Speaker 1: Welcome to the solid verbal.
Speaker 2: I'm that for me. I'm a man, I'm forty. I've
Speaker 2: heard so many players say, well, I want to be happy.
Speaker 2: You want to be happy for Dake Edith.
Speaker 1: State is that?
Speaker 2: Whoo whoom?
Speaker 1: And Dan and Tie? All right, welcome back to the
Speaker 1: solid verbal. You're hearing my voice because I am in
Speaker 1: full control. Tye is out. This is a Dan only situation.
Speaker 1: Out now. Tie is sick. Ty has the flu. And
Speaker 1: we want to keep doing shows. We want to keep
Speaker 1: putting out content, and we haven't talked about new coaches, coordinators, staffs,
Speaker 1: assistant strength and conditioning coaches. So we turn to the
Speaker 1: man who not only is a senior columnist and everything
Speaker 1: for the Athletic covering college football, not only host the
Speaker 1: Andy Staples Show, which it's really good that they found
Speaker 1: Andy Staples to host the Andy Staples Show, but he's
Speaker 1: also uniquely qualified to look at new coach and grade.
Speaker 1: I guess his own perception the way that we are
Speaker 1: trying to do today, which is on a hot chicken
Speaker 1: spice scale, because why would you do anything other than
Speaker 1: that once you realize that that's an option. Andy Staples,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming on.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you Dan, I am proud to say I
Speaker 3: have consumed the Extra Extra Extra hot at Prince's in Nashville,
Speaker 3: the basically the founders of hot chicken in America, and
Speaker 3: so I feel like I'm uniquely qualified for this. In fact,
Speaker 3: I'm going to send you the video of myself eating
Speaker 3: said chicken. It's like a chicken grenade essentially, or a
Speaker 3: spice grenade. It does not hit immediately, but when it does,
Speaker 3: oh dear lord.
Speaker 1: It's not the explosion, it's the shrapnel. That's where they
Speaker 1: get you. It's the after effect.
Speaker 2: It's well, it's not just the after effect.
Speaker 3: It is intense, and it's intense for a while, like
Speaker 3: normal icy food. It's intense for a few seconds. It's
Speaker 3: intense for a solid minute, minute and a half. It's
Speaker 3: it's different now, but I still recommend it to everyone
Speaker 3: who loves hot chicken because this is the place where
Speaker 3: it was born.
Speaker 2: The legend behind it is incredible. You know.
Speaker 3: Yep, he was out cat and around and Wifey did
Speaker 3: not appreciate that, and so for breakfast, she just emptied
Speaker 3: the contents of the spice cabinet into the dredge and
Speaker 3: there you go.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, this is the Prince Family.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so, I mean infidelity has never produced something
Speaker 3: so delicious.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the tagline for the Andy Staples Show.
Speaker 1: I mean, not accusing you of anything, but well, actually
Speaker 1: think my parents of something. But oh that is true.
Speaker 3: No, that was I was born in blessed wedlock for
Speaker 3: those who are there, but right, But the Andy Staples Show.
Speaker 3: I am glad they found Andy Staples to host that.
Speaker 3: It would have been very awkward otherwise. But also the
Speaker 3: name of the show did not occur to me for
Speaker 3: a solid two months, three months that the initials were ass.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean that's a that's a very key component
Speaker 1: of college football, as if you're going to choose, if
Speaker 1: you're going to choose any direction to go when putting
Speaker 1: together a roster, you can do worse than putting together
Speaker 1: a team of ample rumped individuals.
Speaker 2: Well, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3: And the thing about the show, I mean, it's we
Speaker 3: were talking about some serious search engine OPTIMSM optimization. I
Speaker 3: don't know if you've seen the colon after the name
Speaker 3: of the show, which is funny after the word ass. Yes,
Speaker 3: of course, it says a show about college football. So
Speaker 3: basically we are we are the what time is the
Speaker 3: super Bowl of podcasts.
Speaker 1: You're nailing it. Apps sub the Andy Staples Show. Subscribe
Speaker 1: for college Football podcast. It's a good name. I can't
Speaker 1: hold it against you. And also, if we have time
Speaker 1: at the end of the show, after we discuss new
Speaker 1: college football hires within the context of hot Chicken spiciness,
Speaker 1: I want to do a show within the show called like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, chat and Chicken Poultry Pals. I don't
Speaker 1: know what it's going to be, just about the state
Speaker 1: of fried chicken in my world.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, given how you and Ti have cast
Speaker 3: some aspersion on us at the Athletic as being in
Speaker 3: the bag for big poultry, I think we probably should
Speaker 3: clear the air.
Speaker 2: At least.
Speaker 1: We're not the most talented duo. We don't. I guess
Speaker 1: maybe we do sound the best, but we are not
Speaker 1: the smartest. We're not the most connected, but we do
Speaker 1: notice ongoing trends in college football media, perhaps better than
Speaker 1: anybody else.
Speaker 2: It is. It is a gift, I assure you.
Speaker 3: But my contribution to that writing about the greatest chicken
Speaker 3: sandwich on Earth, which is the sandwich that is only
Speaker 3: served on Tuesdays at Blue Ook Barbecue in New Orleans.
Speaker 3: Mine was made earnestly. There was no nothing from above
Speaker 3: that said Andy, you must write about Chicken today. So
Speaker 3: I know everyone thinks it's a vast conspiracy that ESPN
Speaker 3: people are supposed to favor the SEC and people at
Speaker 3: the athletic are supposed to write about Chicken.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it just works out that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, when I when I hear that Tyson or
Speaker 1: Purdue presents the Andy Staples Show, that's p ER, not
Speaker 1: p u R, then I'm gonna know something's so well.
Speaker 1: I'm just watched.
Speaker 3: If if I give Sam Pittman the highest of grades,
Speaker 3: you probably know Tyson Chicken is involved here.
Speaker 1: Okay, here's here's the uh, the the movement right into
Speaker 1: the head coach higher. So let's start with head coaches.
Speaker 1: And I guess in terms of actual spiciness it would
Speaker 1: be hard to go anywhere else but the state of Mississippi.
Speaker 1: I would. I think it's probably easiest to say that
Speaker 1: Mike Leach and Lane Kiff, and who have coached against
Speaker 1: each other in a different conference, that is the spiciest
Speaker 1: duo in just a specific state. So what is your
Speaker 1: perception of each of those hires? And if we're going
Speaker 1: to define spiciness, I suppose by how is the fit?
Speaker 1: You know, it's not necessarily we need to find the
Speaker 1: next dabbo, it's how does this person fit at this school?
Speaker 1: You know, it's all the jarrins that I came up
Speaker 1: with ten minutes ago. It's hiring, firing, inspiring, tiring out
Speaker 1: other teams, and I guess all while perspiring. It was
Speaker 1: very nice, don king of me. What is the spiciness?
Speaker 1: What is the fit? Where are the factors? To you?
Speaker 1: With Mike Leach at State and Lanekiff and at all, Miss.
Speaker 3: Well, you gave me some helpful levels of spice, which
Speaker 3: I'm glad you did.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You started with country slash Southern, which I'm assuming is
Speaker 3: so is no spice at all, just salt. And then
Speaker 3: you've got mild, mild with spicy, honey, medium, hot, extra hot,
Speaker 3: howland or atomic or reaper with a side of frozen
Speaker 3: teepee of assuming frozen teaiod yes, correct, correct, I will
Speaker 3: I will change the last one to nuclear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fine, and anything that is beyond just your
Speaker 1: standard adjectives.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was a there was an incident when I
Speaker 3: was in college with the nuclear flavored hot wings from
Speaker 3: winging it now. Okay, I want to make sure people
Speaker 3: do understand we are talking about Nashville hot chicken.
Speaker 2: We are not talking about hot wings.
Speaker 3: Because I remember a few years ago, back when Nashville
Speaker 3: was the only place where you could still get hot chicken.
Speaker 3: You'd say hot chicken and people would go, oh, wings.
Speaker 2: Buffalo wings.
Speaker 1: M yeah.
Speaker 3: But the rest of the country has hipped to what
Speaker 3: hot chicken is. But just in case you don't know,
Speaker 3: it is a whole piece of fried chicken, thigh, breast,
Speaker 3: whatever you want, and it is fried. And then the
Speaker 3: way that most of the places spice it is they
Speaker 3: use kind of a pepper paste that they put on it,
Speaker 3: and this the paste have varying degrees of intensity depending
Speaker 3: on how bad you want to hurt afterward.
Speaker 1: And what what types of peppers they use.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So like you go to Princes, you get the
Speaker 3: extra extra extra hot. It is hotter than the blazes
Speaker 3: of Hell. Like their medium is hot. If you go
Speaker 3: to Hot Chicken Takeover in Columbus, Ohio, they've kind of
Speaker 3: dumbed it down for a non Nashville audience.
Speaker 1: We're amateurs. Yeah, well no, but there's.
Speaker 2: It's still delicious. You just have to. It's like it's
Speaker 2: sort of like sizing up and shoes.
