Big Noon Conversations: QB Roundtable with Robert Griffin III & Brady Quinn

- What did you guys love most about being a quarterback? - Is there any position in football that has more pressure on it? - There's no other sport that tests you physically, mentally and emotionally. These young men are more prepared than ever before. - Their skills are way higher. - Way higher than 100, I was a 10-3 guy. - What, I ran 100? - There was a 10-3. - It just was that 80. - Yeah. - Why wouldn't you put a system in place that he's good at? - That their kids get the next Tom Brady. - You don't have Tom Brady in your house. - I'm just telling you. - Hi, welcome into a special edition of the Joel Clatch Show. This is the quarterback round table presented by Hilton Hilton for the stay. Really excited to have two legends with me here today. And actually, I wore my green for both of them. So I'm, guys, I feel like I'm supporting Baylor and Notre Dame here. We are with Heisman Trophy winner, Robert Griffin III, and Brady Quinn from Notre Dame, obviously. Guys, thanks for joining me. - Thanks for having us, man. I'm excited about you to be here, man. - This is awesome. Can't wait for the season. And obviously, we can get into the season a little bit. But I wanted to talk more about just general quarterback play. I feel like this is a perfect time. In particular, coming off of last year's draft, it was a light quarterback draft. Now all of a sudden, we're loaded in college football with what seems to be as deep of a quarterback room, if you will, in college football as we've had in a long time. But here's where I wanted to start. And I thought this would just be kind of a fun icebreaker, either of you can jump in. What did you guys love most about being a quarterback? - Wow. - That is a great question. So I love the camaraderie most, the leadership. Football is the ultimate team sport. I was a track guy growing up. My first love was basketball. And you can be an individually great basketball player and still go great places. But as a football player, as a quarterback, you have to be able to bring the rest of the guys along with you. When I got hurt in 2009 in college, a lot of people forget, I told myself in college as well. And I'm sitting on the training table in my team mates are running by and they're giggling and laughing, going to practice. And I don't know about you guys, but I hate to practice at first. But then I got hurt and it was taking away from me. I fell in love with football at that point. Because I knew like, there's something about getting 11 other guys on one play to all do it the right way so that you can go win. Then you multiply that to 90 in college and 53 in the NFL. So to me, that leadership portion of being a quarterback is what made me love football. I'll talk about it more from an individual standpoint. I just don't know of all the sports I played. I was a big football baseball basketball on my life growing up. There's no other sport that tests you physically, mentally and emotionally. Like, I love a challenge. And I think playing the position challenges you in so many different ways, whether it's that leadership component, like you're talking about with everyone else, whether it's just your decision making, right? And it's applicable for the rest of your life as a husband, as a dad, as a business leader. So there were so many things about it that just made it fun from that standpoint for me that I was like, man, this is awesome. You have the ball on your hands. You're in a lot of control. And it's hard. I mean, there's days where you're your butt kick. You got to get back up. There's days when you're going to have the best day of your life. But you got to humble yourself, too, to realize. You know, that butt kick can come next week, too. So there's so many things about it that I love, but I think just the challenge of it in every single way. I personally loved the difficulty of the mental side of the game. Yeah. And the challenge of the 22 man chess board. I loved it. I loved watching. But I still love watching film because of that. And trying to unlock for your guys, how are we going to attack? What are we going to do? What are the things that we need to change? How do we need to adjust? That was my favorite. And granted, like, you guys are obviously physically very talented. I'm not, you know, I was I was short and slow. And so I hope all your listeners and people who watch this don't believe this. You played professional baseball, too. Well, that doesn't mean that I was not many people going to have the opportunity to be stand out athletes in two sports. Well, I mean, that's nice of you to say. But you know what I'm saying, like, there's a gifted side of playing the position, you know, where you can, you can do some things. There's a ceiling. Yeah, that's right. And my challenge was, without some of those physical gifts, how do we continue to move the football? You know, how do we do those things? But this is what makes the position so incredible. And my eyes is because there's not a more important position in all of team sports as the quarterback. And yet we have all shapes and sizes that are succeeding at every single level. You know, you've got bare-bucked-myers succeeding at BYU and Brock Purdy in the NFL and you've got Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen and CJ Carr and all these guys. And they all look different and they all do it differently. One of the things that I think is the most fascinating part of the position is and you touch on it. So I'll go back to you, Robert. You touched on you loved the camaraderie. I agree. And yet the buck stops with you. So you're playing, you're going to get all the credit, you're going to get all the blame if it doesn't go right. And yet you've got to make the other 10 or 90 or 53. Feel like you're just one of the guys. And it might be the most difficult part of the position. How do you handle that? Man, you know, you talk about accountability. All right, so we had this saying at Baylor that I ended up adopting and taking with me when I went pro and it was no pressure, no diamond. Is there any position in football that has more pressure on it than the quarterback? Not even close. Not even close, right? So now you're having to make decisions. You talk about decision-making. You're having to operate and perform at the highest level in the biggest moments. And I'll never forget we had the game against Oklahoma where through the touchdown, the Terrence Williams and the Corn of the End Zone, hides in the moment, right? After the game, they, they, you know, meet and ask me like, what do you think about what happened? And, you know, most guys would have probably been like, "Oh, man, it was so great. I did this. I did that. I did this." And I remember talking about my offensive line. And Cam called for, he's a doctor now. He was my offensive line that picked me up off the ground after the throw, lifted me up in the air, and like shook me and said, "We did it." I gave him a shout out after the game and gave my offensive line a shout out for protecting me. Even though it was a play where they didn't really block that well. Because you were on the back. Or maybe, you know? They blocked long enough. But it was like, "Hey, I had to scramble and go do this." And, like, when I went in the locker room the next day, the look on their face of like, "We appreciate you having our back." That, to me, is how you break through. Because everyone's going to point to you when you were balling another day and they're like, "Man, break one's incredible." But when you deflect that attention, you give it to the rest of your guys, that's what endears you to them. And it, some people say it's just football talk. It's just coach talk. It's just press conference talk. But those guys take that to heart. Because when you go to the media and you don't do that, it has the opposite effect. So that was my way, like, too