Hey, pardon my take listeners. You can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime. Members can listen ad free on Amazon Music.

Part of my take is sponsored by ADT. ADT knows a lot can happen in a second. 1 second you're happily single and the next second you catch a glimpse of someone and you don't want to be maybe 1 second you have a business idea that seems like a pipe dream and the next you have an LLC and a dream come true. And when it comes to your home, 1 second you feel safe and the next something goes wrong. But with ADT's 24/7 professional monitoring, you feel safe. Because when every second counts, count on ADT. Visit adt.com today. Did I hear you're shopping for a car?

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Oh, go to carvana.com to finance your car the convenient way. On today's part of my take, we have some college football. We got two guests, great guests. Head coach of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Marcus Freeman on the show. We also have our good friend Andy Staples previewing college football week one and the new playoff football. Real football. We're talking real football. So this week we're going to do college football. Next week we're obviously doing NFL. We have the Mount Rushmore of business jargon with special guest Hank's dad. It's come down to a two man race between Hank and PFT.

So Hanks bringing in additional people. That's fine.

Yep.

He can do whatever he wants.

Bringing in help.

Yep.

Uh, we got who's back in the week. We got a great show for you. And it is brought to you by our friends at draft Kings. We had the appetizer last week. Now it's time to feast. College football is back. Don't miss any of the action. Jump in at Draftkings sportsbook. It's a full slate for of games for week one, including the big matchup in Atlanta between the preseason number one and number 16, Georgia versus Clemson. It's super easy for first timers to get started. Try betting on something simple like picking a team to win. Go to the DraftKings sports recap. Select your team and place your first bet. This is going to be DraftKings biggest college football season to date. Enjoy the ride now all the way through the expanded playoffs. And for all the newbies getting into college spirit, here's something extra special. New DraftKings customers bet $5 to get 200 in bonus bets instantly. Score big with DraftKings all college football season long. Download the DraftKings sportsbook app now. Use code take that's code take for new customers. Get dollar 200 in bonus bets when you bet just $5 only on DraftKings, the crown is yours.

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See dkng dot co FBI t ball okay, let's go.

No place to hang out or washing and then I can't blame all on.

The south oh no, we gonna rock it down. Welcome to part of my take presented by DraftKings. Score big with DraftKings all college football season long. Download the DraftKings sportsbook app now. Use code take that's code take for new customers to get $200 in bonus bets. When you bet just $5 only on draftkings, the crown is yours. Today is Monday, August 26, and football is back. And for the feels like 75th year in a row I lost money thinking that DJ uncle Laylee was going to be the DJ uncle Laylee from the COVID year in that Notre Dame game that he played. He played against Notre Dame with Clemson and I got burned.

Yeah, it seems like he doesn't like to run with the football that much anymore. He doesn't do the thing where he's like, hey, I'm 245 pounds. I'll just put my head down and run over you.

This is every year. Every year I'm like, this is the year DJU.

And I feel bad for Florida State fans. This whole offseason. They were going to be on like. Like a fuck you tour in college football this year because of unfortunately, how last season ended for me. And we do still stand with Florida State at the end of last season, correct? You did what you had to do, but this was a bad way to start out traveling all the way over to Ireland. I would assume that some Florida State fans probably imbibed one or two beverages over an island, got drunk off Guinness, your poops black. And then you get to see that stinker.

Yeah. And then you had on top of that, that Kirk Herb street twisted the knife saying, man, tough loss for the Knowles over an island for to a good Georgia tech team. The great news is with the new twelve team playoff, there's still plenty of opportunities to climb back into the bracket, regroup and keep battling.

Yeah.

Now he's, he is technically right that they're not out of it with the new playoff. It actually, Florida State has, controls their own destiny now. Whereas last year they won all their games and didn't control their own destiny. So they actually control their own destiny even though they lost the first game. Mm hmm. So they're not out of it. But man, does that suck. Especially how last year ended. And then to be like, you know, revenge tour starts now. Dj, you, I'm gonna believe in him for once. Well, no, I believe in him every single year. That one game. I actually think we should actually maybe do like a, maybe it's, maybe it's a Mount Rushmore. Maybe it's just a segment where it's like if you didn't watch this one game, you would think about someone totally different. If I had just somehow missed DJU throwing five touchdowns against Notre Dame during the COVID year, I would, it would, it would have stopped me from having so much pain in lost bets every year after that.

I'm pretty sure there's a couple of Carson Wentz games out there that definitely apply to this. Yeah, that just like you see 173 degrees outside.

See one game over and it just fucks you up forever.

Yep. Then you're never going to get out of that hole either because you keep, you know, deep down in your soul, like this guy is capable of accomplishing the unthinkable.

Somewhere in there is that guy, and.

It'S up to somebody to bring it out of him.

Yeah. And it just didn't happen.

It didn't happen, but it is. Georgia Tech always fucks people up in like these weird situations, too.

Yeah. There, I mean, they're, they have played spoiler, obviously last year, the Miami game.

Yeah.

Oh, that was the biggest spoiler.

And they only had, I think, 14 possessions total during this game.

Yeah.

Right. So they just controlled the clock and they did it.

And, yeah, you have Kirk Herbstreet twisting the knife. It looked like a great time out in Ireland. I did love how mad everyone got about Pat McAfee doing getting drunk at a bar. You had him do a show at an irish pub. That's exactly. I stand with Pat McAfee. That's exactly how he should act.

Absolutely. You're in Ireland. You want to adopt the culture of that town.

Like, how could he? What do you mean, how could he what? You put him in a bar.

When you send him to Utah. Guess what he does. Doesn't have a single thing to drink.

Right?

You just win in Rome.

You make him do a show in a bar, he's gonna get drunk.

And when they cut to the booth in the actual game and they were holding Guinness, people took that and were like, you've got ESPN people getting drunk at their shows, and in the game, it's like, that's a crazy reach.

Yeah.

Also, I'm fine.

You're in Ireland.

I'm okay with that. If announcers want to drink beer while they're announcing a football game, it would make things a lot more entertaining. If Al Michaels. Well, he probably already has a couple glasses. Scotch. Nothing big. Yeah, but, yeah, if you had, you know, if Tom Brady wanted to crack open a couple, like, zero carb seltzer and tequilas, yeah, I'd be okay with that.

I. So week zero. I hate week zero, by the way. I think I hate it. I just think, just give me, like, four more games than what they give us, because the Georgia tech Florida state game ended, and I was like, all right, next game.

The problem, the Hawaii game was not. It's not even real game.

Yeah, I I'm okay with having the appetizer, with having just four games, but I want them to be back to back right there. I I want. I want you to start. That second game was Montana State and New Mexico. Right.

Was incredible. Montana covered big time underdog, great game. Or won the game outright on the game.

So I would have loved to see that start kick off right afterwards, but. And then have the next one right after that and then have Hawaii kick off late at night.

In theory, week zero, I'm fine with. It's just the execution of it. Give me eight games. Eight games, Jimmy. Gimme, gimme, gimme one time. Give me a morning, an afternoon, and night big game, and then sprinkle in a couple of these other, you know, Nevada SMU games. That's what I want. And they just don't. It just sucks.

My problem was, after the first game was over, I was at a bar, and then I was like, man, I can't wait for this next game that I'm kind of pretending to care about because I'm betting on it. Don't really care about this game if it was in any other week, but then you have, like, 45 minutes to an hour of just, like, reminding people, hey, we got to stick around because we got to see what happens with Montana State later.

And it's like everyone goes through the motions of college football is back, but, like, it really isn't. I really. I just. I just wish there was more. That's all.

It's good appetizer.

It's a fine appetizer, but I just give us more. Give. I. You can't. Footballs a drug. They basically were like, here you go. Have. Have this drug, and then, whoops, sorry. You're gonna have to wait another five days for more of the drug. Yeah, I died. I need. I need the drug right now.

We need to.

As I can cut it off in the summer, I can. I can live without the drug. But the minute you put the drug in front of me, I'm gonna get fucked up and want to just go, you know, lose my whole life and just sit in a motel for the next six months.

What about this? What if they put a new week before week zero week, negative one.

Fine.

And there's just one game.

No, I need. I need my. Need more of the drug. They just gave us a taste. I wanted. I want the whole thing.

What if it's the worst possible football game you can imagine?

No, I want. I want more. I need more. They got me hooked. I mean, I'm already hooked, but they got me extra hooked.

Like d three. You get one d three game in week, negative one, and then put on zero. Then you get eight games. It's like easing yourself in.

I just. I just needed more. I needed more. I left. I left being like, man, I wish I had more. I watched the entire SMU Nevada game, and I was like, give me another game.

It's another great game.

Yeah, well, it was college football.

It was an interesting.

It was.

It was a sm.

You had a player kicked out for spitting. They were, like, burning timeouts at random times, not being set.

I don't even know if you spit on anybody. If you just spit on the ground.

It was the craziest thing ever. And Nevada was going to Punta, and then they blew the whistle through the flag, and I was like, oh, it must be, you know, delay a game or, you know, false start, whatever. Move them back, and they're like, no players. Spit. He's out of the game. And now Nevada has the first out.

It really was a good weekend of, of just quintessential college football, though, because you had the weird stuff going on in Ireland. You had a wind delay in the Montana State New Mexico game where in the fourth quarter, Montana State got the ball with what looked to be like a 55 miles an hour wind at their back the entire time. And then you had the weird shit that happened and the craziness and the chaos at the end of the, the SMU game.

Yeah. And we also had the, which I didn't realize I should have done a better job that now college football has a two minute warning, which I don't really like.

Yep. Yep. They do.

I don't like that.

They reminded us several times that, which I appreciate that. You know what? That's why we have zero is important.

Yeah, I just. Two minute warning was kind of fun that they didn't have it. Yeah. It's because it also was a great casual. Like, you could, you could spot the casual watch like an NFL guy who just tuned into their first college football game and like, oh, he was out of bounds on that catch. No, 1ft.

1Ft.

Or, you know, oh, where's the two minute warning? Nope, they don't have that.

Why is the clock stopped right now? Because they got a first down.

I want the games to be slightly different so you can kind of spot them in the wild.

Yeah, but at the same time, when you watch a receiver make a catch in college and he gets 2ft in, you're like, that guy could play in the.

Yeah, you can play on Sundays. Yeah, you can play on Sundays. Any other I saw, I mean, we're just going through the roster cuts Trey Lance through five picks. I feel bad for Trey Lance.

He almost had skip Bayless on his side. Yeah, I was loving it. And then right on QE through a pick six.

I actually feel bad for Trey Lance because it's not his fault that he got drafted. Number three. Or is he a number three?

Top five.

Yeah, it was at least top five. He threw five picks. Someone had a tweet. I should have bookmarked it, but it was basically like Trey Lance in the last five years, it was like high school, he played, I don't know, like 300 snaps. College he played 300 snaps. And then since being in the NFL, he's played like 150 snap. He just hasn't played football.

He hasn't played that much. He's an all time guy of, this guy could be great because I saw him really, really play well in one game.

And he had that run. He had that touchdown run. That looked awesome.

It was in the, the FCS national championship game against JMU.

Right.

Absolutely crushed. I don't throw like one interception when he was in college.

He was exceptions.

He was awesome.

Speaker two. And then he got his entire senior year taken away for Covid. But yeah, he. I feel bad for Trey Lance. I officially feel bad for tray Lance.

I think he'll be okay.

I mean, he did make a lot of money being picked third overall. Mike White also got cut. Yeah.

So they're doing Skyler Thompson right now.

Yeah.

They're going to bring Mike White back to the Jets. Mike White could win you a game on the New York Jets. I don't care who he's playing against. I don't care. He could come off the bench in the first quarter and Mike White has that ability to just somehow throw for three touchdowns for the jets.

Right. But who's your backup right now, memes? I didn't realize you had Jordan Travis, but he's injured.

Tyrod Taylor.

Oh, my God.

He's going to have some freak injury that nobody else in the history of football is going to have.

Yeah. I mean, I didn't ask for your backup. It's not. Your backup probably is irrelevant this year.

Yeah. At least for the first five snaps.

Come on, man.

Is.

He's back, though. Memestae is. He had a great game, Izzy. So back. Yeah, it's easy season.

It's easy season.

Defensive line backups look good. I know everybody cares about.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

Getting way down in the.

I was, I was actually thinking about whether I should bring up that the bears made a trade for a couple defensive linemen. Don't know if it moves to the needle, but they did.

Jalen going all his first pick at training camp.

Oh, wow.

Moves a needle.

He got that out last.

Last day of. Last day of practice and training camp.

Probably bounced off Dotson's hands. We're going to get Brandon Iook on the commanders and we've got Luke McCaffrey and Martavis Bryant. We don't need John Dodge.

Just ready for football. I'm just ready for football. We did have, I'd say the best NFL story from today was Jim Harbaugh and the elevator. Yes.

It was incredible.

So the Chargers, a couple Chargers players, including Justin Herbert, got caught in an elevator before. I might have been, I think it was before the game against the Cowboys this weekend. I and Harbaugh was a motel where.

The, like a room blew up.

No, I think that that one, Oxnard, I believe the fire was in California.

Dallas, in the hotel. Something's going on.

So Harbaugh was asked after it. So harbor, I guess, was the elevator right before, which makes me believe that Harbaugh probably did this on purpose and got the elevator stuck on purpose. But afterwards he did an interview and he said, talking about the elevator, they're stuck for 2 hours. Justin Herbert and some Chargers players said, you get in those situations and it's a test of wills. I was proud of each of the guys and the two women that were on that elevator. That's a win. You feel good about yourself. You were challenged. It was a test of will. And you pull it down or pull it in. And then talking about Justin Herbert, this is my favorite, getting off the elevator. And it was hot. As each person came off the elevator sweating and some had the shirt off. Justin Herbert, his hair was a little wet, but his shirt was completely dry. That was another thing that blew me away. He said, I might bet on the Chargers now.

I think you left out the best part of that quote. He said for Justin Herbert, his hair being a little wet, but his shirt completely dry, he said, that was another thing that blew me away. This guy is just a beast.

He is.

He's a beast. Hank, when you were stuck on that elevator, was your shirt dry?

Yeah, we're only in there for ten minutes, 2 hours a long. It's a very time to be stuck in an elevator.

Very long. Somebody peed on that elevator. I want to know about that. I want to know who pissed on. Honestly, I would say that if Justin Herbert didn't pee on that elevator. Selfish teammate. Because that means that he wasn't hydrated enough.

That's true.

You should be peeing all the time. If Harbaugh come out and say it was incredible, Justin had to pee six times on this elevator because he was so hydrated, I'd say that's a guy setting an example and a tone for all the rookie guys on the team that need somebody to look up to for hydration.

I have to say, I like, I know we did that whole talk with Will. He's picking the Chiefs to not win the AFC west, saying it's a scrappy division. And I'm still. I think we announced that the Chiefs are going to win the AFC west like six months ago. Sticking with that. But I might put a little something on, on the Chargers just because. Not to win the FC west, but maybe just win the Super bowl because Harbaugh, the guy just does things like this. Yeah. I mean, he's a winner.

He also said that Friday was a key step in the team. Getting good at making yourself harder to break. Love that we got to get stuck in elevator.

Love that I'd sweat so much. He would be like, this guy's a wimp.

I would. How long would it take you to start complaining when you were stuck in? I'd say less than a second.

I complained before the elevators even stuck. I'm like, damn, I'm in another elevator.

When you're getting on an elevator, you know, this time my great grandfather died, and then he said, who's got it better than those guys that were on that elevator?

No one. No one. No one.

Nobody.

Do we have any other football stories? I had a couple other things I wanted to touch on the elevator.

One was really my favorite.

That was the best. Hank, you had something?

No.

Well, I had something for you on.

The way in, so on the way. And I was talking to. I ran into the guy in my building who helped us get out of the elevator, and we were talking about the incident. He kind of made a joke. Oh, you're getting stuck in the elevator again? I was like, no.

Huh?

Thanks for helping. And he was like, tell me a story about. I thought he was talking about my building. He said, my friend, like, it happened to him. The woman came, went to the floor. He didn't tell anyone, and she died.

What?

Like, they were looking for. And I was like, the guy just didn't tell anyone. Like, she. He knew she got stuck down there. And then he said, yeah, he got arrested for being dumb. And I was like, here? And he said, no, different building. And then I was like, all right, see ya.

It wasn't tell anyone.

It was wild, small talk conversations that he was like, yeah, my friend was. You know, he had a similar situation happened, but the. The thing fell down, and he didn't tell anyone, and the family was looking for. And it smelled bad, and I was like, so she died? He's like, yeah. I was like, is he arrested? He's like, yeah, 20 years.

Oh, my God.

Good to see.

That's a nice little. Yeah. Fun conversation to have. Hank, did you want the other thing I had for you?

Yes.

Did you see Jason Tatum's tattoo? Yeah. What you think? Did you see a pFt?

I've not. I'm gonna look it up right now.

I think if I had actually me or.

Yeah, yeah. Your immediate. Well, no, no, first, before you look it up, guess what the tattoo is.

Jason Tatum's tattoo is of his son.

Nope.

But his son's dunking on him.