Speaker 3: You know, if if you're normally like it hot, you
Speaker 3: would get medium at Princes, you'd have to get the
Speaker 3: hot at at Hot Chicken Takeover and all these other
Speaker 3: places that have sprung up.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to go with nuclear for the.
Speaker 3: For the top level, and I am going to go
Speaker 3: nuclear on both of these high on Lane Kiffin and
Speaker 3: on Mike Leach because this cannot possibly end well from
Speaker 3: an egg Bowl perspective, right, they actually like each other.
Speaker 2: My guess is they'll end up hating each other.
Speaker 3: This is going to be an intense recruiting rivalry, an
Speaker 3: intense rivalry on the field. If they do manage to
Speaker 3: do what they've been hired to do and make their
Speaker 3: programs better, then imagine if the egg Bowl is for say,
Speaker 3: we're not going to say for the SEC West title.
Speaker 3: Let's not go crazy. Alabama, LSU, AUVERURGN are still in
Speaker 3: the division. But let's say the egg Bowl is for
Speaker 3: a New Year Six Bowl.
Speaker 1: Berth sure, which is the ceiling for both of these teams.
Speaker 1: We've seen them in the last decade. Get to New
Speaker 1: Year's Six games, Mississippi State got's number one in the country.
Speaker 1: Ole Miss has beaten Alabama multiple times, so I think
Speaker 1: your ceiling is correct.
Speaker 3: So I mean, I'm assuming because of the stakes of
Speaker 3: the game that no one would try to pretend to
Speaker 3: urinate on the field. They would probably try to pretend
Speaker 3: to defecate on the field, and that would probably cause
Speaker 3: I don't know, is that.
Speaker 2: A thirty yard penalty?
Speaker 3: If pretending a pee is is a fifteen yard penalty,
Speaker 3: Pretending to poops gotta be thirty.
Speaker 1: So if you do the if that the Adam Carolla
Speaker 1: like using the football as a deuce prop, yeah, then
Speaker 1: I think at a certain point if you're if you're
Speaker 1: bringing props into it, then it's it's multiple unsportsman likes.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that's gonna cost one of these teams a
Speaker 3: spot in a New Year six Bowl, and then probably
Speaker 3: the coaches are going to blame one another. There may
Speaker 3: be a fight at midfield. I cannot wait for any
Speaker 3: of this. By the way, I am so excited about
Speaker 3: the possibility of all the things that might happen when
Speaker 3: Mike Leach and Lane Kiffin coexist on either side of
Speaker 3: the nastiest rivalry in sports.
Speaker 1: Are you believers? Are you a believer in either of
Speaker 1: them getting them getting their respective teams to New Year
Speaker 1: six Ish territory? How have the Hires been in your mind?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: Does is it the right I guess era of their
Speaker 1: careers to be making this move.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think both of them can do it. And
Speaker 3: if you say, oh, you can't both do it at
Speaker 3: the same time, well, actually you kind of can. Because
Speaker 3: Mississippi State went to the Orange Bowl after the twenty
Speaker 3: fourteen season, Ole miss went to the Peach Bowl after
Speaker 3: the twenty fifteen season, So they've been good at the
Speaker 3: same time, and so it's definitely doable.
Speaker 2: And I think this is a case where they can.
Speaker 2: Now the leech thing.
Speaker 3: Feels more of a sure thing, I guess because look
Speaker 3: at what he's done. Texas Tech, Washington State, both places
Speaker 3: that it's not really easy to win. They're kind of
Speaker 3: considered the most remote location in their league. Right, he
Speaker 3: had them punching above their weight. I would assume he
Speaker 3: does the same thing here. Now, it's not as remote
Speaker 3: as those places. There is a lot of talent around there,
Speaker 3: but the thing is, it is cutthroat competition to get
Speaker 3: that talent, including competition with Lane Kiffin and the ole
Speaker 3: Miss which Lane Kiffin hired a very aggressive recruiting staff,
Speaker 3: so they're gonna get after it. Leech is going to
Speaker 3: have to try to do that too, But I think
Speaker 3: if you look at Leech's history punching above the weight,
Speaker 3: that's what you want. Kiffen's a little bit different story
Speaker 3: because obviously he was not ready for the Raiders' job.
Speaker 3: I thought he did a decent job as Tennessee's head coach.
Speaker 3: The record may not reflect it, but you have to
Speaker 3: think of what he inherited and what they actually did.
Speaker 3: That team was better than it should have been. Usc
Speaker 3: was another story. He had one good year with them,
Speaker 3: but was kind of underachieving the rest of the time.
Speaker 3: So the question is, is what we've seen at FAU
Speaker 3: an accurate representation of Lane Kiffin as a head coach,
Speaker 3: because obviously the stakes do rise, the degree of difficulty
Speaker 3: rises when you go to a Power five school, so
Speaker 3: we'll have to see about that. But if he's the
Speaker 3: guy he was at FAU and that was an accurate representation,
Speaker 3: then I do think Ole Miss can be one of
Speaker 3: those teams that wins seven or eight games a year
Speaker 3: and occasionally cycles up to a very good record, to
Speaker 3: a nine to ten win season. And if that happens
Speaker 3: and Leech does what he's supposed to do, we are
Speaker 3: going to have a very explosive egg Bowl. And that's
Speaker 3: all I'm asking for. That's how i want to finish
Speaker 3: my Thanksgiving night.
Speaker 1: I'm right there with you. Not terribly far from Oxford
Speaker 1: is Memphis who loses Mike Norvel to Florida State, who
Speaker 1: takes over a headline job in the ACC. I remember
Speaker 1: I was fairly confident that Willie Taggart would succeed in Tallahassee.
Speaker 1: I remember you being very confident because of how well
Speaker 1: he has been as a recruiter in Florida specifically. It
Speaker 1: didn't work out. Mike Norvell goes to Tallahassee. Another big
Speaker 1: ACC hire, somewhat big ACS hire Jeff Hafley to Boston College,
Speaker 1: a school that can succeed has succeeded. What do you
Speaker 1: make of those two hires at two very different places
Speaker 1: in the same conference.
Speaker 3: Norvell, I'm gonna give an extra hot too. I think
Speaker 3: that's a really good hire. I think he's going to
Speaker 3: inherit a roster that's better than what he had at
Speaker 3: Memphis and probably moved pretty quickly to improve them, because
Speaker 3: you know, you look at the rest of the ACC.
Speaker 2: Obviously, Clemson is Clemson.
Speaker 3: Louisville's gotten quite a bit better in Scott Saderfield, but
Speaker 3: there is plenty of room to just beat up on
Speaker 3: everybody else in the ACC. So I think they're going
Speaker 3: to do all right pretty quickly. And I think just
Speaker 3: the attention of detail he tends to pay is very special.
Speaker 3: Teams heavy, the little things tend to matter to him.
Speaker 3: That's very opposite of Willie Taggart's administration. And I was
Speaker 3: completely wrong on the Wily Tigert thing. I thought he'd
Speaker 3: be great there, but it turned out he was not
Speaker 3: quite ready for that big of a job. And I
Speaker 3: know you'll say, oh, well, he was an Oregon right
Speaker 3: before that and he was doing fine.
Speaker 2: Well look at who was.
Speaker 3: At Orgon with him, and look how Orgon's done with
Speaker 3: those people still there. He had a nice safety net
Speaker 3: at organ That safety net wasn't there at Florida State,
Speaker 3: and the result was what you saw. So I think
Speaker 3: with Norvell, he's prepared for this. He's been in a
Speaker 3: situation where he's had to deal with with less talent
Speaker 3: going as pretty good competition, because let's be honest, the
Speaker 3: American West last year isn't that different than what you
Speaker 3: play against in the ACC non Clemson Division. Now, I
Speaker 3: think there's some a SEC teams that are getting better,
Speaker 3: and so I don't think the American and the AEC
Speaker 3: will be that close together going forward. But Norvelle understands
Speaker 3: the competition level he'll deal with right away.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: Maybe not Clemson, but that's a different story. You don't
Speaker 3: have to be Clemson right now. Just get better and
Speaker 3: then in a few years we can talk about that.
Speaker 1: Do you think he's built and has the ability to
Speaker 1: succeed where Willy didn't? And whether that's with administrators, whether
Speaker 1: that's setting expectations, whether that's hiring assistants who are competent
Speaker 1: across the board, whether it's getting a team ready, inspiring
Speaker 1: a team to play sort of sound dis football. Does
Speaker 1: Mike Norvell inspire that in you?
Speaker 2: Yes? I think so.
Speaker 3: When you look at how many assistance he lost at
Speaker 3: Memphis and he managed to replace them and Memphis kept
Speaker 3: getting better, I think that's a really telling thing, because
Speaker 3: you know, at Memphis you just couldn't afford to keep
Speaker 3: those guys, and then he gets to Florida State and
Speaker 3: starts rehiring some of those guys that he'd worked with
Speaker 3: before because it's like, hey, I can afford you now
Speaker 3: come back. And so I think that's a pretty good sign.