many coaches, in my opinion, focus on what a guy can't do. I wanted to be able to focus on what they can do. I want to focus on what motivates them, right? What drives them intrinsically to be the best? You guys are both great leaders. You had guys that were motivated by money. Motivated by women. Motivated by the attention. Some guys just love ball. But you had to find a way to lead each one of those guys inside of your 11 on the field and make them all be on the same page. To me, that was one of the greatest joys of my life. I miss it, to be quite honest. And now we have it in broadcast. So it's the camera guys. It's the production assistance. That's how we have our team now. But there's no greater feeling than being in that arena and being able to lead those guys. I think one of the challenges and everything you just said there too for some guys is, and I think they make this mistake because they try to be someone they're not. Correct. You know, like they try to be who they think their coaches want them to be, or their teammates want them to be. Or the media wants them to be. Or the media wants social media wants them to be. And being genuine, being who you are. And for a lot of guys and I'm trying to think so I just was at Big 10 Media Days. And I'll just say this now, don't say more. Sat down with him before the Northwestern Game last year and talked, and it was before a game. So maybe he was just a little bit more kind of calm and quiet and just ready for the game. But the demand, the command he had, the demeanor he had was just entirely different. And when I asked day in landing about that, he said, "No, no, this is like a second-year start." Like he's taking the reins, taking control. And he's doing it in his way, right? And he's not trying to, you know, be a guy that necessarily has to be a raw raw guy. But he's going to speak up and correct something if something goes wrong. And I think that is one of those kind of fine lines. You got to figure it out for yourself. Because oftentimes there are guys who are more chatty like that, like Baker Mayfield. He's one of the first comes of mine, right? He's going to talk. He's going to say a lot. There's some guys who like, the coaches might want to do that, right? But like, that's not naturally how they are. And it might take them a lot to get there. So I think being genuine to who you are to as you lead those guys and how you lead them is a big factor as well. And getting them to trust you. So they feel like that is the guy that I'm going to follow. So I'm hearing so much similarities. Like, I'm resonating with everything that you guys are talking about. And I don't want to be the old guy yelling at the clouds. I really, I really don't know how I grind out. I'm interested. I feel like it's kind of incredible. I'm getting there. He's getting there. So no. Sometimes I feel when I'm covering this sport, that especially the young guys that I see playing this position. I'm like, "Man, it feels like I'm talking to a tennis player." It feels like I'm talking to an individual sport athlete. You know, he's had his individual coach played at three high schools. Maybe it's his second college or college program. And it strikes me as guys that don't quite understand all the things that you guys were just talking about. And yet there's others that really do it well. Do you see the same thing in the modern day and era of quarterback playing college football? I was going to say it's interesting like a few thoughts here. The first is I think because of all that, these young men are more prepared than ever before, from like a mechanical standpoint. Like when I watch the throwing motion, I watch some of the forework and the things they can do, even now like to create and like have different arm angles. Like all these kids can kind of do it now. Their skills are way higher. Way higher. And there's not like that struggle of, "Hey, I was a three-person sport athlete." You get to know the other day and they're like trying to work on your, you know, your motion, your release or whatever else. None of that really exists anymore. And I think from a mental, like a sports psychology, mental standpoint, there's prepared as ever before because of some of that. However, I don't know if they know the X's and O's as, as necessarily maybe as how we were taught. I think there's an element of them being able to thrive with the change in moving around. Because a lot of these guys who are going up in the 7 on 7 culture, it's like A.U. basketball. It's like getting picked up with different teams. And so you're running these concepts for a different 7 on 17 or with different receivers, but you kind of just plug in and you do it. And so they're a little more comfortable with like, I don't need to be in this place for that long and be the quarterback for that. It's odd. It's foreign to us, but I also think it's the environment they've grown up in because of some of the 7 on 7. But to your point, like, and obviously you were most recent. Like it feels, just like for you, like it feels completely foreign to me. Even like the huddle almost being eliminated in football now. Yeah, it's crazy. Like it's crazy to see guys like you never heard, right? You didn't know. You didn't know. I'm a fly on the floor. Was that a transition for you though when you got to the NFL? Yes. So in high school, we huddled. College we didn't huddle at all. Right. But our coaches made us huddle my last year in college just so the NFL could see it. Yeah. Just for me, because they knew like, hey, so a couple of other guys. So you came in. So I was just like a little backstory right when I started this industry. I was going down to Dallas and doing big 12 studio for halftimes and pre-games. And there was this freshman that we were like, I mean, who's this? You know, Robert Griffin, the third. Who's this? And I was like at Baylor? The old big 12 Baylor was nothing. I mean, nothing, right? I mean, it's the truth. These are facts. And so when you got there, you guys took the world by storm, it was a very different style of offense. Arts offense. Art Browell was the head coach. And you're running around. There's this track athlete playing quarterback and he's doing it incredibly well. So you're telling me that after your first couple of years, Art put you in the huddle just so that the NFL would see you in a huddle. Just so you could see it because guys like Kevin Cobb had come out of Houston. And Houston was really, really good, but a knock on Kevin was all they do is run the huddle. He has no huddle experience. So as I, as we started to grow and get more notoriety, coach went in the off season of my junior year. It was my retro sophomore year. He made sure like we had huddle plays. And we did. We ran huddle, you know, maybe 40 times that year of a thousand plays. Right. But the NFL could see it and not put that same stigma on me. So I mean, you can kind of blame us for the way the college football is today because it was so successful offensively. So we couldn't play defense to save our lives. Well, it started my deep as a guy. It's an equalizer. 