Nope. It is a trophy.

Okay. It's of the Larry O'Brien trophy.

Nope. You'd think because he just won it. It's also one of gold medals.

Is it of the gold medal?

No.

Better.

It's even better. Jason Tatum got a tattoo of himself lifting the all star MVP trophy.

Named after.

Named after his. His good friend. That. Who he corresponds with frequently.

Kobe Bryant. But I. He just won the gold medal in the. In the Larry O'Brien.

Those aren't named the Kobe Bryant that the gold medal is.

Come on.

Kobe Bryant.

Hey, come on.

What people get, you know, touching tattoo tributes to people that they've lost and they care about.

Come on, Hank.

What does it say on it? It says, like, something gra.

Come on.

That grail. Did he say, this is my grail?

I mean, dudes get crazy like, people. Everyone's tatted up.

But Hank, he just got this tattoo. He just won two of the most impressive things. No one gives a fuck about the all star.

Well, Tag, he did not win NBA Finals MVP.

That's true.

Tattoos take a long time to, you know, sketch up and plan out. He.

Hard to do a gold medal.

He probably is waiting to get those ones, but they're coming.

Oh, so he got this designed at the, like, the second he won this trophy.

Do you know, you know what it is, Hank? And I know, like, listen, I know you're sensitive about his aura. This is a Joel. This is a Joel beat of.

No, that.

Yet that's the peak. Like, you get that, too. If that's the most you've ever won. He hadn't won the winner.

Yeah, he is.

He's won.

Say it again. He just won the final.

I understand, but that's not a. You don't get the all star MVP.

As trophy if you win the all star game. MVP. The NBA Finals in a gold medal in the same year, you can do whatever you want.

You. Yeah. Like, and you want the NBA Finals in the. In the gold medal.

Who are you?

If I want an NBA Finals, if I want an NBA final, an all star MVP and a gold medal metal. Also MVP. The last tattoo I'd put on my body.

But it's. What if he gets the other two?

That.

Is it forgiven?

I think it's better.

It would be slightly forgiven, yes.

It's better than if Joel Embiid had gotten this tattoo, because that would have been. It would have been.

That's loser talk.

Yeah, but that. This is a tattoo Joel Embiid would get.

He doesn't have tattoos, but he would.

If he got one because he's never won anything.

Gold medal first.

What if you want a real MVP?

A sketch of himself at draft night.

Yeah.

So he. You're upset that he doesn't have a real MVP tattoo.

No. I mean, all Star MVP is more important than real MVP.

But to me this, this just calls into question his, his aura even further.

It seems like he's forcing the aura.

Negative 5000 aura.

How's getting a tattoo of force? He gets what he likes.

Okay.

Because he likes all star MVP's.

That's also a terrible trophy. What is that trophy?

It's a Kobe Bryant trophy.

I know, but what is it? I. It looks like a bad building.

It looks like a giant martini shaker.

Yeah. Or like a really shitty wedding cake.

Or if, if like the, the looks.

Like a World Series.

If the World Series trophy just let itself go.

Yeah. Yeah. Got really fat.

Yeah.

I did.

Crystal butt plug.

That was the other thing I wanted to talk about briefly with the boys. I want to talk a little baseball because we've got two guys having probably the like craziest years that we've had in a long time. Aaron Drudge hit his 50th and 51st home run today. He is on my dingers only.

He's closing in on the AL record.

Who had first pick in dingers only?

That would be me.

Who'd you take?

I took Shohei. And Shohei. The 40 40 club fast. The fastest of all time to join it. He's going to demolish the 40. He's probably going to have the most combined or like, I don't even know how to phrase that.

No, no one's ever been to the 50 50.

No one's been.

So he has a legitimate chance to go 50 50.

He could get 50 50 on this. I think a rod has the record. Right? It's like 4444-4343 he was.

But he was. So the 40 steroids. Yeah, the 40 40 guys. He did it show. Hey. Did it. 126 games. And the second fastest was Alfonso Soriano in 2006. 147 games. So he's got a full like 30 plus games to get to the 50 50 club, which has never been done. He also did it in the most dramatic fashion, hitting a walk off grand slam.

It's just crazy.

On the first pitch with two outs, Shohei and just casually the next day threw off the mound for the first time because, oh, yeah, if you don't remember, Shohei has a career ERA of.

233 yeah, he's also like the best pitcher too.

He is.

He's just taking a year off.

It's insane the fact that he's like, oh yeah, I have a UCL so I'm just going to become one of the best base Steelers now. And the home run. So Shohei is doing that in, in LA. And then judge hit his 50. What? He is 51st. So he is now three guys or, sorry, four guys total before this have three seasons or more with 50 home runs. Babe Ruth, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGuire, Alex Rodriguez, Aaron Judge own joins that group. He's also the first player in MLB history with 50 plus home runs, 120 plus RBI's and 100 plus walks before September. And he's on pace for 62 this year. It's pretty crazy.

Yeah, it's absolutely wild. If MLB was competent, if they had a way of, of rigging the games like some of the other leagues do, sometimes they would make sure that it was going to be a Yankees Dodgers.

Yeah.

Series. Instead, we'll probably end up. I don't know who's the Cleveland and San Diego.

It's also like, why the constant who? The MLB needs a face of the league and the MLB. What's the marketing problem for the MLB? It's okay, just say the MLB. They're just so far behind football that once September hits its football season. Because these two guys and what they're doing is so insane and so awesome that MLB, unfortunately, has become more of a regional sport where you root for your team and don't probably tune into everything else, but these guys are the face of the MLB and they're like, couldn't be better.

Yeah, two of them. I mean, Shohei is having an incredible.

Season and they're both awesome.

I'm loving what.

And outside of not talking the Little League World Series, Aaron Judge seems like a good dude.

I was going to say I think the face of the league is the United States Little League World Series. Team facts. Because we win, we win again. We beat Taiwan. I said Taiwan. It's disgusting that Little League World Series is in the pocket of the Communist Party. Chinese Taipei.

Ah.

The Little League World Series has now officially decided that Taiwan belongs to the chinese government.

It's crazy.

Weird, huh? Weird.

The Little League World Series. Hank, what are your thoughts on that?

Do you recognize the sovereignty of Taiwan?

I think it would help to give some context to our maybe younger listeners who aren't fully aware what the differences.

Maybe like somebody that's eight, nine years younger than us that might be listening out there.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, hypothetically on a couch somewhere.

So you're saying, okay, so the team identifies as Taiwan.

Post world War two, what happened was.

Like, where are the players on the team?

I'm gonna. I'm gonna set it up for you.

It depends on who they're saying their allegiance.

Hank. Post world War two, the communists and the nationalists had a big war against each other in China. Before they were big hole, they were fighting on the same side against the. The Japanese and I. And after world War two, the communists won. The nationalists flew over to Taiwan. They set up their own country there. Now to this day, the Communist Party in China, the chinese government still claims that they own everybody that's living in Taiwan. And it's called Chinese Taipei. Like, you remember a couple seasons ago when ESPN drew that seven dash line or whatever around the South China Sea? They gave fishing rights to the chinese government in the South China Sea. That's what the Little League World Series is doing with Taiwan. They're just giving it to the Chinese.

So the Little League World Series is in bed with the Chinese.

In bed.

No better than Lebron or Steve Kerr.

Yeah, yeah.

So the tide that.

Yeah, I'm with Taiwan. We are Taiwan's name.

Yeah. So we beat Taiwan today. That's all I'm saying. Not Chinese Taipei, but it was fuck out of Taiwan. Two to one.

Yep, yep. And extra small.

Small balls back, baby.

Florida, now that's a real island.

That's. Yeah, that's how we. Florida probably declares itself as its own country.

Hell, yes.

We would never do that in the United States.

That big boy on Florida was awesome. He was electric.

Yeah.

They still home.

They had two big boys just mashing.

Yeah.

The United States. We stand for something. And that's why I was glad we didn't have to play against Puerto Rico.

Yeah, exactly. We got this. So baseball's back, though.

Baseball is fully back.

So back. Both those guys. Should we do our who's back? And then we'll get to two interviews. We got Marcus Freeman and Andy Staples. Who's back of the week? It is brought to you by Buffalo Wild Wings. Book your fantasy football draft at Buffalo Wild Wings to get a championship ring. Book at Buffalo wild wings.com fantasy. There's no better place than buffalo wild wings. Cold beers, great food, million tvs. Why not have your draft there? And guess what? If you have your draft there, you can have a Buffalo wild Wings championship ring for the winner of your fantasy league this year. Order a fantasy football bundle. If you're hosting a fantasy football draft party at home and try our limited time sauces. Hot BBQ is back and buffalo bacon sauce is new for a limited time B Dubs is football. If you're going to a sports bar, let's go to a sports bar that is buffalo wildlings. Oh, we got to do. Let's go sports bar. Buffalo Wild Wings is the best, though. Also get the mini corn dogs. They're absolutely incredible. But yeah, Buffalo Wild Wings football's back. If you're going to do your fantasy draft, even if you want to do it at home, get it catered by buffalo Wild wings.

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My who's back in the week is Oasis.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

I don't think I talked about it on the show. I definitely talked to PFT about it, but there is an HBO documentary. I think it came out a while ago, but I stumbled upon it in the spring, maybe early summer, and I was, went down an Oasis rabbit hole and just became obsessed. I definitely was talking to PFT about it for a while before the pop punk show, so I'm pumped. I was not really, I was a, you know, in the, I know, you know, wonderwall category. Like, I knew.

Yeah.

Some of them got bangers. The documentary was great. They were like the biggest band of all time in the nineties. And they have bangers.

Yeah.

And, and drama, the brother drama is so they got aura like the.

Liam, Liam.

Liam Gallagher has aura like through the moon. He is one of the funniest characters. So I'm very, very, very late to the party and I, but, like, me and Robbie Fox will just send each other. Like I, you know, it was in my algorithm for a while where I was just getting, you know, all the old videos and when I'm drunk, I'll just like, turn on some of their live concerts and stuff.

It's all the concerts have like 700,000. 700,000 people in bucket hats.

Yeah. They're wearing, they're like waving giant, giant ass flags.

Yeah.

They only perform at the biggest music.

That's incredible.

And meanwhile, like, they're on stage and Liam is calling his brother cunt in songs. He, his roasts are so good. If you ask Liam Gallagher about, like, any modern musician, he'll just talk to you for about 30 seconds about how bad that guy sucks. He's like, he is on the Mount Rushmore of haters, but in a hilarious way.

Have you told Billy about this?

No. I'm sure he's excited.

Hey, Hank found a second band.

Yeah. Are you worried what Billy Strings is gonna say?

No, I think.

Is there room for two?

Yeah, there's room for two. My YouTube, like, if you went on my YouTube, because that.

It was.

It was definitely a phase. Kind of like food. Like, I was in, like, a three week oasis obsession phase that petered off. But sometimes when I'm. When I'm drunk, like, you come home, I think I saw, like, a meme on Twitter. It's like, you know, you're drunk when you're just. Someone's turning on full length concerts.

Yeah.

That oasis, like, turning on their old, like, the Wembley or whatever. Like, that happens still.

Glastonbury.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They had a.

It was like 400,000, ya know.

Is every single concert the same way?

And I was watching documentaries, like, yeah, I knew one song, I didn't know they were this big. And they, like, the biggest band in the world.

Yeah.

How long do you think this reunion is gonna last? Will they put over under? I'm gonna say one and a half concert.

They have to go to a different country. Probably feels like a lot of the beef always starts whenever they have to fly anywhere.

If.

Okay, I've got a beef in America, Spain. One. One time.

I'm guessing the first concerts gonna be in England somewhere. Yes. The second one, let's just say hypothetically, it's Scotland.

If they have to come to America for a tour, it will not last.

They won't make it over that. That body.

Absolutely not.

Did you see? Where is it?

If it's drivable.

If it's drivable.

They pretty cars. Yeah.

Our colleague Dante the dawn had a very funny. Okay, my favorite. This is Dante to Don, my favorite Liam Gallagher stories from 2017, lallapalooza. They stick him with the worst slot of the weekend. 04:00 p.m. friday. I show up at three, get on side stage. So pumped for the show, he goes on, immediately starts bitching out his sound guy and guitar player three songs later, says, fuck this, and walks off stage.

Yeah, he does that all the time. He's just like, I'm not doing this.

And he's. He's talented enough where he can keep getting away with it.

He did that. I think he. They were supposed to do like MTV unplugged and he, he said, I just don't like how acoustic sounds.

Yeah.

Like, and just didn't do it right before the documentary.

I part about like, cuz they were right before the Internet and technology. So like they were really like the last kind of like big rocks.

Yeah.

Liam Gallagher is a rock. So the new Beatles doesn't. Yeah. Doesn't give a fuck.

Yep. Okay, I got a couple whose backs of the week. My first is Logan Paul.

Yeah.

Wait, when he pushed his dog.

Yeah. Apparently pushed his dog off a speeding boat.

Yeah, that was bad. I saw that.

So that he could then rescue his dog and then get a lot of hits on video for being like, oh, look, my dog fell in the lake and I saved it. Yeah, you can see his arm pushing his dog.

Yeah, that was bad jail.

Really bad prison. Now I want to see Mike Tyson beat the fuck out of him. Noted dog lover, Mike Tyson.

You'd think the videos, the amount of videos they've done and like different height, like they could figure out a way to push a dog off a boat without having to be so obvious.

Yeah.

That I'm condoning that, but I'm saying it was so obvious that he did that.

It should have been like somebody else's arm. And then the video is, I beat this guy up and save my dog, but I beat him up because he pushed.

We left him for dead in the water.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So my other who's back.

Cute dog, by the way.

Very cute dog. My other who's back at the week is Jamis Winston. Yes, Jameis Winston. For some reason, he's still in charge of giving all the pregame speeches to the Browns, even though he's not technically QB one, but he's pregame QB one.

I think he's heart and soul, QB one. Deshawn Watson is. What's going to happen this year with him?

I don't know. I don't.

We're going to do some previews coming up, but like, Deshaun Watson has to be one of the biggest question marks. Is he good still?

We don't know.

No one knows.

We don't know if he's good or not. He had a couple games last season where he looked like, okay, that was. That looked like an NFL quarterback.

Right.

And then a lot where it was.

Like, this guy stinks and he's got a great coach.

He's got a great coach. And Jamis is now in the building and Jamis will be the most popular person that building. And his video, his pre, pre game speech videos continue to go viral because he talked about Cece's pizza.

Yeah.

And it just gives you goosebumps. And you're like, I just want. I want to get out there and play for Jamis.

He's the best.

Yeah. So Jamus is. If they. So he gets paid $4 million a year, and I think if he only acts as a motivational speaker, he's worth $4 million a year to have on retainer.

Yeah. When he returns, just to give speech. Will hire him in parcel to just do that.

Just give us speeches every single day.

Him and Ben Herbert, we will be the drill. Tweet.

Yeah.

Can someone help us with barstools, finances, rent this, you know, sound equipment. This Ben Herbert trainer, 10 million. Jameis Winston, 4 million.

All they do pregame speech.

Jamis pumps us up, and then Ben Herbert makes us harder to break.

I just. I would love to. Yeah. It is worth paying James Winston $4 million a year just for vibes.

Agreed.

And that's what they're doing.

Agreed. Okay. My who's back of the week is hilarious. Hit pieces that don't really land. Now, this is very, very specific, but not to get political, but if anyone is paying any attention, RFK dropped out and then endorsed Trump. And then there was a bunch of people coming out against RFK, his own family. Again, not to get political. I just saw one story that made me laugh that I thought was good for the show. There was a explosive bombshell that was dropped that is titled RFK Junior accused of being a cocaine dealer at Harvard University. As former classmate speaks out. And it's just this dude who's apparently been sitting on this for, like, 40 years that he's like, yeah, I bought dollar 40 worth of cocaine from RFK in college. I don't know if you realize that that does not help being like, this guy sucks.

So it was. He said that his excuse for was, I was offered to purchase cocaine from a Kennedy.

Yeah.

So I did it. Yeah, that's. I would. But I would have done the same.

The whole point of a hit piece is to be like, we all now feel bad. Like, we feel like this person is a scumbag. You're like, yeah, 40 years ago, this guy sold me coke. It's like, oh, that kind of rocks.

I did read it. At the very end. It put in a note saying, like, the point. The reason why I'm writing this right now is because Trump has suggested the death penalty for. For drug dealers. How do you feel about endorsing guy that would have had you killed when you were 18? It's like, I'm still would have done it. He's a fucking Kennedy.

Yeah. That's what they probably was the coolest guy at Harvard.

They break the law. That's what they do.

So. So I just. It made me laugh. And I like, again, we don't talk politics on the show, but that political story definitely made me laugh because it was just so ridiculous. The biggest back. This guy has been sitting on this.

Did you. Yeah. Did you see the other coming for about the whale?

No. Oh, yeah.

The whale was a much more normal store.

Very cool one.

So he took his daughter, he found, like, a beached whale that was dead, and they took his daughter to the beach and used a chainsaw to cut off the whales head and then bungee cord the head of the whale to his minivan, and whale juice started leaking into the car.

Oh, my.