Speaker 3: And I also think again the attention to detail. He
Speaker 3: tells a story about when he first got to Memphis
Speaker 3: and he had been looking through their stats and realized
Speaker 3: that they had not returned to kick for a touchdown
Speaker 3: in however many years, and he said in his first
Speaker 3: team meeting, we will.
Speaker 2: Return kicks for touchdowns.
Speaker 3: And sure enough, they were close to the lead in
Speaker 3: the country in that while he was there. So that
Speaker 3: sort of I'm going to identify this thing and then
Speaker 3: we were going to work tirelessly to get better at it.
Speaker 2: That's a good sign.
Speaker 3: And I realized what I've just said is the definition
Speaker 3: of coaching in basic, but it's not.
Speaker 2: That basic.
Speaker 3: You will find guys who are decent big picture guys
Speaker 3: who are not great at drilling down on the small details.
Speaker 3: And at the level where he is now at Florida State,
Speaker 3: you have to be good at the big picture and
Speaker 3: at the small details, because the small details are what
Speaker 3: win you games or lose you games. It's why Willie
Speaker 3: Tiger got fired in year two, not so much that
Speaker 3: he didn't have a good long term vision for the program,
Speaker 3: but that they kept losing the same way over and
Speaker 3: over again. It was clear he was not focusing on
Speaker 3: those minute details because they kept messing them up time
Speaker 3: and time again. So that's the part that I think
Speaker 3: Mike Norvel will will definitely help them with. They got
Speaker 3: to get better on the offensive line. Still, that's not
Speaker 3: an overnight fix, but I do think you will see
Speaker 3: you will see immediate results and feel like, Okay, they're
Speaker 3: in a better place.
Speaker 1: People are very high on Jeff Haffley as a specific coach. Obviously,
Speaker 1: it's different when you have the amount of talent he
Speaker 1: had on the Ohio State defense and he was in
Speaker 1: the NFL a couple of years ago. He is highly
Speaker 1: regarded across the board from the Northeast. How much of
Speaker 1: an uphill climb is there at Boston College, where things
Speaker 1: didn't seem great both in public and private view.
Speaker 3: I feel like they were in sort of the Bopolini
Speaker 3: Nebraska territory, although not quite as successful, but on a
Speaker 3: plateau where they just wanted to feel something and So
Speaker 3: now the issue with that is you might feel something
Speaker 3: awful like when they hired Mike Riley at Nebraska, and
Speaker 3: you don't want that. But I think Hafley was a
Speaker 3: good choice. He was known as a good recruiter in
Speaker 3: the Northeast back when he was a college coach before
Speaker 3: he went into the NFL. That's critically important at Boston
Speaker 3: College because you do need to be able to cultivate
Speaker 3: guys close to home, and that's not the easiest thing
Speaker 3: in the world. But you look at the history of
Speaker 3: Boston College College, they've been able to find people in
Speaker 3: the Northeast. They've also been able to find some under
Speaker 3: the radar guys and really develop them. That's something that
Speaker 3: that Adasio was pretty good at too, but maybe just
Speaker 3: not enough of them. So that's that's Halfley's challenges is
Speaker 3: can you improve upon and look, you don't have to
Speaker 3: win ten games a year at Boston College. That's asking
Speaker 3: an awful lot. They wont eight, they were winning seven.
Speaker 3: They would like eight. That that I think would make
Speaker 3: them happy. I think you can do that, but you've
Speaker 3: just got to You've got to recruit a little bit better.
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe hit the portal for some bounce back guys,
Speaker 3: and that's something again, that's something a.
Speaker 2: Dasio did with, especially at the quarterback position.
Speaker 3: But half Lea's Halfley's got to be able to to
Speaker 3: cultivate players near home because you I'm a firm believer
Speaker 3: that you can't rely on a whole bunch of guys
Speaker 3: from one thousand miles away. That it's hard to make
Speaker 3: that into a team. It's hard to make that group
Speaker 3: care as much as a group that is, you know,
Speaker 3: has a foundation of guys who grew up knowing about
Speaker 3: the school, who care about the school. So I think
Speaker 3: his ability to recruit up there is going to help.
Speaker 3: Now again, Adasio was the same thing. So if we're
Speaker 3: talking about someone who was at a a you know,
Speaker 3: a program recently helmed by urban Meyer who's good at
Speaker 3: recruiting the northeast and good at developing people on the
Speaker 3: line of scrimmage, well that also describes Steve Dazio. So
Speaker 3: you may have hired something fairly similar. But in terms
Speaker 3: of charisma ability to connect with today's player, I think
Speaker 3: Hathley has a little bit of an advantage there. So
Speaker 3: if that's good enough for one more win a season,
Speaker 3: I think that's that's enough right now.
Speaker 1: And to be clear, Boston College has developed some all
Speaker 1: time great maybe on the conference, maybe on the national level.
Speaker 1: Defensive players. Absolutely, don Brown. You know, it's Mark Hurt, Look,
Speaker 1: it's Luke Keegley, it's Harold land Qwanuka. Yes, absolutely so.
Speaker 1: If he can maximize the number of above average or
Speaker 1: very good players, Boston College should be in an okay situation.
Speaker 1: Let's stay in the Northeast because this one's probably one
Speaker 1: of the stranger hires, but to be expected. In Greg
Speaker 1: Ciano at Rutgers, I believe the only new Big Ten
Speaker 1: head coach hired this cycle. Is there a reason to
Speaker 1: believe I know a lot of people like his assistant hires.
Speaker 1: Is there reason to believe Rutgers, now in a different conference,
Speaker 1: will at least be a bowl team more often than not.
Speaker 2: I think this was the best hire Rutgers could make.
Speaker 3: And I know people will say, well, wait, you didn't
Speaker 3: think Tennessee should hire him, And no, I didn't. I
Speaker 3: thought he would fail spectacular at Tennessee. I don't think
Speaker 3: he'll fail at Rutgers one because I've seen him succeed
Speaker 3: at Rutgers already. But two, I just think he understands
Speaker 3: what he's dealing with there. You know, at Tennessee, certain
Speaker 3: aspects of his personality would not have matched very well
Speaker 3: with the environment there because he's a very controlling guy.
Speaker 3: He likes to be in charge of everything. He likes
Speaker 3: to be able to control the message, all that stuff. Well,
Speaker 3: you can't do that at a place like Tennessee.
Speaker 2: But you can.
Speaker 3: Absolutely do that at Rutgers because people don't care that
Speaker 3: much and so you're going to be able to run
Speaker 3: it the way you want to run it.
Speaker 2: And the fact that.
Speaker 3: He has the respect of all the high school coaches
Speaker 3: in the state, you know, there's a chance they get
Speaker 3: more of the players in the state.
Speaker 2: Now, they're not going to get a.
Speaker 1: Really good state for talent right State Jersey.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing, Dan, If Rutgers could get all the
Speaker 3: best players in New Jersey, Rutgers would be a big
Speaker 3: ten title contender. That's not going to happen. Historically they
Speaker 3: haven't been able to. There's a reason for that. You know,
Speaker 3: Notre Dame's going to go in and invade the Catholic schools.
Speaker 3: Michigan and Ohio State are always going to come take
Speaker 3: their share. Penn State's going to come up and take
Speaker 3: its share. You're asking too much. If you're asking the
Speaker 3: Rutgers coach to lock down the state.
Speaker 2: He's not going to do that.
Speaker 3: But Schiano is going to get enough good players to
Speaker 3: make them better. And what I think what you said,
Speaker 3: where they go to a bowl game every once in
Speaker 3: a while, that's about all you want to ask for there.
Speaker 3: They are in such a harder situation in the Big
Speaker 3: Ten than they were in the Big East. To remember,
Speaker 3: he never won the Big Easter Ruggers, So right, you
Speaker 3: you're asking too much if you're thinking, oh, he should
Speaker 3: be competing with the likes of Ohio State and Penn
Speaker 3: State and Michigan. No, that's not it. Every once in
Speaker 3: a while you might beat one of those teams. Ball
Speaker 3: eligibility is your baseline. Six wins your goal every season.
Speaker 3: If you have a seven eight win season, fantastic, that's great,
Speaker 3: be happy about that. But he can get you to
Speaker 3: that more modest goal, and I think that's all you
Speaker 3: need to ask.
Speaker 1: Also, it's a great time to have ball aspirations in
Speaker 1: the Big Ten with the bottom of that conference. We
Speaker 1: just saw Illinois in a bowl comfortably in a bowl game.
Speaker 2: We saw Indiana almost winning one. Good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to get back to the SEC in
Speaker 1: a moment. But I guess let's transition with an SEC
Speaker 1: assistant who just became a head coach. That'd be Dave
Speaker 1: Randa moving on from national champion LSU to Baylor. Nothing
Speaker 1: to do with the higher But I had never heard
Speaker 1: him speak. I just sometimes you just don't hear a
Speaker 1: coordinator speak. I don't live anywhere near Baton Rouge. I
Speaker 1: don't really watch media days, and I didn't know he
Speaker 1: sounds like Batman, like the Christian Bale Batman. He's got
Speaker 1: like a gravel, like a confident gravel to him. He
Speaker 1: does suddenly I really like a lot more.