100%. Like you guys were able to say if we're playing Oklahoma for playing taxes like this gives us a distinct advantage. We can win this way where if you're trying to, you know, play in between the tackles the whole time. There's no way I was going to. Well, they would dominate us. Right. They were bigger, they were faster that we had, you know, I was a four star guy, but they had seven five stars and 24 four stars. Right. So our equalizer was getting tired. Well, it was you. Yeah. Appreciate that. Right. But it was like getting them tired by running that no huddle and having a quarterback like myself who did have the physical gifts but developed. Like that's one of the things that I think is a problem with college football today is that quarterbacks don't have time to develop. Interesting. If you guys would have saw me when I was a freshman, like I was running for, I ran for like 200 some of the arts against Washington State. I remember right. I don't think I had a 200 yard rushing game my, my last year when we won the Heisman. But I, we threw for 4,000 yards and having many touchdowns because I was able to actually develop. Whereas now these guys they come in, they're making an I L money. The expectation is so much higher on them that if they're not a superstar day one, they'll like get them out of here. Don't they more do you see a lot or replace them? Or replace them. Yeah, he goes. He goes. He goes to Oregon and he gets a year to sit. He got to develop. Yeah. That is missing in college. Did you get to develop? I mean, you came in highly recruited. Yeah. No, I played every game. My true freshman and then something for us was Thai willing. I went to go play for. I wanted to graduate early. I wanted to enroll in January. They didn't. He didn't want me to do that. He's like, I want you to enjoy your senior year. He's like, you only go through this once. Oh my gosh. Can you imagine? Yeah. Yeah. I was kind of chomping out the bit because I'm like. Coach, you're firing. You said powerful. But obviously times have changed. But I try to go up in summertime when I could. But we couldn't even like enroll in classes then. It's just that that's how different it was. And so you go up as much as I could. I went up during spring break as much as I could to be with the team and get the offense down. So I had a good feel for it. But again, you know, very raw and just trying to my best to, you know, learn the offense. Adapt to what that academic life was like, which was way harder than anything I was prepared for at that point. So it was a big time transition for me to try to manage both. And honestly, even like the life skills part, right, like time management, like understanding like how much I could really devote to that and still, you know, do the best I could in my, you know, freshman fall semester, which was incredibly difficult. So, so we've established now in our conversation. We've got, and I would agree with this. We've got players at this position right now in college football that are more skilled than they've ever been. Yeah, right. And yet, I think we would all be in agreement. We don't know if the development is there to get them ready for the next level. Which I'd ask you. And only, and only because like our high school, back in my hometown, now I think it's kind of running the similar system. It's maybe a version of Tennessee's right now. But when I'm, when they did the install, I was like, all right, got it. But it seems fairly simple. Yeah, right? Like, can I just define it real quick? So what Brady's talking about, just so everyone knows, this is the deep choice system that art riles made very famous. You can describe it better than I can, I'm sure. Josh Hyple is running that very successfully, by the way, at Tennessee. No one scored more points in college football since Hyple got to Tennessee than Tennessee. Correct. But it is a half field passing offense, meaning that the quarterback is going to be responsible for half the field, not a full field read, which a lot of, that's how I cut my teeth. I'm sure you did. And then explain this because the route structure is not defined by the concept, but rather by the wide receiver. Correct. So the quarterback and the receiver have to both read the defense the same way. So the only way to be successful at a deep choice offense. Post snap, right? Post snap. Preamp post snap, right? Because you know, you got more defensive that are disguising now. So the half field read portion of it. When people hear that, they're like, oh, they're not reading the whole field. They are. It's just, you're starting on one side and coming back to the other. So in the NFL, we call that a peer progression. Yeah. So they go right to left, but their deep choice is on the right. Everything else that's coming to it is just check downs. Right. So it took me like to really perfect that offense, you got to be in it for two to three years. Because you got to have the same guys. Because if I had Kendall right, first round receiver to the Tennessee Titans, I had Terrence Williams, who's the third rounder to the Cowboys. Kevin Reese was a small guy that went to fifth round, I believe, to the Bengals. So all these guys are with me for three, four years. So I knew when Kendall had a deep choice and the corner was five years off, he was running a go ball. Even if the guy was seven years off when he got to his decision, he was running a go ball. I knew that. I knew Terrence Williams was going to sit it down no matter what. So how can a guy figure that? How can a guy figure that out if he's only had three months to practice with that? He can't. It's why Niko did UCLA now. Some people thought he, I didn't think he struggled too much, but they thought he struggled a little bit in the Tennessee offense. Well, he just got there. Yeah. You got to build that camaraderie with those guys. And I wanted to answer your other question because I thought you made a great point. When I came out of high school, it's rolling the ball mechanically wise. I was probably like you. They changed everything when I got to college. These guys now, I mean, I'm practicing what some of them, I got a high school freshman. He's way better than I was when I was a freshman in college. And it's like, well, what's lacking? I think buy-in is lacking and the mental size of it. the game is lacking. When I say buy-in, I grew for five years with the guys that I played with. Right. They knew and I knew we had each other's best interests at heart. I still think high school football is one of the best things we have because you get to grow with the guys from first grade to 12th grade, but even that's changing because you mentioned they're going to three different high schools. So how can a guy have buy-in if he just met this guy three months ago? Right. And he was brought in from the 14th school that he's been to to be a great wide receiver. It's very difficult to find that. So the great coaches, like a Kurt Signetty at Indiana, they build the structure that allows buy-in to be real. So it's more on the coaches now that it is the players and I think that's difficult for guys like us to see because we had the natural built-in camaraderie. We worked with these guys for four years. We knew we were going to be there. That guy's not leaving to go to our rival. So we're beating around the transfer portal now and the dynamic that brings to college football. I think it would be a fascinating question for you. Like you committed to Coach Tyrone Willingham. That's where you're going to go and play for Notre Dame and for your coach, but then he fired. And he's no longer your coach. And today's age, would you have finished at Notre Dame if your coach would have been fired? I mean, it's obviously a loaded question because, you know, some of the schools I was looking at that around me, you know, Ohio State, for example, you know, one of the reasons why I didn't want to go to Ohio State was they had won the National Championship my senior year, but I think, you know, they threw the football 16 times in that game. So I was like, that doesn't look fun. You know, like, I don't want to do that. Now you look at what Ryan Day has done with the quarterbacks and what that offensive looks like. It's an entirely different story. So you'd go through to Jeremiah Smith. Yeah. I didn't even imagine you were throwing shoes. And that's like, all right. Like, this looks like a lot more attractive situation, which even back then, though, they still had great receivers. You're only doing it 15, 16 times a game. So that would have for sure played a role, played a factor. I mean, look, I chose Notre Dame back then for more than just the football aspect of it. And even just our coach, like the academic side of it, the spiritual side of it, those are