Speaker 1: The volume. All right, coming up in ten minutes. I
Speaker 1: have yet to bring him on, but about nine months
Speaker 1: to a year ago we hired Snaps. It was an
Speaker 1: SEC college football show. Aaron Murray is the former Georgia
Speaker 1: quarterback and then T Bob Abar. His dad played in
Speaker 1: multiple leagues USFL, NFL, was a quarterback professionally for fifteen
Speaker 1: years Falcon Saints, and T Bob a bear a wildly colorful, outspoken,
Speaker 1: hysterically funny, thought provoking host. He's I think he is
Speaker 1: really the most compelling voice of college football in the South,
Speaker 1: and I feel so goddamn lucky we have him at
Speaker 1: the volume. But I'm going to give you thirty minutes
Speaker 1: of his world view on Brian Kelly, ed orgeron Nick Saban,
Speaker 1: Lincoln Riley, Texas, Oklahoma coming in, and something on his dad.
Speaker 1: So his dad was the quarterback for the Falcons the Saints.
Speaker 1: That jumps out to me went to a small school.
Speaker 1: Great story, and I want to introduce you to him.
Speaker 1: I introduced you a couple of years ago to Jason Timph,
Speaker 1: three years ago to John Middlecoff. T Bob is truly
Speaker 1: one of a kind. He is just a remarkable talent
Speaker 1: and he joined us in ten minutes. But first I
Speaker 1: want to address something. Unlike college basketball, where a player
Speaker 1: doesn't have to go to college, he can go to
Speaker 1: the G League, he can go overseas. College football players
Speaker 1: have to go to college for a minimum of three years.
Speaker 1: Most go four, and some red shirt and go five.
Speaker 1: And at some point during that college career, I presume
Speaker 1: at least some of them took econ one oh one,
Speaker 1: an economy class. I understand being upset, but it's basic.
Speaker 1: Supply and demand. Rule changes have made it more of
Speaker 1: a passing league, so receivers, quarterbacks, tight ends, and left
Speaker 1: tackles have never made more. And because the supply and demand,
Speaker 1: especially the demand part for running backs is on the
Speaker 1: low side and there's a pretty good supply of them
Speaker 1: in college, they're not making the money they did. Folks.
Speaker 2: It's analytics.
Speaker 1: These running backs are all upset, guys. It's business. Offensive
Speaker 1: players are getting paid those directly connected to passing. For
Speaker 1: the record, the highest paid running back is also the
Speaker 1: best receiving running back in the NFL, Christian McCaffrey. So
Speaker 1: for years and years in the NBA, players were often
Speaker 1: dissuaded from shooting threes. Now they're persuaded to shoot threes.
Speaker 1: It's called analytics. In baseball, strikeouts were bad, keep the
Speaker 1: ball in play. Math analytics says, no, strikeouts are not
Speaker 1: the worst thing. Ground Balls are hit it out of
Speaker 1: the park. Walk strikeout. Don't hit ground balls. And in
Speaker 1: football we have all sorts of players that have never
Speaker 1: been more valuable. Again, left tackle, tight end, wide receiver, quarterback,
Speaker 1: great corner, edge rusher, interior lineman, Chris Jones, Aaron Donald,
Speaker 1: Fletcher Cox. But there are positions because the middle of
Speaker 1: the field now is an offensive player zone, not a
Speaker 1: defensive player that the dominating, intimidating safety less valuable. The
Speaker 1: linebacker who's off ball and can't cover in space of
Speaker 1: very little value, interior old lineman less valuable. Running Backs
Speaker 1: unless they're great at catching the ball and running it
Speaker 1: and are healthy, not as valuable. It's supply and demand complicated.
Speaker 1: Their running backs can be upset, And I feel bad
Speaker 1: for a guy like Austin Eckler who got drafted loan,
Speaker 1: never made big money, and now is left without the
Speaker 1: contract he desires. I feel bad, But Saquon Barkley was
Speaker 1: a top ten pick. He's made more money than all
Speaker 1: but Christian McCaffrey and Derrick Henry in the entire league.
Speaker 1: At his position, he made his money early. Some guys
Speaker 1: make it late. That's the way pro sports works. Cultures,
Speaker 1: analytics change, business changes. I saw a study the other
Speaker 1: day where airline pilots thirty five percent admit napping during flights.
Speaker 1: That's because the cockpit is more automated. I mean outside
Speaker 1: of the first three minutes. In the last eight they
Speaker 1: don't do much. You still need a pilot in case
Speaker 1: of an emergency, but they're not as responsible for the
Speaker 1: safety as the passengers as they once were. So you know,
Speaker 1: people are getting very emotional about this. I've worked in
Speaker 1: local and national TV radio podcasting for a long time.
Speaker 1: I started my career doing local sports. It basically got eliminated.