Speaker 3: Very cerebral Christian Bale Batman. So yes, we'll probably a
Speaker 3: little more Christian Bail Bruce Wayne in there.
Speaker 2: But he is.
Speaker 3: He's a very interesting guy, and it's one of those
Speaker 3: things you write where you didn't. He didn't let much
Speaker 3: of his personality show, but you can tell that that
Speaker 3: he is.
Speaker 2: He's a thinker.
Speaker 3: He's very much a how do I fit this puzzle together?
Speaker 3: And I think that will go over well with a
Speaker 3: bunch of plays who were just with Matt Rule. Now
Speaker 3: Matt Rule is a little bit different where he's that dude.
Speaker 3: You don't meet many college football major college head coaches
Speaker 3: who act like normal human beings, and Matt Rule was
Speaker 3: the most normal of normal human beings. Like, you want
Speaker 3: Matt Rule to be your neighbor. Essentially, you want to
Speaker 3: him hang in the beer over the side of the fence.
Speaker 3: That's who Matt Rule is. But Matt Rule is also
Speaker 3: a very thoughtful guy, has a lot of very bright
Speaker 3: ideas about how football should be played and about how
Speaker 3: culture should be built. I think Dave Randa will fit
Speaker 3: in very well in that environment, and the players will
Speaker 3: will appreciate that they got somebody who maybe isn't exactly
Speaker 3: like the guy they just lost, but is close enough
Speaker 3: that they're going to feel like they're in a similar program.
Speaker 3: And you know, Miranda, it's one of those things that
Speaker 3: he didn't talk very much. I remember thinking as I
Speaker 3: was watching him at media day before the National title
Speaker 3: game this year, he's he was talking about some of
Speaker 3: the ways that that offenses have attacked the defense and
Speaker 3: also some of the some of the limitations they had
Speaker 3: when they had some injuries in the middle of the year.
Speaker 3: For LSU and he's kind of referring specifically to the
Speaker 3: Old Miss game in the Alabama game, and you could
Speaker 3: tell he wanted to say more and and his brain
Speaker 3: is catching him, like, wait, I am saying too much. Schematically,
Speaker 3: I'm not supposed to give this much away. I am
Speaker 3: supposed to speak in cliches, but I would like to
Speaker 3: answer this question.
Speaker 2: So, uh, I thought that was interesting, So it will be.
Speaker 3: I'm curious going forward when he's in a situation where
Speaker 3: he has to talk all the time, will he will
Speaker 3: he kind of figure out where that balance is because
Speaker 3: you do want to give decent answers, but you do
Speaker 3: not want to give away the stores schematically.
Speaker 1: So I'm hearing maybe mild with spicy honey, Maybe medium
Speaker 1: because of the inexperience, because going into a situation where
Speaker 1: it's difficult but there has been recent success, so I
Speaker 1: feel like it's it's a little bit tricky.
Speaker 3: I'm a medium medium here because it's okay, it's a
Speaker 3: difficult situation.
Speaker 2: One.
Speaker 3: Matt Rule is an excellent head coach and did something
Speaker 3: that I don't know that many coaches could have pulled off,
Speaker 3: going from one and eleven to eleven and two or
Speaker 3: eleven and three at Baylor, So he's he's stepping into
Speaker 3: some very large shoes and we've never seen him as
Speaker 3: a head coach before.
Speaker 2: Now, if you read.
Speaker 3: What I write, you know I'm not a must be
Speaker 3: a head coach beforehand kind of person.
Speaker 2: I've looked at.
Speaker 3: I look at what the best teams are, and a
Speaker 3: lot of them are led by guys who weren't head
Speaker 3: coaches before they became head coaches. So you don't have
Speaker 3: to be. The question is do you have that in you?
Speaker 3: And we just don't know that yet with Dave Randa.
Speaker 3: But I do think mac Rhodes is a very good ad.
Speaker 3: Something Dave dr Anna must have said impressed mac Rhodes
Speaker 3: and made him believe that this is the guy who
Speaker 3: can fill Matt rules shoes.
Speaker 2: So I think that is a pretty good endorsement.
Speaker 1: All Right, We'll keep going less before going back to
Speaker 1: the because we still have Missoo Arkansas to hit. The
Speaker 1: state of Washington has new head coaches, although somewhat familiar
Speaker 1: with Nick Rolovich coaching in the Mountain West and Jimmy
Speaker 1: Lake simply being promoted with Chris Peterson's retirement. I think
Speaker 1: Nick Rolovich has resonated with people because he's been in
Speaker 1: the spotlight a little bit more as a head coach,
Speaker 1: whereas Jimmy Lake seems like, well, first of all, just
Speaker 1: his quotes are already spicy. I don't know to what
Speaker 1: level there.
Speaker 3: Is pretty much spicier than everything he says after every
Speaker 3: Apple Cup?
Speaker 1: Correct, How do you feel about both of these hires?
Speaker 1: Was Washington in need of going in a brand new
Speaker 1: direction after stagnating in the latter part of the Chris
Speaker 1: Peterson era And is Nick Rolovich too similar to Mike
Speaker 1: Leach or does that even matter?
Speaker 3: No, I'm perfectly fine with both these hires. I really like,
Speaker 3: okay both. I thought Rollovich was an inspired hire by
Speaker 3: Pat sewn at Washington State because you went from a
Speaker 3: guy who was want to get you attention and have
Speaker 3: you playing better than you probably should, to a guy
Speaker 3: who was going to get you attention and, at least
Speaker 3: in the place he was just at, have them playing
Speaker 3: better than they probably should. So you go from the
Speaker 3: air raid to the run and shoot, that's all good.
Speaker 3: I think that's that's really cool. I don't know if
Speaker 3: that wins you an Apple Cup, because Jimmy Lake seems
Speaker 3: to have some definitive ideas about how to stop offenses
Speaker 3: like that, and it seems to be pretty good at it.
Speaker 3: But and the Jimmy Lake thing, I thought when when
Speaker 3: I saw Peterson step down and that they had immediately
Speaker 3: promoted Jimmy Lake, I thought, they get it. They understand
Speaker 3: they have a good culture. Don't mess with that, don't
Speaker 3: mess with the infrastructure. Keep all that in place, and
Speaker 3: you get a little new life, new ideas at the top.
Speaker 3: But you got a good thing going, you know, you
Speaker 3: said stagnating. I think they had one bad year. I
Speaker 3: really I don't think the year before was that bad.
Speaker 3: I think they had this year was below their standards.
Speaker 3: But I think they are absolutely from a culture standpoint
Speaker 3: and recruiting standpoint and evaluation standpoint, they're good enough to
Speaker 3: be contenders in the PAC twelve North every single year.
Speaker 3: And by promoting Lake, you just keep all that rolling.
Speaker 3: You don't have to go find a bunch of other stuff.
Speaker 3: And you may find a situation like you did at
Speaker 3: Ohio State, where look, nobody in their right mind would
Speaker 3: have told you that urban Meyer is going to leave
Speaker 3: and the guy who you hired from within to replace
Speaker 3: him is going to make them better.
Speaker 2: But that's exactly what happened. You know, it's not a
Speaker 2: knock on Urban Meyer.
Speaker 3: That's just you know, it was a perfect storm of
Speaker 3: Meyer had recruited some really good players. They brought in
Speaker 3: a little bit different attitude that meshed really well with
Speaker 3: the chemistry of this team. And look they lose nothing.
Speaker 3: You know, they keep right on rolling. I think Washington
Speaker 3: can do the same thing with Jimmy Lake. You had
Speaker 3: a great culture. If you can get away with not
Speaker 3: changing it, I think that's the most important thing because
Speaker 3: it like with Ohio State, my thing's always been keeping
Speaker 3: Mickey Muradi as the strength coach was the most important
Speaker 3: thing they did. You couldn't have done that if you
Speaker 3: didn't hire from within. They did it, and look how
Speaker 3: smooth it was. I think we'll look back a year
Speaker 3: from now with Washington and say, look how smooth that was.
Speaker 1: I think you're right in that there's a reason why,
Speaker 1: maybe outside obviously outside of Nick Saban, but you look
Speaker 1: at the most successful coaches right now, and a lot
Speaker 1: of them are promoted from within because day one they
Speaker 1: can go in and say here's what I liked, here's
Speaker 1: what needs tweaking, here's what we need more of. Here's
Speaker 1: what we're completely throwing out. When you look at in
Speaker 1: the same conference Mario Christabaal, you look at obviously Dabble
Speaker 1: at Clemson, Lincoln Riley at Oklahoma.
Speaker 3: At Oorgeron because while he was atron, but the most
Speaker 3: some of the more important things that at Orzeron did.