all things that like, it was the right fit for me. But to your point, I mean, even then, there was a second of doubt. There was like a conversation with my dad where I said, I don't know, should I look around, should I look at other places to go at this point? I mean, the difference then is like, I still had a register year to burn. So it would do you really want to do that after starting for basically two years, right? Like probably not. And so that was that was part of the difficult part of the conversation. But again, like money wasn't a part of that discussion. Right. If it was today's day, I'm a human. There's no way I'm allowed you guys to say, like, I wouldn't have contemplated it, or potentially looked at that. I mean, a two year starter, just to get, we're not beating around the bush. Like someone would have come and thrown you well north of $5 million. Yeah, I think that team now is basically either Texas Tech or Miami. It's the way they throw money around for being honest. Yeah. And you know, at that point, I mean, I stuck at a hell of an office. Yeah, you know, like Campbell Scotch. You're like, all right, all right. It's starting to turn that down. Love it. Sounds good this time. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. What's in love? I don't know. Hey, bad. I'm not going to wreck. Love it, but that's good. I mean, I got a great, I got a great story for you. So like you mentioned, Baylor, when I went in 2008, we were the little brother to really every team in the league. Yeah. So I did get recruited by a bunch of other schools, but they, you know, big schools still want to make quarterback, but the ones like Texas A&M, which was in the big 12 at the time, Texas, they all want to be as a safety. I wasn't going to play safety. Did you play safety in high school? I did not play safety in high school. So I mean, they know it was crazy. I knew it was this story. It was the still and just like, this is incredible. It was the speed portion of it. I was a world class track athlete. And they didn't know if I could translate over to playing quarterback at that level, because in high school, we were kind of like Ohio State. We threw the Bullics 16, 18 times a game, but coach Browse knew I could throw. I had been a camp with him and he didn't. Well, he was a huge, well, he's a huge, and he asked me not to go to any other camps, because he didn't want the other coaches to see me throw the ball. I liked that. That was pretty funny. And he was, you know, he was right and it all worked out. No, but freshman year, Baylor were playing against Texas. Mac Brown's the head coach. It's 20 to 20 at halftime. We're beating them up pretty good. They're, they're a little shocked. They beat us 42 to 20. Not gonna lie. They were like number one team in the country. That's how the game finished. After the game, Mac Brown met me at the middle of the field. Like, he's a little older, so it wasn't quite a run, but it was what a run would look like for an older Mac Brown. And he ran to me at the middle field and he said, if you want to transfer to Texas, right now, we will take you. We really messed it up in your recruiting. We shouldn't ask you to play safety. We should ask you to play quarterback. And if that would have happened now, you're looking at a situation where that's probably RG3 not playing at Baylor. Right. Because of where we were at the time. I'm glad that I didn't even contemplate it because obviously at that point, we'd have to sit out for two years. But if that happened today, there's no questioning if I would have actually stayed at Baylor and we're back at Baylor too. So I actually ran track before I ever played football. Dude, do you want to know if he did? Well, you were hurt. You said you wanted to go and practice at Notre Dame, your second semester, your senior year, right? Yeah. So he enrolls at Baylor. Do you know what he did? His literally supposed to be at prom. Yeah. What'd you do? One of the big 12 in the four in the hurdles, went to the Nationals, got third and went to the Olympic trials and got 11th. Good God. How are we doing? So that is insane. What's crazy about today's world, though, is I would encourage every single athlete out there to go into college as a dual sport athlete. I totally agree. Because you have the loophole of leaving and transferring during your track window. Correct. Which to me, it's like not enough, not enough multi-sport athletes, you're in particular a place. That's a great life hack. It is. But that's what I'm saying. It's like that's what in today's world would open up that door, even if it was after the window was closed. You still, I tracked the lean on. And a lot of these kids now, we keep coaching them to specialize, specialize, specialize. It's like never special. No, you'll leave your options open if you can. I think the thing that shocks me about your story specifically with, and I love Mac Brown. I think we all probably do. He's a great dude. I know you probably have a, you know, interesting. I do. I do. I thought it was an honest moment for him. Sure. And then when we won the Heisman, I just looked back on the moment like this could have been you know. But here's what what shocks me is that you revolutionized college football and coach browsed it in a lot of ways. But the guy in my eyes that like everybody was like, whoa, what is this? Is Vince Young? Right. And that was with Mac. And that's right before. That's like right when you're in high school. I know. And he and he didn't see it. I know. Now Granite Colt was there and they had a great run with Colt. And after that, it kind of, it kind of fell off. But you would have been right after Colt. Yeah, and I loved Colt. And you know, his teammates were called in Washington actually. Right. And you know, Vince was a hero to all of us. Oh. So like, I got to, and I say, we played against him. He was a hero to me. We love it. We love it. We love it. Now you're making yourself not sound at all. How old were you and how old was Vince? I was older than everybody. Oh, man. I remember a quick Vince story. We get beat. We played him tough. The first time we played him in 05. This is our national championship year. And we go down to Austin and we play him. I can't remember the final score. I think it was like 4221. I want to say, but it was, you know, like we were in Austin. They're great. We're holding our own. I got two quick stories. So first, the Vince one, after the game, you know, he comes up. He's like, hey, nice job. And then he's like, go get that money. And I was like, hey, man, I'm like only one of us is getting drafted. Man, like, you know, but I was like, yeah, you know, like you're of course. What are you supposed to say? What are you? What are you gonna say? But then during the game, I'm like, I'm like, I got that baseball money, Vince. Yeah. You know, I got it. I got it, man. I got a house back in Boulder. So during the game, I'm rolling out to the left and, and I kind of let the ball go and just get, you know, remember back in the day, like we got hit. Just, I am. And it's one of those where you hit the ground and you just like slide on your back for a while. Yeah. You know, it's like the do on the ground. Yes. Yes. And I slide into the Texas bench. You know, and, and lo and behold, I'm looking up like this and who's like, Ben's over and it's Mac Brown. He did not say, hey, if you want to transfer in Texas, he just looked at me and goes, you are right son. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I'm good. And you're like, help me up. And he hit me on the button. He goes, all right, good luck. And I like jogs back on the field. So that was a catch your ass back. Yeah. It's like, okay, didn't there. It was the first down there. Go get that one. Yeah. That's right. Go get that money. I want to you touched on on Washington. And you guys both, you know, transition as first round draft picks and into the NFL. And you talked about the development in college. You talked about the development in college. And then you end up in Washington with a coaching staff that is going to go down as like one of the all time great coaching staffs. Mike Shanahan is your head coach. Kyle Shanahan is there. Sean McVeigh is there. Matt LaFluhr is there. Mike McDaniel is there. And Ryan Morris is on the defensive side. So all of those guys went on to be at coaches and very successful at coaches. What was that like? - Man, it was one of the smartest coaching staffs that I'd ever been a part of. When you look back on it, to me, it reminds me of this conversation of quarterback development. If I take my freshman in high school that I'm training right now, and I put him at Alabama right now, he would not be ready. Because there's a process to get to there. Those coaches weren't ready to be head coaches at that time in 2012. But through that experience, working through the highs and lows 'cause in 2012, we crushed it, right? Come in, they build an offense that is identical to what I ran in college, essentially. Take the league by storm, and honestly, we do believe we would have won the Super Bowl had it and I got in hurt. But those guys weren't ready to be head coaches at that point. But they went through that. How then went to Cleveland? He went from Cleveland to Atlanta and got to work with Matt Ryan. But Cleveland wasn't pretty formed, but that process of going through everything that they had to go through, whether it was issues with ownership or how you treat people, how you coach different guys from different areas, it prepared them all to be head coaches. And now all of them have varying success. But the one thing I've always said about Kyle, he's the most brilliant offense of mine that I've been around in the NFL. He used to give us-- - Is there a moment that you like realize that? Like he's telling you something you're like, oh my gosh. - Yeah, and you've heard other quarterbacks say this too, from Brock Purdy to Matt Ryan, Matt Jones, who resurrected this career there with the 49ers. He'll tell you something and be like, hey, this is the play call. This is what the coverage is going to be. This is how they're going to make the adjustment in the middle of the game. And this is how we're going to attack that. You get in the game and lo and behold, there's the coverage. There's the adjustment. And you always felt like when you were playing with Kyle, you were ahead of the defense. A lot of times coaches play behind the defense and they react as opposed to being proactive and forcing the defense to do something. So I realized that after I buy a week my rookie year, 'cause he knows one thing to say at a practice and you got London Fletcher over there who's an incredible player, call out all the plays and I didn't realize till my next year that he was calling out all the plays and he got the script before practice and he knew what plays were coming. Probably still love you London. But it was midway through my rookie year that I realized I'm like, dang, this is incredible. And then Sean McVey was our tight end scotch. And then he became my offensive coordinator in 2014. And I knew Sean was always going to be great because he just knows how to connect. He knows how to connect with people at a personal level and knows how to motivate them. But I always look back on that coaching staff and I'm like, man, I don't think any of them would have predicted that they would have been head coaches and especially not Kyle or Sean to the extent that they have and played in multiple super bowls and done all these things, but it was a part of the process. And I think people can't get too far ahead in that process. That's where I learned from those kinds. - I remember me and Sean McVey when he was in college. I mean, I thought he was, you could tell, I was like, this dude's going to be a coach one day. That's the way he conducted himself, but he brought up a great point. And this is just more for quarterback thing, but script readers, man, I don't know how many times you guys were in quarterback competitions, but there was always that dude that would go look at the script. - Yes. - So when he went out there, he knew exactly what the coverage was so he could look good in the competition. You're like, this isn't what it's going to be like in a game though. And usually that always caught up with them. But I, oh man, that always bothered me. I was like, you don't need to go look at what it's going to be. Or they come back and be like, well, they didn't play it right. You're like, well, how do you know that? - How do you know? - Yeah. - Well, it's supposed to be, you know, it's supposed to be in cover four. - It's like, well. - They weren't. They made the adjustment. - Yeah, this might happen in a game too. - I can't tell you, that drove me nuts. 'Cause I wasn't a great practice player in general. I needed a game in operating the offense. 'Cause as you guys know, practice is off the script. It's very sterile. But a game, you've got the play clock. You've got the huddle, you know, maybe not the huddle. But you know what I mean. You've got all this operation. And that's where I thrives was the operation of the offense. Because then it's just about, can you get first downs? Can you put the ball in the exam? That's all it's about at that point. It's not about looking a certain way. Just move the football. So I used to beg Gary Burnett. 'Cause again, all these kids have been recruited. I was at walk on, yes, I played baseball, but I walked on and all these kids looked better than I did. You know, throwing the football and everything, and they were script readers, and they were the looker. You know, and they, and it's like, oh, great. You found the seam against a football too. Wow, great read. And so I begged them for two things always. I would be like, please let us go off script and team. Just please, let's just like, let's just have a call at period where no one knows what's going on for the coaches too. It's great for the coaches. And then every scrimmage, and this is against my own self-interest. But I would be like, hey, I would go in to coach Burnett's office the day of the scrimmage. And I would be like, hey, coach, I desperately need a favor. 'Cause I'd always be behind in the grading. You know, even as the starter. I'm the starter, I'd be behind in the grading. And I'd be like, hey, I just need you to make us live today. Like, please, like, take the gold jerseys off, make us live today. And he's like, I can't do that. What if you get hurt? I was like, don't worry, I'm like a blow up clown will sand in the bottom. Like, I'll get back to you, you know what I mean? Like bring it, buddy, bring it, I've got it. And I would beg him to make us live. Because you know, you needed that operation. I'm fascinated about your career, you know, that you get into the NFL and it was such, you were such a star in college, you know, cover of magazines. Like, in a lot of ways, you are, you experienced in college what now these kids experience being so famous. Now it's social media and NIL deals. But that was you, you were the Notre Dame quarterback. And your entry into the NFL, like, let's face it, it was bumpy, that was a tough road. So when you got there, what was that like? - I think one of the hardest things to do was, you know, you felt like you needed to impress everyone. Like, hey, I need to make sure I gotta prove everyone wrong, especially everyone in that organization, right? Because once they pass you, you know, when they took Joe instead of me, I mean, yeah, I was the team I grew up rooting for and, you know, to this day still love the Browns, but there is a sense of like, all right, I'm gonna go back and get these guys. So the tough part was is, and this is kind of going back to the initial point, you know, you can, a quarterback can be played and successful in so many different ways, shape, size, and forms. You can also