Speaker 1: Then I did local sports talk radio. ESPN radio went
Speaker 1: all in. That mostly got eliminated except major markets. Then
Speaker 1: I did syndicated radio ESPN. Not that it got eliminated,
Speaker 1: but if you didn't have an accompanying television simulcast, it
Speaker 1: wasn't as valuable. That's why I went to Fox. And
Speaker 1: now cable TV is eroding, so cable TV my career
Speaker 1: in cable TV could be ending here in the next
Speaker 1: six or seven years or whenever. There's no guarantees. I've
Speaker 1: constantly been trying to pivot to retain employment. I'm not
Speaker 1: bitter about it. Running Backs can absolutely enhance themselves by
Speaker 1: being better receivers, Christian McCaffrey, being better run blockers. I mean,
Speaker 1: cam Aker's got in the doghouse for the Rams why
Speaker 1: he refused to pass block and he gotten Sean mcvay's doghouse.
Speaker 1: He improved in the second part of last year, got
Speaker 1: back on the field. So there's where it's to enhance
Speaker 1: your status, enhance longevity. But some of it for running
Speaker 1: backs as luck, they're the last player you can tackle
Speaker 1: viciously from any angle. Everybody else is protected in football
Speaker 1: on offense except the running back. He remains the pinata
Speaker 1: of the league. So some of this was inevitable and
Speaker 1: I can feel bad, But like any other career, doesn't
Speaker 1: matter if you're a banker or a running back or
Speaker 1: a media personality. Side hustles constantly trying to add value
Speaker 1: to your career. It's part of the game. Twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: If you didn't pay I don't know if Gail Sayers
Speaker 1: was a pass blocker or Oj Simpson, but it was
Speaker 1: a running league. Now it's a passing league, and the
Speaker 1: quarterbacks making forty seven million dollars a year protect him.
Speaker 1: So I can feel bad for running backs. They still
Speaker 1: get paid, not as much as they used to. Sports
Speaker 1: tend to be cyclical. Maybe it comes around. Let's be honest.
Speaker 1: Now it was a small ball NBA about thirty years ago.
Speaker 1: Now yokicha title, Yannis a title. The Lakers were a
Speaker 1: big team in the bubble of title biggs are coming
Speaker 1: back around as long as they're highly skilled, can pass
Speaker 1: you to jumper and defend. So it's cyclical. The league
Speaker 1: will never be the CFL. The league may get so
Speaker 1: finesse and pass happy with continuing rules to help offense
Speaker 1: that a big, strong running back that can control the
Speaker 1: clock and keep it away from Mahomes and Lamar and
Speaker 1: Josh Allen and Herbert may emerge and we may move
Speaker 1: into a different cycle of the power running back who
Speaker 1: can keep it away from Mahomes. Maybe that will be
Speaker 1: the future. But guys, supplying to man econ one oh one,
Speaker 1: you have to go to college for three years to
Speaker 1: be in the NFL. Most played four years. Somewhere there
Speaker 1: five you had to take an Econ class somewhere. Summer
Speaker 1: is heating up in so is pro baseball. You can
Speaker 1: certainly watch your favorite baseball team on television, but there
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Speaker 1: let me ask you. I pick LSU to win the
Speaker 1: title this year. I think they have the most depth
Speaker 1: of talent. I'm a huge, huge Brian Kelly fan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too.
Speaker 1: And when he got called out by the media, he's
Speaker 1: never been he's a little grumpy, a little rigid, and
Speaker 1: he doesn't have you know, he's kind of got that
Speaker 1: uh Tom Coughlin face turning plumb screaming. I always thought
Speaker 1: he was tough on quarterbacks, but I think once you
Speaker 1: do it four times, four quick turnarounds, you know what
Speaker 1: the hell you're doing. So he goes out and does
Speaker 1: a couple of cringy things on social media and everybody
Speaker 1: crushed him. How did that play though in LSU? How
Speaker 1: did it plan Baton Rouge? How did it play in
Speaker 1: among your fans?
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting, right because right now he has a
Speaker 2: near one hundred percent approval rate. But that's what beating
Speaker 2: Alabama and winning the SEC Western year one will do,
Speaker 2: Like especially in a year where you were picked to
Speaker 2: finish last like a lot of days, I think else
Speaker 2: you win total last year was like six and a
Speaker 2: half and they end up going ten and four, And
Speaker 2: you think about a colin. You know this better than
Speaker 2: anyone in sports. What actually decides a fan base's happiness
Speaker 2: level is not the results themselves, it's where do they
Speaker 2: land in relation to expectations? Right, So, Brian Kelly vastly
Speaker 2: exceeded expectations, but even at the time, even pre wins,
Speaker 2: there was a belief at LSU that they had a
Speaker 2: special guy and that wasn't hard to get there. I mean,
Speaker 2: if you looked at Kelly's resume, it's on parallel, well
Speaker 2: without unparalleled, without a nattic, right. I mean, he's the
Speaker 2: winning his coach in all of college football. He's just
Speaker 2: missing that crown jewel. He left a Notre Dame team
Speaker 2: that was on the edge of the playoff to join
Speaker 2: a six and seven LSU team with thirty nine scholarship players.