Speaker 3: We're not changing the things at LSU that were working,
Speaker 3: you know, hmm. There was a great infrastruct in place
Speaker 3: at LSU with Tommy moffittt the strength coach, Jack Marucci
Speaker 3: the trainer. They didn't need to change anything there, and
Speaker 3: if they'd gone outside to hire a coach, all of
Speaker 3: that probably would have changed. And the fact that Ogron
Speaker 3: was able to keep that in place, I think is
Speaker 3: why they got things turned around so quickly. And so yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's if you have the right people to
Speaker 3: do it now. If you have issues in other parts
Speaker 3: of your program, like Stanford right now is running into
Speaker 3: some of those ancillary issues where they've got, you know,
Speaker 3: gotten rid of the strength coach and trainers different and
Speaker 3: I think that maybe some of the reason why things
Speaker 3: are going on there, then maybe you have a different situation.
Speaker 3: But if you have a situation where your infrastructure is
Speaker 3: really good. You really trust those people. It's almost more
Speaker 3: important to make sure they stay than to hire some
Speaker 3: genius from outside.
Speaker 1: So take note, Jimmy Lake, bring back cookies, because I
Speaker 1: think that's what helped us, right, didn't that orders run
Speaker 1: bring that was.
Speaker 2: You, that was usc that was well.
Speaker 1: We did that at sc Y.
Speaker 2: And they didn't give them the job.
Speaker 1: They didn't give them the job. Does this So here's
Speaker 1: here's my homer laced, my Homer colored question. Though, with
Speaker 1: both Rolovich and in Washington State has I think they
Speaker 1: won four out of five against Oregon before this season,
Speaker 1: and Washington, you know, gets over a couple on Oregon
Speaker 1: before losing a couple in a row. Do either of
Speaker 1: these hires bring them closer to a situation in Eugene
Speaker 1: that looks like they're pulling away from the conference in
Speaker 1: terms of both infrastructure wins and recruiting.
Speaker 2: I think Jimmy Lake getting promoted at Washington makes.
Speaker 3: It harder for Oregon to pull away. Okay, that's that's
Speaker 3: the one where I think he can. He can probably
Speaker 3: try to keep pace with them better than anybody else.
Speaker 3: But I still think Oregon is has put some distance
Speaker 3: between itself and the rest of the north, and it's
Speaker 3: possible that they can increase that distance as long as
Speaker 3: USC keeps messing around, because the second USC has a
Speaker 3: different vibe in place and can recruit the way USC.
Speaker 2: Is supposed to recruit. Suddenly, Orgon's roster.
Speaker 3: Is not going to be as good as it is now.
Speaker 3: So that's the part that Oregon just has to be
Speaker 3: aware of. But right now, while they can kind of
Speaker 3: go into southern California how their pick, they can create
Speaker 3: some distance.
Speaker 1: I like the waiting for goodot element of like someday
Speaker 1: USC is gonna be good again, and we keep waiting.
Speaker 1: So I'm sensing a good amount of spice with the
Speaker 1: Rollo itch in Lake.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 3: Not quite as spicy as the state of Mississippi, but
Speaker 3: the state of Washington.
Speaker 2: It's spiced with a little rain on it because it's Washington.
Speaker 1: Let's go before we go back to the SEC. I
Speaker 1: keep teasing that because so many big G five jobs
Speaker 1: seem to be on the western half of America. We
Speaker 1: have San Diego State, Fresno State, Hawaii, all teams who
Speaker 1: have won a lot of games past ten fifteen years.
Speaker 1: UNLV not a power. I'll hire new coaches and then
Speaker 1: east of the Mississippi. My geographies right, Ryan Silverfield takes
Speaker 1: over at Memphis. Who's been terrific.
Speaker 2: I mean right on the Mississippi, right.
Speaker 1: On the Mississippi. Colorado State has won games. They hire
Speaker 1: Steve Dazio. What g five hire or hires jump out
Speaker 1: to you as having a good amount of cayenne pepper.
Speaker 3: I think Jeff Scott at South Florida is a really
Speaker 3: good one. He's one that kind of went the Dabo route.
Speaker 3: He was the receivers coach, he was the recruiting coordinator
Speaker 3: at Clemson. He served in a lot of the same
Speaker 3: roles and was very important in helping them build the
Speaker 3: organization that they have, so he understood exactly what he
Speaker 3: needed to bring down to Tampa. He's also been recruiting
Speaker 3: Florida forever. Basically he was born recruiting Florida. He tells
Speaker 3: a story about his dad dragging him to one of
Speaker 3: Dion Sanders high school basketball games when his dad was
Speaker 3: working at Florida State.
Speaker 2: And his dad, by the way, is kind of his
Speaker 2: chief of staff.
Speaker 3: Brad Scott former Florida State offensive coordinator Florida South, former
Speaker 3: South Carolina head coach, so he's the chief of staff there.
Speaker 3: And you know, Jeff Scott understands the recruiting landscape in Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville,
Speaker 3: in Fort Myers, places that he's recruited for a long time,
Speaker 3: places that he has to recruit heavily as USF's head coach.
Speaker 3: So he's got the trust of those high school coaches.
Speaker 3: They're not going to lead him astray where you go.
Speaker 3: This is something coaches need to worry about when they're
Speaker 3: new and they don't know anything, because they'll go into
Speaker 3: a high school and the high school coach will say, well,
Speaker 3: this kid's great, and not mentioned that the kid has
Speaker 3: all kinds of problems and could be a terrible influence
Speaker 3: on the locker room. No coach is going to be
Speaker 3: s Jeff Scott because he knows them well enough already
Speaker 3: and they're not going to want to burn that bridge.
Speaker 2: And so I think it's going to help their recruiting now.
Speaker 3: They need it, because if you're at USF, the school
Speaker 3: you have to recruit against the most is going to
Speaker 3: be UCF. UCF has better everything than USF, better stadium,
Speaker 3: better facilities, better everything, and so Jeff Scott's gonna have
Speaker 3: to overcome that with with sheer force of personality, and
Speaker 3: he may be able to do it.
Speaker 1: And was he made promises when he was hired about
Speaker 1: their movements.
Speaker 2: There were no promises.
Speaker 3: They're working on raising money to build a football building
Speaker 3: and that was underway already, so they're they're working on it.
Speaker 3: They're trying, and he's going to actually play a big
Speaker 3: role in that. You know, he has said, I will
Speaker 3: go raise money for you. I will be a fundraiser.
Speaker 3: Whatever you asked me to do, talk to donors, take
Speaker 3: him out, you know, play golf, what do you want
Speaker 3: me to do, I'll do it. So I think he
Speaker 3: understands that too. But in the intervening time, before they
Speaker 3: can raise that money, he's just got to out recruit UCF.
Speaker 3: But he also has to get those players in Florida
Speaker 3: who are considering maybe UCF and USF to not go
Speaker 3: to Minnesota, to not go to Wisconsin. That's that's the
Speaker 3: hard part too, because those big ten schools, the ACC
Speaker 3: schools that'll come down and recruit them, they got really
Speaker 3: nice stuff, and so you've got to say, listen, being
Speaker 3: closer to home is better than having that nice stuff
Speaker 3: that you would have and freezing. So it's it's a
Speaker 3: challenging job, but I think they picked the right guy
Speaker 3: for it. The other guy I was gonna say that
Speaker 3: I thought was interesting as Kaitlin Boor at Fresno State. Yeah,
Speaker 3: did a really good job with them before, was amazing
Speaker 3: at Indiana as the offensive coordinator.
Speaker 2: I'm excited to see what he does there.
Speaker 1: Fair Enough, let's go back to the SEC because you
Speaker 1: mentioned Sam Pittman at the top, who it seems like
Speaker 1: if the culture looks like what it can under Sam Pittman,
Speaker 1: who gets his first big job opportunity here in Fayetteville
Speaker 1: with his hires with Barry Otam and Kendall Briles, with
Speaker 1: his you know, knowledge of the area and that program,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's either going to go really well
Speaker 1: or it's just going to be a disaster, which is
Speaker 1: sort of what happens at Arkansas.
Speaker 2: I guess that is what happens at Arkansas.
Speaker 3: And you're right, I don't think there's a middle ground there.
Speaker 3: I do like the way he's hired. I talked to
Speaker 3: him on my podcast right after he got hired, and
Speaker 3: this is before he had hired Kendall Briles. I'm assuming
Speaker 3: he was decently down the road with him and knew
Speaker 3: what he was about to do from a coordinator standpoint.
Speaker 2: But you know, I.
Speaker 3: Asked him a lot of offensive scheme questions. And it's
Speaker 3: interesting because the assumption is, Oh, he's an offensive line coach,
Speaker 3: he's going to want to play that bullyball that Brett
Speaker 3: beielam have played back when he was at Arkansas and
Speaker 3: Pittman was the offensive line coach, because isn't that what
Speaker 3: all offensive line coaches want to do?
