously they've got Tyler Bustner, he's the star. Blake Fisher,
Speaker 3: a kid from Indiana, one of the top linemen in
Speaker 3: the country. Rocko Spindler another great name out of Michigan
Speaker 3: who they battled Michigan for. But they did a really
Speaker 3: good job out West this year, and you know, maybe
Speaker 3: that's because of an Ian book. Maybe it's because of
Speaker 3: an Isaiah Foski. Some of the guys on their team
Speaker 3: that are from the West Phis and Notre Day's always
Speaker 3: had a presence, but this year it seemed to be
Speaker 3: interestingly enough, in a year where they couldn't really get
Speaker 3: on the road, they had a few more guys from
Speaker 3: the West coast, And maybe we've seen in the last
Speaker 3: couple of years. The other name of the guy that
Speaker 3: I'm a big fan of in this class is quarterback
Speaker 3: by the name of Ron Paulas. I just think that,
Speaker 3: you know, there's going to be a guarantee of a
Speaker 3: couple of Highsend Trophy winners for the young man he
Speaker 3: gets to Notre.
Speaker 1: Dame had to go Ron Palace to close this out,
Speaker 1: didn't you.
Speaker 3: I was just sitting there waiting for and I just
Speaker 3: was like, Oh, do I drop it earlier? Do I
Speaker 3: wait till the end?
Speaker 1: Friends? Here? Why not? All right? What about?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I love this organ class. I think what I
Speaker 3: really like about Orgon is when they recruit in state.
Speaker 3: It's usually for an elite guy. They don't always recruit
Speaker 3: in state, but one of the earliest commits in this
Speaker 3: class was a commit from Keith Brong, who committed after
Speaker 3: the Civil War in twenty nineteen, only to see Noah
Speaker 3: Sewell and Justin Flow commit at that same position and
Speaker 3: sign a year ahead of him. And yet it didn't matter.
Speaker 3: Keith Brown became their most vocal recruiter in the day
Speaker 3: and age. In an era where social media recruiting is
Speaker 3: becoming such a part of the recruiting process, Keith Brown
Speaker 3: was one of the few guys in the state of
Speaker 3: Oregon who actually had the opportunity to play for the
Speaker 3: Ducks and just continue to recruit. He had guys come
Speaker 3: and stay with him and then they would go down
Speaker 3: and be able to walk around campus. They would get
Speaker 3: com meet with the coaches. But he kind of hosted
Speaker 3: a few of these guys that would come into town
Speaker 3: to see Oregon. And I think that that's a big
Speaker 3: deal for Oregon because as much as they recruit nationally,
Speaker 3: when you do have an elite player in your backyard,
Speaker 3: you go get them. Speaking of backyards, they have madd
Speaker 3: a permanent residence in Arizona, getting the number one quarterback
Speaker 3: in Arizona, Ty Thompson. They got the top lineman in
Speaker 3: Arizona and Bram Walden. They got three players from Arizona
Speaker 3: that were right in the backyard of either U of
Speaker 3: A or ASCU. Jonah Miller another four star lineman, and
Speaker 3: they also got two really good tight ends. Well leak
Speaker 3: him out about They got Terence Ferguson out of Colorado.
Speaker 3: What I think is probably the most remarkable thing that
Speaker 3: Oregon continues to do is to go into the Pac
Speaker 3: twelve footprint and to go into four or five other
Speaker 3: states where there's Pack twelve schools and take their top prospect.
Speaker 3: That's what USC used to do under Pete Carroll. That's
Speaker 3: what USC is expected to do, and right now Mara
Speaker 3: Crystball is the one that's going into the backyard of
Speaker 3: other packtall programs and taking their top guys.
Speaker 1: All right, one final time, his name is Brandon Hoffman,
Speaker 1: National recruiting editor for twenty four seven Sports, calling in
Speaker 1: from the great state of Alaska. First time that's ever
Speaker 1: happened on this podcast and all the years we've been
Speaker 1: doing at Brandon, thank you as always for your insight.
Speaker 1: Please stay warm up there and hopefully we can talk
Speaker 1: to again sometime soon.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I'm going to stay as thought out as possible.
Speaker 1: All right, Take care alrighty, there you go. Brandon Hoffman
Speaker 1: calling in from the Great State of Alaska. You've been
Speaker 1: up there?
Speaker 2: Nope, pevw oh yeah, beautiful, beautiful. Went on a cruise
Speaker 2: in high school. It's the only cruise I think, like
Speaker 2: extended cruise I've ever been on.
Speaker 1: You were you cruise guy? You like cruise?
Speaker 2: No, not at all. But I had a good time.