Speaker 2: So that tells you what he thought about the but
Speaker 2: of LSU, and I think that played with a lot
Speaker 2: of the local people and more than that, man is
Speaker 2: he wasn't Notre Dame Brian Kelly. Everything you just said, grumpy,
Speaker 2: impersonal authoritarian, that's all melted away. He's one of the
Speaker 2: most personable people I've ever seen. I was blown away.
Speaker 2: One of the first sights when he got the job.
Speaker 2: I was invited up to the stadium for a little
Speaker 2: meet and greet bunch of alumni boosters, you know, one
Speaker 2: of those type deals, and watching him work to the room,
Speaker 2: I was like, Okay, this dude's different, Like this is
Speaker 2: I love Coacho. That's my boy. Like I just said, right,
Speaker 2: I played for less miles for many for five years.
Speaker 2: LSU hadn't had anybody like this since Nick Saban. His
Speaker 2: political acumen. As he worked that room, It's like he
Speaker 2: had a whirlpool of influence around him. He had people
Speaker 2: kind of subtly feed him information, cracking jokes. Getting it
Speaker 2: just felt like watching like a fortune five hundred CEO
Speaker 2: work room. He just carries himself with a granitas.
Speaker 1: That is yeah. And I think sometimes the media does
Speaker 1: a poor job of hiding their agendas, is that Brian
Speaker 1: can be gruff. The Notre Dame job is one of
Speaker 1: the unique jobs in college football where the media still
Speaker 1: believes it's elite. But the truth is they can't recruit
Speaker 1: with LSU, Bama, Georgia or even I would say Lincoln
Speaker 1: Riley or Ohio State or Harball when they're really rolling.
Speaker 1: There's an academic umbrella. It's a small, rural, cold weather
Speaker 1: town Notre Dame now is a hard job. Now, by
Speaker 1: the way, his three predecessors, Ty Willingham, you know, Bob Davey,
Speaker 1: Charlie Weiss illustrated how damn Howard is right. So it's
Speaker 1: like people don't understand everybody wins at LSU. In the
Speaker 1: last twenty years. One guy has won it, Notre Dame,
Speaker 1: and so when he took the job, I said, I
Speaker 1: get it. LSU in my opinion, and I really I've
Speaker 1: said this before, maybe the best job because Louisiana, the
Speaker 1: state gives you thirty Division one players. You can get
Speaker 1: twelve to fifteen year class, especially interior linemen. The size
Speaker 1: is in so important California. You can't find an elite
Speaker 1: defensive tackle. You guys have like six to eight a year.
Speaker 2: Y'all, y'all get but y'all got the quarterbacks, dude. Everybody
Speaker 2: still goes out west to farm them quarterbacks. But we
Speaker 2: got yeah, we got your skills. We got some size
Speaker 2: down here for sure.
Speaker 1: So I guess I think this is the best team
Speaker 1: in the country. I like Jayden Daniels. He elevated pretty
Speaker 1: marginal talent in Tempe. Give me your takeaway on my
Speaker 1: proclamation they can win a title. What worries you about
Speaker 1: LSU and where do you think they can? They can
Speaker 1: be even better than Georgia.
Speaker 2: So I think what worries me is still what Brian
Speaker 2: Kelly Deck's has been talking about is listed recentable media
Speaker 2: tour where he's kind of saying, look, we're in year two,
Speaker 2: We're not at We're not as fleshed out as a
Speaker 2: Kirby Smart in Alabama or excuse me, a Kirby Smart Georgia,
Speaker 2: Nick Saban Alabama, unless you still have some filling into
Speaker 2: the corners to do if you like now now, frontline
Speaker 2: starters they're twenty two is as good as anybody, right,
Speaker 2: Jane Daniels second highest heismanodge you're turning the entire offensive line.
Speaker 2: You had true freshman started tackles in the SEC last
Speaker 2: year and they did well. So frontline starters, yes, but
Speaker 2: there may be a little brittle, right, a couple of
Speaker 2: key injuries, and I don't know that they have the
Speaker 2: ability to absorb it in a way that Georgia would,
Speaker 2: in a way that Alabama would. Now quarterback, ironically, they
Speaker 2: might be all right. Garrett Nolsmier's probably about as frisk
Speaker 2: give a backup as you're gonna find. But to me,
Speaker 2: like the thing, it's interesting as Kell's been going around
Speaker 2: and saying, you know, I think in year three will
Speaker 2: be in an even better spot. And as a head coach,
Speaker 2: it's probably true when it comes to the overall health
Speaker 2: of the program. They're still taking transfers where they'd like
Speaker 2: to get more high school development. But to your point, Colin,
Speaker 2: there is a sneaky good window right now in year
Speaker 2: and um two, nobody has a quarterback. Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State,
Speaker 2: they're all working in you guys. But LSU, between the
Speaker 2: coaching staff and the players, has more returning than nearly
Speaker 2: anybody else. And they do have the talent win a championship.