Speaker 2: Well, No, not really.
Speaker 3: Mario Christoball is an offensive line coach and they don't
Speaker 3: run that offense. Matt Campbell's an offensive line coach, they
Speaker 3: don't run that offense. So I think it was but
Speaker 3: I do think the offensive line coach thing, the stereo
Speaker 3: type of it, kept him from ever being mentioned for
Speaker 3: Do you remember Sam Pittman ever being mentioned for a
Speaker 3: head coaching job before he got the Arkansas job.
Speaker 1: No, it sort of seemed out of nowhere. He was
Speaker 1: in a good place. He was hired away to Georgia,
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe he'd be considered for a G
Speaker 1: five type job after putting in all that time, well talking.
Speaker 3: To him about what he wanted to do, offensively. You
Speaker 3: could tell how much thought he'd put into this, how
Speaker 3: much thought he'd put into if I ever run a program,
Speaker 3: This is how I wanted to be. He said, got
Speaker 3: to do more rpo stuff, work with tempo, do all
Speaker 3: the things that take advantage of all the rules.
Speaker 2: And that's the right answer.
Speaker 3: You know, it's not, Hey, We're going to ram it
Speaker 3: down your throat because at Arkansas you're probably not going
Speaker 3: to be able to recruit good enough players to do
Speaker 3: that to Alabama, or to do that to Auburn, or
Speaker 3: do that to LSU. You've got to find a way
Speaker 3: to outscheme them at times. You've got to find a
Speaker 3: way to develop guys, to find under the radar guys.
Speaker 2: And I think, you look at what he's done.
Speaker 3: The Bury Otem thing is great because you've never been
Speaker 3: head coach before. So you hire a guy who I
Speaker 3: realized Barry odom just got fired. I'm not sure he
Speaker 3: should have been fired at Missouri. I thought Barry Odin
Speaker 3: was a very good leader at Missouri. You look at
Speaker 3: the situation he had where the NCAA sanctions come down.
Speaker 3: Basically every senior on that team could have left and
Speaker 3: transferred and played without penalty. He didn't lose a single player.
Speaker 3: That tells you that he had built something there where
Speaker 3: the players trusted him, where they liked him, they liked
Speaker 3: the staff.
Speaker 2: To have that guy there as a sounding board for
Speaker 2: Sam Pittman is critical.
Speaker 3: I think it's hugely one of the things when I
Speaker 3: look back on when Dabo got the job at Clemson,
Speaker 3: not the interim job, but when they gave him the
Speaker 3: full time job.
Speaker 2: Two of his first hires were Woody McCorvey, who.
Speaker 3: Was his position coach at Alabama, had been a position
Speaker 3: coach at like half the schools in the SEC at
Speaker 3: that point, just one of those guys who had been
Speaker 3: there and seen everything, and so he was the chief
Speaker 3: of staff. And then he hired Dan Brooks as the
Speaker 3: defensive line coach, and Brooks had been at Tennessee as
Speaker 3: the d line coach under Fohmer. He had been at
Speaker 3: Florida where he under Galen Hall he recruited Emmitt Smith,
Speaker 3: So I think or maybe he was there of Charlie Pell,
Speaker 3: but he was one of those another been there, seeing everything,
Speaker 3: done everything.
Speaker 2: I think that helps.
Speaker 3: That matters that you have that kind of wisdom and
Speaker 3: experience on a staff. When you've not done it before. Now,
Speaker 3: Pittman's not a super young guy, but he's never been
Speaker 3: in that chair. He's never had to make those decisions.
Speaker 3: Having owed him there gives him that sounding board. Briles,
Speaker 3: you know, offensively, not really sure which one's his because
Speaker 3: at Florida State, is it was it his or Willies?
Speaker 3: We know it was Arts when he was the offensive
Speaker 3: coordinator at Baylor. I think the probably the closest distillation
Speaker 3: to which one's his is the twenty eighteen Houston offense,
Speaker 3: which is far and good.
Speaker 2: So I like that.
Speaker 3: I think, you know, you've got a guy who's experienced
Speaker 3: recruiting Texas, who's experienced recruiting quarter Texas, and let's be honest,
Speaker 3: Arkansas should have quarterbacks from Texas. That's that's the most
Speaker 3: logical place for them to go look for quarterbacks.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take that as mild, maybe with some spicy honey,
Speaker 1: just because you kind of know what you're getting into. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you don't know what it's going to be super
Speaker 1: hot or not.
Speaker 3: It's still it's a first time head coach who, yeah,
Speaker 3: to that point, had not really he while he'd been
Speaker 3: interested in being a head coach, I don't know that
Speaker 3: he exhibited the trailer have been allowed to exhibit the
Speaker 3: traits of a head great, right, So.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you didn't hear about like he's a finalist with
Speaker 1: this guy for this interesting job that was the name
Speaker 1: never came up like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Now I think that I think that's more of
Speaker 3: stereotyping offensive line coaches than anything else, and I'm glad
Speaker 3: to see it. As you know, the the online coaches
Speaker 3: are very thoughtful people. They're very smart. They look at
Speaker 3: the game in a different way and you look at
Speaker 3: look at the guys now christ of All, Matt Campbell,
Speaker 3: Kirk Farence, there's some really good head coaches who were
Speaker 3: all line coaches.
Speaker 1: Fair. I don't know what to think about Eli Drinkwitz.
Speaker 1: I know he comes in with people thinking he's smart.
Speaker 1: The NC State offense was pretty good under him. He
Speaker 1: was at Boise's at Arkansas State from the gust Tree.
Speaker 1: I think he was at Springdale with Gus as well,
Speaker 1: but he just sort of kept everything going after Scott
Speaker 1: Saderfield leaves app State and he's gone after a year,
Speaker 1: and so I don't know how it can be viewed
Speaker 1: as anything other than incomplete.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm with you. So two things in the state
Speaker 3: of North Carolina. Yeah, he's the head coach at Apleachian
Speaker 3: State for a year. They're really good, but they were
Speaker 3: really good under under Scott Saderfield and Jerry Moore, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, they've always been really good at Appalachian State.
Speaker 3: How much of that is what was already in place,
Speaker 3: the players that were already recruited. So there's that you
Speaker 3: don't know, and we won't know the answer to that
Speaker 3: really probably until we've seen him coach at Missouri.
Speaker 2: What we do know, though, is it NC State fell
Speaker 2: apart when he left.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3: So I do think that is a sort of a
Speaker 3: notch in his favor, unfortunately for Ency State that when
Speaker 3: he took off, NC State suddenly became a very bad football.
Speaker 1: Team, especially on offense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you could say he was the straw that
Speaker 2: stirred the drink quits.
Speaker 1: Oh, you've been sitting on that. I like it, though,
Speaker 1: I was sitting on my hiring firing perspiring thing. There's
Speaker 1: no reason you can't.
Speaker 3: Well listen, A long list of Jaron's is probably way
Speaker 3: better than one bad pun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll take it, So I take it as mild
Speaker 1: just because you don't know exactly like the hires have been. Okay,
Speaker 1: it seems it just it's hard to look at him
Speaker 1: and say, all right, I know exactly what Miszoo is
Speaker 1: going to look like moving forward. Because when they were successful,
Speaker 1: it was a long time experienced head coach who slowly
Speaker 1: built the program into what they were, which was an
Speaker 1: SEC East champion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'll say this again. I say this every
Speaker 3: time his name comes up.
Speaker 2: But we do not give.
Speaker 3: Gary Pinkell enough credit. No, Gary Pinkell was a miracle worker.
Speaker 3: And that twenty thirteen Missouri team, had there been a playoff,
Speaker 3: might have made it and might have might have done
Speaker 3: something real special. That That team was awesome. That's the
Speaker 3: one that lost to Auburn and maybe the most one
Speaker 3: of the most fun SEC Championship games ever played. That
Speaker 3: team was loaded, and we just we do not give
Speaker 3: Gary Pinkle. This is the same thing I was saying
Speaker 3: about Mississippi State with Dan Mullen, where they won so
Speaker 3: many games under him that they started to think it
Speaker 3: was easy to win there.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: I think Missouri was the same thing. Gary Pinkell was
Speaker 3: so good for so long that they thought, hey, this
Speaker 3: is just normal. Well, it's never been normal for Missouri.
Speaker 1: No, they were really good in the Big twelve, really
Speaker 1: good in the SEC East under him. And by the way,
Speaker 1: to bring it back to Barry otom that I think
Speaker 1: was twenty fifteen defense that he coordinated for Miszoo was
Speaker 1: like a top five national defense with a bottom five
Speaker 1: national offense, which seems like do well.
Speaker 3: No. Remember, the ultimate of that is that you're at
Speaker 3: Boston College when Don Brown was the DC, where they
Speaker 3: were the number one defense and the dead last offense.
Speaker 1: It's unbold. I can't imagine how taxing and frustrating that
Speaker 1: has to be. So I guess good for that a
Speaker 1: coordinator who's able to keep a team focused like that.