Onto his daughter.

Jesus. That's weird guy.

Normal. That's pretty normal, I'd say.

Yeah, he's a weird guy, but, yeah. Coming out and being like, guy sold me coke in college. Got him. Wow. I'm gonna change everyone's mind now.

You gotta lead with a whale story.

All right. Hughie finishes off my who's back conference realignment.

The Yukon Huskies.

Yes. Are seems like they're trying to get into the big twelve, and the big pitch is that they'll spend more money on football, particularly, and that big twelve is very bullish on basketball, and they want more basketball to be a little bit higher of an income for them. They tried to go after Gonzaga a couple years ago. That did not work out. So now they're trying to go after a Hurley and the Huskies and trying to bring in some basketball eliteness to that conference.

Max, what do you think about the idea of UConn switching conferences?

You would love it. Hate it. You hate it?

Absolutely hate it.

All right, so this would suck, because I do love, like, the Big east as it's currently set as a basketball conference. And Hurley's talked to us before about, you know, like, Northeast, the italian league, all that stuff. It would suck. It also would make the big twelve the greatest college basketball conference of all time. And I like it just would, because it would now you'd have Kansas, you'd have Yukon, you'd have Arizona, like Cincinnati. It'd be just crazy college basketball every single year, Baylor. So I don't want it to happen is I want UConn to stay in the Big east but I also realized that the big twelve would just be so fucking good with basketball.

But I don't want it. No, I don't want. I don't want to happen because you. You have. You have these thoughts in your head of, like, things that are just known to be true correct all the time and will never, ever change. And that's. UConn is a big e school, and that will never change. It's never changed. It's never changed in the past, and it'll never be any different than that. But, no, I don't. I don't want that to happen. UConn should be in the big east. They're home right now. Let's leave them home.

Yeah.

I did look at the get in price at fog Allen, for when Unc comes to town. First time Unc has ever played at the fog. Do you know how much it costs to go to that game?

$700?

I think it's like 1800.

Wow.

Like $2,000 just to get. Just to get in the door of that game.

We got to go to fog Allen this year. Yeah. We're talking to our friend Eric Chenoweth. He's gonna take us there, it seems. Want to go?

Awesome.

Actually, you know, it'd be great is we could take a road trip in Vanny. Yeah.

We good to the fog?

So we'll be ready by the winter.

Yeah.

Really?

Winter? We here?

Have we.

We'll circle back, but. Yeah.

Have we got the timeline up here?

I got faith that's subject to change.

Is faith a mechanic?

Faith fix a car that. A van that hasn't driven.

Summers over. Wheels are in motion.

Summers not over. Hank.

No. The wheels literally are not in motion. The wheels have not been in motion for five years.

Hey, the one who keep. Who always says, hold on. The summer.

Oh, wow.

Locked in.

Labor day.

Summers over. So I better not see golfing.

That's not. I mean, you could. The fall golf is the best golf. Put all winter golf in Arizona.

Summers not over.

Week after Super bowl.

Don't do this to us.

Oh, man. Yeah, I don't want this to happen, either. It would suck. I also feel like Danny Hurley should, like, just get all his money and be out of his contract if this.

Happens, it should be in his contract that UConn stays in the big east.

Yeah. Yeah. And it was just so perfect that it was right before college football started. We're like, all right. New normal. New conferences. No Pac 1212 team play. Oh, yeah. Here's another one. We're not done yet. It's been my take from the beginning. Just get us to the finish line. Tell us when we're done with this stuff. Okay, let's get to our interviews. We have Marcus Freeman, head coach of Notre Dame fighting Irish. And then Andy Staples talking college football. And it is college football season is brought to you by Coors light big rivalry game coming up. Choose chill with the world's most refreshing beer, Coors light mountain cold refreshment that can chill even the most heated rivalries. When you're looking to keep it chill, there's only one beer to choose. Coors light the mountains on. The bottles and cans even turn blue when your beer is cold. So you know when your mountain cold refreshment is ready for you to choose chill when things heat up, choose chill and then crack open a Coors light. Coors Lite is the one to choose when rivalries heat up. So when you're looking to cool things down and enjoy the game, choose chill and reach for a Coors light.

Get Coors light delivered straight to your door with Instacart or go puff by going to Coors light.com take. Thank you to Coors light, our wonderful sponsor. The coldest beer out there. The best beer out there. The best beer for college football. Okay, here he is, head coach of Notre Dame, Marcus Freeman. Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest. It is head coach of the Notre Dame fighting Irish, Marcus Freemandeze. They have a new series out called here come the Irish. It will be out August 29 on Peacock. Let's start with that, coach. So basically, hard knocks, right? For a college team, when you were approached with that, were you, were you like a little bit nervous about like, hey, do we really want to do all access or what was your thought process behind having you guys do this show?

Yeah, I think it's something we've talked about probably for about a year now. And the first thing I think of is a little bit you're protective of your team and hold on. I don't want episodes coming out throughout the season and our guys wondering why they're not in a certain episode or looking for characters and stories. But, you know, then we started talking more in depth about it and, you know, they're going to capture stuff from all year long, but they're going to put them out at different times that really won't interfere with our season. And so I was 100% good with that. But I've seen a glimpse and pieces of the first two episodes and I think it's awesome. They've done a, well, a really good job of not only just showing the football side of things, but, but telling the stories of our players, showing, you know, some of the things that the fans and so some of those guys that aren't fans would like to know. It's pretty entertaining.

Yeah.

So give me one guy that's, that's either on the team or on your staff that's going to be a breakout star of this. Because every year in hard knocks we always get like one guy that we fall in love with we didn't know about. But it's like, oh, my God, this guy's hilarious. I love that. Who's that person on Notre Dame who's hilarious?

I don't know who's hilarious. Not who we hope. And he better be the breakout star, better be the quarterback, you know? And if he's the breakout star, then you know what? Things are going to go really, really well for us.

Yeah.

How's his hair? Is his hair as good as Sam's?

No, he doesn't have the long hair. He's pretty clean cut, but he's got a listen. He is, he's got a unique personality, ultra competitive. But, you know, I think him and Sam are two completely different individuals.

Yeah.

How long would Sam take getting, you know, ready after a game in the shower, all the product. Was he, was he always the last one out?

You know what? I know that he was never out before me and I take a while because I have to do media and some other things after a game and I always beat him out of the locker room.

Yeah. So, yeah. Your, your quarterback, Riley Leonard, who last year he went through, you know, the injuries and everything. Was that part of it like seeing how. Cause he's a gritty guy and he fought through a lot of stuff and he's kind of one of those perfect, like he's a gamer. Were you when you were deciding, you know, transfer portal, you're like, this is a guy, we've played him, we know him and we know that he can fight through stuff. Was that part of the process?

Absolutely. That was part of the, the thought process. When we ended up, um, going after him, we played him obviously, in season. You, you study him for weeks leading up to that game and in that game, and he's a tough competitor, you end up getting hurt at the very last play of that game. And then I hear about two weeks later he bounces back and he was healthy, but he is an ultra competitor and that's a huge part of what we were looking for.

Yeah, I know, you, obviously, we're fans. We can gamble on games. That game was awesome because Audrey Castame ran that touchdown at the end.

Yeah, I think the analytics would tell him to take a knee.

Yeah, yeah.

But maybe you got the room for him to score that touchdown.

Yeah, I mean, listen, if you had a chance to score a touchdown, I understand the right move to do is to take a knee there. Do you. Do you tell the guys, like. Cause it's like you're scoring a touchdown in a big time college football game. It's hard to turn that off. Are you able to tell them before, like, hey, if you break this, go down?

Yeah. You know, in that situation, the analytics book would tell you to go down, but we were down, I think two point at that point, and I got a firm belief that, like, you never want to take points off the board, and so you're down. I never tell our office to take a knee at the 1 yd line. I say score now. If we're tied or we're winning now, we'll alert you. Hey, alert, down, down. Because what we want to do is kick a field goal with 0 second on the clock. And so that's. That's just where the analytics plays out. And as a head coach, you got to make a decision. But we did not tell him to go down.

Yeah, yeah. I forgot you guys were down one. So it would have been. Yeah, that. You're right. That would have been a weird situation to. Obviously, you can end the game with a field goal, but you never want to take that risk.

No, no doubt, no doubt. So much speaker two can go wrong with. With any type of field. Go extra point, you. I can't take points off the board.

Yeah.

And we're very happy that. That he didn't go down after one.

Yeah.

So shout out to him.

Yeah.

His points are good. That should be your motto for the team. Points are always good. No one will ever complain about points. I saw that you were in camp. You were wearing a shirt that caught my eye. You were wearing a shirt that just said grit on it, which we appreciate. We love grit on this podcast. We do a grit tour every year for the last eight years, and I'm curious to know what grit means to you at Notre Dame football. Some of the haters out there might say Notre Dame football, not gritty. What would you say to the haters?

You know what? We have to be gritty. I don't know what some of those people would say about the past, but that's something we believe in. It's really the motto of our offense for this year. Matter of fact, I think I might have the t shirt on right now, and I don't know if you can see it.

I think I. Yeah, grit.

Grit.

But, yeah, it's the motto of our offense. You know, coach Dembrock, we just hired him this year to be our offensive coordinator, and he brought that when he came, and I love it, man. It's a way for me to show our offense a little bit of support, but I'm a firm believer in if we want to have success, we better have grit, and that's something that every person, this program needs to have.

So what does grit mean for your offense if it's an emphasis on your offensive mentality this year? Are we talking fullbacks? Are we talking, like, old school stuff?

No, it's a mentality. It's a mentality. It isn't. I don't know if you're going to see us in old school, two back isos and running the ball every plate three yards in a cloud of dust. But you know what? Again, it's a mentality. We talk about the GB and having gratitude for the opportunity that you have, but at the same point of it, like, it's a mentality that I don't care if we're throwing the ball, running ball, we're zone read or do whatever you're doing offensively, if you don't have grit and that mentality, you're not going to have success.

Yeah. So you're, you know, the head coach of Notre Dame football. You're under 40 years old. Incredible success. Does your dad still think you're not that big of a deal?

It was funny. I was just talking to him today, and I was telling somebody, like, I still think, you know, my dad thinks I'm a little kid, you know, and. And that's just, my dad's 80, but I have a 17. Me and my wife have a 17 year old son that just took an official visit. And I remember telling somebody else, like, I still view him as a little kid. So I don't know if it's something as parents or as fathers that we never just see our young children as adults and these grown men, but he definitely still sees me as a young Marcus, for sure.

Yeah. Because the famous story when you guys were playing the Fiesta bowl, there was a sideline report that. That your dad, even though you've had all the success in the world, doesn't think you're that big of a deal? Is that something like, if you win a national title. Will he be like, hey, you're a big deal now. Are you waiting for that?

I sure as hell hope so, man. You know, that would be an awesome opportunity to celebrate with him, but he's got a unique way of keeping you humble.

Right.

And he never lets you get too big. He reminds you where you've come from, but, I mean, that's relationship we have. My dad was in the military for 26 years. Um, he was, uh, I think 43 when I was born. So we have, obviously, a little bit, uh, of an age gap between us, but I don't know if he'll ever change, man. That's just who he is until he's done on this earth.

Yeah, that's. I mean, it's good. It keeps you humble. Yeah.

It's good to have somebody like that. Even if you're at the highest of highs professionally. Your dad's like, you know what? Like, you could have done a lot better. I feel like we need to look at the mistakes more than we looked at the. The successes there. Uh, you have another hater, by the way. I don't know if you're. If you're familiar with the trash talk that James Laurinaitis has been putting your way recently about college football. First of all, have you played college football? 25?

Absolutely. We have four boys at the house and two girls, so all four boys play college football. And so I've played it a few times with the kids, for sure.

Do you always play as Notre Dame?

Most of the time. Funny story. Last night, I was telling somebody that I get home late, the kids are playing. One of them is using Notre Dame. He was like, dad, you want to play? And I'm like, sure. And he was like, okay, I'm Notre Dame. You can't use Notre Dame. So I'm like, all right. So I end up getting Texas A and M, and I'm like, after I'm playing with him, like, you know what? This is a good way to scout your opponent. I want to see who the stars are and all those different things and how they work. So I don't know if I'll continue to do that, but most of the time, I'm Notre Dame. But maybe during the week we play a new opponent, I'll start using them on college.

I like that. Yeah, because Laura and I just said that you weren't very good at playing. At playing video games. He said they used to beat you, like, every time that you guys played a. Back in college, he said some very mean things about your video gaming ability. Actually, you know what?

I, listen, man. Like, I don't think it was as bad as he tried to portray, but I know he won probably more than, than I did, for sure. But my point is, like, you need to spend more time preparing, studying, getting ready for whatever we're getting ready for in less time playing that game.

That's a fair point, but I do like the angle of taking your next opponent and just playing just college football, 25 with them every single week just to get ready. Like you're scouting before the scouting.

That's right. Exactly right. I'm like, this is genius, man. You can play a game, play with your kids, but also be able to say, okay, we're scouting our opponent.

Yeah, that, I mean, the stadium pulse for, for. Was it Kyle Field? That's gonna be, that's gonna be an intense environment if you thought about that. Do, I mean, they have the 12th man, but Notre Dame has the real 12th man, Jesus on their side. That's gonna be a tough environment to go into.

Yeah, it's going to be loud. You know, we've played in some tough environments, but the thing about it, you have to prepare for it. And so we have, obviously, a pretty loud speaker system here that you have to be able to plan, prepare. You know, something unique this year is that we have the coach to play or communication, and you have to be able to prepare to be able to hear that, maybe with the crowd noise, but also, there's times you might not be able to hear it. So we have to prepare for both of those things. But at the end of the day, like, if we execute, it won't be as loud as we think it's going to be.

Yeah, I got a tough question, but you're, you're such a compelling speaker, and every time you, you post a video of you, you know, recruiting or talking to the guys, I'm like, man, I want to run through. I don't like Notre Dame. I'll just tell you that. But I want to run through a brick wall. But your career was cut short because you have an enlarged heart. How long did it take to kind of mentally get over that? That was, like, taken from you because that's got to, it's got to be really difficult to be like, my body. I feel fine. I could play the game, but I can't anymore because the doctors found something. Was that, how long did that take for you to get over that?

You know, I think at that time, I was wrestling back and forth, was like, man, how long am I going to be able to play. And if I had a couple knee injuries, I would have been on a couple teams. And, and I was kind of going back and forth. And then when the colts called and said, hey, we want to sign you, I remember talking to my college coach and he was like, look, play as long as you can. And when they found the enlarged heart valve, like, it's obviously something you don't want to hear and you're not expecting to hear. But I was only like, man, this is a sign from God, like, hey, enough is enough. You know, move on. You're not good enough to play in the NFL. And let's, let's start this next chapter. So I remember driving home from Indianapolis and calling my coach and saying, listen, coach truss, I'm a, I can't play anymore. I'm ready to be a graduate assistant. And he said, okay, show up first thing tomorrow morning at 630 and we're going to get started on this journey.

That's, I mean, that's the perfect next step. So do you use it as a positive in recruiting ever where you're like, hey, I can love you more than any coach? Like, literally.

I try to use that, maybe with my wife and maybe sometimes the kids, but using that and recruiting, for sure.

So we, we were lucky enough to interview Jim Trestle like seven or eight years ago. Has he instilled the love of punting into you at all?

He is definitely a guy that values field position. There's at times that I remember those things and remember that motto, but there's also times I'm a little bit more aggressive. You know, he was an offensive guy. He's comes from the offensive side. You know, I'm a deep. I come from the defensive side of the ball, but I'm a little bit more aggressive than coach was. So I know there's times I go for it, maybe on fourth, that he's probably shaking his head and says, punt the football. But there's also times I remember that little birdie saying, hey, punt the ball, win the battle. Field position.

Yeah, he's obsessed with it. We like what we rattled off different situations. He just like, oh, yeah, that was a punt. Incredible punt by us. Like, we pinned him deep. It was, it was like the Sean McVeigh clips where he's like talking about a great play. He drew up and it's just Jim Trestle talking about punts.

It was the most beautiful play in sports because the possession switches on a punt. Both teams get possession of the ball and he was just obsessed with it.

He was the first person to ever, and I still use it to this day, that told me the pun is the most important play in football. And that was something I heard for years and years. The most important play. The most important play. And now as a head coach, I still use it just because it's the one play you can guarantee at least around 40 yards of field position. And there are some, obviously some really positive signs of having an elite punter and a really good punt unit. There's a times on fourth down, coach, I got to go for.

Yeah. Speaking of coach Trestle, have you had a conversation with him about today's college football and being like, man, this is different because this is. He's kind of the poster boy for like, can you believe this is what the NCAA did? And now we're at a point where players are getting paid, which we're all in support of. But have you had that conversation with him? Like, man, this is. It's nuts where we've ended up.

Yeah, we've had many conversations and I think he's a obviously accepted. What, what's going on with the NCAA and how the game has changed and players getting paid. We don't really discuss, you know, obviously, his situation and where we're at now. But, you know, coach is such an outside thinker, right. Old school where he. I remember his advice to me was now with guys getting paid, transfer portal, you have to double down on relationships and brotherhood because you know what? You got guys from all over. You know, some are transfers for one year, some, some from. For two years. He's like, you have to double down on your brotherhood and getting these guys to commit to notre Dame and each other. And so that's the most Jim Trestle response to nil and transfer portal. But yeah, it's crazy how times have changed.