Speaker 2: It's just that they're not as complete as Georgia and
Speaker 2: Alabama right now. Like the secondary answer questions, don't know
Speaker 2: who the starting corner is gonna be. You have talent there,
Speaker 2: you know who'snna win that job. Edge defender is probably
Speaker 2: the biggest weakness on the team. Or now you don't
Speaker 2: have a true dominant pass Rusheran you're probably talking about
Speaker 2: relying on a true freshman and Sean Womack to play
Speaker 2: that role. So so very very good championship potential. I
Speaker 2: still just see little imperfections that when you're talking about
Speaker 2: what decides these things, that may be the thing that
Speaker 2: holds them back.
Speaker 1: So Saban the South is can be insular and protective
Speaker 1: of its history. So Sabin is a combination of feared,
Speaker 1: beloved and hated in the South right, it's a very
Speaker 1: the trifecta that they're very proud of what he has created.
Speaker 1: The greatest football dynasty ever collegiately. And I look at
Speaker 1: it now and he goes up against He's going to
Speaker 1: go up against Sark and Lane Kiffen and Kirby Smart
Speaker 1: and Brian Kelly. And I've said this for years. Part
Speaker 1: of the success of Lebron James and that Eastern Conference
Speaker 1: was so a lot of bad owners, a lot of
Speaker 1: bad coaches in the Eastern Conference. I mean some of
Speaker 1: it was the West had the dynasty, the KD Steph Dinasty.
Speaker 1: Lebron wouldn't get to the finals through the West in
Speaker 1: those years. And so when Sabin first came into the conference,
Speaker 1: the first eight nine years has a lot of bad
Speaker 1: coaches and a lot of the big dogs, the Georgia's,
Speaker 1: the Tennessees, sometimes the LSUS, they just Florida. They just
Speaker 1: couldn't get their act together. Now, ad Sark's gonna be
Speaker 1: a handful. Is there a sense Nick's aged doesn't work
Speaker 1: the recruiting trail quite as much people have stolen some
Speaker 1: of the secret sauce. Is there a sense now that
Speaker 1: Alabama on any given Saturday, you guys last year is
Speaker 1: much more beatable?
Speaker 2: Well, I think there's data to back up the more
Speaker 2: beatable things, So there is some measure of decline there,
Speaker 2: and that isn't credit to the HighRes I mean, what
Speaker 2: about shoe freeze at open Like that's a perfect fit.
Speaker 2: Maybe not here in year one, but like there's only
Speaker 2: so much oxygen to go around the room. I don't know,
Speaker 2: it's all gonna break. The only thing that worries me
Speaker 2: not Alabama, and I'm being worried in terms of those
Speaker 2: who have suffered at the hand of the crimson Emperor
Speaker 2: in the past, who have felt that boot heel of
Speaker 2: oppression on our neck. The only thing that worries me
Speaker 2: is everybody's kind of talking down to him. Nick Saban
Speaker 2: very famously used to have to fight against rat poison, right,
Speaker 2: you have to fight against what Kirby Smart's trying to
Speaker 2: fight again to now, complacency. Now he has more legitimate
Speaker 2: bulletin war material than he has ever had previously. And
Speaker 2: in shocking Colin, but blue chip ratio have you heard
Speaker 2: about that Bud Elliott puts it together and basically it
Speaker 2: looks at okay, what percentage of your roster are blue
Speaker 2: chip prospects? No team since they started doing this about
Speaker 2: seventeen years ago has ever won a Natty with less
Speaker 2: than fifty percent bluechip ratio. Alabama leads the country once again.
Speaker 2: I think they're at like high eighties right now. So
Speaker 2: they still are even though they have questions, who's gonna
Speaker 2: be the starting quarterback? If you didn't win with Bryce Young,
Speaker 2: how are you gonna within this guy? Like, they have questions,
Speaker 2: but they still have the most talented roster top to bottom.
Speaker 2: And where it becomes concerned is that if they figure
Speaker 2: out quarterback, if one of these new guys hit, if
Speaker 2: Ty Simpson, maybe Jaylen Miller, maybe one of these freshmen,
Speaker 2: if they hit, they're immediately as much of a championship
Speaker 2: contender once again as anyone. I mean, go look at
Speaker 2: all the computer models, whether it's Austin Bots model at
Speaker 2: the f I think Bill Connolly's at ESPN. All the
Speaker 2: computers love Alabama, love Alabama's humans are like these question
Speaker 2: So I think I feel like Nick's thanks to Kirby's rise,
Speaker 2: Nick is in the spot that he's never been before,
Speaker 2: where he's kind of laying a relative underdog relative to
Speaker 2: what Alabama has been. This is as doubted as they
Speaker 2: have ever been.
Speaker 1: So Oklahoma and Texas after the season will enter the SEC.
Speaker 1: It's a good news bad news. The good news is
Speaker 1: the SEC will extend its dominance in college football and
Speaker 1: its status. The bad news is, you know, if you're
Speaker 1: off week is playing Oklahoma at home, it's just going
Speaker 1: to be impossible to go undefeated, like you just two
Speaker 1: more teams to face, and Sark, for all the misgivings
Speaker 1: about him, is an elite recruiter and they got big,
Speaker 1: big bodies on the Owen d lines. Yeah, how are listen?