Speaker 2: Like I'm not a not a cruise guy because I
Speaker 2: had a bad time on that cruise. You go up there,
Speaker 2: I think it was we went up to Seattle and
Speaker 2: then maybe we went up to Vancouver and took it
Speaker 2: from there like an Alaskan cruise, and you see glaciers.
Speaker 2: It's it's pretty dramatic and crazy beautiful. We went, you know,
Speaker 2: into towns and went bike riding, and you know, I
Speaker 2: don't know what it's not. I'm saying Alaska isn't a
Speaker 2: summer destination, but that's not true. It was beautiful and
Speaker 2: there's a lot of outdoors things to do, but just
Speaker 2: the idea of sitting on a giant boat and eating
Speaker 2: until you're sick. And I was too young to gamble.
Speaker 2: Maybe I wasn't. I don't know what the rules are
Speaker 2: on the open seas. But I don't know, it just
Speaker 2: wasn't my scene. I like to explore a little more
Speaker 2: than a cruise allows.
Speaker 1: What was Richard Rubinstein like on that trip?
Speaker 2: Gosh, this was a long time ago, This was probably
Speaker 2: twenty ish years ago. He I think he enjoyed as
Speaker 2: much as he could the sights and sounds of being
Speaker 2: I think to catch a can and maybe Juno. I
Speaker 2: forget the town, the specific towns we went to in Alaska,
Speaker 2: but I think he had as good a time as
Speaker 2: one can with a let's call it fifteen, thirteen and
Speaker 2: ten year old boy just being idiots. So it's not
Speaker 2: like you can truly take in the wonders and the
Speaker 2: vistas of the Upper Pacific Northwest. But I think he
Speaker 2: had a good time. He's he's obviously, as you know,
Speaker 2: traveled a ton and hiked a ton, so he had
Speaker 2: he was in his element.
Speaker 1: Well look, fun show as always always great to help
Speaker 1: are show on this show. You know how I am
Speaker 1: about funding. We love fun, You love fun shows, and
Speaker 1: Brandon always delivers. Dude knows everything everything about recruiting, always
Speaker 1: good to get hit. He makes me.
Speaker 2: He also makes me feel at home because he's got that,
Speaker 2: he's got a southern California affect that the Pacific Northwest
Speaker 2: just can't be out of him.
Speaker 1: It just can't.
Speaker 2: He's from Ventura County, always likes making reference to it,
Speaker 2: So you know ox narda Ventura and Channel Islands, that
Speaker 2: whole area. It's fantastic. You should spend time there. Tie,
Speaker 2: So don't tell too many people, but it's great.
Speaker 3: You neat well.
Speaker 2: Oceans, everything oceans. So I treasure these shows. So uncommitted
Speaker 2: Friday Orbit because we are still uncommitted, and I am
Speaker 2: hopeful that Oregon's class comes together and maybe some other
Speaker 2: packed twelve classes come together. We get a higher level
Speaker 2: pack twelve and some underrated big twelve classes come together
Speaker 2: for you know, guys, taking off our guys. Excuse me, guys,
Speaker 2: what's what's the word I'm looking for? Just taking the
Speaker 2: wind out of Oklahoma sails a little bit, Clemson sales
Speaker 2: a little bit. I know you're keenly interested in the
Speaker 2: ACC and if notre name sticks around and classes like their's, Miami's,
Speaker 2: North Carolina's, I think it was a fun class. I
Speaker 2: don't the Ohio States and Alabama's and LSUS and I
Speaker 2: just expect this from those classes. I'm curious around the
Speaker 2: edges where teams are slowly building up into dangerous forces.
Speaker 1: Dangerous forces. All right, Well, with that being said, thank
Speaker 1: you so very much for downloading, for listening, for making
Speaker 1: us part of your week. We got a big weekend
Speaker 1: in front of us with an incredible slate of conference
Speaker 1: championship games. We will talk through all of that and
Speaker 1: much much more on our Sunday reaction show. Again, you
Speaker 1: can get access to it on Sunday if you join
Speaker 1: the Patreon Otherwise, for all the just plain old fashioned
Speaker 1: regular forballers, you get it on Monday morning, six am
Speaker 1: Eastern time. That's when we start talking about what happened.
Speaker 1: Play your reverbs, which again you can dial into at
Speaker 1: four eight verbal one four waight verbal one is your
Speaker 1: line of catharsis Dan call in, let us know what's
Speaker 1: on your mind, if anything's bugging you, got anything to
Speaker 1: get off your chest, that's where you can do it.
Speaker 1: For a way, For one, I agree for that guy
Speaker 1: over there, my good friend Dan Rubinstein, for myself, Tie Hildebrand,
Speaker 1: will catch y all in a few days. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: stay solid, peace,