It's wild to look back on that and think to yourself, like, there was a six month news cycle where people were pretending to get upset because college players got tattoos. It led off every show and people had to pretend to be mad about it. And we were sitting at home like, what is the big deal about this? Why are people so upset about it? Did you get any free tattoos?

No. Nope, I didn't get any free tattoos. And I'll make sure I put that on the record right now.

You kind of look to your left arm there.

Yeah, I got long sleeves on, right?

Yeah. Yeah. You had a viral moment. It might have been last year, the year before, wherever you were able to flip it on a reporter who is your son's coach is that. Yeah. So how good did that feel? That must have been like, it's. It's ain't no fun when the rabbit got the gun. You. You finally had your moment. But did he change any of his coaching after you, you questioned him in the press conference?

That might have been the only game I could have went to. It was during a bye week. And I remember going out to seeing one of my kids play, and I look and I'm like, man, his coach is one of our reporters. And so I'm kind of just laughing and watching, and he might have made some decisions that maybe I don't agree with, and the result wasn't what I'm sure he wanted. So I remember yelling to him on the field, like, hey, Tim, I'm going to ask you about these plays tomorrow. And I think he thought I was joking, but I had it written down. I was ready to go after him a little bit, but it was all in good faith and good nature. Good dude, it just shows you a little bit of how small town, you know, South Bend is. Is that I, you know, you got a guy that can ask you questions in a press conference and next thing you know, he's coaching one of your kids in a flag football league. But that's what makes it different around here.

Yeah, it was a great moment. It was. I mean, I feel like every coach probably watched that was like, man, I wish I had that moment because you just get.

The worst thing about it is the worst thing about is he did the ultimate no no and he started blaming his other coach. It happened. I'm like, hold on.

Now.

If I start blaming our coaches, you guys are going to write about me for days. So. So it was great to turn the table on.

If that ever happens again, I'll offer our publication, Barstool sports, if you'd like to write a blog about his coaching decision.

Yeah. You should start just your own newspaper. And then you start calling for his job.

Yeah, that's what we'll do. I won't waste time in a press conference. I'm just going to write a blog about it.

A lot of people are going for this guy's job, saying he doesn't have what it takes melting down in crucial moments. You go over every fourth down decision he makes. It would be good for you because then you get to think about it from the standpoint of a reporter, too, and then you get to understand their point of view and they're questioning you later on.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Work both ways.

What's the key to recruiting, because you are a great recruiter. You've had great recruiting classes in your short time at Notre Dame. Like I said, when I watch videos, I'm not a Notre Dame fan, but I'm a Marcus Freeman fan. What, like, what is it that you think that you do better than other guys or you found has worked more?

I think, you know, the, the thing I always believe in is you have to have something good to sell. You have to believe in what you're selling. But at the end of day, it's going to come down to relationships, and that is more important than anything. Can you get this young person and his family to trust you and your football program to lead their son for four years? And I'm actually going through it right now with my oldest son and he's gone on a couple official visits for wrestling. And I remember him coming home last night. He got home from a visit last night and he was like, man, I really liked it. This was a great school. And I'm like, what about the official visit you took two weeks ago? He was like, yeah, that was good, too. But at the end of the day, I was like, young people can be persuaded in a moment, but who's going to continue to develop relationships and pour into you after the visit? And that's what I was like, you know what? It's still about relationships because you, you can try to sell as much as you want on a visit and say, let's get them to commit right now, but not many guys are just going to do it on that moment.

And so can you continue to double down, continue to develop relationships with that kid? So at the end of the day, they're like, you know what? This is where I want to be. And even after they commit, you have to keep doing it because everybody else is still recruiting. Everybody else is trying to get that kid to come visit their place. And so you have to continuously recruit and develop relationships with that person until he gets here on campus.

Yeah.

Has the derecruiting, has that, has that, like, been affected at all with the rule changes? We've always heard in the past that once you get a guy to come to school, then, you know, they show up, they get in camp, and then all of a sudden you have to check his ego a little bit because in the past, you know, gassed him up. We need you here. You're going to start here. You're going to do great here. Then they get into practice, and then now they have to be coached hard just like everybody else have you had to change that at all with the new rules about the transfer portal and all that?

No, I haven't. I don't. Listen, I don't intentionally try to de recruit you, but I am honest. And if there's times you need to be corrected or coached hard, we're going to do that. Like that's a part of trying to get the best out of you. And what I'm hoping is that the relationships we build in recruiting, the relationships we'll continuously build here, helps you understand that. You know what? Coach cares about me, so he's getting on me. That's why we're doing it. When you just get on people and yell and scream and you don't have a relationship with them and you don't tell them why. Yeah, they're going to say, man, this dude is nuts. I. I don't want to play for them. I'm ready to move on somewhere else. But if you can continue to tell them why, have a relationship with them, but be authentic and coach them hard and coach them and coach others around them hard, I think they'll truly respect that. And that's the way this program does it.

Yeah.

It's fair. So, big cat, as he said, he's not a Notre Dame fan. You could say he's a notre dame hater.

Yeah. I go back and forth.

I like you. I don't really feel that strongly one way or the other about Notre Dame. Let's just say that big cat and I are, we're brothers and we're in high school, we're 17 years old and we're five star recruits. How do you pitch us to come play football at Notre Dame?

That's a great, great question.

Great question.

It's going to start with explaining to you that every goal you have as a football player, you can achieve at Notre Dame. Right? You can achieve.

I want to win my conference.

Yeah.

Well, then that's not a great. You want to rather run a national championship or a conference?

Well, yes.

What? I got it. Yeah.

One at a time.

I don't want to go to class.

Well, then you're not. You are definitely not coming to know today.

Okay. That's a part of it, right? Is that we got to figure out.

What guys would fit here, too, you know? And that's the one thing, like, if you talk to a guy or you look at his transcript and say, okay, he doesn't enjoy going to class, he's not going to go to class. You have to move on. Like, instead of going to fight the university. To get this person into school, you got to move on because they're not going to succeed here anyway, you know? And so that's probably the most important thing is say, okay, everybody wants the great players. Every school in the country wants this pool of players. Okay, how do we figure out which one of these guys in this pool will fit at Notre Dame? And then you just go after them as hard as everybody else. But everybody wants that kid.

Yeah. Right.

And so we have to figure out which ones want that and fit here and then just go after them. And one, like I said earlier, like, I don't want to teach in football. I want you to believe that you can achieve every goal you have in football here. But hold on. Let me also show you to what else this place provides you. Like, because at some point it's going to be over as long as we all dream of playing, like, as long as Tom Brady, but there's one Tom Brady. And you have to understand, like, a place like this can truly set you up for life after football also.

Okay, so we got off on the wrong foot as recruits, let's say, okay, hey, coach, my goals in life are to play a little bit of college football, then be hired as, like, a financial analyst in Chicago by an alum from Notre Dame. Do you think this is a place I should go?

There's a no brainer. I would list every single one that has done that that we have in this network. I would get you on the phone.

Maybe try my hand at doing, like, some college football analysis on, like, NBC for a couple seasons, and then.

You.

Guys will leave campus. I said, done.

Where?

They're coming to Notre Dame. Let's get somebody.

I just want to meet the goalix. I want to meet. I want to. I want to pet the goalix. Pugs, make that happen.

Yeah, that's done.

They'll be here on your visit. That's what we'll visit. You get a chance to meet them.

I got a dumb question, and it's something I just never thought about. You just named your captains. You got five captains this year. How is that process work? And is it difficult for you to have to whittle it down to be like, hey, here's our five captains. Are there guys that you feel, can you name, could you, if I were the coach, I'd be like, everyone's a captain. Why not? But can you name, like, as many captains as you want, or is there a rule? You got to stick it to five.

No. Four can walk out for the coin toss, but I just believe that, you know, the, the number of captains will be based off the voting, and you'll. I'm trying to. I'm not trying to give away one of the episodes of our here comes irish, but that's going to be on there, how we did it. And basically, to me, I describe what I believe a captain is, what I believe a leader is, and it's not always what you think it is. And I was saying, okay, if you want this responsibility, you really want to do this stand up. And it was interesting seeing who really stood up and who wanted to be an opportunity to be named the captain. Not many people did it as you would think. Not as many people as you would think did it. And then what I got to do after that is when you vote, I got to say, okay, right. What's the right number? Okay, you got a clump here.

You got a clump here.

You got a couple guys here, like, what's the right number to truly lead this football team? And. And that's how I came up with five. Last year was four. I think my first year was three. And so I also don't want to be a coach that has ten captains. Like, I want to say, what's really a captain who fits this mold, and we'll name him from there.

This is why I'd be a bad coach, because I would just take my best player, who is eyeing the transfer portal, and just slap that c on him. Like, can't leave now, dude. You're the captain.

Oh, my gosh. You would lose all credit of what a captain is.

Yeah, but I'd keep that player. I'd keep that player.

He can't leave every player with threaten to transfer coach. I'm thinking about going.

He'd come in my office, be like, yeah, I'm thinking about going to Alabama, and I just pull out the sea from underneath my desk, be like, what about this?

Here you go.

Paying a little nil money or not.

Maybe.

Maybe like a pinata. It's a giant sea that you hit. Yeah, coach, this is probably a dumb question for me, too, because, again, I don't know that much about Notre Dame football, but when people say wake up, the echoes are we. Wait, are they awake this year? Are we going to wake them up? What does wake up the echoes mean?

They're up. They better be up. I think really it's just a credit to the past, right? Wake up the echoes. Those that have been here, those that believe in this place. I didn't come up with the slogan. I've embraced it all in. You know, I don't know where the slogan originally came from. You know, we got.

So the. So the echoes were asleep, but then you got to wake up the echoes. Is it. Am I getting that right? Like, they were asleep at some point, and then it's your job to wake up the echoes on a weekly basis.

Yeah, that. That sounds good to me. I really have never asked what the heck that slogan means. You might hear me say it every once in a while, but I'm. Listen, that description sounds really, really good.

Okay. Yeah. You just gotta be loud. That's what I'm hearing.

Yeah.

Here, here. The part of it, it's a part of our fight song. You know, it's a part song. And so that's probably where they got it from. They took the slogan, but the meaning behind it. That sounds pretty good.

Do you ever, like cat, you know, like on a fall day, like, you catch the wind and you're like, wait, was that an echo or was that. No, that wasn't an echo.

No.

Okay. Yeah, because, everyone, Notre Dame is one of those till. I don't like Notre Dame. But I've said it three times now. I do like when Notre Dame's in the mix, it's fun when Notre Dame is in the mix. It's good for college football. Something about, you know, the gold helmets. It's just. It is college football and that. I guess that would be waking up the echoes.

Yeah, we're. I guess we'll wake them up.

Yeah, I wake up.

I wouldn't mind having.

I want to then put them back to sleep. But we'll wake them up.

Yeah, they should be awake. Coach, you have special access to, like, old Notre Dame game film. Like, how far back does that go?

Uh, yeah, you can black and white, and I'm. You could find any Notre Dame game film. I don't sit here and watch a lot now, I don't go way back that far. But you have access to anything you want around here.

Have you gone back to see if Rudy was off sides?

No, I just. Listen, whatever the movie shows is what I believe.

Okay.

Now, not everybody's gonna believe that, right? I've heard some. Some, many people say he was off size, but the movie doesn't say that, so I'm gonna go with what the movie says.

Yeah, I think that's smart.

Yeah. So I went to Wisconsin. I'm a badger. You obviously coached with Luke Fickle at Cincinnati. What? He's a psycho. What would you say? Like, his best attribute is and maybe the most psycho thing he does because I obviously love him and I hope, you know, he has tremendous success, but what is it like being around him?

He's, he's demanding, but he, he does care about young people, and he's tough. One of the toughest dudes I know, obviously a wrestler. Played nose guard at Ohio State. Very demanding of those around him, but the same demands that he puts on those around him, he puts on himself. But he will continue to make sure that program is truly reaching his full potential. He's going to get everything out of those guys and the coaching staff there. So he actually coached me as a player at Ohio State when I was a there. And so our relationship goes back many, many years, and I wouldn't be in this position if it wasn't for the things he taught me in our years together. So I have a lot of respect for him and look forward to see what he does in Wisconsin.

Did he ever challenge you to a wrestling match?

I'm not stupid. Now, there's a lot of stories I've heard about him as a wrestler, and that's just one of those opportunities that I'll pass out for sure.

Who do you think would win in a fight? Luke Fickle or Mike frable?

Ooh, I plead the fifth. I really. But I would pay a lot of money to watch that.

Yeah, he said he could. He could whoop them. I don't think so. Yeah.

Ribs is very confident about his ability to fix his ass.

Yeah, I don't think.

I bet you both, those two will both say they're going to whoop each other.

Yeah.

And that's only. Listen, you only, the only way to figure out who wins that one is they got to go after it, man.

Yeah, they're going to start fighting, and then they'll be like, I really enjoy fighting you, and then they'll just stop the fight and be best friends again. I feel like that's how it's going to work between the two of them. As a defensive guy yourself. Like, I, I feel like a lot of coaches go through this. If they come up, you know, on the defensive side of the ball, former player, they get elevated to a head coaching position and they feel like, okay, I can't be like the full blown defensive psycho that I used to be in the past because now I'm in charge of the entire team at that point. Do you hire somebody on your defense to fill that role of being just the crazy guy that's going to be able to, to dial up that intensity? A little bit, or are you staying the same person going from defense to being the head coach?

Yeah, I think the intensity you coach with doesn't change if you're the coordinator head coach or you're going to. If you're an intense person, you're going to coach with intensity. You're going to have the energy and emotions, but at the end of the day, you're going to hire somebody as your defense coordinator that can get the job done, and we've done that here. We got a great defensive coordinator and Al golden. But, you know, I'm not looking for somebody. Just be a rah rah guy. I want somebody that's really good. And, you know, we got one here.

Yeah. All right, coach, I know you got to run in a second. Last question for me. Roback, question rho back.com promo code take 20% off your first purchase. Qzips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Roback.com quick analytics question for you. You're down 14 and it's the fourth quarter and you score with three and a half minutes left. Are you going for two or are you kicking the extra points?

Point.

Kicking extra point.

Oh, no.

Yeah.

That's wrong. Just so you know, it's a math thing.

That's what you're. That's. That's what your analytics book will tell you.

Oh, yeah, it's a math thing. So do you not. Well, I should have said, do you not trust your two point play?

No, I just don't know if I, you know, if I want to use it at that moment.

Yeah, you do want to use it that moment to remember this conversation. This will help.

Yeah, I know what the book would tell you. I know what the book would tell you. The book would tell you to go for two. So if you don't get it, you have more time to try to do it on.

No, no, no, it's not on site. Kick it. So you, two point conversion, if you have a good two point conversion, is probably over 50% success. You go for two. If you get it the first time, then you can win the game with an extra point. If you don't get it, the analytics say you're going to get it the second time. Statistically.

Yeah, or you can say, hey, listen, man, we make two extra points, we'll go to overtime.

Coach, I heard. Exact reason.

I don't. That's why there's a lot of great things out of that book, but there's also some head coach decisions that I got to make that definitely, I can't always go by the book.

All right, so promise me this. When whenever this situation comes up and you kick the extra point and you lose an overtime, you have to come back on. Pardon my take. Just so we can be like seed.

And then if we win, then what? Then what do I get?

Lucky. You got lucky. Yeah, we do.

We're not gonna.

You'll come to a game, you'll wear your note, a Notre Dame jersey, and.

Be on a side. Fine. If you win that way, I'll do that.

I like your train of thought, though, which is, like, if we get to overtime, there's more football. We're a better football team. Will probably win in overtime.

I love it.

But I hadn't thought of a better football team. You would have been down 14.

But I would rather. That's okay. That's a fair point, too. Yeah, but I like the idea. I still like the idea that nerds aren't always right in football.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, listen, there there are analytical studies and opinions out there, and when you should go for it on fourth, when should go for two point conversions. But there's also a human element to it, you know? And I have to, at the end of the day, use my best judgment on what I believe is right for that right situation. And then again, there's situation where I totally, 100% agree with the book.

Yeah, right.

But there's also times where, you know what? I got to make sure that I make a decision that I believe is best for the team in that game.

And that's actually on. On me, coach, because, like, obviously, you're synonymous with Notre Dame now. You're the head football coach. I forgot. You didn't go to Notre Dame. You have an Ohio state education, so those type of numbers. You'd have to take off your shoes and your socks to count to 14.

I hear you, man. I know that Wisconsin degree. Did you really?

Well, look at me now.

I got one last. Last question for you. It's another analytic question. Okay. So you're in the fourth quarter in this scenario, and you're losing 31 to 23. You have the ball. There's two minutes, 9 seconds left to play. It's fourth down and goal. And you're on. What? The eight yard line. You're on the eight yard line. Fourth and goal.

Already long. Okay, say this one more time.