Speaker 1: SEC fans the ones that call a Paul Feinbaum show
Speaker 1: think you know, Alabama's never going to lose, But when
Speaker 1: you talk to your realistic fan in the South, is
Speaker 1: there some concern that shit? Man? How many top fifteen
Speaker 1: teams can you play? I mean Texas, I watched them
Speaker 1: play Alabama last year. Yeah, athlete the athlete, they looked
Speaker 1: like the same. I can argue Texas had the better roster,
Speaker 1: Bama had the better coach. I mean, I'll watched that game,
Speaker 1: and I thought, you know, you needed Bryce Young That's
Speaker 1: why it was the number one pick. Texas looked bigger
Speaker 1: and stronger. So not just your fanboy, but is there
Speaker 1: some concern that guys like it's a gauntlet forget the playoff?
Speaker 1: How do you get there?
Speaker 2: Well, that goes back to like the only so much
Speaker 2: oxygen in the room, right, Like, how in the world
Speaker 2: are all these teams going to breathe? All these teams
Speaker 2: fans again, to go back to expectation levels, it's to
Speaker 2: be in the playoffs now. Now for Texas, that may
Speaker 2: be a bit underd B. Oklahoma, that's the winningest program
Speaker 2: in the last twenty five years. All they did was
Speaker 2: win ten games every year, like last season was an
Speaker 2: aberration for them. So, but in terms of what the
Speaker 2: realistic SEC fan is expecting, Honestly, Colin, I don't I
Speaker 2: don't think at this moment, I don't think they're very
Speaker 2: intimidated by Texas Oklahoma and the reason being are a couple.
Speaker 2: First Off, Texas been down since that Mac Brown National championship, right,
Speaker 2: They've been pretty consistently down. And it's interesting to hear
Speaker 2: you talk about Sark because I'm a bit of a
Speaker 2: Stark down or here where Sarks never won ten games.
Speaker 2: I need Stark to prove to me that he can
Speaker 2: win ten games. I need to start to prove these
Speaker 2: things before I give them a bit of the I
Speaker 2: likes an elite recruiter, But how does that team go
Speaker 2: eight and five last year when they're more talented than
Speaker 2: every other Big twelve team that they're facing. How does
Speaker 2: Oklahoma under Bret Mintabals go six and seven when they're
Speaker 2: more talented than every Big twelve team that they're facing.
Speaker 2: And so I think for now this is this is
Speaker 2: likely Hubris right, but that's what we do as people.
Speaker 2: But I think for now, as the Sea fans, it's not,
Speaker 2: oh man, we don't know what we're getting into them doing.
Speaker 2: I think I se Seed fans will get Texas at home,
Speaker 2: but say, you don't know what you're getting into you
Speaker 2: and Oklahoma's being able to just run through the Big
Speaker 2: twelve for a decade now and just kind of have
Speaker 2: their way as Texas kind of flounders and tries to
Speaker 2: find themselves once again. So honestly, I even think kind
Speaker 2: of irrational fans here aren't overly concerned. That's why this
Speaker 2: year is so important for Texas right start needs to
Speaker 2: prove it that he's the guy going in there. So
Speaker 2: important for Oklahoma fans that they can believe in print
Speaker 2: Vinnables because we've never seen Brent Fvinnables be a head
Speaker 2: coach and even as a coordinator. He's in that Dado
Speaker 2: Sweeney environment, which isn't really representative of their environments around
Speaker 2: the country. Oh have recruited at or elite levels. Right,
Speaker 2: I didn't think Vinables can recruit. He already proved me
Speaker 2: wrong there. Now they got to prove it, prove wrong
Speaker 2: and feel like answer me this con Texas and Oklahoma,
Speaker 2: what's they have to finish one two in the Big Twelve?
Speaker 2: Like they are arkedly more talented than any other team
Speaker 2: the Big Club, Why should it they?
Speaker 1: Kansas State returns like eighteen starters. The feeling is this
Speaker 1: is the best Kansas State team in forever. So they
Speaker 1: got picked second. They return a ton. But I agree
Speaker 1: with you, Oklahoma doesn't look at seventy percent of Kansas
Speaker 1: State players. They don't recruit them, They're not even interested.
Speaker 1: So to your point of here's my concern about Brett Venables.
Speaker 1: I think Oklahoma missed on their head coaching higher. And
Speaker 1: by the way, even schools like Alabama have missed several times.
Speaker 1: USC has missed several times, Michigan has missed several times.
Speaker 1: Notre Dame has it happens. The first thing I always
Speaker 1: look at, does the coach you hire is his side
Speaker 1: of the ball locked up? Cinched up dramatically better immediately.
Speaker 1: Lincoln Riley took a four win team to an elite
Speaker 1: offense Sean McVay NFL Kirby smart defense, Saban got the
Speaker 1: defense right before the offense. Forget the Sooners offense. The
Speaker 1: defense was an s show like that tells me. That
Speaker 1: tells me T Bob, he's over his skiz. They got
Speaker 1: they got a coordinator. The defense was awful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I mean, look I I it's it's again
Speaker 2: why I think Oklahoma this offseason they have a very
Speaker 2: good gymnastics program. And you could tell because the fans
Speaker 2: have been doing a lot of mental gymnastics to try
Speaker 2: to explain why Bread Vittabules is a guy now. Granted again,
Speaker 2: to their credit, this is like they're they're kind of
Speaker 2: drowning right now, and they're desperate. They're looking to fight everybody.