do those offences. You know, you can make a lot of different offences to work and successful. They just have to play the strengths of the guys in that position. And that's the tough part is not every offense in the NFL does that, or not every, you know, organization, even school, to some degree, always does that. And I think that's what gets misconstrued sometimes is, I mean, it could be anything, like pick any career. If you're putting a position where like, they're not playing to your strengths and you're just trying to fit into a certain hole that, like, and square hole round peg, like, you know, that's, it's tough. And I think that's the hard part is, once you lose out, after you have that initial buy-in from an organization that you're a first round pick, you're trying to scrape back to find it. So you're trying to find those advocates, find somebody who believes in you again, and you're gonna hope you keep your confidence you believe in yourself. That's one of the hardest things to do when things aren't working out for you. - That's what's so impressive about these guys that, you know, at their second or third location, find their career. - Baker, you know, Baker, Sam, and there's no doubt. - To your point though, like, think about who they worked with. Like Sam, working with Kyle, Sam, you know. - Yeah, and those guys have such a great football understanding. The reason they didn't stay in Washington was the owner. - Right. - That was the fight before I got there. So now here I am, 22, I'm fresh out. I'm like, this is great. Word went in, we win the division, and it's like chaos in that off season. And I was, I was educated on certain things, but just as much as it's important for the quarterback to have that structure around him where they can grow and develop. It's also important for coaches, sure. They have to feel like they have that support organization down. And you said something that I just find so difficult, 'cause I've been coaching now for about four to five years. And I don't quite understand, Joel, how guys that go to the NFL like a Brady Quinn, it's a phenomenal college quarterback, right? Superstar. Why wouldn't you put a system in place that he's good at? - That, I mean, that's, it makes zero sense to me. The coach is almost, some coaching like that. - Well, as you experience that, thank you. - I did, they did that, Mike and Kyle did that for me. So like, when I hear them, it's almost like they're saying, we're gonna do what I do. You're gonna do what I do best. Not, I'm gonna do what you do best. And that to me is the number one reason that quarterbacks go from level to level, high school, to college, college to the pro, and have struggles. If you think this guy is great, like Fernando Mendoza comes over from Kyle, goes to Indiana. Yeah, Kersik Netty has what he does, but I promise you their offense is not gonna be identical to what it was last year with Josh Hoover this year, 'cause Hoover does things differently than Mendoza does. And you have to be able to adjust. - It's the point I don't know. to get misconstrued though either like quarterback is an experiential sport like you have to have reps. And so um that offense and like I said I felt probably most comfortable that offense in my second year that any NFL I experienced but I also feel like if I had more time too you know that's where you work into like what you do best within that offense for me I like started a couple of games got hurt was out the rest of the year that was it and then that coaching staff was gone new coaching staff in so you're starting over again correct um so there's definitely an element to you know just having time and reps in order to be able to get it and like practices one thing you guys know like you have to let out their last reps and we all have the fortunate aspect of being able to play three seasons of college football you know and get a lot of those reps now what we're seeing in college football guys is we bring it back to kind of like our sport is to win the national championship you better have a guy that has a lot of reps now it might not have to be at that school right but he better have experience you know that's what we're seeing now with with Jay Jim McCarthy and Wil Howard and now Fernando Mendoza and it's one of the things that I'm looking at just a precursor to to this season is all right who are the guys out there that have the experience cars started a year arches started a year Dante started portions of a couple of years now Julian has a year on ours belt arch trend ed chambles has a yarn as a belt Darian Mense has it sam love it there's all these guys I mean the we've got an embarrassment of riches of quarterback in college football I would be fascinated though you guys had high profile recruiting opportunities if you had a son or you go back take your alma mater off the table so let's take our colors off the table who are the guys that you're like I'd love to play for him in that offense I mean that you just name some of them I mean like I look at it now and just say I love obviously first off I love the way Dan landing coaches his team like I just I've been sat down a bunch of x's and I was with him but like I love how he goes about how he talks about how he sees things Sark I think is one of the best offensive minds Ryan days one of the best offensive minds you know you when you talk to those guys you go over skim and you watch their tape you can understand how they're attacking who they're attacking quarterback has a strong understanding I know those are like the top line guys but just as a quarterback in offensive minded you know speaking those guys the ones I look at ago I love this you know talk to Bob Chesney for a little bit you know he's a guy that we haven't seen in the powerful level yet right or at least not at a major you know we saw my jam you for a year but you know you gotta look at you know what he's doing now at UCLA and I'm really curious to see how much Nico grows from there sure you know that becomes a really attractive place for how he develops quarterbacks throughout this track record he's done a great job I mean those are just some of the places but I look I think we'd look at offensive my head coaches right I mean I think it'd be hard to pick a guy who's not at least in my mind yeah I mean I think it depends on the position you're playing like a quarterback I I think um you know we heard cursing that he talked recently about how in the big 10 they don't make excuses you gotta go to high train like you can't tell me that wouldn't make you feel great as a QB knowing that your coach has not just the bravado but the confidence yeah to go out there and speak that way and know that he's expecting you to go have his back so I know like like bracing that's those are the easy ones to to kind of point out for a quarterback play um with Ryan Day and what he's done Ohio State and the amount of different coordinators he's had on the offensive side of the ball and they still have success look at the receiving core that they've had over the the receiver run they've had like the last four to five six years yeah I think they're making like 400 some odd million in a film now Chris just got his deal congratulations Chris yeah it's crazy interview program and I think if you're talking about um a defensive guy I actually do think that a guy like Dion Sanders is someone that you want to play for and the reason is he always takes it on himself yeah I've never seen Dion that was quarterback under the bus and I know you say oh well he said you're the major but yeah hey let's be real last year was some really bad it was not great really bad and he never threw the young man out of the bus he always took it on it we got to be better I have to be better I'll do this I'll do that that's the kind of coach you want because you you want up you want to be successful for that coach you don't you don't care for the coach is going to take