Down eight. And it's fourth. It's. It's fourth and eight on the eight yard. Fourth and goal on the eight yard line.

And there's two minutes, 9 seconds left in the game, fourth down, do you kick a field goal to bring the margin from eight to five, one score.

Game to a one score game with.

Two minutes, 9 seconds left? Or do you go for a touchdown and then you could maybe get a two point conversion tie the game?

I'm going for it. And the reason, the reason is, is even if you kick the field at some point, you got to stop them.

Yeah, right.

If we don't get the first down, well, guess what? We got to stop them.

I forgot to mention, too, in this scenario, Tom Brady is the quarterback of the team. He's the best quarterback to ever play. Hypothetically.

Hypothetically.

So it's pro, it would probably be tough to stop him. You're right. So I think you made the right call.

Yeah, you made the right call. You could be an NFL head coach. Yeah, you got it.

What does the book say?

Go for it. Yeah, go for it.

Says go for it.

Yeah. Do the opposite of what Matt La four did. Okay. So, coach, thank you so much, everyone. Tune in. It's going to be great. They basically have their own hard knocks can be awesome. On Peacock, August 29. Really appreciate you coming on, and I will stand to it if you win a game in the scenario that I laid out, I will go to a Notre Dame game with the Notre Dame hat on and everything and cheer and wake up the echoes. But if you lose in that situation, you got to come back on and answer to us.

No doubt about it, man. Let's see what's happening.

At least. We might be in your head now. If that situation comes up, that's all we care about, man.

I might have to go for two now.

Yep, yep. All right. Thanks so much, coach. Appreciate your time.

Awesome, man.

Thank you.

Good to see you guys.

All right, take care, man.

Good luck. Marcus Freeman is brought to you by our great friends at game time. I have huge news about the game time app. ThEy've got something brand new. It's called game time picks football seasons here. We can't wait to get out to some games. This fall, with the help of game time, the official ticketing partner of Barstool Sports, we can't make it. Too many Sunday games. I'm actually looking at going to that Monday night game. Bengals and the Commanders get a chance to go out, see some football live in person, or if you're looking to attend the opening kickoff game, the Chiefs and the Ravens big cat, how much is that with game time picks?

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Okay, we now welcome on our good friend andy Staples for a little college football preview. Andy Staples from the on three network. You can listen to his podcast. It is college football season. Andy, we're very excited. Let's start big picture. This is our first year with the twelve team playoff. So how do you think that's going to affect the regular season? I've heard it. You know, there's, there's two camps. Regular season doesn't matter as much. I'm in the camp of. We're now going to get games that are elimination games in November that never would have had a shot to be that. A two loss team versus two lost team, maybe even a three loss team versus two lost team kind of things where we get more games that meet mean more towards the end of the season.

Yeah, both camps are correct, big cat, but it's not, it's not going to be the regular season. Doesn't matter anymore. Like that camp is wrong ultimately, but they're right in the fact that you don't have the nuclear impact.

Right.

Of say the kick six or Michigan. Ohio State last year would be a good example of that where they're just like, okay, you're out. That's it.

Right.

But what you're going to have is a lot more elimination type games like the big twelve. Any game that affects who gets into the big twelve championship game is a playoff elimination game.

Yeah.

And that's, that could be, you know, four games a week in November.

Yeah, yeah. No, I'm excited for the big twelve. The big twelve is, is, feels like it's with all the align realignment which is a bummer, and losing the pac twelve which is a bummer. I'm happy that the big twelve, at least on paper, feels like it's still going to be the chaotic conference that's just going to be week to week. You have no idea. Some high scoring games. I need the big twelve to keep that mo for college football.

Yeah.

Yeah. And guys like you guys are going to love that because you, you just love watching good games. Like it doesn't have to be big name brands. And that's why I keep trying to tell people about the big twelve. Everybody's so even, like, I can make a case for ten of the 16 big twelve teams to win the championship this year and go to the College Football Playoff. And, like, I can argue it pretty convincingly for all ten. And that's going to be great once we get down into October and November. And then, you know, I think people will fall in love with that as we go on. So that the new big twelve is fun. I think the new SEC is just out of its mind, like, insane what these games are going to be. I mean, you think about Georgia, Texas, and you got Georgia going to Alabama. You've got Texas and Texas A and M playing again. You've got Oklahoma playing LSU. Like, these are these, these matchups that are going to become standard regular season matchups just are mind blowing me right now.

Yeah, it's going to be great once we get into it. I mean, conference realignment, it's bad for a whole lot of reasons. It's, it's confusing. I think it, it loses some of the stuff that makes college football great that we love about college football. But when it comes down to it, on Saturdays when we sit down on our couches, we're going to see these two teams like Georgia and Texas playing each other in conference in Austin, and we're going to be like, okay, this is fun. I can, I can at least acknowledge that. So I guess we can start with the SEC. Let's talk SEC. There's a lot of good teams. I think that the longhorns have a chance. Their hardest game is Georgia at home. They do have to travel to Michigan, obviously, and they lost their big boys up front on defense. But who do you like in the SEC right now? Who's your top team?

So I still like George in the SEC, and I'm much higher on Alabama than I think most people are. I don't think they drop off that much. I remember going up there in the spring and just looking at the, the amount of aliens walking around on the field. It hasn't changed. Yes, they did lose Caleb Downs to Ohio State, and that's a, that's a big loss. Like, Caleb Downs was the best player who entered the transfer portal this offseason, but they're still top three in talent in the whole country. I think it's them, Ohio State and Georgia in some order. And so I think they could be very good. And their schedule is not, you know, like Georgia's schedule, where they have to go to Tuscaloosa, to Ole Miss, to Texas. I think they got a worse draw than Alabama did. So I think Alabama could be very good. Could be an SEC championship game type team. Texas can definitely make the SEC championship game, which, remember, no more east and west. This is like top two. They just came out with a tiebreakers last week and yeah, there's a random draw at the end, which I just, I want them to do a coin flip at a truck stop if they get to that.

But it will be pretty crazy at the top of the SEC because you have all those teams and then like in the SEC, in the Big ten, schedules matter so much more. What did you draw like? Texas, of the ones that were like Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Ole Miss. Texas and Ole Miss probably got the best draws of those two. Missouri and Tennessee got pretty good draws. Oklahoma got screwed, LSU got screwed. And Florida, they just basically backed over with a bulldozer.

Yeah, well, Florida and Florida is probably not going to be very good.

They're not going to be as good as those I mentioned. But it doesn't matter with that schedule.

I like the Alabama tape because I was thinking about it, you know, obviously it's going to be very bizarre not seeing Nick Saban on the sideline, but is there a chance that with Kalen DeBoer taking the job, who's had success everywhere he's gone, that Jalen Milroy is actually going to be a lot better? Because, you know, he struggled last year at times. I was at that Texas game when he couldn't complete a pass, but Kalenbor is. He's going to throw it deep. That's what his offenses do. Jalen Milroy is probably the best deep passer in college football. His problem is throwing it ten yards over the middle. Like, I think Alabama's offense is going to be like insanely explosive and something like you saw maybe five years ago when they had that wide receiver room, that was probably the best wide receiver room in the history of college football.

Now they don't have the wide receiver room. Right, right now, although they, they like some of their young guys. There's a freshman named Caleb Odom that they love, but I think they could have a very good offense. I think Jalen Milroy is going to be better this year no matter what happened. Because think about what happened last year. Guys like Tommy Reeves is the new offensive coordinator. He comes in, they're not really sure who their guy is. Like, ok, we guess it's Jalen Milro and they go with him for the first couple games they lose the Texas game, and I'm still not convinced they didn't go. You know what? We're tired of hearing you guys yell at us about the quarterback. We're going to start these, we're going to start one of the other guys and see what. And you'll see what we've been seeing. And so they start Tyler Buckner against us. F they play him in Ty Simpson and it's like seed the best option.

Yes, yes. And I just. Yeah, I think Alabama people, because of the Saban part, maybe they're a little underrated for the first time in a long time where I still think they're going to be a really, really tough team and that offense is going to be explosive. What about Tennessee? Because Tennessee's got, they got some, some big boys. They feels like they're finally kind of putting it all, you know, they got the quarterback they want. Do you think this is, you know, the Tennessee fans being like, hey, feels like 98. Can we actually have it feel like 98?

I think they're feeling pretty good right now in Tennessee. This is, you know, James Pierce junior is their best player. He's an edge rusher, probably a top ten draft pick next year. Deepest defensive line they've had since I was a baby beat writer covering Tennessee. And they had John Henderson and Albert Hainsworth and will overstreet. Like, it's been a long time since Tennessee has been that stacked on the d line. And then offensively, Niko Iamalia takes over a quarterback. And this is like a great test case because Niko is like the first big nil deal, the first guy who went to a place where maybe you didn't expect him to go because he got a big nil deal. And I actually think their offense is going to be quite a bit better than it was last year because basically they had to give up the middle of the field because Joe Milton couldn't do a lot of the things that they needed him to do to run the full offense. Joe Milton didn't have a real good instincts on the, on the read option mesh. He didn't do a lot of. You couldn't do a lot of RPO stuff.

Niko can do that. Niko also has much better improvisational skills, which that was what made Hendon hooker so good in this offense is if some stuff broke down, he could find you five or six yards instead of it being an incomplete pass, an interception or a five yard loss. Like he could just find a little bit of a positive game. Niko is going to be able to do that, too. And I think that helps Tennessee. I also think Tennessee schedule helps. Like got NC state week two, that's pretty tough. But if they can go two in one, and this is not an easy stretch by any occasion, but if they go two and one against Alabama, Georgia and Oklahoma, they're going to the playoff.

Yeah.

Like, they're going to be eleven and one or ten and two and they're going to the playoff. But I think they're talented enough to do that. George is the, the kind of bugaboo for them. It just, they've never really matched up well against them.

So what's, what's going on at Georgia? They're obviously their quarterbacks coming back again. Right. So he's got some experience there. And then there's been, how do we say, like off the field, on the road issues.

Yeah.

The Georgia Bulldogs recently. Is that any different than what happens all across college football? Or is this a problem that is, and maybe they turn a blind eye to it in a lot of places, or is this just been a Georgia problem?

It's worse because Georgia had a traffic incident where two people died a couple of years ago and that, that's, that magnifies it quite a bit. But I remember, like, when I was a Florida beat writer covering the urban Meyer teams, I just skipped past all the traffic stuff because there were so many more serious arrests to deal with. But, yeah, every team deals with this traffic stuff. With Georgia, you'd think, though, you've had this, you lost one of your teammates, you know, he lost his life, and you still have guys that are, that are driving very, very fast at times, like in the hundreds, which I get it. Like college students do that. Especially when you have nil money or you have a deal with a dealership that gets you a hemi that can go 150 miles an hour. Like, I get it. But at a certain point when the coach is like, just knock it off. Like maybe you do. And I'm actually questioning Kirby smarts pull in the city of Athens and Clark county in the state of Georgia because I would assume that Kirby Smart, having won two of the last three national titles, could probably gotten a mass transit system built in Athens by now.

Yeah.

I'm a little worried about his, his level of juice.

Yeah.

Or just build a road that goes, that only, only Georgia football use is like the Audubon, but just, just for Georgia football players. You can get on it. It's a straight line. Go as fast as you want.

They actually have a bypass in Athens. And if you've ever driven around Athens, there's not really a lot of traffic or people like, they could just repurpose that circular bypass for that purpose.

Yeah. Yeah. I want to talk real quick about the ACC. I love this conference this year just because it feels like every quarterback has transferred into this conference, like, to the point where Kyle McCord, who is Ohio state starting quarterback last year, is now Syracuse, but Cam Ward is electric from Washington state, is at Miami. Grayson McCall, who we all know is now at NC State, who like, what's the team that you look at here and is ACC a multi, multi team in the playoff type of league this year?

That's a good question. That's really up to the likes of Miami and Florida State and NC State and Louisville. Can, can there be a second team that is really good like you? You're to make that happen, you need a championship game that's essentially like an eleven and one team against a ten and two team and the ten and two team wins.

Right?

Like, you got to have that. Miami has the roster and the schedule for that. Cam Ward, everybody's excited about. I know everybody's excited about him. I realize he was the top ranked quarterback in the portal. I will tell you, from watching Cam Ward through the years, it's a little feast or famine there.

Yeah.

So we're going to find out, like, cam Ward's first game is at Florida. It's going to be very loud. They probably have the better roster, but we're going to see how he deals with that. And if he can, then I'm very confident about them against this schedule. I mean, you look at it, they should not go worse than ten and two against this schedule. And then if, let's say they lose to Florida State, Florida State is again the best team in the ACC, which is possible. Then you could have them rematch in the ACC championship game, both with really good records and maybe both get in, but NC states in there. We'll see what happens with Clemson because Clemson is going to have a really good defense, but they're going to need one of those freshman receivers to be really good. Kate club Nick at quarterback is going to have to get better. They're playing Georgia right out of the chute. I'm wondering what the takes are going to be after that Georgia game because Clemson. Clemson is one of four teams in the fbs that did not take a single transfer out of the transfer portal.

The other three are all service academy. So Clemson's the only one that doesn't require a congressperson to help you get in. That didn't take anybody.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm excited for that Florida State Clemson game, the DJ Lele revenge game. That will be fun because it does like, you look up and down the, the entire ACC and it's just guys, you know, who are somewhere else. Obviously, Kade club is still at Clemson, but it's going to be a fun league because on paper it looks like they have some good quarterbacks who played big time football who kind of like, it was kind of like the PaC twelve last year where it was just like, you look up and down the PaC twelve and everyone's got a quarterback they feel good about who's been in.

These big spots and watch Virginia Tech.

Yeah.

Their quarterback is Chiron drones, who transferred from Baylor before last season. And it sort of took him about half a year to get it kind of figured out how it worked with him. But they, they've got him. And then they brought in Colin Schley, who was Sean Lewis's quarterback at Kent State a couple of years ago. He was at UCLA last year. But if you look at the 2022 season, what quarterback played the best at Georgia? That was Colin Schley. So he's their backup, so they should be a little bit confident to be able to run. Drones which he's a very good athlete. I just remember I was at the ACC spring meetings this past May, and whether it was coaches or ads or people who just really cover the league thoroughly, every one of them was like, watch out for, for Virginia Tech this year.

Yeah, he's got, he's got a big arm, too, right? Drones Tyron Jones absolutely has big arm.

And, you know, we'll just see. Brent pry sort of has gotten his legs as a head coach. It was a little shaky at first. Like you weren't sure this was going to work out. And then kind of halfway through last season, it seemed like he figured some stuff out. Tyler Bowen, their offensive coordinator, who had not been an offensive coordinator before this job, he kind of figured some stuff out. So I think they could be considerably better.

Yeah. What about Duke? Duke seems like they might be. I don't, I don't want to say good, but I'm interested by Duke because.

Yeah, I don't think Manny Diazo left the cupboard bear. And then you look at when Manny Diaz took over, they had several guys enter the transfer portal and then say, you know what? I'm think I'm going to stay here. And they bring in Malik Murphy, the, the transfer from Texas who, who started two games for Texas when Quinn, yours was hurt last year and won them both. They're, they're going to be tricky. They're going to be tricky because I don't, I don't think Mike Elko leaves and they just fall off. And I also think Manny Diaz, I'm glad he's got another shot of the head coach because I think Mario Cristobal's first two years at Miami show you, man, he was doing a pretty good job at Miami, and then he goes and does a great job as the Penn State defensive coordinator. So this is, this is a good chance for him to show, hey, look, I can, I can do this head coaching thing.

Yeah.

You were talking about the spring meetings. It got me thinking about just media days in general for coaches and amongst the different leagues. I personally love SEC media day. I think that's one of my favorite days of the year. You always get some coach that goes out there that has like, a point to prove and they've got like a quote that they're ready to unleash. And sometimes the quote doesn't even match up with the question that they're asked. They're just like, I know, I got to get this out. Can you describe to us the different vibes of the different conference media days?

Yes.

Yeah. So I have been to all of them at this point. I, some of them I haven't been to as recently as the others, but I was at SEC and Big Ten this year. Big twelve is the most chill. Like we're, big twelve is the one where you might just run into a coach in a back hallway and he's like, hey, what's up? What'd you eat last night? Where, you know, where'd you go? And you're going to get that at the big twelve. The, the SEC is very stage managed. Like, we've got to get this guy here. We've got to get this guy here. This guy has three minutes and 32 seconds with you and then he's got to go over here for four minutes and 34 seconds. And basically they're just running them around and then running them through these various ESPN rooms. Big Ten is in Lucas Oil Stadium and it's fairly stage managed, but like, Brett Belem is just going to be hanging at some point. Sit down next to Brett Bielma.

What's up?

How's it going?

Man of the people.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Or, pft, your guy, Kurt Signetti, former JMU coach, current Indiana coach, he hypnotized me at Big Ten media days this year hypnotized me. Like, I'm talking to him and I'm like, oh, crap. Indiana is going to be good, aren't they? They're basically. They took like, half a JMU's team from last year, and I'm looking at their schedule, I'm like, so these lower tier Big Ten teams, like, could they have beaten JMU last year? I don't know if they could have.