Speaker 2: They're looking for something to latch onto. They've latched onto recruiting.
Speaker 2: You know, he's done well there and so that's kind
Speaker 2: of their only comeback right now. But I'm with Yukon.
Speaker 2: He's supposed to be an defensive coach. Again. They had
Speaker 2: talent on the defense, Lincoln took offensive guys. He didn't
Speaker 2: take the defense, and they were dead last and vigor.
Speaker 2: They were awful, completely awful. They give up more first
Speaker 2: downs than anyone in in in the Power five. So
Speaker 2: I'm I'm look, I'm I'm not a Bret Vinables believer.
Speaker 2: I've been very clear about that. I'm also not a
Speaker 2: Stark believer. I think both these schools that have all
Speaker 2: the potential in the world, I just think they got
Speaker 2: a hit on the right guy. Here's Michael with Vinables again.
Speaker 2: I think he has to win ten games. He has
Speaker 2: to be able to try that he can compete for champion.
Speaker 2: For Big Talf Champ's Oklahoma start. I'm giving sarka lowbar
Speaker 2: this year. Texas win ten games with a Bowl game.
Speaker 2: If you do that, I'll e cro I'm wrong. Vinables
Speaker 2: kind of the same deal. You get the ten wins.
Speaker 2: I'll allow for being here. Two. The only thing that
Speaker 2: makes me a little angry. Also in the Oklahoma Venables
Speaker 2: front is he talks about I need to change the culture.
Speaker 2: When he got there, the culture was twenty five straight
Speaker 2: winning seasons, stacking six in a row, Big twelve championships.
Speaker 2: The culture is one of the most successful football programs
Speaker 2: of all time that you took over. And like you said,
Speaker 2: and this is where I really terrified. If I'm an
Speaker 2: Oklahoma fan, everything college football is about the head coach.
Speaker 2: He is your Roman politician general. He is the one
Speaker 2: that's going to decide the fate of the country that
Speaker 2: you love so much. Look at what happened to Oklahoma
Speaker 2: when Lincoln Riley left, and look at what happened to
Speaker 2: USC when Lincoln Riley got there. That is an elite guy.
Speaker 2: That's the top five guy. And when you have one
Speaker 2: of those, you kind of hold on to it for
Speaker 2: everything it's worth. And Oklahoma never in their wildest dreams
Speaker 2: would have thought that they could get one of those
Speaker 2: guys poached. I mean, it's crazy, like that's one of
Speaker 2: the most successful programs in collge football history. That should
Speaker 2: never happen. But it shows you the power of USC
Speaker 2: and that Trojan brand.
Speaker 1: Here's my theory on why Lincoln Riley left Oklahoma. Unlike Louisiana,
Speaker 1: unlike Georgia, unlike Alabama, Unlike Florida or Texas. Oklahoma's recruiting
Speaker 1: profile the state now provides about six elite players a year,
Speaker 1: so he looked at going to play those recruiting hotbitch,
Speaker 1: He's not going to be able to pull players out
Speaker 1: of lsh out of Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and Texas. Going
Speaker 1: to the SEC was going to make him it harder
Speaker 1: to pull players out of Texas. It's virtually unheard of.
Speaker 1: Oregon's an outlier though they have no national title, to
Speaker 1: be from a state that delivers less than fifteen elite
Speaker 1: players annually and win a title. So Phil Knight has
Speaker 1: made Oregon geographically isolated in a state that gives you
Speaker 1: three viable They recruit California, but Lincoln Riley looked at
Speaker 1: the weakness of the PAC twelve, the supply of California athletes,
Speaker 1: and said, I can put a stop sign on Big
Speaker 1: ten teams and SEC teams get twelve to eighteen of
Speaker 1: my players from here. My competition's weak. UCLA is a
Speaker 1: basketball school, and I think Lincoln Riley smartly. Everybody said
Speaker 1: he's not a man. I think his business. I think
Speaker 1: he looked at it and went Oklahoma its best days
Speaker 1: are over and USC is a sleeping giant. That was
Speaker 1: my take when it happened. The day it happened. What
Speaker 1: was your initial thought?
Speaker 2: So the day it happened, I was one of the
Speaker 2: I was one of the kind of poopooers running away
Speaker 2: from competition sort of guys.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It felt like a sexy tape at the time. But
Speaker 2: combined with that was the potential of USC. And this
Speaker 2: is something that I actually have a lot of trouble
Speaker 2: get through to my audience in Louisiana because I'll mention
Speaker 2: USC and they want to act like USC is just
Speaker 2: far away, high fluting, unthreatened, and no they don't care.