Speaker 1: And there's a reason Don Brown has succeeded before Ohio
Speaker 1: State games, and there's a reason I think Barry Odom
Speaker 1: will keep succeeding.
Speaker 2: I am with you there. Now.
Speaker 3: The question is can Arkansas bring in enough talent with
Speaker 3: Barry Otam there to and in Sam Pittman there to
Speaker 3: beat the teams that are in their division. Because you
Speaker 3: know that's the part when we talk about these SECU
Speaker 3: West jobs with Leech, with Kiffen, with Pittman, these are
Speaker 3: all the bottom of the SEC West jobs. You know,
Speaker 3: you've got the defending national champs. You've got the program
Speaker 3: that's been the best program in college football for the
Speaker 3: last ten years, Alabama. You've got Auburn, which is every
Speaker 3: other year really really good. You've got Texas A and M,
Speaker 3: which is paying a guy seven point five million dollars
Speaker 3: a year and he'd better win soon. And oh, by
Speaker 3: the way, he does have a pretty good roster right now.
Speaker 3: So that's the issue with all those SEC West hires,
Speaker 3: because you know, I think Arkansas fans are happy now
Speaker 3: that they've gotten here, Pipman. I think they weren't quite
Speaker 3: as jazz at first. But like Ole miss fans are
Speaker 3: over the moon. Mississippi State fans are over the moon.
Speaker 3: They I hope they don't think this means they're going
Speaker 3: to win SEC championships.
Speaker 1: I believe that they don't. Let's go quickly to coordinators
Speaker 1: entering into situations where a head coach already exists. There's
Speaker 1: a lot with the last name M. So I guess
Speaker 1: which of these names won or meant multiple get as
Speaker 1: close to frozen TP status to you. We've got morehead Morris, Musgrave,
Speaker 1: Monkin and Meacham are your big ms. So it's a
Speaker 1: really nice year for m offensive coordinators. And then some
Speaker 1: other notables Tom or Tommy Reese, depending on who you
Speaker 1: are at Notre Dame to go Tommy Miami. Let's stick Tommy,
Speaker 1: Mike Bobo at South Carolina, Kirk Sharraka if I'm pronouncing
Speaker 1: that correctly at Penn State, yep, Mike, you're sick of
Speaker 1: Texas and John Donovan at Washington. So where is the
Speaker 1: highest potential for extreme pain in the best possible way.
Speaker 2: That's Monk and at Georgia. Now, okay, there's also potential
Speaker 2: for it.
Speaker 3: Not going so well, but that's the one where if
Speaker 3: it works, they take.
Speaker 2: The next step. Because this looks.
Speaker 3: Like Kirby Smart saying we need to have a different
Speaker 3: DNA on offense. We need to have a different offensive philosophy.
Speaker 3: I'm going to bring in a guy who's run the
Speaker 3: air raid, who's been in the NFL, who understands all
Speaker 3: the different ways you can move the football down the field,
Speaker 3: and I'm gonna put him with Jamie Newman, who they
Speaker 3: got from Wake Forrest as a grad transfer, and we
Speaker 3: are going to be a different offense because George is
Speaker 3: gonna be great on defense next year not good, not
Speaker 3: pretty good. They're gonna be great on defense if their
Speaker 3: offense is adequate gets you the SEC's title. Pretty good
Speaker 3: probably wins you the SEC, and then really good wins
Speaker 3: you a national title in that situation. So that's that's
Speaker 3: the part that where it could really go well. It
Speaker 3: has a very high upside. Now I don't know that
Speaker 3: it will go that well as he comes in with
Speaker 3: a not really bringing his own staff. You know, Matt
Speaker 3: Luke's running the offensive line. He's a former head coach.
Speaker 3: You've got guys who've been with Kirby since he got there. Now,
Speaker 3: the Matt Luke thing, I think is interesting too because
Speaker 3: of all the people you could have as a position
Speaker 3: coach who's a former head coach. Because a lot of
Speaker 3: times when you have a former head coach as a
Speaker 3: position coach, that OC is gonna get a little bit
Speaker 3: intimidated or there's gonna be some friction there. You don't
Speaker 3: have to worry about that with Matt Luke. Matt Luke
Speaker 3: is not that guy. His ego is not big.
Speaker 2: He's not gonna sit there and go, well, this is
Speaker 2: how we did it at Old Miss Right.
Speaker 3: That's a situation where you'll have a guy one who's
Speaker 3: been through it all and is willing to help you.
Speaker 3: And I think that that's a big thing. I was
Speaker 3: worried when they lost Sam Pittman, just because what's gonna
Speaker 3: happen with their offensive line? But they got Luke, who
Speaker 3: is a good offensive line coach. And I think the
Speaker 3: fact that he's been a head coach in the SEC,
Speaker 3: and that he's very well versed in a bunch of
Speaker 3: different kinds of offenses because remember he worked for David Cutcliffe,
Speaker 3: he worked with Hugh Freeze, Phil Longo was his oc
Speaker 3: when he was at Ole Miss, So he's seen a
Speaker 3: lot of different variations come through.
Speaker 2: I think that's very helpful.
Speaker 1: And and he's already coached these players because he only
Speaker 1: took a month off. It's already coached charge of players exactly.
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
Speaker 3: So you know, I also think I also think Kirby
Speaker 3: Smart's willingness to make this change, yeah, is an important thing.
Speaker 3: I think that we can't just gloss over that because
Speaker 3: the concern with Kirby was that he was going to
Speaker 3: be too stubborn, that he was going to be like
Speaker 3: Jimbo Fisher at the end of his Florida State tenure
Speaker 3: where he could have done some more things, but he
Speaker 3: just refused to change. And it's like Kirby I think, realized, Hey,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. Nick Saban's so good. He's
Speaker 3: willing to change, He's willing to adapt and sometimes before
Speaker 3: everyone else is. So I think his willingness to adapt
Speaker 3: shows that Kirby smart is deadly serious about this and
Speaker 3: is not going to sit there and say, well, I'm
Speaker 3: I'm the genius, that we're going to do it the
Speaker 3: way I want to and that's the only way we
Speaker 3: can do it. That is a big deal given the
Speaker 3: amount of talent they have.
Speaker 1: When you look at the defensive coordinator hires going into
Speaker 1: situations where the head coach is already in place, it
Speaker 1: seems like a who's who of like twenty fourteen hot names.
Speaker 1: It's Paul Rhodes, Tony Gibson, Bob Diaco, Chris ash Todd
Speaker 1: Orlando and obviously Justin Hamilton steps in for Bud Foster
Speaker 1: Virginia Tech and Kerry Coombs in for Jeff Halfley at
Speaker 1: Ohio State. Is there a clear resurrection candidate to perhaps
Speaker 1: go from mild to medium where their name stands now.
Speaker 3: Well, I want to see some staff meetings with Jeff
Speaker 3: Brahm and Bob Diacos as the season goes on. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm pretty excited about that because, for those who don't know,
Speaker 3: Jeff Brom's pretty pretty spicy guy himself, and Bob Diaco
Speaker 3: is a little out there sometimes.
Speaker 2: So that could be come October if they have a.
Speaker 3: Weird game where they give up more points than Jeff
Speaker 3: Brom would prefer, that's gonna be a very interesting situation.
Speaker 3: One you didn't have on your list that I think
Speaker 3: is is an interesting one. Zach Barnett at Mississippi State.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, coming from San Diego State. Now, I remember
Speaker 3: he Arnette initially took the Syracuse job and then went,
Speaker 3: you know, changed his mind, decided to go to Matt Lubick. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 3: And so now he is he is in Starkville running
Speaker 3: in the three three five where, you know, in the
Speaker 3: state of Mississippi's where the three three five was invented, Starkville, Misissippi.
Speaker 2: Joly done.
Speaker 3: So I like that that they were, you know, with
Speaker 3: the defense at San Diego State. It's sort of hard
Speaker 3: to tell because Rocky Long obviously had such a big
Speaker 3: hand in it. But I thought Danny Gonzalez when he left,
Speaker 3: did a really good job at Arizona State. He's now
Speaker 3: the head coach at New Mexico. So if Arnett can
Speaker 3: can do what Danna Gonzales did, where he brings what
Speaker 3: Rocky Long had taught and can travel with it, I
Speaker 3: think that could be good because I kept I said before,
Speaker 3: Leech has never had this kind of talent. Honest, Remember
Speaker 3: at Mississippi State, you're gonna have talent, but the bulk
Speaker 3: of the really elite.
Speaker 2: Talent at a place like that is gonna be on
Speaker 2: your defense.
Speaker 3: So you need a really good defensive coordinator, really good
Speaker 3: defensive scheme to make that work. The three three five,
Speaker 3: I mean, I realized you get a little sentimental about
Speaker 3: it because it is Misssippi State. But I think given
Speaker 3: today's offense, is that that's a pretty smart way to go.