credit for what you did I've had coaches in my career where hey headset goes out I got to call the play they go the pro post-game presser like man we I called a great play on this when I'm looking at them like are you serious right now right you didn't call that play but there's nothing you can say about that so I think Dion is a guy that you would want to play for it's not just about the exposure that you get but at least you know he's gonna have your back and he's had some guys that have left and he's never and he's never towards them Jordan Seedon he just went to LSU yeah I think you know personally he should probably still be a Colorado but he saw an opportunity and he took it and Dion's never crushed him for leaving and doing that he wants what's best for his guys even if they feel like that's not what don't get me wrong I think there are some defensive minded coaches that do it right Kirby smarts one Marcus Freeman is not a tremendous job yeah I just think if you're asking me as a quarterback you know that's who I want to go play for I want to go play for titling him he was running a west coast version of what Denny Green had done with the Vikings so that was what they were running so I think there's two thoughts to that one like you know the offense you're gonna be running like that's not gonna change you know that he's got control of that if you go to play for defensive minded coach there's a chance that OC gets elevated right right you lose that guy and then it's what it comes next and your head of the ball off like yeah there's a thought that like what are we doing for the one we're handed off yeah so I think there's a couple of thoughts with that and also I think to a point you just brought up is when there's adversity because there's going to be adversity usually an offensive might head coach sees it like he's paired with the quarterback and we're always gonna look at it that way and I think having that perspective to me is incredibly important yeah being able to understand that the weight the head coach carries ain't that different than what a quarterback has to carry no and in so many ways those those two guys are linked yeah you know and that's why that relationship has to be so strong guy we didn't mention yet that you know you look at his track record and you might have another one this year is Lincoln Riley yeah I don't think Lincoln gets enough credit for not only the guys that he's had in college but what those guys have done in the national football you know and and succeeded I agree with you I think he gets a little bit of a bad rap it's like oh that's just an air raid system and it says like those guys have gone out and succeeded you know to a high level and maybe Jade Maava as a guy to come 16 oh my gosh they might run they might this year this year and they'll throw it 30 35 40 times the game if if they if they have to but I agree with you Lincoln by far one of the best quarterback developers in the country yeah um the the only question you have to ask is the difference between going to be developed as a QB and going to an national championship yeah I'm surprised that is the deal but I think Lincoln's got the team this year to potentially push themselves to get there but that that's what it boils down to do you go to those schools the when are you to go to the developed I think the questions not too as I'm sure like young quarterbacks come out as you know would you rather go play a smaller school knowing you can transfer like they just go well yeah and or would you rather go sit and wait and we saw it's high sense that worked out for him right he sat behind what his turn once he's in boom first round pick and he's quite possibly the best situation ever with the LA rams you're watching mass doctorate so it's very rare though um it is and I think it's going to be continue to be rare because it is so much about experience and reps but um I think it's a tough question sometimes to answer because you're then basically signing your your quarterback up for you know probably not having a great network or life after football because you don't know where you're going to end up you might be moving to two or three schools does he get his degree does he not like there's a lot of other considerations I think you have to take into account and the aspect of it doesn't work out yeah like we always play out these like hey it's gonna work out he's gonna play in the NFL that only happens for a select few yeah and uh I think that's one of the tough things to what's happening now is everyone he's got a quarterback in elementary school junior high they think their kids gonna you know be the next Tom Brady doesn't doesn't work out that way uh you don't have Tom Brady in your house so you might think that you don't I'm just telling you right now so it's like I don't know at the great point because I think the Trinidad Chamberlain's route yeah is frowned upon sometimes by high school athletes and their parents and the coaches I don't get it but it's a great route it's a great route because unless like listen you coming out now myself coming out Joe I don't know what you were ranked when you came out I was my baseball so it was us coming out now we would be we would be those guys that get the massive NIL deals and potentially get to start right away if we go and compete at a high level but if you're not at that level like you're gonna go I've seen guys go to Texas um trail ones is one of them he committed to Texas he's sat for two years and he had a transfer to Arkansas state yeah I said well what if he went to Arkansas state first play for two years and then he transferred to Texas or or what opportunities it might not be Texas it could be somewhat opportunities is Georgia need a quarterback because you know Florida need a quarterback it's always better for the young guys to go play got it on this go you can't sit anymore sitting was what guys did when when we were coming out I don't think you can set you can't sit anymore but then again that was a byproduct of the fact that you didn't have the rules they have now right transfer portal now that would have changed different back then I think the five for five is going to impact a lot of those young kids to and take up some of the spots because if you actually look at the numbers other right like let's just say a guy starts let's say it's ready Sure, yeah, let's just say it starts as a freshman, right? I especially as early as you can come in now and start taking classes and build your body up to be prepared for the physical punishment you take. You can legitimately, I mean, what we say Brennan source, we were supposed to make 5 million this past year. Yeah. What do you think that number's going to be next year? She's more than seven or eight. Yeah. What's after that? 10 probably. I mean, it's not going down anytime soon. You started doing the quick math on that. All right. So we got 23 million and guaranteed over three years. Like maybe it's not the worst idea to just exhaust all efforts and stay in college as long as possible. And so I have to go to the pros and even if you are one of those guys who's viewed as a top 10 pick, at some point, the money is going to be good enough for you to say, and that's not including endorsements too, right? I mean, don't take more. We'll be in the second pick, probably, you know, and he stays. I talked to some people too. I thought maybe they liked them as the first overall. Yeah. For those parts. They could. And those guys start to examine who is making those picks. Right. Is this the team that I want to go to or am I better off staying? Yeah. Like Cam Ward's different because he came back and that's why he became the first overall pick. There's a smart decision he ever made. Had a lot of conversations with his group about that. But what if the team that's picking number one, isn't the team that you think is actually going to help you long-term be the quarterback you