Speaker 2: They're like, oh but they don't care that we care,
Speaker 2: And I'm like, okay, that's fine. But economically ninety percent
Speaker 2: of the population of Louisiana buying in, Like, what does
Speaker 2: it take five percent of LA and you match the economics,
Speaker 2: so like, yeah, the potential of USC is it seeds
Speaker 2: out of Oklahoma. Now, I do think you give recruit
Speaker 2: to Okahma. I think that's been proven, Like the Texas
Speaker 2: football economy is unbelievable. I was looking at some of
Speaker 2: the other day. Colin actually was based off of your take,
Speaker 2: So I was like, Okay, is it realistic to think
Speaker 2: that A and M and Texas and Oklahoma can all
Speaker 2: take players in same state and they actually had so,
Speaker 2: like Texas just produces an unreal amount of players, but
Speaker 2: it's way harder, but it's way harder and it takes
Speaker 2: way more work. And in Texas gets strong, it's only
Speaker 2: going to get harder. And you're in the SEC, it's
Speaker 2: only gonna get harder. And the Big Ten is a
Speaker 2: better conference in the Pac twelve, but it's top heavy.
Speaker 2: It's very very top heavy, right, Like you got your
Speaker 2: Big three, and a USC's gonna fit in fine amongst
Speaker 2: the Big three and immediately be able to compete. So no,
Speaker 2: I agree that the inherent potential of USC is greater
Speaker 2: than that of Oklahoma, even if Oklahoma is still really good.
Speaker 2: I just don't get if I'm Oklahoma, I do not
Speaker 2: get it settling for availables, like like what did Scott
Speaker 2: Woodward do when the l shoot job came open? He
Speaker 2: went and were great? He pried Brian Kelly out of
Speaker 2: Notre Dame. Why did you go with Crimson's defensive coordinator
Speaker 2: when you give some of the Moose Heisman's college football
Speaker 2: history and the most national championship college football history. It
Speaker 2: just it's tough.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: It all felt very kind of reactive to me in
Speaker 2: a way.
Speaker 1: One final question, I want you to because you're such
Speaker 1: a funny guy that we all dated girls, fun girls,
Speaker 1: but there was something why we married who we married, yep,
Speaker 1: and whatever it is we had, there were just women
Speaker 1: that you make that decision and they think the same
Speaker 1: way with us, By the way, they look at some
Speaker 1: of us as datable, some as marriage material. I consider ed, oh,
Speaker 1: the best girlfriend in the history of college football. He's
Speaker 1: not long term. He's exciting, but he's a lot of
Speaker 1: every weekend as a blast. How is he viewed now?
Speaker 1: I mean literally, you don't know what he's gonna say.
Speaker 1: He's got his own brand. You'd think kill you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, he got a divorce, there's recruiting stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, he's just a good time. How is he
Speaker 1: viewed by ut Bob and LSU nation?
Speaker 2: So it probably is like the greatest one night stand
Speaker 2: in history, Like you said, like when you're laying next
Speaker 2: to your wife and you love your wife, or you
Speaker 2: love Brian Kelly. He's dependable, he's incredibly intelligent, he's caring,
Speaker 2: he does all the little things. But you think about
Speaker 2: fifteen to zero and Joe Burrow and the Heisman and
Speaker 2: Jamar Chase and Justin Jefferson and all these sorts of things.
Speaker 2: So that is actually what he's been a real fascinating
Speaker 2: kind of revelation that have had recently, which is ironically,
Speaker 2: Brian Kelly is the best thing that ever happened to
Speaker 2: ed Osron. And it's because nobody cares about the bad
Speaker 2: two years now, nobody cares. It doesn't matter, it's it's gone.
Speaker 2: And now all the pressures on Kelly because instead of
Speaker 2: Edo like the fear is something like what we mentioned
Speaker 2: is happened at Texas or a usc where you hire
Speaker 2: the wrong guy or at least it starts to go wrong,
Speaker 2: because that was the right guy for a while. Now
Speaker 2: he wasn't ready to have success, right, but he went
Speaker 2: six and two interim, he went nine and four, ten
Speaker 2: and three fifteen to zero, so there was a consistent
Speaker 2: climb there. But then success came and we all kind
Speaker 2: of saw what happened, and so the fear is if
Speaker 2: you miss on a couple of those guys, you set
Speaker 2: yourself back years, and that's when people get angry, and
Speaker 2: that's when the legacies are tarnished. But all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: instead of o setting you back years, you're good. You
Speaker 2: feel like you have your best coach that you've had
Speaker 2: since ing Sam, and you feel like the future is
Speaker 2: brighter than ever. And now all the pressure's on Brian Kelly.
Speaker 2: So all of a sudden ed, Oh, there's no bad
Speaker 2: ill will towards going six and seven and the last year,
Speaker 2: all the drama, all the bad dress. It's like it's
Speaker 2: the ex girlfriend. Things actually perfect because you only remember
Speaker 2: the good times now, but it's all because of the
Speaker 2: success of Kelly and now happy you are now and
Speaker 2: where you think your relationships going currently.
Speaker 1: What was it like to be the son of the
Speaker 1: New Orleans Saints quarterback Bobby A.
Speaker 2: Bear?