No.

So I want to say their totals, five and a half. Like, I think I'm all in on Indiana making a bowl game and cashing that over ticket.

I like that. I'm going to count every single Indiana win this year as a JMU win in the big Ten. You should, for sure. And. And Signetti, he's. I think he's as close to, like, a Nick Saban clone, and his mannerisms and how he manages a football team as you can possibly get. I'm not saying he is Nick Saban or that.

More public bravado than Nick Saban, though, though. Like when. When someone says, you know, asks about him, he's like, I just win everywhere. Google it. Like, Nick Saban would never say that, but Kirk Signetti will say that also. He's 62. Looks like he's like 47.

Yeah.

I don't know. There's like, maybe a dorian gray thing going on here. I'm not sure, but when you're in his presence, you're like, oh, man, this guy's going to win more than he's supposed to.

He did poke the bear, though, and he was like, yeah, we're going to beat Ohio State. We're going to beat Michigan. That was. That was a tough entrance that he made in Indiana, but we'll see.

I believe they play them back to back.

They're not going to beat Ohio State.

Lose by 40.

I got a question about Ohio State, though. Ohio State's the best team in the big ten. On paper, Oregon would have an argument. It does feel like it's Ohio State and Oregon, and then Penn State and Michigan should both have a chance, maybe even USC. But are we sure will howard is good enough to win a national title at Ohio State? Because that's, I mean, Ryan day this year. He has to beat Michigan. We know he has to be Michigan if he doesn't beat Michigan. And they're going to be like, who.

Knows how the season goes back on that big. Okay, does he have to beat Michigan the first time?

Yeah. True. Well, it might not be Michigan the second time, though, because it might be Oregon. Right?

Like, but if you win the national title.

Yeah, we care.

Like, no, let me ask you this, guys. If that kick, that rung in the new year in 2023 in the Peach bowl, if that kick goes in, and obviously, Ohio State would have crushed TCU in the. In the championship game. Game. Do we feel differently about Ryan Day, even if last year's Michigan game is the same thing?

Yes.

Yeah, you. You definitely would feel differently. And I think Ryan day is a good coach, but I think the pressure for them this year with Michigan is that Michigan is no longer, like, they have definitely taken a step back, and that's.

There's no excuse. If you lose this Michigan, they should be with that Ohio state team.

Yeah, there should be a ten point favorite, maybe even more, depending on how the season goes. And, like, if you can't beat this Michigan now, it's like, what's going on here? Harbaugh's gone. They're in a little bit of transition again. Michigan's still going to be very good. It's more that they were last year. They were one of the best teams ever. You know, the way they went through everyone. So do you feel like Will Howard, though? Is that guy? Because I've. Will Howard's fun to watch. Will Howard's a gamer. He's tough as nails. I just don't know if he's the passer that you need when you get to that final four level and you're playing a Georgia or you're playing a Texas or you're playing at Alabama. Like, you need a guy who can, who can hit those deep shots consistently. And he's not really that guy as.

Of yet, but who did he have at Kansas State?

True. True. That's a good point.

Deuce Vaughn two years ago, who was helping him with that? Now I'm. But on the back end of this question, I'm going to turn it into a Kansas State question just, just because I want to talk about Avery Johnson. But we'll, we'll stick with Will Howard and Ohio State right now. Will Howard's never been surrounded by this kind of talent.

True.

You got emeka Buka, you got Colonel Tate, the recruit. Knicks know who JJ Smith is? Everybody else is going to know who JJ Smith is once the season starts. Jeremiah Smith, number one recruit in the nation for the class of 2024. You're not really going to miss Marv. Like, I know. I realize that sounds hyperbolic, but this is one of the best, most ready made receivers that has come into college football in a long, long, long time. He is unbelievable. Like the best dbs at Ohio State are saying I got to go against him at practice because he's the best receiver they have already, so be ready for that. Plus they have Trayvon Henderson and Quinn Shaw judge their run game. Ole Miss.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So like all of that is going to make will Howard better. So will Howard is not going to have to be Superman. Now, the thing will Howard does give you is a six foot, 4235 pound guy who, when you need him to get some yards, he's going to get you some yards. The question for him is, is he going to be able to take care of the ball enough so that they're scoring and then they let that defense do its thing because the defense is the other thing for Ohio State, where Ohio State looks a lot like Michigan last year, is on defense, where you have all these guys who could have gone to the NFL and not as like free agent guys. These would have been 3rd, 4th round draft picks and they decided to stay for one more year.

Right.

They then add Caleb Downs, who was, like I said, was the best player in the transfer portal. He was. He's a safety who allows you to change everything about your defense. He allows you to move sunny styles to linebacker, which is where he should have been playing all along. They have a very deep defensive line. JT two and Milau coming off the edge. Ty leak Williams inside like they have everything. Which again, goes back to your original point.

The.

There's no excuse. And there really is no excuse.

No.

Not only should they win the Big Ten, they should win the national title. There's no excuse.

Right.

National title or bus.

Right. I think they're. I mean, they're going to be. I'm nitpicking here because that's what you have to do before the season starts. They're going to be a dominant, dominant team, and that expectation is there now that this is the team, that that should take them over the hump. I'm excited for the Big Ten. I think it's going to be kind of crazy.

I got to tell. I got to tell everybody. Avery Johnson first.

Yes, yes.

Avery Johnson.

Yes.

But Avery Johnson is the reason will Howard is Ohio State's quarterback.

Yeah.

This, there's this weird thing that has happened with the transfer portal and within Il where basically if you pay up in nil for a big time, highly ranked quarterback recruit by year two, you better be starting him. So Avery Johnson is a sophomore at Kansas State this year. He's the reason they let will Howard go. Jackson, Arnold five star guy at Oklahoma. He's the reason that Oklahoma let Dylan Gabriel go to Oregon. But Avery Johnson, I'm telling you right now, we've not seen a quarterback this fast, probably since Kyler Murray.

Yeah.

I don't know how good of a thrower he is yet. We saw a little bit last year where maybe you could see, oh, the arms pretty good. If the arms good, they're going to be so much fun to watch.

And he's, he's a Wichita kid. He's from Kansas, which, like, a talent like that in Kansas doesn't happen very often. It's, it is going to be fun and I. Kansas State's one of those programs that they, they somehow got the guy behind, you know, when what's his name left, Bill Snyder left. They finally, they got someone basically the same, like, they just keep running, just.

Winning every, every FCS national title. State.

It's great, though, because they just, they're consistently like, oh, yeah, Kansas State. Yeah. Okay. They might not win ten game. They're going to be tough no matter who, what, what week they play, who they play. That team is just going to be good and sound at football.

Yeah. It, it's going to be fun to watch. Now, I don't know if he's got the skill, talent around him to be like a Heisman trophy guy, but I am so excited to see what he can do because again, we, we just haven't seen a QB that fast in a while.

Yeah.

And that, it adds another, another layer to it.

I got to take for you, Andy. I want you to judge it somehow, someway. And, you know, I've always wanted Notre Dame to just join the big ten and just like stop this shit and just join the Big ten year, Big ten school. It would make, it would be awesome if you were playing Michigan every year. But somehow, some way, Notre Dame, with the way the College Football playoff is set up and it's the top four highest ranked conference champions, so they can never get a top four by right. But somehow, some way, Notre Dame, we.

Probably should explain the rules later.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we can do it right now. Yeah. So it's, it's the top four team teams. The top four conference champions get a buy and then it's five through twelve. The first round is going to be home games for the higher seed and then they go and then they play where they play neutral and then they play in the bowl games.

So the top five conference champions get into the playoff automatically, but the top four get the buy and get the top four seeds. And so we've been doing all this on three, where we're trying to help retrain everybody's brain. So we've been doing all these projected playoff things, and invariably we'll put out the graphic on social media and I'll have like, Utah or Kansas State at the four seed as the big twelve champion, right? And people just lose their shit. They're like, how can they be the four seed? Like, that's the rule. Yeah, like the ACC champ or the big twelve champ. They will probably be the three and four seeds, right? Most likely.

So, so that leads me to my point that I want you to grade a. Somehow, some way, Notre Dame has actually ended up in the best position in all of this, because if they are good, they are going to get the five seed. And what that means at the five seed is they get a home game against probably a group of five team at the twelve, and then their next game will be against the four seed.

Who might be the number 13 team.

In the country, almost always assuredly be an ACC or a big twelve team. So they will essentially always avoid the Big ten and eight in SEC until the final four. And so somehow Notre Dame has worked out the best possible way.

Well, there were four people who designed this system. Greg Sankey, the SEC commissioner, Craig Thompson, the Mountain west commissioner, Bob Bolsby, who was the, the big twelve commissioner at the time, and Jack Swarbrick, the Notre Dame athletic director, this system. And Jack, Jack, Jack's a smart guy, so he's retired now. But this was the gift he left Notre Dame with. Because not only does it make it where they never have to join a conference, because if they're ten and two or, well, with this schedule, maybe they have to be eleven and one to get to get in. But usually most years with their schedule, if they're ten and two, they're going to get in. And yeah, they never have to play in a conference championship game, so they're not playing that extra game. So it's kind of only fair that they would have to play the first round. But you probably get the first round at home if you're that good. So, yeah, you get the number twelve seed, which is like going to be the Mountain west champ or the American Athletic Conference champ that might be ranked 23rd in the actual poll. And then if you win that, you get the four seed, which is potentially like the number 15 team, who knows?

It'll be the, the fourth lowest ranked conference champ. So, yeah, the number five seed is the best one if you don't have to play in a conference championship game.

Right.

If you do, it's a little bit different. Like, if you're, let's say you're Alabama and you lost to Georgia in the SEC championship game, you're not really getting that big of an advantage because you had to play against Georgia and get beat up for, for an hour.

Right.

But if you're Notre Dame and you didn't, or let's say you're ole miss and you just missed the SEC championship game, and for whatever reason, the committee decides the team that lost the SEC championship game is going to be ranked below you. Like, you're in, you're in a cat bird seat.

Yeah.

Like, that five spot is nice.

Yeah, that's true.

So that's the one way that Notre Dame's whole plan could be foiled. It's just have a really good team intentionally lose in their conference championship game.

But if Notre Dame loses one game, they will almost always be the five seed.

I don't know about this year, but, yeah, a lot of years.

A lot of years they will. Yeah, they'll end up because they'll just be like, okay, Notre Dame. Like, they're the, they're the fifth best team. They're. Put them right there. I just, it's, it's crazy to me. When I was looking at it, I was like, God damn it, they did it again. We've wanted to get into a conference, and they figured it out.

They have outsmarted the sport for about 100 years. And I mean, really, it's, it blamed the Michigan people. It's fielding yoast fault. He blackballed them from the Big ten. Yeah, he got mad at Notre Dame. Notre Dame's like, okay, fine, we'll just go on the road. We'll go play army, we'll go play USC. And then they become this big national brand.

Yeah, yeah.

Disgusting. Back to the Big ten real quick when talking about Iowa and Nebraska. So Iowa lost, like, their entire offense with their punter. And he's bomb, Taylor. He's hit bombs in training camp right now. And then their coach was suspended for maybe the funniest recruiting violation. And I guess trying to recruit a quarterback that really worked out for him.

It's so hard to get caught tampering. Yeah, like, you have to be really, really bad at this to get caught tampering. And they got caught tampering. And of course, like, the receivers coach also gets suspended. John Budmere, former, former badger quarterback, big cat, he, he got suspended, too, which led to a bunch of people asking me on my show, Iowa has a receivers coach. What does he do all day?

Yeah. Easiest in the world.

And so, but this is, this is such an interesting one because Iowa, like, look at Iowa's schedule and think about if their offense is slightly better. If it's slightly better.

You've had the same conversation for like the last ten years. Like, if they're just competent offense, but.

They did, but they fired Brian Ference and they brought in Tim Lester. So they do have a new offensive coordinator. So let's imagine Cade McNamara is good or he doesn't get hurt or, or maybe it's Brendan Sullivan. The northwestern transfer comes in, but Kate McNamara is a starter and they are semi functional as an officer. Still going to be great on defense. You could have a Nebraska Iowa game on Black Friday that could potentially affect the college football playoff.

Yeah. Yeah.

Do that high on Nebraska because we just had Will Compton on and he, I heard what he say, they're going to start seven and, oh, and then I'll see what happens.

They got to beat Colorado and they got to get past your guy Kurt signetti. But six and one or seven and, oh, going to the Ohio State game is not out of the realm of.

Possibility so bad because they'll have that little number next to their name and it will just be, and I think it might be a rude awakening when they go to Columbus.

So Nebraska quarterback, like, what they, I.

Mean, they just got it, like, haven't been a bowl game since 2016.

Yeah.

If they just make a bowl game, that that's enough. But if they can be better than that, that. And by the way, like, if Dylan Raiola is the guy as a true freshman quarterback, he's going to get so many tractor nil deals. Like, he's going to be the tractor magnate of Nebraska and he's, he's not going to really have to go to the NFL. He's just going to be taken care of for the rest of his life.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, so how good is he?

That's a great question.

We, we don't know.

We, we don't know. You, you watch him play in the spring game. You're like, who? Look at all his arm slots. Very mahomes esque. But you also go four high schools in four years. Flip from Ohio State, flip from Georgia. Like, so there's all that, too. I need to see it. I need to see it. And we're going to get a good chance to see it because, like, they play Colorado in week two and for all of the talk about Colorado. Whether it's, you know, Deion saying this or that or the now resigned assistant who is trying to get the sweet, sweet saudi money for, for the nil.

That's a wildenhouse.

I know. It's incredible. But they have a pretty good d line that they have imported through the portal. If Dylan Ryola can handle that, he can handle most of what's on the schedule.

Yeah.

So with Colorado, I feel like Deon's been especially spicy this year. What are his latest things? He said, like, I know he wouldn't take a question from a CB's guy because he doesn't like the CB's national brand or whatever. And this guy's like, I think they ranked him.

Didn't they rank him 15th out of 1612 coaches?

That's probably for Nelli. We can play. Tom Fernelli is now.

Fernelli definitely voted in that one.

Yes. Yeah. So he's mad at that reporter. He's mad at another local reporter that's written some bad things about him. And then he's just like, the way he's been talking to the media has not given me confidence in Deon's team this year. Like when you.

That press conference, I did a lot of reading between the lines on that press conference because I thought it was, it was, he was telegraphing some stuff there. So the, the one where he's barring, you know, sparring back and forth with the columnist who clearly doesn't like him. I'm fine with that. In fact, just have that discussion out in the open and I'll watch it. It'll be very entertaining for me. But that press conference, every time, like, he got asked about his D line, he talked about how much he loved his D line. He had asked about his secondary. He talked about how much he loved his D line. He got asked about his offensive line. He would not talk about anything relating to his offensive line. That's a giant red flag.

Yeah, giant.

Like, this is a team that gave up 56 sacks last year. They have to be better than that. And if they're not going to be better than that, then it, it might be the same season. I think they're going to be a little bit better. I think they'll improve enough to make a bowl game, but I don't know. They're going to be good enough to compete in the big twelve.

Yeah. Yeah. All right, Andy, I got one last question for you. You're, you'll obviously be, be on again this fall. We're so excited for college football to be back rowback question and he's wearing it right now. He's looking thin and in shape and looking great, partially because Roebuck is great. Fitting shirts roback.com promo code. Take 20% off your first purchase. Qzips, polos, hoodies, joggers shorts robec.com all right, so last question. Give us the four buys. Give us the right now who is going to be the highest ranked conference champions? I feel like Ohio State and Georgia, you can kind of pencil in, but the other two are tough.

Yeah, I do have Ohio State in Georgia. I am very basic when it comes to that. I think both of those are the best teams in their leagues. I have Alabama. Sorry. I have Alabama at number five because I have there my number three in my poll that, but I have Florida State winning the accident. We're recording this after the Dublin game. So I made incredibly stupid. Georgia Techs won that game.

Debbie. Brutal, boy. Well, I bet on Florida State, so be brutal for me, too.

We're about to Thursday night games with Utah and all those.

But I. Yeah, well, you know, I thought they were playing last Thursday. Pft.

I was just as, wait, I can't wait for football.

I didn't realize till after when, when we started the show and PFT said football is back. That's what he was referring to.

Well, no, because Linden would.

And I'm like, wait a second. Was it, was there like a. Yeah. Two game starting a week earlier that I didn't know about? Yeah, I should be fired.

So, so what happened was I pulled out my phone because I knew the week zero schedule. I know what's happening this Saturday. And then for whatever reason, I scrolled down on the app and it, the first games that it showed me were, I thought week zero. And I saw Linden wood. I was like, yeah, Lindenwood's probably playing week zero like that. That wouldn't shock me.

Oh, yeah.

And would have. Absolutely. But yeah, those mistake, hand up, misread the schedule. I just want college football to be back.