Speaker 3: And then they had three first round draft picks on
Speaker 3: defense just this past draft. You know they have access
Speaker 3: to that kind of talent. If this guy does a
Speaker 3: good job, his next job is a seven figure job.
Speaker 1: Wow. Good to know. Before we go, I promise we
Speaker 1: do a show within the show. I know you've only
Speaker 1: got a couple of minutes left here. You have obviously
Speaker 1: displayed your acumen for hot chicken. Either I guess a
Speaker 1: dry dusting of spice or a mop of some sort
Speaker 1: of marinateive spice. I'm gonna flip it. Do you have
Speaker 1: a blind spot? A fried chicken blind spot? If you
Speaker 1: go to any number of countries, they have their own
Speaker 1: version of fried chicken. I think I have one of mine.
Speaker 1: But is there a species? Is there a genus of
Speaker 1: fried chicken that you're like, I need to get my
Speaker 1: hands on what this culture is doing.
Speaker 2: The Vietnamese fish sauce wings, Yes, are amazing.
Speaker 3: You're you know Pock Pock in Portland is the place
Speaker 3: that made those popular in this country. Those things are
Speaker 3: spectacular and you'll find those around the country. The Korean
Speaker 3: spicy wine, Oh my god, which there's It's kind of
Speaker 3: sweet and spicy at the same time. I found a
Speaker 3: really good place in Chicago called doc which is right
Speaker 3: next to the the Loyola Chicago.
Speaker 1: The underrated Korean town.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, the place that made the final four a
Speaker 3: few years ago, so just down the street from their campus.
Speaker 2: Beautiful wings. They're delicious.
Speaker 3: And then there's place in Salt Lake City, and it's
Speaker 3: weird because you think this would be a very common thing,
Speaker 3: and it was the first I've ever heard of it,
Speaker 3: and I googled afterward to try to say, well, there's
Speaker 3: got to be more of these in other towns, and
Speaker 3: there really aren't. There's a lot of home chefs do this,
Speaker 3: but you don't find a lot of restaurants that do it.
Speaker 2: Curry fried chicken.
Speaker 1: I was gonna actually jump in with something similar.
Speaker 3: Continue, Yeah, so the places in Salt Lake is actually
Speaker 3: just called curry fried chicken. Oh okay, exactly what you
Speaker 3: what it sounds like, and it's it's delicious. I mean
Speaker 3: that those flavors just go really well together.
Speaker 1: I was going to jump in with if a Japanese
Speaker 1: kitchen is dead set on cooking a certain type of
Speaker 1: food a certain way, that kitchen is probably going to
Speaker 1: do it really well. And I've had chicken katsu, which
Speaker 1: is like, yes, it's the thinned out fried chicken, and
Speaker 1: there will be like a curry factor in some dishes
Speaker 1: over white rice or something like that. You're now seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of chicken kotsu like clubs on a Japanese
Speaker 1: milk bread with a slough. I need to have more
Speaker 1: chicken katsu in my life, and I need to figure
Speaker 1: out how that can happen as soon as humanly possible.
Speaker 2: If only you lived in a city with a varied.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think that's what my focus on twenty twenty
Speaker 1: is going to be. I'm eating less meat for health reasons,
Speaker 1: but when I do eat meat, I'm making it count.
Speaker 1: And the Japanese chicken katsu tradition feels like it's one
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 3: I think that's a great idea. Now, I'm going to
Speaker 3: make an announcement on your show. I'll probably expand on
Speaker 3: this on my show.
Speaker 1: Please, this is.
Speaker 2: My last hurra this weekend.
Speaker 3: I have decided that I exercise entirely too much to
Speaker 3: be this fat, and I am I am going to
Speaker 3: get my diet under control.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: That doesn't mean I'm gonna stop eating a lot of
Speaker 3: the fun things I eat. Yeah, it does mean I'm
Speaker 3: going to exercise a little more moderation.
Speaker 2: I am. I'm going to try the intermittent fasting.
Speaker 1: Oh, I do it right now. We can do a
Speaker 1: whole show about this.
Speaker 2: So when do you eat? What hours do you eat?
Speaker 1: I will generally eat between twelve and eight or one
Speaker 1: and nine, So it's the sixteen hour of no eating,
Speaker 1: and it'll take like three days for you to get
Speaker 1: used to it if you can push through. I have
Speaker 1: black coffee and maybe sometimes green tea in the mornings,
Speaker 1: drink a lot of water because sometimes when you're hungry,
Speaker 1: you're actually thirsty. And then I'll eat lunch at twelve
Speaker 1: or one, have a little bit of a snack, eat
Speaker 1: dinner seven or eight after the little man goes down,
Speaker 1: and I feel pretty good. And like when you work
Speaker 1: out on a starved, starve time of your day, you
Speaker 1: actually burn more fat You're.
Speaker 3: Fat, which is which is painful. When you get into
Speaker 3: fat burning, you feel it. But that's what I need
Speaker 3: to Donna. I'm gonna try to get that under control.
Speaker 3: I think, given my schedule, eleven to seven is probably
Speaker 3: the best thing for me. I already know that green
Speaker 3: tea is going to be my new best friend, so
Speaker 3: I've been at the grocery store sort of scouting out
Speaker 3: the different green teas that that will probably be what
Speaker 3: I drink in the morning because I'm gonna try the
Speaker 3: black coffee. I don't know that I can be a
Speaker 3: black coffee person. I just never have been. So what
Speaker 3: I could do is just drink the green tea and
Speaker 3: then when I do want to put some cream in
Speaker 3: my coffee, then I'll do it between eleven and seven
Speaker 3: and have a little coffee.
Speaker 1: But uh, it's not that difficult. It is not all
Speaker 1: that difficult. You're just you're a little more thoughtful about
Speaker 1: what you eat and when you eat it and.
Speaker 2: Hurrying real reasons.
Speaker 3: Via is the other thing that's okay because I'm a
Speaker 3: now I'm a big, you know, sweetener type guy, like
Speaker 3: artificial shorer type guy. But you can't use the the sucralose,
Speaker 3: you can't use the aspartame, you can't use the sacharine.
Speaker 3: So no no yellows, no blues, and no pinks. You
Speaker 3: can only use the greens. So my sister in law
Speaker 3: carries liquid cevia with her in her purse. I think
Speaker 3: I'm gonna start doing that.
Speaker 1: I think that's totally good. I sleep better, My digestion
Speaker 1: of metabolism is definitely better. And working out just there's
Speaker 1: something very I'm trying to find the right word here,
Speaker 1: but it's it feels better to work out when you
Speaker 1: don't have something weighing you down because I'll work out
Speaker 1: in the mornings, so I recommend it.
Speaker 3: I'm a morning workout person too. That's that's I'm glad
Speaker 3: you said that, because that was something I was kind
Speaker 3: of worried about, is working out on an empty stomach?
Speaker 2: And what's that going to do to me?
Speaker 3: But if if, if you, if you're right, and I
Speaker 3: can get used to it, then it sort of works
Speaker 3: out very well because you never eat.
Speaker 2: You don't really want to eat.
Speaker 3: Right after you work out because you're feeling kind of now,
Speaker 3: you know, you just exerted yourself. And so that will
Speaker 3: put me ready to roll at eleven o'clock when I'm
Speaker 3: allowed to eat, And that way I can I can
Speaker 3: eat some you know, fairly balanced day's worth of food.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can eat a bigger dinner because you're
Speaker 1: gonna be digesting longer. It has to last you longer,
Speaker 1: and you get a sort of lighter lunch, but something
Speaker 1: that satisfies you that you're gonna be able to burn
Speaker 1: off responsibly. I recommend it.
Speaker 2: I am very excited about this. My pants are already
Speaker 2: getting ready to be fit better, all right.
Speaker 1: I like that we went from chat and chicken and
Speaker 1: the fried chicken that is singing to us in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Onto breakfast is not a big deal unless you have
Speaker 1: some sort of blood issue or you're pregnant or something
Speaker 1: like that. That's what I feel.
Speaker 2: Anyway, You're not pregnant, are you, Dan?
Speaker 1: I am not. I can confirm right here. Everybody listened
Speaker 1: to the Andy Staples Show. A good starting point would
Speaker 1: be and I listened to this recently. Andy did a
Speaker 1: show with Nicole auerback right after the National Championship game,
Speaker 1: putting LSU's run and game into context and everything that
Speaker 1: needed to happen to get them to that point. That's
Speaker 1: the good stuff that you can listen to on a
Speaker 1: podcast that you don't have time for on a radio
Speaker 1: show or a TV hit or something like that. That's
Speaker 1: why you should listen to the Andy Staples Show. It's
Speaker 1: available wherever podcasts are available. But you should also subscribe
Speaker 1: to The Athletic because I think there's bonus podcast content
Speaker 1: on there. There's probably a deal and there's one hundred
Speaker 1: percent chicken content on the Athletic dot com.
Speaker 2: So much chicken there it is.
Speaker 1: Andy, Thank you very much for joining us.
Speaker 2: Thank them