want to be? I told Dante, I was there, there's no way I was going to see him after last season. Yeah. He should have been me too. I blame Cam. As the yield grade, I did not expect to be honest with you. And we talked about it, but what he said to me, and I'm glad it still exists, and I don't care if it's canned or not, whatever. He said he's like, I had an unfinished business. You know, the way last season. I loved it. I loved it too. I loved it. When he said I was like, I hope it's genuine, even if it's not, I don't care because that's the mission he's on. That's awesome. I love it. And he's like, and I don't feel like I'm ready yet. You know, he's like, he's like, if I could have gone back for another year of high school before I got into college, which goes back to your point about him at UCLA. He was like, I would have done that. Sure. And it was pretty interesting to hear that perspective of the guy who's in it right now. Last thing. And then we'll wrap this up. Each of us got to take one guy, okay? Anybody playing college football. Remind you of you. Oh, God. Tell me. I'll go first. Thank you. Do you know, you know what I'm saying? I'm searching right now. I know. I think of cops for like everyone else. That's a top cop, but like, like, like, like, like, like, Drew Mastemaker is going to get Ryan Tannihale cops all day. All day long. All day long. Right. Like, that's going to be his own motion assimilator. Mine is, I mean, this is not a knock. I was thinking you're an excellent player. And I know I was self-deprecating, but like, listen, I did, I did fine. Right? I did fine. Rock go back. Mmm. Go get 'em. Okay. I actually love that comp. That's a great comp. I'm trying to think of someone. It's got Moxie. You got Moxie. Because there's not as many guys who are as like dynamic and you're a big guy, it's hard to find like the Brady Quinn build. So, but I don't know, but like the first one that comes to mind, he's not, he's not your size, but I see a lot of like the dual thread ability to my way in junior. Okay. Like, because I don't know that there's anyone who really truly replicates what you did, but he was the only guy to throw it for over 3,000, like, over five hundred last year in the big time. Yep. I think he's special. He, again, size wise in there, but he, he's a guy who I'd say like Dark Horse Heisman without a doubt. And he's got the little bit of transfer, not transfer thing, not that I did that, but like I tried to. You know, that's a great story. That's a great story. And he came back like, oh, how's that gonna go? I could actually see that. I agree with you. He's not quite my. My soft. He's not as big. You're a bigger dude than I thought. I got my first match. I was like, I didn't think you were as tall as you were. I think that's how I was smaller. Like, where everyone says that because they're, where he said it's alignment. So they're like, oh, I thought you guys bought like these dude, six, seven, eight, eight, eight. And you see like Robert run and so you just kind of associate that type of speed with like maybe a smaller guy and you're like, oh my gosh, hi, I appreciate you guys speaking so highly. What do you run the 100 and 100? I was a 10 three guy. Yeah. Yeah. I was amazing. This is great. I love you. What I ran 100. There was a 10 three. It just wasn't that 80. Yeah. That's what you got to 80 meters, they're like, all right, we got to just tell me to stop it. 10 three guys. I'll give you a comment. I'll give my comment. You probably guys will probably guess this one, but I think Arch, Manning for you and the reason being, you're a better athlete than people get you credit for. I appreciate that. And I think that Arch is a much better athlete. She shocks people because of the man name. He's got that like Trevor Lawrence ability in the open field. Correct. Oh, and he says, and he says namesake Archie was like that. And, you know, I'm a historian of the game, so I know how Archie played, which is kind of shocking that Eli and Peyton weren't that mobile. Yeah, they were different. Yeah. Arch is very mobile. And I think that you had a little bit of that in your game as well, where you kind of shocks some people with how dynamic you were. And I think the best comp for me this year would be DJ Livewood. And DJ is bigger than me. He's like a legit six foot three, four, 240 pounds. I'm not that heavy. When I left college, I was 224. But DJ, when he was at his best in high school at Willis High School in Tom Ball, he was a dual threat guy. And he would throw for 300 and run for 150. So for him to be successful this year, he has to unlock that athleticism again. And I know you, we've all done our research and we've heard he's been banged up a lot. Yeah, Florida. He was hamstring. He was hurting. He wasn't normal. Not good. Well, what's going on there? Right? Let's go back to structure. It's like the structure is not great. Tell you what, man, there's some tape you put out. He made some special throws. I know it didn't work out, but nothing under the billionaire era really did. I'm really excited to see what he does this year. He's one of those guys we haven't mentioned. And I don't think it's mentioned enough. He's got a lot of that ability. I just, I don't think it's as dynamic as you. Like, I think he's not as fast. I would say he's not as fast. I always wonder what's the guy I've seen that's closer to the kind of your build. I don't know how fast he is, but I think he's pretty fast. He's got a rocket front arm. It's just, can he develop into that as a polished passer, like where you are? And obviously, he's a software. It's true. And that's actually a great comp. I didn't even mention Bryce. He didn't come into my head because he hasn't shown that he's going to be that dynamic. Do it, do it. Do it. Or he was high percentage throwing the ball, but like DJ took more chances down the field. I grew throughout college. I became a much more prolific passer and was able to show off that arm talent. I think DJ has the arm talent. Bryce probably has more of my skill set from a height and body type. And I think we're going to see that this year with Kyle Woodingham being the offense and Jack being Jason, Jason Beck being a coordinator. They're going to run him like, there's no doubt. He is going to be running. There's no doubt. What you're running, she was all my guy. He's going to be plus times the game. I mean, I was just like, well, it doesn't the ampere ran like 17 times the game. Yeah. Buckle up. Buckle up. Buckle up. Buckle up. Buckle up. Buckle up. Buckle up. Buckle up. Buckle up. That's what I was thinking like I know it's like is it not too obvious like it's like no he's you're almost not like you're here You're like you're amazing covers. No, I love him. You're really special now. I'm telling you that the way he just spits it out No, hardy had to work on that hair. He's he's good dude. He's so good. He's so good. I really like the CJ car car. Everyone thinks everyone thinks I'm biased like When I started watching him here's that Celine because he started a few years at Celine and Michigan. I was like oh This kid's really good. Yeah, like it's not one of those like are you watch their tapes? You just don't go balls and the guys like five yards past him like he's height throws I mean definitely coverage pump faking and stuff. And I was like well all of our listeners No, I I had him my number one quarterback going into the year. He's so good. Yeah. Wow, okay. You got to watch his throws Like yeah, he's I mean go back and I'm like actually he's a leafly accurate down the field. Yeah, he's you know He's a leafly accurate now. Yes. It's like it's ridiculous And this year I mean they're gonna sling it so it'll be fun to see as well as Can't tell you how much I appreciate both of you can't wait for the season. It's gonna be awesome Hopefully we have a great one here Appreciate it man. We should do this more often. Let's do it. Great. I love