Speaker 1: What is that life like?
Speaker 2: It's cool, man, it's funny. So I was. I was
Speaker 2: born in eighty nine and on Men went to the
Speaker 2: Falcons about ninety two, so my memories were of him
Speaker 2: playing in Atlanta. But he used to have every Saints game,
Speaker 2: all of his games, we had him on VHS, and
Speaker 2: so I'm being a little kid, and I would pop
Speaker 2: in the old Saints recordings and watch like Saints Raiders,
Speaker 2: like nineteen ninety or whatever, like Monday Night Football, and
Speaker 2: I'd sit there and I'd like take notes and stabs
Speaker 2: during the game. So I got a bit of the
Speaker 2: don't patrol zeitgeist, right, the birth of the Saints actually
Speaker 2: being a team that could consistently make the playoffs. And
Speaker 2: so I gained through these VHS tapes, I gained kind
Speaker 2: of almost like a time travel understanding of what he
Speaker 2: meant to that city and to that franchise where they
Speaker 2: had been so bad for so long. They were the Aints,
Speaker 2: the paper bags. They were losers, I mean perennial losers.
Speaker 2: And I know it pays. I mean, you never want
Speaker 2: a playoff game. They end up going zhing for in
Speaker 2: the playoffs, right, But it was still the most consistent
Speaker 2: winning that they had. And it's funny, man, because, like
Speaker 2: I think, it can always whenever you have a father
Speaker 2: who has done these great things, sometimes that can be
Speaker 2: a negative, right, Maybe you get in your head, maybe
Speaker 2: it applies too much pressure or it's just too much.
Speaker 2: And maybe because I didn't play quarterback, but I never
Speaker 2: felt that it was always dude, it was always such
Speaker 2: a it was always just such like a positive like
Speaker 2: I remember, like the insight. I mean, he played professional
Speaker 2: football for fifteen years, started to Abell Michigan Panthers, Oakland Invaders,
Speaker 2: Saints NFL for twelve years. The insight that he gave
Speaker 2: me growing up on how to mentally handle things, technique things.
Speaker 2: And then when I get older and I need more
Speaker 2: offensive line work, I got to work with like some
Speaker 2: of his old teammates and everything. So like I'm someone
Speaker 2: who it's always been in that positive. Man, It's just
Speaker 2: I feel. Look, I am very blessed. I am a
Speaker 2: beneficiary of nepotism. I would have never gotten my start
Speaker 2: in this industry without him later becoming a radio legend
Speaker 2: in New Orleans, right, And so I'm very cognizant of this.
Speaker 2: I do not take this for granted. And all I
Speaker 2: want to do is try to do the best with
Speaker 2: the with the kind of unarmed opportunity that I was
Speaker 2: given at a at a very young age. And I
Speaker 2: thank my father for that man he was. It's it's yeah,
Speaker 2: like I said, I just think back and think about
Speaker 2: how he put his body on the line, caging kid
Speaker 2: from Louisiana, didn't grow up with much and then and
Speaker 2: then he rose to these heights to provide for his
Speaker 2: family and to set up the next generation. It's something
Speaker 2: that I don't think about a lot.
Speaker 1: Well, I think you're the most creative, articulate, thoughtful Southern
Speaker 1: voice in college football. I thought that when I listened
Speaker 1: to your first podcast. We were looking for you for
Speaker 1: a year and Logan Swain, who runs the volume, gave
Speaker 1: me a tape. I got a tape of you. You
Speaker 1: and Aaron are great. He's the straight man and you
Speaker 1: are crazy town. We could not love you more. I
Speaker 1: think you're just such a unique voice in the sport
Speaker 1: and we are so f and happy to have you.
Speaker 2: Manel, I'm not gonna lie. God, I feel like I've
Speaker 2: been like a little of Tidier.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Well there is the boss man, dude. I grew up
Speaker 2: watching you and everything, and so I mean, I think
Speaker 2: I'm blessing pretty hard right now. I can't that that means,
Speaker 2: but making no mistake, bro, we got big things coming
Speaker 2: to Snaps. So you're me and Aaron are fired up,
Speaker 2: drums fired up. We've been recording a bunch of stuff
Speaker 2: here in Nashville. We've been taking going around making the rounds.
Speaker 2: The Volume's been like one of the best things ever
Speaker 2: happened to me because I love LSU, I love doing
Speaker 2: the morning show and everything, but I've been doing Louisiana
Speaker 2: for like ten years now. Now all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: I get to expand and talk about the PAC twelve
Speaker 2: and the Big ten and just all of college hoble
Speaker 2: and I love it all and I know it all,
Speaker 2: and it's yeah, thank you, man, It's been awesome things
Speaker 2: for having me on the podet. This was super fun.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm gonna try to do this on a regular basis,
Speaker 1: my man. Congrats, say hi to Aaron, and I'll put
Speaker 1: this out in the morning and on the volume page tonight, Bud,
Speaker 1: all right, con
Speaker 2: Take it easy man, YouTube dot Com slash at Volume snaps,
Speaker 2: hit it up, the Volume