So my, my number four seed is my big twelve champ. I am going with Kansas State, though, I will say because my Avery, I've been driving the Avery Johnson bandwagon. I'm going to keep driving it. I might drive it off a cliff, though. I was, I got some information last week and it, I'm a little worried because. So my friend Jim Nagy, who runs the senior bowl, they put out a watch list of all the guys they think might have a chance to make the senior bowl. But it's also basically draft eligible guys they think will be in a camp, they'll either get drafted, they'll make a team, they'll be in a camp. And so I just compiled who has the most of all these. And then naturally it's a bunch of SEC teams that have the most. Like Ole Miss has 21, Georgia and Texas A and M have 20. But, so I was looking for the big twelve. Like, who has the most? Utah has 13.

They're always like that. Yeah.

I may have made a mistake here, and I'm just saying it now, in terms of coaches.

In terms of coaches, you know, he's probably one of the most underrated. He's probably one of the best coaches. No one really says, like, in that.

Top three and Kyle Whittingham will kick your ass. I finally figured out, because Kyle grew his hair out a few years ago, I finally figured out after they beat USC in the Pac twelve championship game a couple years ago, who he looks like. If you watch anything Stallone does now, like the reality show with the daughters or the, or the Tulsa King show, Kyle Whittingham looks like Stallone looks now.

And he's got that mind bar.

And Kyle Whittingham will beat your ass. I'm telling you right now. He hasn't missed a workout. Like, like he has a Lou Gehrig workout streak going. But he'll beat your ass.

Yeah, he looks wiry.

Wiry but strong. Like very lean man.

All right, so I'll give you that one. Kansas State slash Utah taught. That's fair.

Oh, I'll take it.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah, we didn't talk about USC at all. What are the expectations here? Because their defense, they can't be worse. I heard that they're tackling in practice sometimes.

Now would be nice.

Yeah.

This has been my, this has been my frustration with Lincoln Riley because he's a smart person, clearly a very great, very good offensive coach, great evaluator and teacher of quarterbacks. But why don't you just send somebody to a Georgia practice in November and say, hey, how do you guys do this? And then just do that?

Yeah.

Because they're showing you how it works. And clearly, you know, USC through the years in Oklahoma when he was there, they're not tackling as the season goes on. Like, their tackling gets worse and worse and worse. So Danson Lin, the new defensive coordinator, I imagine he came in and said, hey, look, we gotta tackle a little bit.

He already did. He did. With the bowl game, the ball game. He wasn't technically coaching, but he was there helping out. And they like, missed significantly less tackles than they did during the regular season. Season.

So they cannot be worse on defense. You know who else can't be worse on defense? LSU. Who they play in the season open. LSU's defense was awful last year, so they went out and hired Blake Baker from Missouri as their DC. LSU is kind of the same players with new coaches. USC, they, they changed a lot of the players out to Danton. Lynn went and got some guys that fit what he wants. Part of the deal with Alex French, the old USC defense. I I firmly believe that Alex Grinch's mind was poisoned when he was the defensive coordinator at Washington State. And he had this defensive tackle named Hercules Mata Alpha, who was 225 pounds but was awesome. Like, this is a dude who could do like, backflips off a 30 foot cliff and at home in Hawaii, and he was amazing. And so Alex Trench, for the rest of his career, like, he went to Ohio State, he went to Oklahoma, he went to USC. He's like, I don't need 310 pound defensive tackles. Hurt could do it.

Yeah.

And he always would play these two small guys for their positions. And so USC is going to have the right size guys in those positions.

Now.

I am still not convinced, though. I know you got Miller Moss as your heisman guy, big cat. And I like Miller Moss.

Yeah. Yeah.

I love, I love that he stuck it out. You know, he came in the same recruiting class as Jackson Dart, who's been Ole misses starter for three years now. But I, I do wonder about them because if their defense doesn't get significantly better, they might struggle. And I want to point out a game involving your badgers.

Yeah.

So USC plays LSU. They might lose that game. They open Big ten play against Michigan. They might lose that game. The Badgers come to the Coliseum for USC's fourth game. Yeah, we might bc USC in a can't lose and or must win situation against the Badgers because if they're one and two going in the Wisconsin game and their defense has shown any signs of leakiness, Phil Longo is going to be licking his chops to unleash Tyler Van Dyke on USC's defense, and it.

Would be an Alex Grinch revenge game. He's a safety coach at the Badgers because I know people are giving me shit. They're like, you have Alex.

He's not allowed to decide.

That's what I said. Yeah, right. I was like, he's not the defensive coordinator. He cannot fuck it up at that bad. Like, yes, he could fuck it up the safeties could be bad, but he, it's, we're limiting the, the issues here. So yes. Yeah, Andy, you're the best. We'll talk to you later in the season. College football's back. Thank you so much everyone. Listen to Andy. He's putting out pods every single week, multiple times a week on three network and there's no better time of year here.

Andy Staples is brought to you by cars.com. they have sponsored the employee parking spot here at Barstool Sports. The cars.com parking spot is now property of Kyle Bauer, who does not own a car. So he just keeps that parking spot open all day and we have to drive past it wishing that we had won that parking spot. The cars.com parking spot is so helpful. If you have a car, you don't have to battle for a spot. But the cars.com, your garage feature is the most helpful thing that they have. You can track your cars value. I've actually taken a look at it, just seeing how much the El Camino is worth, how much it's going to be worth in two months, maybe might get something different at some point. I don't have any plans on selling it, but I do like to see if I'm making money on my investment in my El Camino now that it starts and runs. And since KB's got the cars.com parking spot, he'll have plenty of extra time to create an account with cars.com and track his car's value. KB got the most priced parking spot at Barstool, but we can grab some valuable insights into our own cars value with the cars.com your garage feature.

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Okay. Mount Rushmore time. And we have a very special guest. It is Hank's father, back on the show for Mount Rushmore. Now, remind me, the last time you did a Mount Rushmore, what was it for? Water. Water.

That was a good one.

We had already done it before and didn't realize until after, so.

And how did you do? I can't remember.

Not well.

It was the old studio, so. So Hank's basically bringing in a ringer.

He's on.

What was it, my third one.

Oh, is your third. What was the other one?

Sounds you don't like to hear.

Okay.

Did you have Hank's yawn on that?

That's my yawn.

Oh, that's right. Yeah. It's caught it from you.

So Hanks bringing in a ringer, his dad.

I thought. That's nice. Yeah, that's nice. Listen, Hank and I are pretty much neck and neck, and it's a. It's nice to be able to have a dad that you can bring in from out Rushmore.

Yeah.

Hank. So, Hank, I'm glad that you did that. It feels like you're rubbing it in a little bit, but that's okay. Maybe I'll bring my ass in and something you don't have.

Yeah, that's fair. The. So I've clinched. I've officially clinched.

Congrats.

Thank you. So it is now a two man race between Hank and PFt. Before we do so, we're gonna do the Mount Rushmore business jargon, which is selected by Hank and PFt. They are. Max and I are just. We're basically just playing out. We're sitting the starters.

Well, there was an idea to have Hank and I go mano a mano.

Yeah. But then it was the rest of it.

But that score, and that's a different style. That's a different format about Rushmore. We've never done that before.

Yeah. So what, what is the, what are the standings? How far back is Hank? How many points are you back?

Think three.

Three point hope.

Three.

So this, it basically comes down to, can Hank steal a win and have PFt go lat last in one of these? Yes, Hank has. So Max has 70, I have 59. Clinched PFT with 52, Hank with 49. So three back.

I think it's fair for Hank to use his dad in this draft because I. I have been in the business corporate world. Hank's corporate experience is just working at Barstool.

Yeah.

So you. You have a blind spot.

Yeah. So before we start that, though, I would like some thoughts on the summer of Hank.

Summer hack. Unbelievable.

Yeah. What would you rank? Was it Missoula's duck boat or was it being the. What was it the keeper of the light keep the ringer of the bell of the lighthouse?

I think the duck boat parade. I don't see how that could top. Ever be top.

Yeah, but he did. I mean, the lighthouse. Yeah, he did keep the lighthouse.

It was an epic fan reaction to the LA.

Yes.

Did you have an epic reaction to when Hank went down to Dallas this year and accidentally slipped and put a hole in the wall?

That was funny.

Yeah.

Content.

Yeah.

Content machine.

Tiffany Gomas.

Is she invited to Thanksgiving this year?

No.

Okay.

How do you, how do you feel about Hank in his prospects of dunking?

There's a possibility.

Now is that. How do you feel about Hank's prospects of doing steroids to dunk?

Not a fan of the steroids.

Okay.

He raised it better than that, Hank.

He's been working hard.

Yep, there is. Wait, has he?

His uncle can dunk. In my prime, I could dunk a volleyball. So there is some, you know, he's got a shot.

Unfortunately, dunking a volleyball will not pay out this bet.

But you're, the basketballs you guys have out there are palmable.

Yeah. True. When you say he's been working hard, what has he been telling you? I would. I would like to know.

He's been going to the gym. We've seen videos. He sent examples of his workouts.

Okay. Okay.

I mean, that's an improvement from nothing.

Yeah, it is. It is. We were at summer camp last week, and we had them lower the hoop down to 8ft. I don't know if you. You felt the same way, Hank, but I got a gnarly bruise on my forearm.

Oh, wow.

I got. I got Dunkers.

Carter.

Now. Yeah. So I don't know if you've been able to reach a point where you're able to even get a bruise on your hand yet.

No, I'm still just. I'm reaching for the rim. I can touch the rim, but I can't get above it.

Did you listen to Friday's show?

Yeah.

Did you? What do you think about Hank's fart in our face?

Just air, you know?

Yeah, that's.

That's not uncommon in our family.

We should have. We should have said too, in Hank's defense, because our good friend Keith Yandle texted me after listening Friday show. He's like, what the fuck is Hank's problem? Hank was violently hungover.

Yes.

So we were taping at 09:00 a.m. we should have. We should have prefaced that. That was one of those moments where we should have set the stage a little bit better for Hank, in his defense.

Co workers.

Yeah.

How much corporate experience do you have when it comes to the business jargon? Do you have a significant amount?

I have a lot. I mean, you know, that was part of the taco Bell ecosystem, was a lot of corporate speak, and, you know, marketing presentations are just chock full of that stuff.

Yeah. Has it changed? I feel like it's gotten more annoying, though, in the last ten years than it was maybe 20 years ago.

It was always hilarious. Like, we would. We as franchisees would sit in these meetings, and they would just go off, and we'd be like, what are they talking?

Yeah. Right? None of this makes sense. Okay, so do I first pick? Yeah.

Yep.

I first pick. Tough one. Max. How are you playing these?

I don't know. I don't really care.

Okay. Because I don't really.

I'm wrestling with starters.

Anyone who.

I like it. I could get last in every one going forward, because I'm. I'm putting very little effort into these.

Right now, not even for the listeners. That's kind of mean.

Well, I don't want to, like, take first place, and then you guys just, like, can't have those points, right?

Oh, you got to play it out.

I don't think you should think like that, but, yeah.

After all, this is a podcast. There are people who are listening to thoughts, Max.

Yeah. Okay, so I have one. One. Hmm. Okay, I guess I'll just go with. I have a list, and I somehow wrote one thing down twice, so I think that's subliminally telling me that I should pick that as one. One. I'll go a circle back. He's the most annoying.

Yeah. You circled back on circle back.

Yeah, I did. I have it twice. Yeah. Just when someone says, let's circle back on this, just shut the fuck up. I don't know. I don't know why you're saying it like that. Just say, hey, I'll hit you later.

They don't want to come to a conclusion.

Right.

They want the meeting to end.

Right.

Yeah.

Right. In circling back.

Yeah.

I don't even understand it. We're just gonna circle around and back to it. Yeah.

That's a great pick. I had that as my one.

One just leaves it open that you can just. They can hit you back up at any point.

Yeah. Right.

And then say, like, oh, I'm circling back.

How many of these do you use now, Hank, that you're corporate?

Not as. I mean, a decent amount.

Do you circle back? I don't think I've ever used circle back.

I've thrown it out there, cuz, because I've been in situations where I don't want to give a definitive, like, let's meet tomorrow. Because I don't want to meet tomorrow. I'll just be like, it's a good way to end a meeting. Like, all right, yeah. We'll circle back on this stuff. Like, you just told me. A bunch of stuff that I don't really want to deal with right now.

Yeah, we'll circle back.

Circle back.

Let's talk about it later.

Yeah, yeah.

All right.

Who knows?

Team Lockwood.

I think we're gonna go with the logical next thing, which is put a pin in it.

Yeah.

Okay. We're putting pins in it. Okay.

We're to circle back, but, yeah, yeah.

Let'S put a pin in it. That one makes me want to punch someone in the face.

What's the difference between putting a pin in it and circling back?

I don't know.

They're all.

They all don't.

More definitive.

Yeah, they all don't mean shit.

Is that just a reminder to circle.

Back means we're not going to get rid of it. It's going to be up there on the board, and we're going to put a pin in it.

And then we'll circle back at the.

End of the day. Yeah. Like, every single one that we pick means absolutely nothing.

I do have, like, five. Now that I'm looking at my list, I've got five that translate directly to circle back.

Yeah, yeah. It's. It's like Hank said. It's just trying to find a way to finish a meeting without an actual conclusion.

Yep.

Max. Meatball. Meatball. Hey, should we get some meatballs.

Kind of going to do another one. That also kind of sounds like circling back. Let's table this conversation.

Okay.

Add that too.

Yeah. Table. And it sucks. Table. It sucks. Ipft. You got two, pick.

I got two. Okay, so I'm gonna go with touch base.

Yeah.

Touch and base to start out.

Yep.

Kind of means docking, but in this case, touch base. Let's just touch base and then for the next one.

And it's also the worst about touch bases. It's always like, do you have time to touch base on this? Yeah, it just fucking tell me when you want to talk.

It just means talk. Yes, let's touch base later. Why don't you just talk to me now?

There's nothing worse than the meeting before the meeting. The pre meeting is the, is the most, like, hey, let's figure out when we're gonna meet. No, just, dude, you're. You already got me, you already texted me, you already emailed me. Just do the meeting right now. Tell me what I need to know right now. Yeah.

You know what's beautiful about this, listen, is I don't think any of this language exists in football.

No.

Once you step inside a footballing, you don't circle back or anything. You circle forward.

No. And also, none of this really exists in our lives.

That's true.

We've somehow found a job that we've eliminated all of this stuff. Thank God.

I think if somebody told me to touch base on something.

Yeah.

I would just, I would leave.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Your second pick.

It'S something that you do right after you touch base.

Okay.

You get on the same page.

Oh, let's get on the same page on this. I like that pic.

Do I have time to change it?

Nope.

I feel like I've.

No, I like.

Okay, all right, all right.

Page. Get on the same page. Get on the same page.

I'm second guessing it now.

That's okay.

I'm not on the same page with myself.

No, you're good. Don't.

Okay. All right, all right.

There was a lot of. Yeah, there's. Oh, wasn't it?

Talk a little shit over there.

Now that I'm looking, it's not on my list.

Okay.

Not on mine. Although even halo, I've, I don't know any of this. This lingo. Like, I haven't done a second of.

It's not on Max's list. You've never had like an office job before, though?

No.

People are always getting on the same page. Yeah, yeah.

I'm gonna go.

There's a lot of moving parts.

Oh, yeah, there is a lot of moving parts.

That's just saying, I don't want to do this.

No, that's saying it's like, it's not my fault.

Yeah.

Yeah, there's a lot of moving parts.

Yeah.

Like, we're trying to get it done, but there's a lot of moving parts.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's basically just corporate excuses.

Yeah, it is.

Excuses plays a. It's a just a blame game.

Yeah, I did have that on my list.

Yeah.

I don't. Moving parts is good.

Yeah. Okay.

That's team Lockwood. So I think keeping with making excuses, it's above my pay grade.

Oh, okay.

Why?

For Hank, nothing's above his pay grade. He's a top.

No. Well, big cat. Me and big guy have kind of play tennis sometimes where I'll be like, yeah, I'll talk to big cat.

Oh, yeah. No, I.

Way more. Way more big cat to me, where people come out to be a big cat. So I had to talk to you.

Yeah.

What?

It's the two people at barstool who get the most. I just don't feel like answering. Is Gaz and Hank.

Yeah.

Like, if anyone ever asked for a job from outside of these walls, I'm just like, gas will figure. Just. Here's Gaz. Email. That's just it. Yeah. And then if someone asks for something that involves money or anything, I'm just like, Hank. An answer. Yeah.

It's great to have somebody like that.

Or, like, a hard answer, like, you don't want to.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Talk to Hank first.

Yeah.

Am I doing a good job? I don't know. Asking?

I think a lot of people do that with the board, and the board might not even ever exist, but you get asked a tough question. Well, I have to run by the board real quick.

Yeah.

And I'll get back to you.

Yeah. Okay. I got two that are kind of related, and they drive me fucking insane. One I'll even say right now, like, my brother in law says it to me all the time. I fucking want to kill him when he says it. Ping you. I'm gonna ping you.

Yeah.

What the fuck does that mean?

Yeah, what does ping means? It could mean anything. It could mean send an email. It could mean.

Just shut up and just say you're.

Gonna text me a text. It could mean a phone call. It could mean a homing pigeon. There's all sorts of stuff I don't.

Understand what ping you mean means. It drives me insane. And the other one is. And this might be because I just expect people to be able to answer at all times. Hank knows that when he's on vacation. I hate when people say they're out of pocket.

Yeah, I fought.

It drives me nuts. You have a fucking cell phone. Your whole work is in your pocket. What does that mean? You're out of pocket?

Or people that.

Yeah.

Automated emails.

Yeah. You can answer a text. You're out of pocket. Drives me nuts.

Which is out of pocket meand, like, you're only using what's in your pocket.

Correct. But, yeah, your pocket is your. Is your whole work.

Yeah, that.

It makes no sense anymore.

That excuse is done.

Right? Like, I would understand it if we were in, like, 1975 and you left work and there was no way for anyone to reach you. But what do you mean you're out of your pockets right here. Yeah.

People have automated emails, and I'm like, when you get one kicked back, like, I think that means I can't get this a question answer, right.

Oh, yeah. I don't think I've ever done the email, like, kickback. No, you have.

Imagine if I did it once.

You did?

Yep.

Here. The worst is text. Yep. Have you guys ever gotten on text? No. Text someone.

I didn't know that was possible.

Yeah.

Hank actually made fun of me for a week at when I did it, because I. I. Well, I was out of the country.

But you looking well.

And I just said, and I just said, if you have any questions, ask memes. Yeah, basically. Basically what I said, and I've never done it again because Hank ruined me when he sent me an email. He got it back.

Was a professional, though. Where you like it in contacting me. Please reach out.

I think I was just like, I'm out of the country this week. If you have any questions, here's memes's email.

I mean, that would have been a great way to do it, is to use memes actual name and everybody.

I think I probably did. I was like, go to his memes email.

I almost just said, that person doesn't exist yet, especially in our job. I don't know what. Would one be urgent enough that, like, we need to get ahold of Max.

Yeah, there's Plymouth.

And really that urgent where they, like.

If it's more so, like, ad stuff, that, like, an ad will reach out and be like, hey, they need this right now. Can you please switch this?

But it's someone.

Even then, I'll just still be like, hey, hug can. Hey, pug. Hey, memes. Can you switch this?

Someone else is on the email. So. Yeah, out of pocket, in, ping you? Ping me? Ping you. Ping me. Anything. Ping.

Yeah.

Fucking drives me nuts.

I'll ping you.

Yeah.

Hit you in the head with a gun.

You say, ping?

No, not a thing.

God.

I have the same reaction to ping me.

Yeah.

What does that mean? Just you. And especially when they text you, I'll ping you. It's like you're doing it right now. Again, it's just back to, like, when someone contacts you and they're setting something up. It's like we're talking right now.

Even the word ping in the context of it doesn't make sense.

Makes no sense in theory. I. I think a lot of people want to sound more professional than they actually are. So saying, like, I'm gonna text you later. For some reason, they don't like the sound of that. But saying, I'll ping you? Yeah, like, oh, that's businessy. Yeah, I should. I should be getting paid for using words like that.

Ping. Okay.

I think that this is so. This is a positive one. I think it's helpful in business jargon, it's when you have a meeting and someone says, hey, I got a hard stop, 930, or whatever the time is, give me that hard stop then. I know meetings over you are a lot.

How do we know about that? Pick.

Good.

It was a bad pick.

I did love it.

No, but it's a perfect lockwood pick because it's saying, like, oh, I can't work after this. After this moment. Yeah.

Yeah.

I like hard out better than hard stop.

Ooh.

Hard out. Hard stop. I got a hard stop. Oh, no, they're looking there. This.

Oh, no, I pointed to the bottom.

Oh, no.

Taco Bell situation on your headland.

Get it back.

You guys gotta get on the same day.

I was on the list. I was.

Damn. Yeah. My favorite, Hank one is if you need me for the yak, I'll be around. Which is just him saying, I'm about to go golf.

Oh.

I say, do you need.

Oh, do you need me for the act? Yeah, I'm about to go golf. All right, Max.

Don'T have the bandwidth for that.

Yep.

Okay, that's good one.

Yeah. This is basically saying, you're an idiot.

I'm lazy. What's saying I'm lazy? Yeah. It's like, I can't do that.

But it's also literally saying, you're an idiot. Yeah. Like a. You're a rudimentary computer.

My brain doesn't connect at those speeds. Dialog to somebody smarter.

Yeah. Don't have the bandwidth.

All right, so I got two now. And I like these two.

Yeah.

Let me loop you in.

Okay.

Looping in. I had that looping in, and then for my last one, I'm gonna go with a classic tried and true per my last email.

Mmm. Nice.

Yeah. Which is a nice passive aggressive way.

Of saying subtle way.

It's saying, fuck you.

Yeah.

Per my last email. You dumbass.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Saying they're. Yeah, you've. You've. Or you're just not responding to my emails.

Yep.

Yeah.

This one is kind of normal conversation, but it's how I start probably 90% of my emails that I've ever sent before in my life. And it's just, thanks for reaching out.

You do. Thanks for reaching. Oh, yeah.

Every time you start.

Every. If it's.

If it's someone that isn't within barst. Like, if it's.

I guess I just don't. We don't. We've never emailed.

No, I I'm not the biggest emailer, but when I do, it's like. And it's someone I don't know, I'm like, oh, thanks for reaching out.

Oh, that's actually makes sense. So. Yeah, so it's usually when I send people to you, because I'm sending, I'll have a conversation with someone, like, here, just. Just email our producer. And then you'll be like, thanks for reaching out then.

And then I just bent thanks out. But I don't think. I don't think this is gonna happen.

That's very professional of us.

Yeah.

Thinking of, like, one specific example in the last couple of months where someone asked me for something, I was like, just please reach out to our producer, Max. He can handle. And then you just wrote, thanks, thanks for reaching out. And that was it.

Yeah.

I was like, thanks for reaching out to Max.

The autocomplete that starts up, like, on your gmail when you respond to stuff, probably. I wonder if. I wonder how much it's learned about you.

It's probably learned a lot of. Thanks for reaching out.

Yeah. Okay. The Lockwoods have to get back on the same page for this last one.

We are on the same page, but we will probably be doing this afterwards. Let's take this offline.

Okay.

Taking something offline.

Yeah. Okay. My last pick. It's not. It just, again, these are. I just did, like, straight pet peeves. I cannot stand when anyone refers to anyone as a rock star.

I had that on my list. Fucking drives me nuts calling somebody a rock star or not a rock star.

You're working. Like, you're. You're working in accounting. I'm not a rock star. That's literally not a rock star.

I would also include Ninja, and they do ninja lot, too, but, yeah, any of those things. It's.

She's such a rock star. Oh, he's such a rock star. No, actually, no, he's not a rock star.

Talk to Greg. He's a rock star at accounting.

If he was a rock star, he would not be talking to us.

Yeah, I wouldn't.

A rock star doing drugs and. And living the best life ever.

What professions do you think are the furthest away from being an actual rock star?

Yes. Something like in the CIA, like, yeah.

Director of the city.

Might be rockstar.

Reach out to Leon Panetta. He's a rock star.

Yeah. If you're. If you're, like, assassinating people. Heads of state. That's kind of rock star.

Anyone maybe actually with an excel spreadsheet.

Yeah.

As far away from being a rock.

Someone who works the IR's.

Yeah.

There's definitely been someone who's been referred to as the IR's. Hank is, by the way, where you pay taxes. I know you don't do that.

Reach out to the head. Head auditor over there. He's a rock star. Rock star.

All right. What do we miss?

Net.

Net. That might be personal to us. Yeah. We had one co worker that would say netanyahood. I had along the same lines of rockstar. Kind of somebody who says that I'm passionate about, and then something that absolutely nobody is passionate about.

Yeah.

Like, someone's, like, I'm passionate about real estate.

Yeah.

No one's picnic.

Picnic. You guys know picnic?

No, it's pixel.

Someone screws up and they can't get the computer work, and you end up it, realize it's the person. So you say that's a picnic issue. Problem in chair, not in computer.

Oh, I like that.

Good.

I like that. I. One I use personally, probably the only one on this list is when I will send an email and be like, I'm cc'ing this person, and it's essentially saying, I'm not. I'm no longer responsible for this email. Like, this is not my issue. I'm giving you the person. Synergy synergies.

That's like a classic one.

Yeah, that's a classic. That's an old school link.

Outside the box.

Think.

Outside the box. Yeah.

On your radar. Want to put something on your radar. That one drives me nuts. Because it's like, what am I supposed to do? They're not really telling you to do anything. They're just putting it on your radar.

Yep. What about using the word effort as a verb? We're gonna effort this.

Yeah, we're gonna effort this.

There's a lot that I don't know here.

The.

The other ones on my dad had a big list that I didn't. Never even heard him picking up Jell.

Oh, I like that.

It's kind of like boiling the ocean.

We need our next Baja blast.

Hurting cat.

Herding.

Hurting cats.

Yeah.

Getting a 30,000 foot view of something.

Yeah. Ways herding cats would be hard. Right.

Difficult.

It's, like, similar to picking up Jello.

Yeah. Yeah, I just. I like picking up Jello.

I just had fiscal year on mine. I don't think that's really jargon, but, you know, every time. I never really understand it, but it's a thing. I know it's a thing.

Cues really.

Is an entire Mount Rushmore of us just, like, flexing that we don't.

What queue are we in right now?

We are in Q three.

Q three. Okay.

Sure.

Yeah. Stuff.

Yeah. Okay.

Well, I thought every.

With the cues.

Don't we in the heart of you.

But it depends on the fiscal year.

Yeah, that's true, man. You know, don't some companies measure fiscal years in February?

Yeah.

Like, ours should be, like, after the super.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a fiscal year.

You don't know what Q it is.

Our Q should only be the football season.

Yeah.

Q one hasn't even started. We're.

Yeah, we're in pre queue.

Yeah, we should. We should do the fiscal years only the football season. And then everything else is just offseason.

Yeah.

So, like, weeks one through four is Q one.

Lovey Smith used to do that. Where you'd be like, yeah, one through four would be quarter one.

We got to go three and one in the first quarter.

Yeah.

Best practices.

Yeah. Wear many hats.

Yeah. Wearing many hats is good.

Means that person just isn't good at anything.

Being a thought leader.

Yeah.

That's such a funny term. Yeah, I'm a thought leader.

Yeah.

In the. In the accounting space. Low hanging fruit.

Did we do. We did. Bandwidth low hanging fruit. Back burner.

Move the needle.

Move the needle.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's usually done by a rock star.

Or a drug dealer.

Yeah.

I'll give you seven minutes of your day back.

Oh, yeah.

And I'm in the meeting early.

Yeah.

Okay. That's.

I'm in some meetings now where that's, like, I because I still kind of, like. I don't really deal with it that much, but I'll be in some meetings wherever I. That's like a big, like, all right. Everyone gets ten minutes of their day back, and it's like, oh, my God, I can't exit this call to get.

Ready for your next meeting.

Yeah.

Without telling somebody that you need to sharpen your pencil on this, because that is like saying you need to do a better job at doing your job.

Yeah, but they're not going to be able to make a meeting. They say I'm going to be out of pocket.

Yeah, yeah, out of pocket. Yeah. That one drives me nuts. Every time. Every time. So you can get into any meeting, anywhere, anytime.

What about calling slideshows decks? Is that just what they're called for?

You.

Yeah, I got a deck. Take a look at my deck.

Yeah.

Look at my deck.

Yeah, yeah.

Send me a picture of your deck.

We got to manage expectations.

Gonna tee this up.

That means whatever you want to do is gonna suck.

Mm hmm. Yeah. Over promise.

Yeah.

Under deliver or. No, that's the wrong way to do it. Under promise, over deliver.

Oh, man. If I had to deal with these words. Thousand percent. Hundred percent. Went to a thousand percent.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's been the pen ever since. Pen has been, like, we've been just back to Barcelona. I've dealt with probably, like, 80% less of it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The people that believe these words is hilarious.

Yeah.

Just passionate.

It's crazy.

People that know people. There is, like, an art form, like, seeing someone in a setting where they can just say nothing.

Right.

But make you believe something is actually impressive, because I can't do it. But, like, I've been in meetings where I'm, like, this person that isn't saying anything.

Yeah, there's. I mean, there's some jobs. Yeah, there's some jobs where it's just all your entire job is just to meet, and that's it. You just go from meeting to meeting.

Mm hmm. I'm passionate about new strategies and e tail. I had a guy tell me that one time. It's like, no, you.

You're not passing.

You just want people to think that you like your job.

Yeah.

That's all that means. Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm very curious to know what Hughie's picks for this would have been, because, huey, I don't. Do you have any corporate experience at all?

I didn't have a pick behind chef.

Yeah.

Quid pro quo.

Yeah.

These are all over my head, literally.

That's a good one.

They're above his pay grade.

They are above your pay grade. Memes. Did you have any memes? Probably wants to kill anyone who says any of these.

Hi.

You guys nailed all of them. Good afternoon.

That's a good one.

What?

Yeah, when you start off, that's just.

That's just normal life.

Just like, fuck your effort.

I love how means that's just like, normal. Like, human interaction means, like, fuck that.

Just tell me business jargon.

You don't care about my afternoon.

Just tell me.

That's just real life. That has nothing to do with, like, if you see someone in the street, you say, good afternoon.

Someone asked memes how his weekend was. He's like, you motherfucker.

Like, you don't get a shit.

No, I like that, memes. Because when someone says good afternoon to you, you know that whatever follows that is gonna ruin your afternoon.

Yeah. Yeah.

There's not enough time left in the day to make my afternoon good now.

Yeah, you just made it significantly worse.

Okay, you talked me into that one, memes. That was a good one.

Yeah.

Oh, man. All right, well, great Mount rush war. The final week is going to be intense. How do you boys think you did?

I think I did pretty good. It would have been nice to have my dad here, but that's okay, Hank. And so I. I hope this was a great father son moment.

It's gonna come down to the same page. And what was the third pick you guys had?

Hard stop.

Hard stop. That's gotta feel like that's gonna be a battle between those two.

Yeah. What happened on hard stop?

What did you put on our list? I was on our list.

What did you point to, though?

It was on a list.

Well, what did you point to?

Good pick.

What?

At the bottom of the list, I think.

Yeah. What did you point to?

It was another one that got chosen later. And after that.

Oh, which one?

Was it by Pft?

Oh, no. So I took the pick. Was it lupien per.

My last.

I swiped her my last email, and.

You guys went, we weren't on the same page. That's.

Yeah, you got to be on the same.

We misread the pointing.

Yeah, that happens. You get lost in the snake.

Yeah. Yep.

Got lost in the snake, I think after the first pick.

Yeah, yeah. Big time. All right, let's finish with numbers. If you get this, Max has never gotten the lottery ball.

Yes, I have.

Yes, I have.

Mickey Mouse, never gotten the lottery ball. It's Pft.

Hasn't gotten either.

None. This machine, 578-205-6423 I'm giving 99 back to post.

It.

Was Pug.

Pugs not here today?

Probably would have gotten it.

Shane always gets 21, but it won't be 21.

Oh, my God.

Is that 20?

Yep.

Oh, you piece of shit.

Now you got nothing. You got. I've gotten it. I've gotten it. Nope. Why are you so. Oh, God, you're a piece of. Yeah.

He is never gonna get this.

I really need a piece of shit.

I need you to get promised.

I fucked up. I pulled out all the stops. I went for 99 when poke abandoned.

It, I did everything I could, you pieces of shit. This is the bad. Is my.

I'm the best lottery ball king.

Number king. We've. All we got is, like, we've. I've gotten it. Have I got it twice? I might have got it twice. Yeah, listen, so, I mean, good. Congrats. You got it once. Now pft. Oh.

It's all on me.

Oh.

I'll take accountability that it's. It's now firmly entered the phase of being a memes. You've never got it, though, right?

Memes has never gotten it, period. Yeah. No, not in the old machine, not in the new machine, not on the road.

Mmm.

Congrats, Max.

Good job, Max.

Good job. I think I did guarantee the PFT again for. And you let me down.

I fucked up.

Let me down big time.

So fucked up.

So is it. It's Pft's. Never gotten it, huh?

Never got it. Not on this machine. Memes, have you ever, ever gotten it tough?

It's not. Not so fun when the rabbits got the gun.

No.

I'm gonna have to prepare for people just yelling random numbers at me.

Yeah. Oh, don't. Wait, that.

Don't do that.

If you see Pft at pub, punk or anywhere, out and about. Walking the walking. Blake.

DC Friday, Philly Saturday.

Don't. Or if you're in Philly Saturday, don't yell numbers at him. Like, if it's in between songs, there's a little lull.

20 before he could, and I didn't. This time, I look down.

That's true.

Mm hmm.

That's actually social.

No word.

All right. See everyone on Wednesday.

Love you guys.

God damn.

Damn it, Max.

Today is another day to find you. Shy away I'll be coming for your love.

Okay.

Shying away I'll be coming for your love.

Okay.

Needless to say, I'm upset. Okay? Say after me, it's so better to be safe than sorry. Say after me, it's so better to.

Be safe than sorry.

Things that you say isn't alive just to play my worries away you're all things I've got to remember you shine away love it coming for you anyway? Shine away love it coming for you anyway? Take on drink?